by Lia Louis
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For Juliet.
This book could be for nobody else.
The Fortescue Lane Balloon Release 2004: celebrating 50 years of excellence in education!
Emmie Blue, age 16, Class 11R
Fortescue Lane Secondary School, Ramsgate, Kent, United Kingdom [email protected]
July 1, 2004
If this balloon is ever found, you’ll be the only one in the world who knows. It was me. I am the girl from the Summer Ball. And I was telling the truth.
I was ready; so ready for him to ask me. So ready, I was practically beaming, and I imagine so red in the cheeks, I probably looked ruddy, like streetwise children do in Charles Dickens novels—a tomato with a beating heart. Only five minutes ago, everything was perfect, and I don’t often use that word because nothing, however wonderful—people, kisses, bacon sandwiches—ever truly is. But it was. The restaurant, the candlelit table, the beach beyond the decking with its soft-sounding waves, and the wine, which tasted so close to what we’d had nine years ago, on the eve of our twenty-first birthdays, and hadn’t been able to remember the name of since. The fairy lights, spiraling the pillars of the wooden gazebo we sat beneath. The sea breeze. Even my hair had gone just right for the first time since, well, probably that one, singular time it did, and that was likely back when I listened to a Walkman and was convinced Jon Bon Jovi would somehow find himself on a mini-break in Ramsgate, bump into me, and ask me out to the Wimpy for a burger and chips. And Lucas. Of course, Lucas, but then, he always looks as close to perfect as you can get. I close my eyes now, palm pressed against my forehead, knees bent on the tiles of this cold bathroom floor, and I think of him in the next room. Handsome, in that English, waspy way of his. Skin slightly bronzed from the French sun. That crisp white shirt pressed and open at the collar. When we’d first arrived, just a couple of hours ago, swiftly ordering wine, and sharing two appetizers, I looked across at him and wondered dreamily about how we looked to other diners, against the setting sun. Who were we, to the silhouettes of strangers, ambling along the sand and past the veranda on which we sat, their shoes dangling from their fingers at their sides? We’d looked meant to be, I reckon. We’d looked like a happy couple out for dinner by the beach. An anniversary, maybe. A celebration for something. A date night, even, away from the kids at home. Two. One boy, one girl.
“I’m nervous here, Em,” Lucas had begun with a chuckle, hands fidgeting on the table, fingers twisting the ring on his index finger, “to ask you.” And in that moment, at that table, in that restaurant—the bathroom of which I’m hiding in now—I think I’d felt more ready, more sure, than I have ever been of anything. Ready and waiting to say yes. I’d even planned how I would say it, although Rosie said that if I rehearsed it too much, I’d sound constipated and give the impression I actually didn’t want to say yes, and “tonight is not the night to do that thing where you talk like you’ve got the barrel of some maniac’s gun shoved into your back, Emmie, ’cause you do that sometimes, don’t you, when you’re nervy?” But I did rehearse it in my head, ever so slightly, on the ferry over this morning. I’d say something sweet, something clever, like, “What took you so long, Lucas Moreau? I’d love nothing more.” And he would squeeze my hand across the table—across the same, scallop-edged tablecloths Le Rivage has had draped on every one of their little round tables for as long as we have been coming here, and outside, on our way home, we’d walk along the beach, Lucas pausing, as always, to show me where he’d found my balloon all those years ago. He’d kiss me, too, I was sure. At his car, he would probably stop and bend, slowly, hesitatingly, to kiss me, a finger and thumb at my chin. Lucas would kiss me for the first time in fourteen years, both of us tasting of moules marinière and the gold-wrapped peppermints left on the dish with the bill, and at long last, I would be able to breathe. Because all of it would have been worth it. Fourteen years of friendship, and six years of swallowing down the urge to tell him how I really feel, would come full circle tonight.
At least, that’s what I’d expected. Not this. Not me, here, crumpled in this bathroom, on a perfect night, in our perfect restaurant, on our perfect beach, after a perfect dinner, which now stares back at me, chewed and regurgitated in the restaurant’s toilet bowl, an artist’s impression of “utter fucking soul-destroying disaster.” I was expecting to say yes. Minutes ago, I was expecting—practiced, perfect line on the tip of my tongue, back straight, and eyes full of stars—to say yes, to going from best and longest friends, to boyfriend and girlfriend. To a couple. On the eve of our thirtieth birthdays. Because what else could Lucas have to ask me that he couldn’t possibly ask me over the phone?
I think I hid it well, the shock I felt, like a hard slap, at the sound of the question, and the nauseous, long ache that passed across my gut as his words sunk in slowly, like sickly syrup on a cake. I’d gawped. I must have, because his smile faded, his eyes narrowing the way they have always done when he’s starting to worry.
“Emmie?”
Then I’d said it. Because I knew, looking at him across that table, I could say nothing else.
“Yes.”
“Yes?” he repeated, sandy brows raised, broad shoulders relaxing with relief.
“Yes,” I’d told him again, and before I could manage another word, tears came. Tears, I have to say, I recycled masterfully. To Lucas, in that moment, they weren’t tears of devastation, of heartbreak, of fear. They were happy tears. Overjoyed tears, because I was proud of my best friend and this momentous decision he’d made; touched to be a part of it. That’s why he’d grinned with relief. That is why he stood from his chair, circled the round, candlelit table, crouched by my side, and put his strong arms around me.
“Ah, come on, Em.” He’d laughed into my ear. “Don’t grizzle too much. The other diners’ll think I’m some dickhead breaking a girl’s heart over dinner or something.”
Funny. Because that’s exactly how it felt.
Then it had come: that hot rising from my stomach, to my chest. “I need the loo.”
Lucas drew back, still crouched, and I willed him to not question it, to not look me in the eyes. He’d know. He’d be able to tell.
“Bit of a funny head since this morning,” I lied. “Bit migraine-y, you know what I’m like. Need to take some painkillers, splash some water on my face…” As if. As if I’d smudge my makeup. But it’s what they say in films, isn’t it? And it didn’t feel at all like real life, that moment. It still doesn’t, as I hug this public—albeit sparkling—toilet, the bowl splatted with the dinner and wine we’d ordered, all beaming grins and excitement, a mere hour ago.
Married. Lucas is getting married.
In nine months, my best friend of fourteen years, the man I am in love with, is getting married to a woman he loves. A woman who isn’t me. And I am to stand right there, at the altar, beside him, as his best woman.
There is a knock at the cubicle door.
“Excusez-moi? Ça va?”
I have always been a loud vomiter; the sort who retches so loudly it sounds like I’m being beaten up from the inside out by the spirit of a professional wrestler, and I’m guessing this person—this concerned-sounding do-gooder on the other side of the door—wants to confirm that’s not what’s occurring as she washes her hands.
>
“Yes,” I call out. “I—I’m okay. I’m just, uh… I’m sick—malade. Yes. Er, je suis malade.”
The woman asks me something in French that I don’t understand, but I pick up the words “partner” and “restaurant.” Then she pauses, and I hear her shoes scuff on the tiles, the locked door creaking ever so slightly as if she’s moved closer to press an ear to it. “Should I fetch someone? Are you okay in there?” She sounds young. Calmly concerned. One of life’s helpers, probably, like Marie. Marie is always the person who stops to help the stumbling street-drunk most would be too wary to approach, talking in calm, warm tones, with no fear, no “this person could have a goddamn knife, and I would very much like to live until at least pension age, thank you” running through her wholly good brain. It’s no wonder, really, is it? No wonder he’s marrying her.
“Hello?” she says again.
“Oh. Oh no, I’m fine,” I reply, my voice tight and high-pitched. “Nothing to worry about. I’m okay. Merci. Merci beaucoup.”
She hesitates. “You are sure?”
“Yes. But thank you. Very much.”
She says something else I don’t catch, then I hear the squeak of a hinge, and the door banging softly under the romantic notes of classical music, which floats from the bathroom’s speaker. I flush and get to my feet slowly, my knees tingling with the blood that trickles back in, the ends of a loose curl at my chin, damp. I can’t believe I was sick. So suddenly. So forcefully. Just like they do on Emmerdale, throwing themselves over to the kitchen sink after shocking news, and staring down into the plughole for a moment afterward. How dramatic, how over the top and unlike real life, I’d think now, if this were a character on a soap. But it seems I’ve just made it almost thirty years without feeling gut-punched enough.
I pull out my phone, unlock it, and find our window in WhatsApp. An instinct my fingers obey before my brain can intervene. A habit. My first port of call, always. Lucas Moreau, last online at 6:57 p.m. Offline. Of course he’s offline. He’s sitting on the other side of the bathroom door, on the fairy-lit, beachside veranda, opposite an empty chair and a half-eaten bowl of garlic mussels, waiting for me. I stare at our last messages, just seven hours ago.
Me:
There is a man sitting next to me on the ferry who is eating squid from a freezer bag. WTF???? HELP ME!
Lucas:
Hahaha, seriously?
Me:
I’m gonna pass out.
Lucas:
I’ll be waiting at the other end with smelling salts. You can do this Emmie Blue! You are made of strong stuff.
* * *
He always says that. It’s Lucas’s answer to so many of my doubts, my worries. When I was seventeen and alone for Christmas and I called him from the landline in my tiny flat, praying he’d pick up just so I could hear someone’s voice, those were the words he’d spoken through the line. When I left Ramsgate and moved two towns over to escape every whisper, every nudge and stare in college corridors. Four years ago, when my ex, Adam, left me as well as the little flat we’d started renting. The last time he’d said it—the squid-in-freezer-bag moment aside—was almost eighteen months ago, when I moved the contents of that little flat I’d tried so hard to hold on to, into one small, roasting-hot-in-all-weathers double room, with a slightly grumpy, reclusive landlady downstairs. “You can get through this,” he’d said from his bed to mine, via FaceTime. “You are made of strong stuff, Emmie Blue. Remember it.” I wonder what he’d say now, if it weren’t him that had caused me to flee to a toilet cubicle, mid–main course. He’d laugh, probably, say, “Christ, Em, how did that come about?” Then, “But listen, the joke’s on him, you know. If he can’t see how brilliant you are…”
I slide my phone back into my bag, wash my hands with plenty of soap that smells like fabric softener, and straighten in front of the stretch of mirrors. You’d never know. I look nothing like I feel—nauseous and shaky. Heartbroken. I appear as preened and as glowing as when I’d left Lucas’s parents’ house two hours ago, bar a smudge of mascara at the corner of my eye that I dab away. Good. He can’t know. Especially not now.
I swing open the bathroom door, stopping for a second to let two smiling, perfumed women pass me to the inside, and walk—slow, steady, and as tall as I can pull myself. Low, chattering voices swarm to mix with the clinking of glasses, the scrapes of cutlery on plates, and the lost notes of too-quiet music. The air is thick as it always is at Le Rivage, with the smell of garlic and lemons and the salt of the sea from outside. This is one of my favorite places. Has always been. Memories are ingrained in the walls here, in the wood of the planks of the decking. So many endless summer days and aimless beach walks over the last thirteen years have ended here. Those “Dream House Drives,” where we’d drive for miles, Lucas fresh out of uni, me, newly permanent at my admin temp job, slowing as we passed huge châteaus and ramshackle four-hundred-year-old cottages, pointing out our future homes, what we’d change, what we’d keep when they were ours. Of course, every single time, almost as tradition, Lucas would get us so lost in Honfleur, he’d have to pull over and ask farmers for directions, and it was here, among the sizzle of the grill in the open kitchen and the calm rumble of the waves, that we’d refuel. With multiple appetizers, bowls of salty, rosemary-sprinkled chips, and sometimes, nothing but beer. We talked about everything on those drives and within these walls. But mainly the future, and all the things that waited for us in the sprawling years ahead. I wonder if we ever imagined this. Not so much Lucas getting married, but… this. Did we ever think this was a possibility? Something finally coming between us and changing the landscape of everything. Of us.
I step through the open glass doors of the outside dining area and see Lucas before he sees me. It’s quieter out here, the gentle silk of the sea, the beautiful, now darkening view. That’s where Lucas’s eyes are, on the violet horizon, his elbow on the table, hand rubbing at his chin. Then he turns and sees me, his face breaking into a huge white smile. Worry. I see it, just a glimmer.
“Hey,” he says. “Are you okay?”
I stand behind my chair, gripping the curved wood of its backrest. I nod at him, plaster on a smile, but I don’t think I can bring myself to sit down at this unfinished meal, across from him. I thought I could, but I can’t. My throat is raw. My mouth tastes of bile. And looking at him, like this, here, in this restaurant, with those slate-gray eyes, those freckles I know the exact constellation of, I might burst into tears. A disaster. Unbeknownst to Lucas, this is what tonight is. An utter disaster. The opposite of everything I planned on the dreamy, packed, squid-y ferry trip over.
“Would you mind if I head back?”
He stands then, like me, a tanned hand smoothing down the front of his white shirt. “No. No, of course I don’t mind. Seriously, Em, are you all right?”
“I just feel really sick. I think I probably need to go to bed, if I’m honest. Sleep it off. Classic bloody migraine!” The chuckle I force sounds part-motorcycle.
“You haven’t had one of those in a while,” he says. “The last time was in London, at the cinema, wasn’t it? Do you have your stuff with you? Your tablets?”
I stare at him and feel my heart lurch as if someone just slammed the brakes on. Two years ago, Lucas had come over to London for work—some architectural conference—and I’d met him in the July sunshine, on the Southbank; but in the queue for the cinema, those zigzagging dancing lights at the edge of my vision began, and like clockwork, so did the dull ache behind my eyes. We dropped out of the queue and went back to Lucas’s tenth-floor hotel room, where I took the gale-force painkillers I always carry in my bag, and slept, drapes blocking out the sun, Lucas working silently, face lit blue by his laptop, beside me. He ran me a bath when I woke hours later, called quiz show questions through the door as I soaked and shouted back my answers. And after, a room service tray between us, no light but the television, I told him, there, on that bed, watching nineties quiz shows, that I felt closer than I’
d ever been to that “home” feeling I’ve searched my whole life for. And he remembers. He remembers that night, like I do—like so many of our times together—and yet, here we stand.
“I have my tablets back at the guest cottage,” I say now. “I probably just need some rest.”
Lucas nods, eyes softening with concern. “Let’s get the bill. Ah—” He softly takes the arm of a passing waiter, apologizes, asks if he can pay. In French, of course. Perfect French he has tried forever to teach me, laughingly, as I pronounced things—as he’s often said—“like a smashed Paul McCartney lost in Marseille.” Over the years I have learned only the basics. Nothing more ever stuck.
“Luke, I could just get a taxi.”
Lucas’s brow furrows as if I have suggested something ridiculous. “Are you joking? Don’t be silly, we’ll just head home. We have all weekend.”
“But… Marie,” I say. “Y-You said she would meet us after for dessert, to celebrate.”
“It’s no big deal, Em.” He smiles, hand delving into his back pocket. “I can call her.”
The bill arrives, and Lucas hands over a fan of notes, telling the waiter to keep the change. For twelve years we’ve taken it in turns to pay for our birthday meals, and tonight, it’s Lucas’s. I ignore the little voice that tells me, sadly, that my turn—now weddings, now a new wife, and a broken heart is in the mix—may never come again.
“Right.” Lucas pulls on his navy-blue blazer, straightening the lapels. “Good to go?”
I nod, and with his eyebrows raised, and his mouth curved in a tiny smile, he holds out his hand. And, heart sinking all over again, I take it. Because what else is there to do right now? I love him. I have said yes to being his best woman because I love him. My best friend. My only friend, once upon a time. The boy who found my balloon fourteen years ago, and against all odds, through rain and storms and across miles and miles of ocean, found me.
