by Liza Palmer
“Elise says she’s just pulling up,” Hani says, trying to play it cool.
Reuben, Hugo, and Lynn settle in front of Thornton, Hani, and me. I introduce everyone to everyone else. Hands are shaken, pleasantries are traded, and compliments and oohs and aahs are exchanged about everyone’s fabulous costumes. Reuben motions to two flaming skid marks made out of poster board that are now leaning up against the stage. He assures us they make the costume. I watch as my worlds collide. Holding my breath.
“There’s someone here who came dressed as Ice Man,” Reuben says to Thornton.
“And not with his own Maverick?” Thornton asks, quite rightly.
“Yeah, just … of the characters I guess he related to Ice Man the most. All by himself,” Reuben says.
“Even Goose would have been better,” I say.
“He’s one of Hugo’s coworkers from the accounting firm,” Reuben whispers conspiratorially.
“Oh, he’s a lovely man,” Hugo says, defending him. “Great at math.”
Reuben gives us the lay of the land. Where the food is, points out the photo booth—which is just Reuben’s mom and dad standing next to a painted hot-pink backdrop offering their services to use your own phone to take a photo. Reuben tells us it’s an open bar, and which of the guests are already drunk (steer clear of the aforementioned Adam Ant; Reuben has already called his wife and she is on her way), and that there will be cake and ice cream later.
We all nod along, taking in the growing party. The crowd has ballooned just since we’ve been standing here. Hani excuses herself to go meet Elise. Reuben is tugged away by well-wishers. Which just leaves Lynn, Hugo, Thornton, and me. Hugo immediately launches into the Plan.
“Okay, he doesn’t suspect a thing,” Hugo says, huddling us up.
“Are we robbing this place?” Thornton asks.
“No, we’re dancing,” Hugo says.
“Perfect,” Thornton says, smiling.
“Reuben’s greatest wish is to be the lead singer of a boy band, so we are going to grant that wish tonight,” I explain. Thornton nods.
“After we’re done here, I’ll go talk to the DJ,” Hugo says. “She’s acquired the version of the song from the music video. With the manager’s pep talk at the beginning. Now, I figure we play that and then reveal the five microphones on the stage.” We all look. I hadn’t noticed them, but sure enough there they are—five microphones on the stage, utterly ignored. “I thought we were going to be found out when he leaned his flaming skid marks up against the stage, but the microphones didn’t even register.”
“So, the DJ will play the opening, and then what?” Lynn asks, looking over at the stage.
“Then my friend from work—”
“Ice Man?” Thornton asks.
“Yes, Ice Man,” Hugo says. “What Reuben doesn’t know is that while he may have odd taste in relatable characters, he’s spent more than a few tense hours trying to figure out the lighting here.”
“Now I feel bad,” I say. Lynn and Thornton nod in agreement.
“Ice Man is going to focus the spotlight on the five microphones—and, you know, not that we are down one Ricky Bell. Hopefully, like a moth to a flame, this will draw Reuben to the stage. Where we will be waiting.” Hugo takes the lavender pocket square out of his sea foam–green jacket pocket and dabs at his brow.
“We got this,” Lynn says. We all bravely nod.
I see Hani and Elise walk into the party. Elise is dressed as a Ghostbuster, proton pack and all. They see us and make a beeline over to where we are. I introduce everyone to Elise; she is happy and downright glowing. That’s when I see that she has an intensely bright blue carnation surrounded by baby’s breath wrist corsage on. I bring my hand to my chest and nudge Thornton. I stare at Elise’s wrist, willing him to follow my gaze. Thornton’s lips purse as he looks from the corsage to Hani. He raises his eyebrows at her and she beams from ear to ear.
“Let’s hit the dance floor already!” Hani announces, bounding over to the table and taking off E.T. She comes back over to our little group and stands in front of Elise, extending her hand. “M’lady.” Elise laughs and takes Hani’s hand. They nudge and cuddle and fix each other’s costumes all the way to the dance floor.
“They’re super cute together,” Lynn says.
“When did that happen?” Thornton asks me.
“We literally saw them two hours ago,” I say.
“This just happened?” Hugo asks.
“Apparently,” I say, watching as they jump and leap around the dance floor. Hani’s got some moves, to the surprise of no one. We all watch in stunned romantic silence.
“Or…” Thornton trails off.
“No, it can’t be.” Lynn and Hugo can only watch Thornton and me go back and forth.
“Hani kept a secret,” he says.
“I never thought I’d see the day,” I say. An awkward silence falls.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Thornton says. Hugo points to where the men’s bathroom is. Thornton thanks him. We all nod and smile patiently, waiting for him to get out of earshot. Reuben comes running over.
“Spill it,” Reuben says.
“He works at Bloom, he’s my manager, actually.” I take a deep breath. “He’s twenty-four.” I watch as the rippling sound waves of me saying “twenty-four” reverberate throughout the room. “And I thought he was too out of my league for there to be anything. I convinced myself it was because we were talking about this story at work and he’s nice and thinks I’m some … older … friend he can look up to because I remember a time before cell phones, but…” I trail off, remembering holding his hand.
“But what?” Hugo asks.
“He held my hand walking in here tonight.” Hugo and Lynn both clutch their chests, swoon, and clap. “But is holding hands the same thing with millennials? I thought first base was … like a threesome or something?”
“Honey, that’s not … I don’t think that’s right,” Lynn says. The happiness bursts through me and I notice that I’m physically holding the base of my neck in some last-ditch effort to choke it down.
“He’s decent. And not afraid of me. He doesn’t make me feel like I’m too much, but then I hear Matt’s words over and over ringing inside my head—”
“Shit, Joan, why can’t you just leave it alone. You ruin fucking everything,” we all say in droning unison.
“But do you remember why Matt said that to you?” Lynn asks. A montage of grainy footage from the last fight Matt and I had flickers through my brain.
“I never felt like he listened, so I would keep trying to get him to understand. Once I decided he didn’t get it, I just wouldn’t stop.”
“I need you to know that this is for your own good that I’m walking you down this particular memory lane,” Lynn says.
“Remember we love you,” Hugo adds.
“Oh, god. Is this another let-you-love-me thing?”
“You’d decided he was flirting with that photojournalist,” Hugo says.
“She was so cool,” I say, reverently.
“And you thought you had him, because you’d found some texts,” Lynn says.
“Yes! The texts.”
“But later, you saw that that same coworker got engaged, and thanked Matt in her Facebook status as the one who helped her fiancé orchestrate the surprise proposal?”
“Doesn’t mean they weren’t sleeping together,” I say.
“Joan. Just stop it,” Lynn says. Her face is suddenly serious. Hugo is stone-faced, and all around us people are having the best night of the year. “We have to stop doing this, repeating this shit. Lying to ourselves.” Lynn stifles a sob and now it’s Hugo and my turn to share a look of concern. He wraps an arm around her and pulls her in.
“Has something happened?” Hugo asks, his voice heartbreakingly tender.
“Is it—” I look at Hugo. “Not something with a baby or…” There have been too many sad things with babies for Lynn. Lynn shakes her head, fighting t
he emotion. Finally—
“You guys were right about Josh. I … but I wouldn’t listen. He never wanted a baby—you kept telling me he never wanted a baby—and—” Hugo gives her his lavender pocket square. Lynn dabs carefully at her overly mascaraed eyes. “I wanted to be a mom so badly I almost saddled my baby with a bad dad.”
“Oh, honey,” I say, taking one of her hands in mine.
“Phyllis and I are moving out. We’ve wanted to move closer to the store anyway.” Lynn lets out a long exhalation and hands Hugo back his pocket square. “I am going to go into this next round of fertility treatments alone.”
“You’re not alone,” Hugo and I say almost in unison.
“I know.” Lynn pulls Hugo in close. “I have Phyllis.” We all laugh, but then she refocuses back onto me. Which feels very on brand for her. “Best friend truth.”
“Best friend truth,” I repeat, bracing myself.
“You’ve turned Matt’s quote into some kind of curse, but—”
“Don’t … You don’t have to say it,” I say.
“All he wanted was to love you and—” Lynn waits until I look up. She brushes a strand of my unbrushed, basket-case hair out of my eyes and lets her hand linger on the side of my face.
“And I wouldn’t let him,” I finish. Lynn rises onto her tiptoes and kisses me on my forehead.
“Why don’t you just see what happens with Thornton,” Hugo says.
“I feel like if I think it’s a thing it’ll go away.”
“It very well could,” Hugo says.
“But won’t it be wonderful until then?” Lynn adds.
“What’d I miss?” Thornton asks, settling back in next to me.
“We’re just trying to figure out what that costume is,” Hugo blurts, pointing to someone who is dressed in possibly the most iconic costume of the 1980s: Michael Jackson, dressed in head-to-toe red leather from his “Thriller” video.
“We are stumped!” Lynn says. The person dressed up as Michael Jackson moonwalks across the dance floor.
“Are you guys serious? Do you really not—” Just then the sound of crashing thunder bursts through the speakers, interrupting Thornton. Everyone knows that thunder. It’s the beginning of the ’80s classic “It’s Raining Men.” The entire party freezes. Oh my god. Everyone hurries to the dance floor as the opening chords ring out. As the chorus builds, Thornton and I are tugged out onto the dance floor, where Elise and Hani have already secured a nice pocket of space in the mosh pit of a crowd.
“This is the best night of my life!” Hani yells over the music. Elise leaps up and twirls as the first chorus hits the crowd like a tidal wave.
It’s raining men! Hallelujah!
The momentum of the song is electric and the entire room moves as one, screaming along with the words. I look over at Thornton and am relieved to see that he can, thank god, dance. It’s that cool, not a lot of movement dancing where he definitely has rhythm and you know that he’s just warming up, and as the night goes on we’ll see some more elaborate moves. He dips his head low as the song quiets down and the singers start building from the lowest range all the way up to the top. I catch myself getting looser and looser as I let myself have this. Let myself just see where this goes.
Just dance. Have fun. Let go.
Each song blends into the next. Sweaty and exhausted, we dance the night away. I am thankful that Reuben’s niece never slowed things down, and revel in the fact that Thornton and I never had to have that weird … “Shall we?” moment and then three minutes of terror as I scream “Wait, where do my arms go?” inside my own head. Instead, we jump and dance with a crowd of people, smiling and laughing as we try to yell over the songs. I lose sight of Elise and Hani after about an hour.
It’s during Lynn’s particularly dramatic reenactment of “Bette Davis Eyes” that Hugo shimmies over to us on the dance floor.
“It’s time,” he says. My stomach drops. I nod to Hugo.
“Good luck,” Thornton says.
“Just remember back to when you thought I was cool,” I yell over the music.
“And when would that have been?” he answers back, resting his hand on my upper arm as he talks into my ear.
“Ah, yes. Touché,” I yell, nodding. I leave Thornton and I walk up to the stage. Lynn is already waiting. Hugo scans the crowd and sees Reuben over at the photo booth with his flaming skid marks. Hugo motions to a door at the side of the stage. We creak the door open and sneak backstage. My heart is racing.
The music fades out. And then New Edition’s manager’s pep talk comes on. It’s a twenty-eight-second speech. We watch from backstage as Reuben immediately perks up, telling everyone around him that he loves this song, he knows all the dance moves.
Hugo walks out onto the stage and with the one live microphone, says, “Happy birthday, my love.” And then Ice Man lights up the five microphones. “Why don’t you come up here and join us.”
Reuben starts crying. And then Hugo starts crying. And then everyone at the whole party starts crying.
We all join Hugo onstage, Reuben’s niece quickly takes the one live microphone, and we each settle in behind our designated prop microphone. I’m right in the middle. Which I like. Reuben runs over, leaps up onto the stage, sweeps Hugo into his arms just as the manager’s speech comes to an end.
“So, let’s do it one more time from the top and let’s get busy,” New Edition’s manager’s voice echoes throughout the room. Reuben takes his place at the first microphone just as the long drum roll kicks in. He can barely contain himself.
The first move of the dance has us with our hands up in the air wiggling our fingers and bringing our arms down on the beat. Classic boy band choreography. Reuben and the void of Ricky Bell that we hope no one will notice are the first to spin, and then me, and then Hugo and Lynn. After eight downbeats, we are all spinning together. We are in complete precision. By the time the cymbal countdown happens, each one of us is raising a knee and then folding over in perfect time. The crowd is going wild.
We have had months to practice this dance, but Reuben knows the whole thing without one minute of rehearsal. By the time the vocals kick in about a minute into the song, Reuben grabs the prop microphone (exactly when Ralph Tresvant grabs the microphone in the video) and lip-syncs along without missing a word.
The entire thing lasts for four minutes and fifty-five seconds, but it goes by in a blur. By the time we’re gearing up for the final jumping high five that ends the video, I am sweaty and smiling and my mind is only focused on how much fun I’m having. Completely unburdened by the now-lifted curse of Matt’s words, I leap as high as I ever have and high-five my three dearest friends as the song finally comes to an end. We bow and bow and hug each other. We pulled it off. The applause is raucous and just as it dies down, Reuben’s parents roll out a giant birthday cake full of candles. A timid, out-of-tune voice sings the opening bars of “Happy Birthday” and then the whole room joins. Reuben and Hugo jump down off the stage and stand with Reuben’s parents. Lynn and I decide that we’ll be taking the stairs down, thank you very much.
We creak open the door and walk out onto the dance floor to smiles and join in with everyone singing “Happy Birthday” to Reuben. I scan the crowd for Thornton and see him standing over in the corner with Elise and Hani. What kind of … how … did they even see our dance, or the cake, or the birthday singing? I should have known. Thank god Reuben, Lynn, and Hugo don’t see them.
I apologize, people of the party, that the three millennial dipshits I invited are currently ruining this very fine moment because they can’t be away from their phones for even four minutes and fifty-five seconds.
Reuben’s niece kicks on “The Power of Love” by Huey Lewis and the News and the entire crowd migrates exuberantly to the dance floor. Except me. I set my sights on the rudest, most disappointing trio in the world and stomp up to them ready to give them the what for.
“We found her,” Hani says.
“What?
”
“Meera Rao. I found her,” Hani says, showing me her phone. “Someone was talking about Full House and, you know, one thing led to another and sure enough … Meera didn’t disappear, she just got married. Her name is Meera Blue now. That’s why we couldn’t find her.”
“She and her husband own a winery up by Buellton,” Thornton says.
“You found her,” I repeat. Hani beams.
“Road trip?” Elise asks.
“Give me a second,” I say, looking over to the crowded dance floor. Hugo is smooshing cake in Reuben’s face and everyone is laughing as the opening chords of “Jessie’s Girl” keep everyone out on the dance floor.
“We’ll meet you out by the car,” Elise says, whisking Hani outside. I am frozen.
“We don’t have to go tonight. We can leave first thing tomorrow,” Thornton says.
“I actually posed this exact scenario to myself. If I got the chance to go back to my old life, would I take any of these lessons with me or would I remain a monster and abandon my friends once more in search of filling some unfillable void with a story?” I look away. “Looks like I got my answer.”
“Uh-huh.” Thornton’s voice is flat. I look over at him.
“What? What’s with the ‘uh-huh’?” I ask, bracing for impact.
“I know … I don’t know how to say this without—” My stomach drops.
“Oh my god, just say it. I’m a monster.”
“You’re wrong.”
“What?”
“The party is winding down.” Thornton urges me to scan the slowly emptying room. Parents peeling off with sleepy kids over their shoulders, packs of Madonnas with their stilettos in one hand and a slice of cake in the other saying their goodbyes. “Whatever this abandonment of your friends and unfillable void thing is, you went to a party, killed a dance routine—”
“You saw it?”
“Of course I saw it.”
“Oh.”
“And now—after saying your goodbyes along with most everyone else—you’re going on a clue-finding road trip up to Buellton with a trio of people you met less than a month ago.”