“Hello?” Her voice was robust and cheerful. That was a good sign.
“Hi, Roxanne, it’s Erin Edwards, from the Farnsworth-Collingswood. How are you doing today?”
I hoped, of course, that the answer would be something along the lines of, Great! I have a new boyfriend, and he’s sooooo cute, and I just love love love him!
No such luck.
“Did you get Justin to say he’d come to the party?” she asked immediately.
“That’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“Is he coming?” She was like a child begging to go to the mall and see Santa Claus.
I leaned back in my chair and closed my eyes. “Well, I did call him, but he might have a scheduling conflict that day.”
“Scheduling…?”
“He might have something else to do.”
“That is such a load of shit,” she said, moving from cheerful to spiteful as if she’d flipped a switch. “He’s a liar.”
So I guess it was lucky that she was calling him the liar and not me. “If he’s lying, then why do you want him at your party? Maybe he’s not such a great guy after all.”
“He’s lying because he still loves me!”
Oh. Oh, no. There it was, the Great Lie that had been uttered from girlfriend to girlfriend throughout the ages, in every language from A to Z, including grunts and clicks: He’s not contacting you because he’s afraid of how much he loves you.
How many heartbroken women had comforted themselves with that perverse thought while they cried through the night over some guy who was probably not thinking about them at all?
I certainly had done my time with it. In fact, I’d spent years half believing that Nate only avoided me because of the depth of his feelings, because to talk to me would bring it all back to the surface for him and make him have to do something with it and he didn’t want to face that. For my ego, it was a much more plausible explanation than he’s just not into you anymore.
My brain, on the other hand … my brain called bullshit on the idea that anyone was so completely adept at compartmentalizing that they could completely ignore being that in love with someone.
My brain pointed out that, for a while, virtually every waking thought I had related to Nate, and if there had been any way in the world to get him back—stopping at nothing I could imagine—I would have dropped everything else in my life to do it because that love mattered more than anything else.
That kind of love, my irritatingly logical brain liked to argue, was the kind of thing no one could—or, more to the point, would—ignore.
Unfortunately, I think my brain was right.
And I always kind of suspected that, when my heart, and my friends, started nattering about how terrified Nate was to admit the depth of his love for me.
So here I was watching another dumb girl go through the same thing, wanting the same impossible outcome with a guy who just didn’t care. But would I be doing Roxanne a favor by pointing that out right now? Would she even hear me?
I don’t know if the Great Lie has ever been true, if a man has ever pushed those kinds of feelings away in order to protect himself, but even if it was, I was pretty damn sure that wasn’t what Justin was doing right now.
Yeah, I was pretty sure Justin just wasn’t interested in Roxanne, much less in love with her.
“I know he still loves me.”
“What makes you say that, Roxanne?” I was trying to buy time, to come up with the appropriate response.
“Because we spent weeks together and now, suddenly, he doesn’t answer my calls or texts.”
Weeks. “How many times have you tried to contact him?”
“Dunno. Three or four…”
Wow. She had a lot more self-control than I would have expected.
“… times a day,” she finished.
Oh. Okay, she was that girl. I was that girl once too. We’ve all been that girl. “To start, I can tell you one thing I know is true,” I said, preparing to give her the greatest advice she’d ever ignore. “As long as you’re calling him, he’s going to feel like he has the choice to take you or leave you, and as long as he feels like that’s his choice, he’s not going to feel compelled to do anything to get you back. Believe me.”
There was a sniffle on the other end of the line and I felt sorry for her, despite what a pain in the ass she was, and would undoubtedly continue to be. “But I don’t want him to forget me!”
Now, I can’t say what it was about those simple words or their delivery from this girl I had so little regard for, but suddenly it was like a levee had broken deep inside of me, and emotion swelled into my chest.
I didn’t want to be forgotten either.
I’d never forgotten Nate, despite spending half my life trying to forget him. I’d given him everything: my love, my body, my pride, and parts of my heart and mind that I could never get back.
And all at once, thanks to Roxanne whining about a guy she’d known for a few weeks, it hit me that deep down I’d wondered for years if Nate ever thought about me or if it had all blown away, forgotten, in the wake of whatever his real life had become.
If he had, what did that say about me?
“He hasn’t forgotten you,” I assured Roxanne, but my voice wavered a little over the sentiment and didn’t have the confidence I was sure we both would have preferred. “I’ve got another call I have to take,” I lied. “But I’ll get back to you.”
“But—”
I hung up. I had to.
If I didn’t, I thought I might cry.
And I was never going to do that over Nate Lawson again.
* * *
“I thought I’d go to Maine for the holiday weekend, see my grandparents,” Rick told me. His family lived near Portland. “There are some great deals on airfare if we leave on Saturday—do you and Cam want to come? The girls would have a blast up there at the lake together.”
Did I want to go to Maine? When it was finally starting to get warmer here? “My mom’s having that cookout on Saturday,” I reminded him. “My aunt and uncle will be in town.”
We were in the car, on the way home from one of the most boring movies I’d ever seen. It was a foreign drama, with lots of shadows and heavy dialogue. I’d fallen asleep more than once.
Rick said he’d slept the entire way through.
“We can still make it for some of the cookout,” Rick said. “Maybe take the three o’clock flight out. I’d really like for you to meet them. I hate to say it, but they won’t be around forever.”
“That’s a terrible thing to say!” The truth was, meeting the grandparents felt daunting to me. Like I would be making a commitment I wasn’t yet sure I could fulfill.
“Well, it’s true.” He pulled into my parking lot. There was a space right up front. “They’re dying to meet you.” He thought for a second, then gave a quick, sly smile.
“Oh, my God, you’re awful!” But I had to laugh.
“What time did your mother want us there?”
“Noon.”
He nodded. “That works perfectly. I can go for an hour or so and then straight on to the airport from there. Can you get Amy from the Brodys’ house around six and keep her while I’m gone?”
I nodded. Amy and Cam would love that. “Works for me. I’m easy.”
“No, you’re not.” He pulled the keys out of the ignition. “If you were, we’d be setting a date for our wedding. And planning for you to meet the old folks.”
As soon as he said it, I knew my stay of execution was almost over. He wanted an answer, and I was going to have to come up with one soon. Almost everything in me wanted to say yes.
So why was the small hesitant part of me holding everything up?
* * *
The Saturday before Memorial Day was a really weird day; sort of overcast and monochromatic, but balmy, with a breeze that was blowing straight from a different time.
The feeling I couldn’t shake was that this was a leftover day
from many years ago. The smell, the feel, the way the wind moved the reaching branches of the still-bare tall oaks in just such a way that you could almost hear them creak and scratch against the sky. There was a thickness to the air that made it seem old. It was a day between childhood and adulthood, lost in time, and carrying every question I’d ever asked, and every confidence I’d ever carried, and every tear I’d ever cried.
It made me restless.
Rick and Amy had stayed just long enough to make a great impression on the family and leave before eating the undercooked hot dogs from the grill.
Afterward, Cam went up to use my mom’s computer and the rest of us sat around my mother’s living room, talking to Aunt Sheila and Uncle Eb about their trip to Lourdes and the miracle fried egg Aunt Sheila had gotten at the hotel that looked exactly like baby Jesus in the womb. I wasn’t sure what that would mean, but I was less interested in knowing than in sitting through a long explanation.
Apparently they’d tried to preserve it and bring it home, but what had seemed like a good idea—packing it carefully in Sheila’s purse in order to preserve it—had turned bad when security at Charles de Gaulle Airport had searched her bag and pulled it out in slimy pieces.
Turns out it’s bad form to laugh at stories of miracles that turned to mush.
I had to work not to giggle.
So I sat quietly and tuned them out, half in a dream world of remembered scenes from long ago: Nate and me making out on that couch where my aunt and uncle sat now, with The Tonight Show whispering from the old Zenith TV, soft enough so we’d hear if my parents came down the stairs; arguing in the front yard over something stupid and throwing his ID bracelet as hard as I could, only to spend the next two weeks searching through every blade of grass for it (and finding it right before the lawn mower reached it); a steamy scene in the powder room by the washing machine, interrupted by my parents coming home early.…
I could almost see our own ghosts, moving around this boring scene I now found myself in, confident and relaxed in a way I never would be again.
It was hard to believe I was thinking about Nate so much all of a sudden. For a long time, I’d wished I’d never met him, yet here he was in my head almost constantly since Rick had proposed.
For so long, I hadn’t allowed myself to think about Nate. Now I was taking those feelings out of a box and they were as youthful and strong and unformed as they’d ever been. I felt like I was missing him; missing the way he made me feel. Like a wild girl being tamed, not like a goddess on Rick’s pedestal. When I thought about Nate, in a way it made me feel good, and that was the compulsion right there. I wanted to feel the way memories of him made me feel.
I wanted sex to feel the way it had felt with him. Wild. Uninhibited. A perfect fit, perfect chemistry.
But it didn’t with Rick.
“Rick seems like a very nice young man,” Sheila commented, bringing my attention reluctantly back to the present.
I wasn’t entirely sure if she was talking to me or to my mother, but when my mother looked at me, I said, “Yes, he is. Thanks.”
“And his daughter and Cam get along,” Uncle Eb said. “Any chance they’ll be sisters someday?”
My nerves twinged. “It’s possible.”
It wasn’t the big memories of the past that gripped me, it was the small ones. I was giving perfunctory answers about Rick, but in my head I was fifteen and having hot dogs and iced tea in the summer twilight right there on the screen porch with Nate.
“What’s possible?” Cam asked, coming in with one of the Good Humor bars my mother never had on hand when I was growing up.
“How many of those have you had?” I asked, to divert her attention.
Cam bit some of the toasted almond crust off, exactly as I used to. “This is just the second one.”
That meant it was at least her fourth. “Well, stop after that.”
“What do you think of your mother’s friend?” Uncle Eb asked her.
“Rick? He’s great!”
Something pulled in my chest.
“Think he’s good family material?” he pressed.
“Obviously! Then Amy and I would be sisters. Like, officially. We’re already practically sisters.”
“Of course, Rick and I don’t need to be married in order to be together.”
“Exactly the kind of nonsense Cheryl would spew,” Aunt Sheila said to my mother and Uncle Eb.
Aunt Cheryl was my favorite aunt, though, so I felt I had to defend her. Or at least align with her. “And she’d be absolutely right; if people just want to date, they should date and not get married.” I wasn’t comfortable thinking about Rick right now. Every thought I had, however fond it might be, came with an accompanying stab of guilt because of the memories of Nate that would not leave me alone. I wanted desperately to get out of there. “Does anyone have the time?” They could have said fourteen o’clock and I would have told them I had an appointment now.
“Four thirty-three,” Uncle Eb said.
I made a face. “I was supposed to give work a call at four thirty. We have … details to discuss. About … a party.…”
They nodded, as if understanding this stupid, generic lie I’d come up with.
“So I’m going to go out front,” I said, grabbing my phone from the hall table as I passed. “I’ll be a little while. Sorry to cut out.”
“Do you want me to save any turkey tetrazzini for you?” Mom asked.
God, no. My mother was one for using every edible part of the bird. We’re talking every possible edible part of the bird. Shipwreck cooking. I don’t know how hungry I’d have to be for Bird Foot Bonanza, but I’m thinking I’d have to be in a plane crash in the Andes to even consider it. And even then it would have to be the only alternative to cannibalism. “I’ll take some home, if you don’t mind.”
That worked for her. “I’ll pack it up! I’ve got to run out to the grocery store to get some gravy anyway, I’ll get some of those disposable boxes. You and Camilla can eat some tonight and freeze some.”
Cam and I exchanged a look.
“Sounds great!” she said, with convincing enthusiasm.
“Thanks, Mom.” Something pulsated inside of me. If I didn’t get out of this room I was going to scream. Maybe it wasn’t the day that was stuck in the past, maybe it was me. Put me in the old house, where the furniture and decorating had been the same for years, and suddenly I was a moody teenager, ready to cry over nothing at the drop of a hat, and so consumed by the gathering storm of angst in my stomach that I thought I might go mad if I had to be with people—anyone—for one more minute.
“Cam?” I caught her eye. “You okay for a bit if I go?”
She gave a reassuring smile. “Of course! I’ll go with Nan to the store.”
“Okay, I’ll be back soon.” I pushed the storm door open. The wind lifted as soon as I stepped out, as if it were sharing a secret with me.
I just wished I could understand what it was.
Chapter 11
January 1987
“You’re being mean.” Erin crossed her arms in front of her and tightened her jaw, looking out the windshield at Theresa’s house, where they were supposed to be going for a party while her parents were out of town. It was cold and nasty out, she had PMS, and even while she knew she was acting on hormones and not on anything she’d done, she couldn’t stop herself.
Too often lately her moods had been getting the better of her. She was restless and unhappy with everything. Unfortunately, Nate was the easiest target.
She saw it, she just couldn’t stop it.
“What do you mean, I’m being mean?” Nate asked, exasperated. The conversation had been going on like this for about fifteen minutes now. “What did I do?”
She didn’t really have a good answer for that. What had he done, besides not sensing her foul mood and coddling her? She’d started by saying she was depressed, and when he didn’t pick up on that she immediately found herself going all-out with litt
le jabs to prod him into a response.
She knew this was unfair, that she was being petulant and spoiled. It was absurd, even she could see that. She wanted so badly for him to take her in his arms and erase this dark mood, but all she could do was push him away. It made no sense. To either of them.
And these cramps weren’t helping matters any either.
“You know what you did,” she said, and tilted her chin up. “You’re doing it right now.”
He sighed heavily in the dark car. “This is ridiculous.”
“So now I’m ridiculous?”
“I didn’t say you were ridiculous,” he began, then threw his hands up. “Fuck it. Do what you want.” He got out of the car, slammed the door, and huffed into Theresa’s house, where a bunch of people were already there and halfway drunk.
She watched him go and waited for the tears to come. She wanted to cry. She needed to cry. She needed this horrible mood to erupt somehow and dissipate before it took her over and strangled her.
Instead she just sat, upset, wrong, and so wound up she didn’t know what to do. Her heart pounded. She wanted to go in, but it would be humiliating now to follow him there, tail between her legs.
It would be like admitting she was wrong.
Even though she was.
And for reasons she couldn’t fully define for herself, she just couldn’t bear to do that.
A knock at the window next to her startled her.
It was Todd.
She took a quick breath and tried to normalize herself, or at least her appearance, then opened the door.
“What are you doing in there?” he asked.
Pouting. “Nothing.”
“Then come into the party.”
“I will. In a minute.”
“Now.” He reached for her and grabbed her arm, pulling her out of the car. “Come on. You can’t just sit there all night.”
This was what she needed. Nate should have done this, just ignored her mood, ignored her whining, and just told her to get her ass into Theresa’s party and socialize. It was probably the best way to get out of her own head.
And her own head was not a fun place to be right now.
She and Todd walked to the house in silence, but it wasn’t tense silence like it had been with Nate. Apparently Todd didn’t wonder what her problem was or he didn’t care. He was black-and-white, and sitting in the car alone like a freak was black and going into the party was white.
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