Friends Like Us (30 page)

He presses back against my leg.
Screw that, then. Let’s just go clubbing and get high on E.

Okay! Yes! But we’ve never gone clubbing, and I don’t exactly know what E is, and neither do you.

Last year, Ben’s birthday was a month before our high school reunion: before he and I had reconciled, before I introduced him to Jane. He celebrated at a bar downtown with a group of friends from the library and a girl named Lydia who, he found out that night, did not return his budding affection. He ended the evening alone in his dingy apartment, a little bit drunk, eating Doritos and watching
Starsky and Hutch
on the Retro channel. He told us this sad story on our first three-person date at the bowling alley. “God,” he said to us then, “that was a depressing birthday,” as if he could finally breathe, because depressing birthdays were behind him forever.

He starts typing now, then stops and sighs. “To tell you the truth, Will,” he says, “I’m not really in the mood for anything big. How about we go to that new vegetarian restaurant, I can’t remember the name, the one that opened up near the theater?” He shifts his body on the bed, his hands still resting on the keyboard.

It’s called the Vegetable Garden.
Tempeh Tantrum?
I write.

Ha. Good one,
he writes back.

He hasn’t said anything to me about the note to Jane. Did he think better of it? Did he send it? Has she written back?
I don’t mind,
I would tell him.
I’m glad.
But I can’t tell him that, because then I’d have to admit that I was snooping. Even though I wasn’t, not exactly—it’s more like I stumbled on it. Or tripped right over it, and then picked it up and examined it closely.
No, wait, it’s not Tempeh Tantrum,
I type.
It’s called Soy to the World.

He clears his throat and looks at me. “No, it’s not.”

The Lentil-men’s Club?
I hit return.

“Willa.” He presses his finger and thumb against the bridge of his nose. “Enough puns now. No more. Do you know the name or not?”

Sorry. I falafel about this.
Return again.

“Jesus, Willa,
stop
!”

My face goes hot. When did my cute, annoying jokes stop being cute? Tears prick up behind my eyes. I have no arsenal for this. Ben has always been able to see right to the core of me, only now sometimes he doesn’t like what he finds there. I turn my head toward the wall for a second, then back to the computer.
Gluten-berg Bible.

He makes another noise in his throat and shakes his head. “I don’t even … that doesn’t even make sense.” He snaps his computer shut and sets it on the floor next to the bed, and then he rolls over, his back to me. He got his hair cut the other day, and there’s a half inch of tender, pale skin visible at the nape of his neck. “I’m sorry, Wildebeest,” he murmurs. “I’m just really tired.”

“It’s okay,” I say.
I really don’t carrot all.
I could shut down my own laptop and inch over to him, curve into his body. I could close my eyes and slow myself to the rhythm of his breathing. But instead I sit here and keep staring at my computer screen.

Ben stretches, sighs again, arranges his pillow. After a while, his breathing becomes regular and deep, his back rising and falling. Then, in the dark and for the millionth time, I type
Jane Weston
into the search engine: not sure what I’m hoping for, knowing I won’t find it.

Chapter Twenty-five

The flower shop in early November is a bleak place. Halloween, with its rush on lurid, not-found-in-nature orange lilies, spider mums, and curly willow, is over; Thanksgiving, a cheery, bustling long weekend, is still around the corner. It’s two weeks of dull anticipation now, two weeks of a chilly, empty store enlivened only by the occasional customer looking for a quick bunch of boring roses. As autumn fades and the gray clouds gather, maybe people are too blue to believe that a pretty arrangement of flowers might cheer them up but not so accustomed to the low light of winter as to have developed coping strategies.

That’s my theory, anyway, born of too much time behind the counter at the store, staring into the distance and thinking about my life. Molly is in Las Vegas for the annual meeting of her feminist entrepreneurs support group, Businesswomen Against the Longstanding Legacies of Sexism, so I’ve been working a lot of hours and passing the time by making inappropriate signs that I don’t put up:
LIFE MIGHT GET BETTER ONE OF THESE DAYS, BUT IT PROBABLY WON’T. SAY
THAT
WITH FLOWERS!
And
NOTHING TELLS HER “I’M SO SICK OF YOU BUT WE’RE TOO STUCK IN A RUT TO BREAK UP” LIKE DAISIES.

Ben kissed me good-bye before I left for work this morning, a lingering kiss at the door, his mouth on mine, the taste of cornflakes and toothpaste, and as he held me a strange, small shiver moved through me, a filament of regret, a thread of something electric and dire. “See you later,” he said softly, his hand still on my back, and I knew that we would, but nothing, to my ears, had ever sounded so sad.

I’m concentrating so hard on this memory and how that one kiss held, in its peculiar moment, every deeply imperfect connection I have ever made in my life that when the door swings open and Declan hobbles in, on crutches, I’m hardly even surprised. I’m magical! I knew it! I can conjure my thoughts! I close my eyes for a second and picture a hot-fudge sundae, then open them.

“Hello there,” Declan says. Everything about him is sheepish: his longish hair; his scruffy, unshaven face; his bowed head; the tone of his voice, somehow both apologetic and yet aware of its own appeal.

“Hello there to you,” I say, smiling in spite of myself.

“Ah,” Declan says, relieved, and looks up at the ceiling. “She’ll talk to me.”

“I thought you’d be in Dublin by now.”

“Well. That.” He shrugs, as best he can while still gripping his crutches, and I understand, all of a sudden, the secret of his success: the little golden parcels he hands out that pass as information, as answers.
Well, that
?

I raise one eyebrow, drum my fingers on the glass. “Did you want to buy some flowers or something?” I think how Jane would love this, the story I would tell her, how she would tilt toward me, hands clasped, an evil smile on her face. Is it even happening if I can’t tell Jane about it? I’ve been wondering that lately.

Declan makes his way over to me, one slow tap-step-swing at a time. He’s wearing the green Trinity College sweatshirt that he used to stash in my closet sometimes. Blood suddenly rushes from my head, or to my stomach, or near my pancreas; somewhere, inside me, blood is rushing like a river when it should be, I don’t know, rolling gently like a stream. Declan! How is it that we can live in this world, love people, and then say good-bye to them?

When he reaches the counter, he’s breathing hard. He stabilizes himself for a second and then looks at me. There’s a thin sheen of sweat on his forehead, on the skin I used to touch, and I realize how much this little visit is costing him. “As you can see, I’ve a broken ankle,” he says with another half shrug.

“Let me get you a chair.”

“No.” He raises one shoulder. All of his gestures are newly confined to his upper arms. “I’ll be on my way in a moment.”
On me way.

“Your accent’s gotten thicker.”

“Well, it does when I’m nervous.”

“I thought you’d be long gone by now,” I say, bringing the conversation back around to
Well. That.

Declan pauses and adjusts himself. “No, not gone yet.” He looks away from me with a skittish dart of his eyes, glances at the back wall, then down at the counter. “The thing is, after you, after we …  I, I met someone.”

Is he here to confess? Is that it? Did he think he needed to break the devastating news to me in person? I cover my face with my hands and pretend to sob.
Ooooowaaaahhhh!
and then I peek out through my fingers to enjoy the stunned horror on his face, watching as it shifts, in a quick minute, to relief, to Declan’s customary good humor. “Willa!”

“Hi!”

“Well, I didn’t know. How was I to know? We haven’t spoken! You kicked me out, you’ll remember.”

I nod, thinking of the camping trip, of the sharp, surprising pain of his rejection. “So, you met someone.”

“Yes. Well, and as a matter of fact, that’s over.”

“You’re not here to—”

“No! I mean, not that I wouldn’t. And now that you mention it, if you’re interested …” He winks.

“Maybe just a quickie in the storeroom,” I say, my hands on my hips. “I’ve always had a thing for men on crutches.”

“Right,” he says, winking again. “I’ll get to my point.” And then he just stands there, in front of me, for a full thirty seconds, until I start to think I’m the one who’s supposed to say something. “Okay,” he says finally. “Well, it’s come to my attention that I may behave, in certain situations, with women … I may … I may not, ah …” He puffs out his cheeks and lets out a long, whooshing sigh. “I may be, well, you know, just … I don’t know.” He stops abruptly and looks at me with big, hopeful, puppy dog eyes.

“Wow.”

“I was in a minor bicycle accident,” he says. “You Americans really ought to drive on the left, as God intended. Anyway, I’m fine. But I broke my ankle, and Emma, lovely girl, that’s her name, Emma, she wanted to care for me, to nurse me back to health.”

“So you broke up with her.”

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s understandable.”

“She read me the riot act. And I suppose she made me understand a thing or two.” I wait. Declan squirms. “And then I got to thinking, Willa, did you … were you … did
you
want more from me?” For a second he is wide open, right here in front of me, sadness and hunger, bones and breath.

“You mean like more mustard on that sandwich you made me that one time?”

“That is what I mean.”

I could make a million dollars writing the official rule book for this: how to behave when your ex-boyfriend tries to make amends. If only I knew what the rules were. I think about how, years ago, he chose someone else over me. And that, if I’m honest, eventually I would have done the same thing. I flick my thumb across my cardboard signs.
FLOWERS WON’T FIX IT.
“I think maybe I wanted more, but not necessarily from you,” I say. Declan looks, unaccountably, hurt. “That came out wrong.”

“Nah,” he says. He scratches his face by tipping it to his shoulder, hands-free. “I think I know what you mean.” A car radio blares. A woman pushing a stroller hurries past the store. A bus slows down as it passes and lets out a hiss of exhaust. There are all kinds of lives being lived around us.

“Oh!” I say, just remembering. “But I’m with someone new, too!” Sometimes when I think about Ben, it’s like he’s been waiting in the wings of my mind for the past twelve years. And now here he is, in his starring role. “Well, not new, exactly,” I say. “It’s Ben. And it’s a long story.”

Declan shakes his head, disbelieving. He smiles with half of his mouth. “The cheeky bastard!”

“Cheeky,” I say, shoving my hands into my apron pocket. “I suppose so.” I’m remembering how, with Declan, the way his words sounded could sometimes compensate when I wasn’t sure what he was saying.

“I probably shouldn’t ask about Jane, then,” he says.

I still can’t hear her name without wanting to dive under a piece of heavy furniture. “Yeah,” I say. “That’d be the ‘long’ part of the long story.”

We stand around in silence for a few minutes, smiling uncomfortably at each other. Chapter 1 in the rule book: It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for! He’s come back, tail between his legs. He’s finally realized what a jerk he was! You care, but not as much as you thought you would.

“Listen,” he says finally, “I should be off.” I nod, relieved. “It’s
really great
to see you, Willa.” He sounds so sincere I almost laugh.

“Okay,” I say. “Feel better.” He looks at me, confused, and I point to his ankle.

“Oh, that,” he says. “Could’ve been worse.” And Declan limps out the door.

This morning, for Ben’s birthday, I ran over to Shop ’n’ Save and bought two double-chocolate cupcakes from the grocery store’s surprisingly not-terrible bakery: a low-risk investment.

All week, since his note to Jane, things have been strange with Ben and me, forced and stilted and full of weird pauses and off-kilter emphases, as if we’re performing a play David Mamet wrote for high school theater.

Willa, did you buy milk? I thought you said you would buy—

Yes, milk. Milk. Sorry, yes, milk. I forgot to buy it. I can go out now. I can—

No. No. No. I don’t, I don’t, it’s okay. I don’t need it.

So now I have cupcakes and milk and Ben’s gift, a new issue of
The Overachievers
that I’ve been working on for a few weeks
(Life After College: The Underachievers),
and a radical plan. I’m going to talk to him. I’m going to rescue our relationship: I’m going to pull us back from the ledge.

I’ll start with
Happy birthday and I saw the e-mail.
I’ll just cop to it, and then we’ll be forced to discuss it all—how Jane figures into the equation of us; how even in her absence she’s here, an indelible part of our relationship. Maybe it will be hard to admit how much we miss her and that we feel incomplete without her, but we’ll work through it, because we love each other. And everything will be okay. I run my finger around the edge of one of the thickly frosted cupcakes and lick off the icing, and then, to even things out, I do the same to the other one.

I’m standing at the kitchen table laying out plates and whispering to myself when Ben comes home from work, only instead of slouching through the door and greeting me with the low-key, melancholy hello I’ve grown accustomed to over the past week, he’s beaming. His face is flushed, his eyes bright. He peers around the living room as if he’s seeing it for the first time, shrugs off his jacket, and peels off his blue sweater, stretches his arms above his head. He’s even standing taller.