CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Begin Again
Estelle makes good on her promise to video chat the shit out of me, and Sabin calls even more often. It’s a good thing because it’s been a long, quiet year since I left Matthews, one in which I’ve somehow managed to play successfully at being a grown-up. In the fall, I got a job at the same magazine where I did my summer internship. I live in my parents’ house and keep up the yard and the bills. I haven’t become an incredibly fast runner, but I keep at it, unflagging. I even adopted a dog from the local animal-rescue shelter that I named Jonah and with whom I am totally in love. One look at the dog and there was no choice. He is a fucking German Shepherd, for Christ’s sake. I couldn’t go home alone.
It’s May now and unseasonably warm, and when Jonah and I come in from our Saturday-afternoon run, we’re both thirsty as hell. As I’m downing my water, the phone rings. It’s my old pal Nichole, who has turned out to be a great friend since I arrived back in Boston. Although she never stops trying to get me to go out and meet guys.
“You sure you don’t want to come out with us tonight after dinner? I’m meeting up with Stephanie and Abbi. Remember you met them last fall?”
I half smile at her persistence. “You’re sweet, but you know how I am.”
My friend sighs. “Oh, Blythe.”
“What?”
“You still miss him.”
“Nichole, we’ve been over this.”
“Honey.” She sounds like a seasoned advice-giving pro. “He’s getting married in a few weeks.”
I touch my fingertips to the necklace with all of our initials and sit down at the dining-room table, holding the phone. “I know.”
“You’re still not showing up?”
“I wasn’t invited. It’s a family-only ceremony. Somewhere in Newburyport, I hear.”
“I know you weren’t invited, but you could still show up.” She claps her hands. “To break up the wedding!”
“Absolutely not,” I say again.
“Newburyport is only an hour away. A nice drive north …”
Her sing-song voice is not swaying me in the least. “No. I’m not going for any reason.”
“Why the hell is he getting married in your territory? There should be some kind of rule about him not crossing into Massachusetts.”
“I guess the girl he’s marrying used to spend family vacations in northeast Massachusetts and loves the coast or whatever.”
“I think it’s shitty.”
“Join the club. Anyway, it doesn’t matter. James is coming home soon, and he and I are leaving for Maine the day before the wedding. Being in another state seems like a good idea.”
“So you’re not even going to see the rest of his siblings? I know how much you miss those guys.”
Now it’s my turn to sigh because I do miss them. Terribly. Sabin came to visit me twice this year. I celebrated my twenty-third birthday with his bear hugs and one too many cocktails. We manage to have a friendship that allows us not to talk about Chris, for which I am grateful. Our relationship can survive on its own. I’ve always known that intellectually, but it’s been good to see it in practice. This is true with Eric and Estelle, also, and I owe Estelle a video call tonight, actually.
“No, I won’t see them this trip. I don’t really want to be around them right after the wedding. It’d be too weird. Trying not to talk about everything.”
“So you know where and when the ceremony is?”
“Yeah, Sabin let it slip. He’s driving me crazy. I wanted to know as little as possible, but he’s been trying to bait me the way you are. So stop saying words like ceremony and wedding.”
“Chris wants you to stop the wedding, Blythe. He’s making sure you know about it.”
“No. He got engaged, he’s been with her all year, he could’ve ended things anytime he wanted to. He has to make his own decisions. This is not going to play out with me busting up the wedding, and Chris and I getting a happily-ever-after.”
“Maybe when the wedding is over … Maybe that will help you move on.”
I nod. “Maybe. I don’t know. Nichole, I know you think that I’m crazy. I might be. I should be over him by now, but I’m not. It’s not a choice. I can’t help it. It’s not like I’m pining away or crying all the time. I’m not waiting for him.”
“I know you’re not. But I wish you’d dated someone else this year. Anyone else! But I get it. I think I’m jealous of that kind of love. It’s what people dream about.”
I groan. “Yes, it’s incredibly fulfilling.”
She snorts. “That’s not what I mean. The ability to feel so deeply for someone. That says something about you.”
“Yes, that I’m a moron.”
“Noooooo. It says that you listen to your heart.”
“My heart is a stupid asshole.” Nichole laughs and then says she has to get off the phone to meet her friends for cocktails. I really am happy to stay at home instead.
I have plenty to think about and plan for with James coming home so soon. He and I are debating whether or not to sell the Massachusetts house. It’s too big for me to live in alone all year, but we are both attached to it, of course.
One decision we have made is to go up to the house that my parents bought in Bar Harbor, Maine. The house we have not been to since they purchased it almost five years ago. In lieu of James getting a job this summer, I’ve agreed to let him head up the repair work that invariably will need to be done on the house. The construction job he found last summer seemed to inspire him, and he’s been studying architecture at school. He seems truly excited to fix up the place. As for me, I think three months by the ocean with my brother is going to be good. For some people, the plan might seem like a strange choice for a girl in her early twenties, but I don’t seem to want what most people my age do.
Anyway, there’s plenty to do in Bar Harbor. It’s an idyllic small town on Mt. Desert Island, which is technically not an actual island since it’s connected to the mainland by a thin strip of land. It’s home to Acadia National Park, and James and I are planning on doing plenty of hiking and exploring with Jonah. The two of us are in a significantly stronger place in our relationship, but this summer together will solidify the progress we’ve made.
After I take a long, hot shower, I have a glass of wine. By the time I get around to video-calling Estelle, I’m well into my second glass, which at this point is a lot for me.
I curl up on the couch with my glass and laugh when Estelle answers my call with a jovial “Blythe! Blythe! Blythe!” and an excessively wiggly dance that she performs in her dorm room. She was smart enough to snag herself a single this year. I’m not sure anyone else could put up with her the way I did. Or love her as I did and still do.
“How are you, crazy?” I raise my glass to her. “Happy Saturday!”
“And a happy Saturday to you! School is out in a few days. I cannot wait!” I suspect that Estelle has been drinking already, too, given the volume at which she is speaking.
“Tell me everything.” I sit back and let her fill me in on how she is wrapping up the year. I know that she and the professor stopped seeing each other last fall, and she seems to have been bouncing from guy to guy since then. I have yet to hear about the same guy more than once, but I’m holding out hope. Eric and Zach are still together, and they’re planning on spending the summer together in Madison, and Sabin will be doing local theater stuff again.
“Oh, and did I tell you about Sabin?” Estelle leans into the camera until I can practically see up her nose.
I laugh. “No, what?”
“Do you remember that Chrystle girl from last year?”
“Sure. He hooked up with her again?”
She holds up two fingers. “Her and her roommate, Maryse. Together.” She collapses into giggles.
“Oh God, gross! Estelle! I don’t want to hear those details! Yuck. I can’t think about Sabin like that!”
“Roommates, of all things! How cliché! Y
ou didn’t see us hooking up with a guy together, right? I mean, I wouldn’t be able to look at you the next day. Not that you’re not super crazy hot and all that, but … And there’s the fact that you’ve hooked up with my brother, which would up the creep factor.” She claps her hand over her mouth. “Oh shit. I’m sorry.”
“Estelle, it’s fine. Stop.”
“Fucking hell, Blythe. I shouldn’t have brought him up. I’m a tactless bitch.”
“Just touch your hand to Neon Jesus, and all will be forgiven.”
“Hold on!” Estelle bounces up, and I hear her shoes clack on the floor as she walks to the painting that hangs behind her. She reaches up and pats Neon Jesus by his head. “I’m sorry! Did you hear me? I’m sorry!” Her cropped shirt lifts as she reaches up. I know the camera image is not perfect, but I swear I see a bruise that wraps over her hip bone. I forget it about as soon as Estelle’s face comes careening back into the screen because she startles the shit out of me, and I almost spill my wine. “NJ says I’m forgiven.”
I wave a hand. “There’s not really anything to be forgiven for.”
“Hey, B.?”
“Yeah?”
“You all right?”
I nod. It takes me a second to ask what I do. “What about Chris? Is he okay? He’s … he’s still happy, right?”
“I don’t know how to answer that. He’s fine, I guess. He acts fine, but I think he’s different. He’s … I don’t know. He’s a little boring, to be honest.”
“What? Chris is not boring. That’s ridiculous.”
“He is. We all think he’s a little dull now.” There’s a knock at her door. “I gotta go, love.”
“Okay. Have fun. Hey, ‘Stelle?”
“Yeah.”
“Call me when it’s over. Not until then. We’d just have to avoid talking about it. Tell Sabin and Eric. Please. It’ll be easier after.”
“Understood. Be brave.” She kisses her fingers and blows me a kiss. “Miss you, you fucker.”
“Miss you, too, you fucker.”
I shut the screen. The next time I talk to her, Chris will be married. Maybe then I will really believe that it’s over between us.
I am the queen of wishful thinking.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Regroup
“Did you remember the bug spray?”
“I think they sell bug spray in Maine,” I tell my brother. “Besides, I have packed everything that I can think of. The car is full. If we forgot anything, we’ll buy it in Ellsworth. Relax.” I reach into the backseat of the SUV and pat Jonah. This dog is the reason that I bought such a big vehicle, but without it, we might not have had room to cram the car with all of our summer supplies. Jonah pants excitedly at me. “I know. James is going to drive us crazy.”
“How about liquor? Do they sell that there?” James takes the familiar route to 95N. We’ll take this highway through Massachusetts and then all the way north to Bar Harbor, Maine.
“Very funny.”
“Seriously, my dear sister, what’s with all the travel-size liquor bottles?”
“So what? I had an impulse purchase at the liquor store. You’re driving, I thought I’d have a drink.” I pour the mini gin into my half-emptied bottle of lukewarm tonic water and take a straw from my purse.
“Yeah, or ten, from the looks of it.”
“We have to drive right past Newburyport. I could use a little liquid courage.”
He pats my shoulder. “Fair enough.” James does not know the whole story, but he knows enough to understand that I do not want to drive through the town where Chris is getting married. And on the day that he is getting married. “Look, Blythe, I’m sorry that I got food poisoning and was sick all day yesterday. I know you wanted to leave then, but I can assure you that I would not have been a good travel companion. I’m sorry.”
“I know, I know. It’s not your fault. I just want to get out of Massachusetts as quickly as possible.”
“This really sucks. I’m sorry.”
I turn up the radio. “Just don’t get pulled over.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“What I’m doing is illegal and stupid. So don’t ever drink in a car.”
“I don’t plan to.”
“And you shouldn’t be driving with a passenger who is drinking.”
“I know that!”
“I’m just sayin’.”
I sink into my seat and suck on the straw. It’ll be an hour before we hit the scene of the crime, so to speak, and I might just be good and drunk by then.
“James?” I take another sip.
“Yup?”
I slide on my sunglasses and look out the window. I have dealt with a lot of shit head-on over this past year, and I’m not going to apologize for needing to run now. Getting away from home, hiding out in Maine for the summer … I deserve this. As for getting drunk on the day of Chris’s wedding? It is what it is.
“James, I’m going to get really shit-faced, okay?”
“Have at it. I’m here.”
I love James. I mean, I really, really love him. And I like him. He’s letting me lean on him now, and it helps me feel less alone in my grief over this fucking Christopher Shepherd situation. If I can make it through stupid Newburyport without having some sort of psychiatric episode, then this summer will be really awesome.
My parents would be proud that we are off to Bar Harbor together. I shake open the map of Mt. Desert Island and look at the red circle where our house is. Neither of us remembers too much about it because we only walked though it for a few minutes five years ago. It appears that our house overlooks Frenchman Bay, which I think sounds rather elegant.
James lets me play the music I want as the empty bottles start to accumulate. Every song that I choose is one of my Chris songs, and I can feel that I am drunkenly spiraling into an abyss of heartache. Heartache and anger. I mean, married? Fucking married? What a stupid, absolutely stupid and irresponsible thing to do. I get that Chris needed to establish a safe, easy relationship, one that wasn’t going to challenge him or bring his past to the surface. His father must have done a fucking number on him, on all of them, and on Chris especially. But Chris is smart, in control, and capable of so much more than a superficial relationship. He deserves better, whether that is with me or not.
I wish I knew more about his father, but it’s a topic that has clear boundaries. I have never spoken to Sabin or the others about it beyond a few sentences here and there. The work that they’ve done to move on, to build successful lives, is commendable, and dredging up memories they want to forget is not my place. Chris has made it clear to me that he’s okay, that he has left that part of his life in the past. The Shepherds are a dynamic, loyal, vivacious family. They all know how to love. I see that in how they love one another and how they love me. So why wasn’t Chris able give me more?
I suck down the last of my drink as an early sign for the Newburyport exit flashes before me. It’s only a quarter mile away and we’re hurtling toward it.
“Take the exit! Take the exit!” I yell.
“Blythe. That’s not a good idea.”
“Yes!” I slap the dashboard. “Do it.”
“Yeah, that sounds smart. This is going to go really, really well.”
“Hey! I may be loaded, but I can still understand sarcasm. I’m not kidding. Take me to this fucking ceremony by the sea so I can tell Chris … just, lots of things. I’ll think of them.”
“Oh God. Here we go.” James veers the car to the right, cutting off a van, and we soar off the highway. A quick search on my phone pulls up the location where the ceremony is taking place. I roll down the window and sense that we’re in beach territory now. The air smells different, the greenery is different. Everything is different and everything hurts.
I am not exactly slurring, but I’m close. “Take a right here. And then go straight to the end of the road. The piece-of-crap mansion is going to be there.”
“I wish no one had told you
the location or date. Or anything about this.”
“Yeah? Well, me, too, but they’re all big blabbermouths.”
We drive past an SUV that is parked at the start of the pebbled road that leads to the large and elegant yellow home. The scene of the crime, as far as I’m concerned. It’s quiet here today with only a few cars pulled up out front. James pulls over halfway to the house but keeps the car running. I’m sure he’s hoping that my impending diatribe will be short. “I really don’t think you should go in. This is close enough,” he says.
“I’m not going to vandalize the place. Jeez.” Although the idea of egging it is not a bad one. If I had eggs. I stare at the house. Fine, I admit, it’s beautiful. So to compensate I holler, “Look at that stupid wraparound porch with a view of the ocean. And the stupid floral garlands hanging there. Honestly! The place is wretched!” I check my watch. Thirty minutes until the wedding. “I bet everyone is gonna stand outside there.” I point to a grassy area that overlooks the water. “Chris must hate all this clichéd crap. Absolutely loathe it! There will probably be some schmaltzy harp music, and poetry readings, and a grand ol’ speech from her father about eternal love and taking care of his daughter. I will never have harps and poetry and fathers. I will never have eternal love because it’s all bullshit. I don’t get to have that.”
“You shouldn’t be here. Seeing this,” James says. “Don’t do this to yourself.” He squints. “What’s up with this place, though? You said the wedding was supposed to be small, but how come there are no other cars in the lot?”
“Don’t know, don’t care. What’s important is that I’m gonna move on to rum now,” I announce as I mix up rum and fruit punch in a thermos. “How disgusting does that sound, huh? Rum. I hate rum. Nobody should like rum. The only time rum should be consumed is at a tropical resort. And then you have to have those asshole little umbrellas and mini plastic swords that hold fucking fruit chunks. Wait. Do we have any swords?”
“I can’t say for sure, but I’d be surprised if we did.”
“I swear to God that we have swords.” I open the car door. “James, we do! I bought some at the supermarket because I thought it’d be funny to make drinks together and sit outside at the house. I mean, we’re going to have a lot of work to do there, right? So we’ll need beverages. And swords can double as appetizer holder-y things because food always tastes better on a stick.” Holding my thermos, I stumble to the back of the SUV and lift open the hatch. “Seriously. Swords for all!” I start rooting through bags. I know that I packed a bunch of grocery stuff in a blue duffel. My search yields the bag, and I begin to root through it wildly.