“And I’ll probably laugh at you,” Amy Lee said in agreement.
“I’m so glad we’re all in love again,” I said, making my voice warble with emotion that I was only partially faking. “It makes me feel so warm inside.”
The party got rowdy, fast.
First of all, we’d been attending parties with these people for years now, so there was a kind of party shorthand. There was no awkwardness over initial drinks as the night swung into gear. Oh, no. The first round of cocktails had hardly begun and there was already a din that rattled through the hotel. It was as comfortable as any of our usual weekends, just in party clothes.
Second, it was New Year’s eve, which added a manic energy to the whole shebang. People weren’t as placid as they normally were. You got the sense that everyone was personally invested in having a good time. Which promised that the night would be fun, on the one hand. And on the other, it was slightly alarming.
And then, third, there was a whole lot of drama swirling around in the banquet hall when it came time for the sit-down dinner Lorraine insisted upon, because she threw every party as if it were the wedding reception she worried she’d never experience.
“Please tell me my eyes are deceiving me,” Georgia said into my ear as we looked for our assigned table. “Please tell me that is not my ex-whatever all over that incredibly skanky twig with the blown-out hair.”
I looked over and sure enough, horrible Jared was lounging about at the very table we’d been searching for, all but licking the neck of a very familiar-looking female.
“Her name is Ashley,” I told Georgia, remembering her from the Park Plaza and the elevator she’d exited with Henry. “I don’t know if this helps or hinders, but I think she’s deeply stupid.”
“Water finds its own level,” Georgia snapped. “Which doesn’t explain why I felt the need to go wading.”
Jared broke from his escapades when we arrived at the table. Georgia and I made a big show of arranging our purses and wraps on our respective chairs, as Amy Lee and Oscar sank into their seats. Jared leaned back into his chair and waited until Georgia was forced—by virtue of running out of options—to look at him.
“Hi, Jared,” she said mildly, as if the last time she’d seen him had not been their nasty breakup and she had not, in fact, wept over him.
“Georgia,” Jared murmured. He flicked a look my way. “That your date?”
“As a matter of fact, yes,” I snapped. “Is that yours?”
My tone made all sorts of rude assumptions. Ashley didn’t notice. Jared didn’t care. He just smirked at Georgia. His expression was very easy to read: Georgia was a pathetic bitch, and he wanted to hurt her.
Then he turned his attention back to Ashley and started whispering in her ear.
“Whatever,” Ashley said, far too loudly. “I want a drink!”
Jared stood up, and pulled her after him. He threw a look back at Georgia, all How you like me now? as if he had Kate Moss on his arm.
We all let out a breath when he was gone.
“What a little shit!” Amy Lee snapped. “Someone needs to take him down a peg!”
“And you know what?” Georgia had a sort of dazed look on her face. “That person doesn’t have to be me.”
“You’re absolutely right,” I agreed with a nod.
“Even two weeks ago, this all would have hurt,” Georgia continued in the same musing tone. “A lot. It would have required some serious retail therapy and a whole lot of moping. But tonight? I just don’t care. I don’t have to care. It’s not even about Chris. I mean, it is. Thanks to him, I finally get that all of this was always totally beneath me. No wonder he wanted me to figure this out on my own—because there’s no way anyone could have told me that I would be watching that loser and feeling sorry for him. Dumbass.” She shook her head slightly, as if clearing it. “Somebody order me a drink—I have to go make a phone call.”
I felt like cheering as she turned around and strode out of the party, but I decided that would be inappropriate, so I just grinned instead.
“I’m not sure I know what she was talking about,” Amy Lee said from her seat. “But I know empowering when I see it. Go Georgia.”
“Hell, yeah,” Oscar agreed. “Although that guy could use a punch in the nose, definitely.”
“He’s not worth it,” I said, waving a dismissive hand.
We all basked for a moment, letting the celebration swirl around us. Then Amy Lee frowned.
“Did she say Chris?” she asked. “As in Chris Starling?!”
I smiled.
“What have you people been doing?” she demanded.
chapter twenty-three
Later in the evening, the band had kicked into its seventies section and I decided to take a break from my groove thing to see what damage I’d done to my makeup. I had the sinking feeling it was the “shock and awe” kind of damage, but only a mirror would be able to tell me for sure.
Over near the doors to the lobby, I turned to look back at the crowd. It was hard to believe the holiday season was over. It seemed as if it had just been summer a few moments ago, and now it was New Year’s. True, I’d been mucking about in high drama for a while, which did tend to make the time pass quickly.
As a way to avoid really thinking too much about the last half of the last year of being in my twenties, freaking out over Nate had worked like a charm.
I laughed a little bit at that, and then looked around the party until I spotted him. Helen was close to his side, as expected. Nate stood, rocked back on his heels as if he were wearing ski boots, laughing at something one of our college friends was saying. His dark hair still fell enticingly over his forehead, and the roses in his cheeks were in full bloom. I knew that if I wanted to, I could jump back into it with him. I could expect the secret smiles, and maybe one of those nights he would move from messages into reality. But where would that leave me?
Nate had been the perfect plan. Getting together with him at that Fourth of July party had eased my panic. It didn’t matter that I was turning thirty or that I lived in a crappy apartment completely overrun with dog hair and books. With Nate, I had a serious boyfriend and that meant I was still in the game. It meant I wasn’t on the shelf or whatever other horrible spinster term I wanted to use.
Which might have been fine, except that for Nate, I was just a placeholder. It didn’t matter why he’d wanted Helen more than me, it just mattered that he did. He’d run after her the night I’d walked in on them, not me. He’d stayed with her, rather than talk things over with me. He’d gotten angry with me when she seemed angry at him. And everything else was just the game he played. At worst, he was manipulative and calculating, but I wasn’t sure his behavior was that thought out.
The good news was, I didn’t have to care about him any more. I didn’t have to worry about his motivations. He had been right a long time ago, proving that when people said things you didn’t want to hear about themselves, you should listen: he wasn’t who I wanted him to be.
I didn’t have to care about that, either.
I was free.
I found the bathroom, and had just finished mopping up the worst of the mascara issue when the door slapped open and in walked Helen.
“We really have to stop meeting like this,” I said lightly, straightening. “But if you’re here to fight with me, I have to tell you, I think we should institute a time-out on national holidays.”
“You’re just as funny as ever,” Helen said, and came to stand next to me. There was silence as Helen fluffed her hair and straightened her dress. I finished reapplying my lipstick and tossed the tube back into my clutch.
Then we just looked at each other’s reflections in the mirror. We looked like strange inverse images of each other. Helen was dark, in a pale blue dress, her tiny bones appearing almost birdlike. I was much fairer, in a rich green dress, and my skin looked almost like peaches in the forgiving light. The fact that we’d dated the same man, when we had so little in common and shouldn’
t have appealed to the same taste, should have been funny. It occurred to me that maybe, someday, it might be.
“I didn’t want to tell you this,” Helen said, ruining the moment, “but I kind of did like the fact that I stole Nate from you. Specifically you, I mean. As like karmic retribution. Is that bad?”
“The fact that you thought there was some karmic retribution there is troubling,” I told her, shaking my head. “Or anyway, it’s not like hearing that makes me want to rush out and make us some friendship bracelets, but then, it’s not like I was planning on doing that anyway.” I turned so I was looking at her instead of her reflection. “But that’s okay, isn’t it? We don’t have to sing ‘Kumbaya’ and hold hands.”
“I hated the Brownies,” Helen confessed. “Didn’t you? Those ugly uniforms, like we were little Jawas. And all the mothers were mean.”
“I liked the Brownies,” I said, frowning as I remembered. “I just couldn’t sit still during the ceremonies, and I didn’t make it very far in the Girl Scouts.”
“Girl Scouts.” Helen shook her head. “I made my mother sell the stupid cookies. She was way better at it.”
She turned back to face the mirror again, so I did the same. We both futzed about with our hair, and then met eyes again through our reflections. I thought that probably meant something—that we could only really look at each other through a looking glass. Literally.
I didn’t know where that thought came from, but I could feel that it was true. It had something to do with the two of us, seemingly so different, standing there side by side. There was no wall between us. But we both wanted to think there was.
“I was up at my mom’s place in Bar Harbor over Christmas,” Helen said. “I drove out past Acadia. Do you remember?”
“Your quarter-life crisis on Cadillac Mountain,” I said, almost smiling. “Of course I remember.”
“I don’t know why you told me the truth about you and Nate before Christmas,” she said then, not looking over at me, her voice oddly stiff. “But I feel like I owe you one. I just thought you should know that if I can repay the favor, I will.”
“I’m glad you and Nate are good,” I said then, because while that wasn’t precisely true, I wasn’t upset about it, either. She could have him.
Helen slid me an oh please look.
“Seriously,” I said. “I don’t think I was ever really that into him, if you want to know the truth. He just fit into the plan. And I thought he was into me.”
“Uh-huh,” Helen said. She smoothed her dress over her narrow hips, and gave me a sideways look. “And he was never that into you. But I’m glad we’re friends again now, and can talk about it.” She smiled for a moment. “Anyway,” she said. “I think I’m going to go dance—it’s almost midnight.”
She wiggled her fingers at me, grabbed her clutch, and left—the idea that we were friends again now hanging behind her like perfume.
In her world, maybe we really were friends. Despite all the mess of the past weeks. Or as if the past weeks didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if she had any basis of comparison.
But I knew we could never be friends, not really. Not according to my definition of the term. She’d stolen my boyfriend, and that wasn’t something you got over. I might forgive it. Maybe. But I’d never forget it. She was never going to be like family to me. She would never be necessary to me.
The thing was, it wasn’t as if I’d been a particularly good friend to her, either. She had been right—I didn’t call her often, and though in the past I’d defended her to Georgia and Amy Lee, it had always been a sort of half-assed defense. All, I know she’s annoying but I find her kind of amusing. Of course Helen had picked up on that. She was many things, but she wasn’t stupid.
It would have seemed laughably impossible even a week ago, but tonight was New Year’s and everything felt different. Someday, I thought, there might be another dawn for me and Helen on Cadillac Mountain.
Stranger things had happened.
“Hey,” Nate said.
I smiled my thanks at the bartender and then looked at Nate.
“Happy new year,” I said, and moved to slide past him.
“Listen,” he said, with that smile of his cranked to full gear. “This might sound crazy—you know she can be a lunatic—but is there something going on between you and Henry?” He laughed before I could answer. “I told her she was out of her mind, of course. I know how you feel about him.”
“By ‘her’ you mean Helen, right?” I took a sip of my wine. “That would be your girlfriend? Who you talk about this way to your ex-girlfriend?”
Nate’s smile dimmed. “You and Henry don’t make any sense,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? The guy spends his entire life looking for new bimbos to score with. A girl like you can’t possibly be with him.”
I was clearly supposed to jump all over the girl like you part, so instead I asked, “Why do you care who I’m with?”
“You’re not, are you?”
I wanted to tell him I was with Henry more than I could remember wanting anything else. Anything besides actually being with Henry, that was. I sighed.
“I’m not with anyone, although I can’t understand how that could interest you even—”
Nate was all smiles when he cut me off.
“I knew I could still count on you, Gus,” he said. “Promise me you won’t do that to yourself. Promise me you won’t go there.”
It was unimaginable to me that I could ever have wanted this guy, so desperately, for so long. Maybe my desperate pursuit of him after that night hadn’t been about him after all. Maybe it was about the other huge event that had occurred that night, the one I’d been avoiding ever since. The one that, had I looked at it clearly, would have changed everything for me.
But Henry had been the unthinkable. He had been off-limits.
In any event, midnight was fast coming, and the New Year was about to dawn. I had much better things to do than entertain this conversation.
“Gus,” Nate said. “Not Henry, okay? Not my roommate. Show a little respect.”
I just shook my head and left him there.
We all screamed the countdown, the ball dropped in New York City, and the band began to play “Auld Lang Syne.” I hugged Amy Lee and Oscar, and Georgia did a little jig with me before dashing from the room yet again, to make another phone call. Couples were hugging each other in the center of the dance floor, and off to the side I saw Helen perform one of her come-hither looks on Nate.
Henry, standing near them, caught my eye again.
I smiled.
He held the look for a long moment before he turned away.
That was that, then. It was a new year. I would find him in it, somewhere. I was sure of it.
In the meantime, I had exactly one day left of my twenties.
It had been a long, weird year. The entire Nate debacle, from its giddy beginning in July to its extended bitter end. The Henry thing. Or things, to be precise. Helen. Amy Lee’s blowup and the new life she had in front of her. Georgia turning over a new leaf and actually letting herself see what Chris Starling had to offer.
A year ago I’d decided that I would cap off my twenties in style, but really, all I’d done was cram the essence of them into one final year. The second half of one final year, in point of fact. The truth was that I’d been spending years running away from myself. I hid myself in drama, silliness, stupidity, banality. So afraid to grow up. So afraid to involve myself in relationships where I might be expected to give the same love I got—instead of sixth-grade shenanigans. I bored myself with all the when I grow up nonsense, but I was worried it would never happen even as I longed for it.
This time, though, I thought I’d actually learned something.
This time, I thought I really might be ready.
Maybe being an adult wasn’t crossing some arbitrary age line into wisdom. Maybe it was like anything else—training wheels and mistakes, trial and error, and now and again that feeling that
you might have wings.
I liked the idea of it enough to let it move me to my feet, and then out to the dance floor where my friends were waiting. We didn’t have wings, but we could dance.
chapter twenty-four
I turned thirty without noticing, while I slept an exhausted sleep that tried to make up for the New Year’s festivities as well as the emotional hangover from the Amy Lee upset. When I woke in the morning on January second, I was bleary-eyed, in dire need of caffeine, annoyed with my rambunctious dog, and, apparently, thirty.
Talk about anticlimactic.
Georgia, Amy Lee, and I had stayed up half the night after the party ended, giggling as if there’d never been any rift between us. Oscar had sacked out earlier in their room, with Linus curled up beside him. The next day, we ate breakfast overlooking the stormy bay outside the windows, and then piled back into our cars to join the traffic jam headed back toward Boston.
Once in my apartment, which still delighted me in all its bookshelved goodness, I passed out fully clothed across my bed, woke briefly around 11 p.m. to throw off my jeans and crawl under the covers, and slept away the last of my twenties in a dreamless sort of coma.
Linus barked at me from the door to the living room, completely unconcerned with my advanced age and lack of epic dreams. He just wanted to pee.
Outside, the snow had started to fall sometime before I woke, so the city streets were quieter than usual. Linus romped around in circles, barking happily at the snowflakes. I caught a few flakes on my tongue on the off-chance I was being secretly filmed, because that was what cute girl-movie heroines did, and then headed back indoors.
My parents had left a singing message on my machine while I was out, which, not for the first time, caused me to wonder exactly where I’d come up with the singing voice I’d had way back when I dreamed of Broadway. My sister would probably leave another song later in the day, but at least I knew she tried to sound bad.
“What are we doing to celebrate?” Georgia demanded when she called. By that point I’d retreated to the couch, and was watching some action flick involving Bruce Willis and many dubbed-for-profanity scenes on cable.