Triple Love Score

by Brandi Megan Granett

  They couldn’t contain their laughter as they pulled on their clothes and stumbled out of the changing room past the eyebrow woman in the waiting room. On the street, they bought ice cream from a vendor and walked hand in hand for a few blocks not saying anything. It felt good to be there with Danielle. To be with someone who already knew your story so you could walk in silence and just enjoy the scene unfolding around you. After a few more blocks, Danielle led them back to her car. “Thank you,” she said. “That’s the first time I’ve felt normal in a while. I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” Miranda said. “Are you ready for this?”

  “No choice really. But yeah, I’m ready for this. Thanks for not letting me bolt.”

  “What kind of bridesmaid lets the bride run away?”

  “A fun one?” Danielle offered.

  “Nice, so you’re saying I’m not fun. Travel halfway around the world to be with you, and this is what I get. Let’s go.”

  Instead of going to Omar’s parents’ house, Danielle drove them to her apartment. Finding her phone, she texted Omar to meet them there and to only bring Scott.

  “I don’t want this to be a big family thing. You and Scott can go out for a bit, right? There’s a nice hotel with a bar on the roof—you can see the Bosphorus river from up there, it’s quite nice as the sun sets.”

  “Sure, sure,” Miranda agreed. She liked the idea of time alone with Scott. How can it be that a person could be away from you for so long and then return like nothing happened? This burned just a little; why couldn’t he have talked to her sooner? But then she thought of Lynn and the story of her mother; of course, he didn’t want to talk about that. But maybe talking about it would have made it better. Miranda remembered her own mother’s illness. All they did was talk about it. At first, Miranda squirmed and sometimes rolled her eyes, but her mother didn’t give up; she kept talking. And soon Miranda settled and listened. And now she remembered her mother, not with sadness or loss, but with understanding. She knew why her mother died, and more importantly, she knew it wasn’t because her mother didn’t love her—it had nothing to do with her—and everything to do with the pain that wouldn’t stop, no matter how much Miranda and her father loved her and wanted it to end. It seemed wrong to her that Lynn wouldn’t get that same chance.

  The men tumbled into the house like puppies, boxing each other in a play fight as they spilled through the door. Miranda and Danielle looked up from the dining room table, and they straightened quickly.

  “What is it?” Omar said. “Just tell me.”

  “What?” Danielle asked. “Nothing. Why?”

  “You never sit there.”

  “So?” Danielle said.

  “And you asked us to meet you here. You know we have to meet the priest at my parents tonight. Something you wanted to do. And you hate being late. So spill it.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  Miranda knew the stubborn side of her friend was kicking in. It was no wonder these two weren’t married yet. The way Omar took one glance at Danielle and sensed something awry, gave Miranda hope for their union. He knew her and cared enough to pay attention.

  “You aren’t calling it off, are you? Please don’t do that. I’ve told you before. I love you. This isn’t about you being sick. Dani, I love you, and I want to marry you.” Omar strode across the room and sank to his knees at Danielle’s feet. “Please don’t call this off.”

  “Hey, Scott, how about we go get a drink and come back in an hour?”

  Scott caught her eyes and nodded. “Sure,” he said. “Right this way.” Without so much as a wave, Miranda stood from the table and walked out the door, struggling the whole time to not laugh. Danielle had Omar exactly where she wanted him without even having to say more than four words.

  As soon as Scott shut the door behind them, Miranda choked out a muffled laugh.

  “What?” Scott hissed. “What’s so funny? He loves her. His family has planned the whole wedding. I know she’s sick, but this isn’t right.”

  Miranda jogged ahead down the stairs and pushed the front door out onto the street below. “She isn’t sick,” she finally managed to spit out in between gasps for air.

  “She isn’t sick, so she’s calling it off? She was just using him to stay in the country? Why did we even come here? And how does she know she isn’t sick? What did you guys do today? You know what, never mind. I thought I knew you, Miranda, but this doesn’t make sense. You don’t treat people that love you this way.” Scott turned to walk up the street. He called over his shoulder, “He loves her, Miranda, and you’re laughing about it. It’s all he could talk about today.”

  “Scott, wait, she isn’t calling it off.”

  He didn’t stop walking. He started walking faster. She tried to catch up, but as the traffic light changed, a rush of traffic erupted on the street between them. “She’s pregnant,” she shouted.

  Scott stopped.

  “She’s pregnant,” Miranda shouted again.

  He finally turned. “What?”

  The light finally changed, and Miranda rushed across the street. “It’s the best news ever. The first clinic didn’t test her for pregnancy because she wasn’t married. It was an older doctor. Or maybe he knew she was pregnant and didn’t want to tell her, so he sent her to the American Hospital. I don’t know really. All they told her before was that it was very serious and that she couldn’t travel, and that she didn’t have much time.”

  “She’s pregnant?”

  “Yup. I get to be an aunt, which I find very exciting. Now can we get a drink to celebrate? I am sure they won’t want us back for a bit.”

  Scott stood there not moving. “A baby,” he said. “She’s not sick?”

  “Nope. A baby. I don’t know how this happened, but I think it is a miracle. Thank you for coming here with me.”

  “A baby?” he said again. Then, “A baby!” He placed a hand on either side of her face, leaned forward, and kissed her.

  She felt his breath flutter her eyelashes, then his soft lips on hers. A pulse of electricity transferred between them, and then he jerked back just as quickly as he leaned in. “Sorry,” he said. Then he shook his head and stomped his foot. “Wait a minute, I’m not sorry. I can’t keep doing this. I can’t keep pretending that we’re friends,” he said.

  Miranda felt her heart stop. This was too much like that summer after her freshman year of college. Too much like the week before her twenty-first birthday. Too much like Thanksgiving. She didn’t want to be treated like this. She dropped her head, wishing that they were already at the rooftop bar with a drink in front of her. No, two drinks. But he didn’t stop talking.

  He must have read the look on her face.

  “I’m not saying it right. Let me try again. I can’t keep pretending that we are only friends. You are so much more to me than a friend. I need to kiss you. I want to kiss you.”

  Confusion overwhelmed her. Hadn’t he just kissed her on the street? “You just did,” she said, still not looking up.

  “Not the way I wanted to. Still want to.”

  Only then did she dare look up. “What is stopping you then? You can’t keep doing this to me. Don’t you know how I feel about you?” She couldn’t believe they were having this conversation in a hotel lobby in Istanbul.

  “I wasn’t sure you had feelings for me,” he said. “Not like that. And especially with Ronan. I thought I missed out.”

  “But I am here with you, not him. And let’s be honest, you had chances before this month. You always backed away.”

  “I promised I would.”

  “Promised who?”

  “Your father. He made me promise that I wouldn’t do anything frivolous with you.”

  “Frivolous?”

  “Yes, can’t you hear him say it? ‘Son,’ he always called me, ‘don’t do anything frivolous. Wait until she’s an adult.’”

  “When? When did he say this? I can’t believe how much he interferes in my life. Eac
h time I think I can look past it, something new comes up.”

  “Don’t be hard on him. I think you were 15 or 16. He caught me staring at you at one of Avery’s summer parties.”

  “You always did have a thing for girls in bikinis.”

  “It wasn’t like that. Though trust me, I did notice you in those, too. But not this time. You were helping Avery put flowers in a vase. She didn’t like what the florist sent, and the two of you pulled them all out and rearranged them. She tucked a flower behind your ear, pulling back your hair from your face. And I couldn’t help but stare. That moment something changed for me, and Stanton saw it. Man, he always saw everything. I love him, Miranda. And I respect him. Even with our differences, he laid down the law to protect his daughter. I understand that now. Even what happened six years ago. He was right to protect you from me then. I wouldn’t want Lynn to get involved in that kind of mess either.”

  “So wait, when you showed up thinking it was my birthday—what was that? And can we please have a drink before you answer?”

  In the elevator, she held her breath until the doors opened to a glass atrium on the roof of the building. Not waiting for him, she strode forward and through the glass doors. A modern bar all sleek and stainless steel created a wall in the middle of the roof to her right. Patio heaters, long columns of blue and orange flames, dotted the space between several high-top tables. No one else braved the rooftop at this hour except the lone barman dressed in the same navy three-piece-suit uniform as the concierge.

  In front of her, though, just beyond a chest-high glass railing, the Bosphorus river divided the city. As the sun started to set, lights began winking along both sides of the river, creating contrast between dark and light. Miranda reminded herself to breathe.

  “I’ll get you a glass of wine,” Scott said, as he stepped away from her toward the bar.

  She stood there watching the city unfurl into night. Everyone thinks that poets are these great communicators, so good with words. That was probably one of the greatest myths about poets. They don’t realize that words dazzle some poets, capturing their hearts and interest because of their fleeting nature. What she wanted to say flitted around in her mind like butterflies while she chased after them with a net. Only the mesh of her net was woven with too wide a gauge, and every word just slipped through.

  He returned with her wine.

  “Where’s yours?” she asked.

  “I want to be sober for this. I don’t want to wake up tomorrow and have it all be a hazy memory.”

  “What this? What do you expect to happen tonight?”

  He reached his hands across the high-top table on either side of the small white flickering candle. He picked up her hands, now chilly from the onset of night. “I don’t expect anything. I just needed to say something. Something about us,” he said.

  Us, she wanted to scream, still remembering the humiliation of that pool party and watching him with some young associate perched on his shoulders and the way he kissed her inner thighs when he thought no one was looking. Or how she waited, staying home on her twenty-first birthday, hoping he would come back again with more Thai food and another bottle of wine.

  “Whenever I imagined my adult life, you were in it. Not just as my friend and not just a few times a year. At the end of the day, I always thought we would be together. I never thought it would take so long to have this conversation, for there to even be a chance for us.”

  But us, she thought again. Remembering how he held her hand at her mother’s funeral. How he hugged her at her high school graduation, lifting her up off the ground and spinning her around like a prima ballerina. How he was here now, in Turkey, for her.

  “I’m not going to push it, but could you please say something? At least let me know that you hear me.” He picked up her hand and kissed it.

  A blush spread across her face. She tried to look past him, to study the waiter’s shoes as he moved around the lounge lighting the candles on the other tables.

  “Ah,” said Scott. “That’s a start.” And then he smiled.

  C H A P T E R

  THEY STOOD AT THE DOOR to Danielle’s apartment, afraid to knock. They didn’t want to interrupt, but the dinner started at seven on the other side of the city, and frankly, neither one of them had been paying too much attention to where they were or how they got there.

  “I don’t even know the address of the house we are staying in,” Scott said. “I never thought to ask. I’ll knock. We have to.”

  “We have to,” she repeated.

  Before he could finish a third rap against the door, Omar threw it open with two glass bottles of Coke, one in each hand. He thrust the bottles at them. “Finally. Come in. Finally. We need to make a toast!”

  Danielle sat on her eggplant-colored couch with one leg folded on top of the other like a yogi. In that pose, Miranda could see the faint outline of her belly starting to push forward at the top of her pants. She, too, held a bottle of Coke.

  “My last one,” he said. “No more caffeine until after the baby comes.” Danielle held up her bottle to clink against Miranda’s.

  “So it’s okay?” Miranda asked.

  Omar spun to face her. “Okay? So much more than okay. We finally are a family. A real, honest family.” Omar tapped his bottle to Scott’s and then Miranda’s.

  “So your parents are cool with this? Wonderful,” Scott said.

  Danielle and Omar both looked down.

  “You aren’t telling them?” Miranda asked.

  “Not until after the wedding,” Omar and Danielle said together. This caused the smiles to return to their faces. Now it was their turn to clink bottles. “It just wouldn’t be worth it,” Danielle continued. “It took us a long time to get to this day; why ruin it for them?”

  “Because everyone thinks you are really sick. Dying, maybe.”

  “Not everyone knows about that.”

  “Who knows then?”

  “Omar’s parents. And his sister. And her husband. And the seamstress.”

  “The seamstress is coming to the wedding?”

  “Of course, how else do you think we got all of those dresses at the last minute? She loves a party. None of this will even come up. It will all be about the wedding.”

  “Who would mention dying at a wedding anyway?” Omar asked. Omar picked up Danielle’s hand and kissed it. His lips made an exaggerated smacking sound. “It will be the best day ever. And then my family will be doubly relieved when they get the news the day after.” Then he pulled her to her feet, kissed her on the lips with less comedy and more passion, and then plunged her into a dip that would rival the conclusion to any tango.

  “The baby,” she said. She struggled back up to her feet.

  “Now that’s the kind of thing you want to avoid saying tomorrow,” Scott said.

  “Yup, wouldn’t want that to slip out right after the first dance,” Miranda added. “And don’t we have to go? We aren’t even dressed yet. I don’t think you can wear yoga pants to a rehearsal dinner, Dani.”

  Danielle looked down. “It’s not a rehearsal. More like a blessing. But you’re right,” she said. “Let me pack a bag, and we can get dressed together at the house. We need to have a fitting for your bridesmaid dress when you get there. Omar’s mom just texted me that your dress is ready at their house.”

  “A fitting now? The wedding is tomorrow.”

  “How did you think they were making you a dress?”

  “I thought it would be loose. One of those pant sets or something elastic.”

  “You didn’t show her the picture?” Omar asked.

  “I was trying not to,” Danielle said.

  Miranda didn’t actually care what her dress looked like. But she loved seeing her friend like this. “It’s okay, Dani, I don’t care what kind of dress it is. Anyway, I’m your old, married sister, right? You met my husband, Scott?”

  “That’s me,” Scott said, picking up Miranda’s hand. “Your husband.”

&
nbsp; Miranda forgot to turn away and instead caught his eye as he said it.

  “Husband,” he said again.

  Miranda let the word roll through her mind, remembering childish teenaged fantasies about marrying him and living in New London or Mystic in one of those huge Victorians that hadn’t been converted into apartments yet. Or maybe in New York City in a tiny apartment like she had the night he visited for her birthday. Maybe that very apartment, had he come back the next day. The Scrabble board would have always been out on the coffee table, ever ready for their next game. She shook her head to dislodge the thought.

  There was more to the equation now than geography. There was Lynn. Her job. His job. Their families. And the last six years. And all the years that came before that. People always accused poets of being romantic and easily swept away; Miranda wished she could tap into that for a moment and enjoy his eyes locking with hers or how good it felt to hold his hand. She wanted to entertain the thought of that apartment, a bigger one, though, with Lynn racing in after school. Lynn. Miranda could love her, too. Probably already did love her and the joy she brought every time she bounced into a room, excited about something new. But she knew enough about the world to know it didn’t work this way. Life wasn’t a poem. It didn’t always rhyme and come out even at the end.

  “Did you call Lynn?” she asked.

  “Of course,” he said. “when we stopped golfing for lunch, I caught her before they hit the slopes for day two—the bunny slope.”

  It occurred to Miranda that she would have liked to hear Lynn’s voice, too.

  “You have a daughter,” Omar said. He tapped himself against the side of his head with both hands. “I knew that. But, man, now I have questions for you!”

  “I’d be happy to answer them on the ride back to your parents’ house—we are really going to be late.”

  Omar’s parents’ house stood out even more so tonight among the other houses on the block for the strings of white light bulbs illuminating the side yard and the bustle of people carrying out tables and chairs and bottles and serving dishes to the yard. Miranda hadn’t appreciated how unique the house was until after seeing more of Istanbul with its modern high rises and banks of town homes crushed together on tight streets. This house reminded Miranda of the children’s book about a little house that stayed the same as the city grew up around it. She knew that wasn’t true, that the rest of the city was much older than this house, but she smiled at the improbably of it. Much like the improbability of this entire week.