Getting Over Garrett Delaney

by McDonald, Abby

  “Don’t even think I’ve forgotten about the frozen yogurt incident. Imbécile!”

  And so instead of being the most humiliating experience of my entire life (OK, as well as), my oh-so-public meltdown actually turns out to be a meager token from the Gods of Fresh Starts. Because suddenly, I’m not alone in this anymore. Instead of being scornful, they actually want to help. I can’t believe it. Even Dominique comes around (when she’s done laughing all over again at my plight), probably to spite Carlos, or at the prospect of pulling out her military dictator act in the guise of a good cause.

  Dominique. Helping.

  I know.

  “Repeat after me: I don’t need a guy to feel good about myself.” LuAnn prods me with a pair of serving tongs. Barely a week has passed since I came clean to them all, but already she’s settled in to her role as tutor-slash-slave-driver extraordinaire, determined to rid me of my love for good.

  “LuAnn!” I protest. “I’m not out obsessing over every guy I meet. This is about Garrett.”

  “Repeat it!” she orders, prodding me harder. “I’m serious, kid. You need to say it until you believe it. Fake it till you make it.”

  I sigh. Arguing will only prolong the fight. “I don’t need a guy to feel good about myself,” I parrot obediently. “There, happy? Now, can I get my phone back?

  “Ask Dom.” LuAnn shrugs. “She’s the communications keeper.”

  This strategy — holding my phone hostage, except for brief visitation rights on my breaks — is designed to keep me from another crawling-on-the-floor incident.

  I scoot around the counter to where Dominique is sitting at a back table, freshening her manicure before her shift starts. “Phone?” I ask. “Pretty please?”

  She doesn’t look up. “You’ve still got another half hour.”

  “But I promised I’d call my dad,” I say. “I’m taking the afternoon off to meet him in the city, remember?”

  “You know the rules.” Entirely unimpressed, she blows on a freshly painted nail. “And you’re the one who asked me to keep it away from you.”

  I sigh. She’s right — we picked Dominique for this because we knew she’d never let me slip. LuAnn is the voice of reason, Kayla my cheerleader, and Dominique? She’s the hard-ass, and thus perfect for minding my cell phone, letting me have it only for approved callers and rationed texts to Garrett. But right now, her hard-assedness is the last thing I need, when I have a legitimate reason for needing that phone.

  “Come on, Dom.”

  She glares.

  “Dominique,” I correct myself quickly. “He needs to know which bus I’m taking.” Right on cue, my cell begins to ring. She starts painting the other hand.

  “Just look at the caller ID!” I tell her, “It’s not Garrett, I swear.”

  With infinite slowness, Dominique plucks my phone from her purse and checks the screen. “Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes. “You can take it. But no cheating!”

  I take it eagerly. “Hey, Dad.”

  “Hey, pumpkin, what’s going on?”

  “Nothing much, just work.” I drift toward the back hallway, away from the chatter at the front of the café. “I’m just leaving. I’ll be on the eleven o’clock bus. We get in about two —”

  “Here’s the thing,” he interrupts. “They canceled our shows here, so we’re heading up to Montreal for a last-minute booking.”

  I stop. “Canada?”

  “I know — it’s crazy.” He laughs. “I really wanted to see you, but we have to drive through the night to make it tomorrow. I’m sorry,” he says, “but we’ll do something when I get back — I promise.”

  “Oh.” I recover. “Sure, that’s fine.”

  “OK, I’ve got to run. They’re loading up the van. I’ll call you later, OK? Love you!”

  “Love you,” I repeat dully, hanging up.

  I stay there in the narrow space, trying not to feel that familiar wave of disappointment. He does this too often, changing plans on a whim, and although I thought I was too old to feel let down by him again, I can’t help the tightness in my throat and the flashbacks to being twelve, thirteen, fourteen: waiting on the couch at home for him to come pick me up, invariably an hour late.

  “What’s up?”

  I blink. Josh has paused from salad assembly and is watching me through the open kitchen door, his hair looping out from under his baseball cap in lazy curls.

  “It’s nothing.” I force a smile. “Just, I was going to go to Boston to see my dad. But he can’t make it.” I shrug, nonchalant. “I guess that means I can take my shift after all.”

  “What’s this about Boston?” LuAnn bounces beside me, a riot of patterns in a floral tea dress and striped cardigan. “Are you going to meet Garrett? Sadie, you know that’s forbidden. Verboten! Prohibido!”

  “Interdite,” Dominique adds, coming up behind her.

  “No!” I yelp, cornered. “It has nothing to do with Garrett. And I’m not even going. I was going to see Jonny Pardue with my dad, but he can’t make it.”

  “Jonny’s playing?” Josh asks, looking over with interest. “I saw him last year. He’s pretty great live.”

  “I know.” I sigh. “I guess I’ll catch him on his next tour.”

  “No need!” LuAnn exclaims. “Let’s.”

  “What?”

  “Go see him.” She grins. “I could use a break from this town. Ooh, road trip!” she sings out in glee. Dominique turns to make a hasty retreat. “Not so fast, missy.” LuAnn grabs her arm. “You can come, too!”

  “I think not,” Dominique replies, looking mildly disturbed at the thought. “Besides, somebody has to cover if you all take off on some idiotic trip.”

  “True.” LuAnn releases her. “Thanks for offering. You’re the best!” She makes as if to hug her, but Dominique has learned from her mistakes and backs away, disappearing into the café in a flash of crisp cotton.

  “Look, you don’t have to.” I try to calm LuAnn before she gets carried away on her usual tide of enthusiasm. “It’s fine. I can go in another time . . . and if I’m not seeing dad . . . well, there’s not much point.”

  “Sure there is: shopping!” She clasps her hands together. “My wardrobe is crying out for new stuff. This is perfect. Josh?” LuAnn turns to him, batting her eyes. “Wanna tag along?”

  “Come on.” He groans. “Shopping?”

  LuAnn sighs. “And music, and food, and other manly things. You don’t have to stick with us all day. Go look at the harbor or something while we do the girly stuff. Pretty please?”

  He pauses, thinking. “I guess I could walk the Freedom Trail again or tour Fenway Park —”

  “Perfect!” LuAnn leans through the window and gives him a loud kiss on the cheek. “Sadie, want to call what’s-her-name? Kaylie?”

  “Kayla,” I say, still thrown. “Um, sure. But —”

  “No buts!” she demands. “Well, except Josh’s, and that’s only because he’s so cute.” She blows him a kiss. He mimes catching it. “Come on.” LuAnn shoos me out of the hallway. “I’ll get music, you grab some snacks for the road. This is going to be the best!”

  Sure, you want to stay friends with him, but friends don’t have to listen to every excruciating detail about his new True Love — not when it leaves you a broken, miserable mess on the floor. Set new boundaries for your friendship: nice, solid walls that keep out all news of romance and breakup angst. With a shark-infested moat. And guard dogs. Killer guard dogs.

  You may feel guilty, as though you’re being a bad friend. But this is your heart you’re protecting here. It’s worth feeling “unsupportive” to keep you off that miserable floor.

  Kayla is working all day and can’t make it, but Aiko jumps at the chance to get out of town for the day, and a couple of hours later, the four of us are packed into Aiko’s car, winding our way through Boston’s downtown traffic, gleaming office blocks towering above turn-of-the-century churches and old brownstone buildings. I look happily out the
windows, absorbing the buzz and rush of life on the busy sidewalks. I always love this first swoop into the city, when you’re hit by the rush of energy and confusion: a million people racing along in their own worlds, all in a few square miles. One day, I’m going to be a part of these crowds — here or someplace else — striding along with their certainty, living some extraordinary kind of life. . . .

  “Julian Casablancas,” Aiko muses from the front seat. She has cherry-red plastic sunglasses on and her hair braided into pigtails. “Several times. Then marry Jack White; kill Sufjan Stevens.”

  “Really?” LuAnn’s voice is outraged, as if these are serious life choices Aiko is debating, instead of a fantasy FMK league. “I can’t stand that whole New York hipster art thing. Kill Julian, have a wild night of passion with Jack, then spend the rest of my days baking and knitting things with Sufjan.” She breaks off a chunk of scone from the snack bag and chews, happily contemplating her craft-filled future.

  “What about you, Josh?”

  “No comment.”

  “Come on!” LuAnn protests. “If you had to, if someone lined up your family with a gun to their heads and demanded you pick.”

  He sighs. “Fine. Kill Sufjan. I dated a girl once who kept playing his stuff — it drove me crazy. Then flip a coin for the other two. Happy now?”

  “Ecstatic.” She grins. “Ooh, turn left, just up ahead.” LuAnn leans forward from the backseat. “There are some fun vintage shops on Newbury Street.”

  Aiko follows her directions, then pulls over to the side of the street. “Sure you don’t want to come?” I ask Josh as we collect our purses and jackets and pile out.

  He laughs. “Trail you guys around dressing rooms all day? No, thanks. I’ll meet you later, for the show.”

  “OK!” LuAnn slams the car door. “Call us whenever you’re done being such a history nerd.”

  “Geek,” Josh corrects her. “Get it right. We take pride in our geekdom.”

  “Sure, you do.” LuAnn laughs. “I bet you have T-shirts and everything!”

  LuAnn and Aiko wave him off, jumping up and down and blowing kisses like they’re sending him off to fight in a war, and not just visit old battle sites. “Right.” LuAnn turns back to us, her whole face lit up in anticipation. “Let the wild rumpus start!”

  “Somehow, I don’t think this what Maurice Sendak had in mind,” I say later that afternoon, watching LuAnn pull items from the display racks with a whirlwind mix of joy and efficiency. Aiko left us for the record store long ago, and now we’re in yet another vintage place, this one a tiny cave of gleaming curios, velvet drapes, and racks packed with outlandish outfits.

  “To each her own.” LuAnn gives me a mischievous grin. “And my own is definitely this.”

  I laugh. “Why don’t you try going back to fashion school or something? I mean, it seems like it’s your true calling.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asks, a touch sarcastic. “I knew even as a little girl, I wanted to serve coffee for the rest of my life.”

  I remember what she told me about following some guy to Sherman. It seems weird, that someone so self-possessed and secure would mold herself around a guy like that.

  She holds up a swingy red dress. “What do you think?”

  “Cute.” I browse idly, but there’s nothing much in the store for me. All this quirky vintage stuff, with its bright colors and patterns, is made for the other cool, artsy girls digging through bins of fedoras and trying on ’50s-style circle skirts. I watch them, curious: a foreign tribe with their wing-tipped eyeliner and oceans of self-confidence.

  “What size are you?” LuAnn eyeballs me, then checks the label in the dress. “This should fit. Here, try it. Ooh, and these too.” She plucks a matador’s blouse and pencil skirt from a heap nearby and holds them out to me.

  I shake my head vigorously. “No, I’m good.”

  “But they’ll look great on you!”

  “No,” I say again, shoving my hands in my pockets so she can’t fill them. “Thanks, but it’s just not my style.”

  “So, what is?” LuAnn pauses. “This normal thing you’ve got going on? No offense, kid, but it doesn’t say anything about who you are.”

  “Maybe that’s the point.” I shrug, getting defensive. I know my style has always been pretty, well, understated, but it suits me just fine. “Maybe I don’t want to play dress-up just to stand out in the crowd.”

  “Okaay,” LuAnn backs off. “Have it your way. Be boring.” She grins, as if to tell me she’s only kidding. “But I still think you’d look fabulous with a whole prewar look going on, lashings of red lipstick and pin-curled hair.”

  “Right,” I reply dryly. “Well, you’ll just have to do it up for the both of us.”

  Arms laden with bags — all of them LuAnn’s — we head to meet Aiko in the record store. It’s full of older, bearded men and younger guys in Sonic Youth T-shirts and horn-rimmed glasses, but we find her in the back, flipping through old vinyl and humming along to The Smiths.

  She takes in the sight of LuAnn’s bounty and laughs. “Wow, you guys really went to town.”

  “It’s all mine.” LuAnn drops her load on the ground and I follow suit, creating a great heap of packages that still somehow came to less than a hundred bucks. “I did my best, but she wouldn’t let me try a thing.”

  “Smart girl.” Aiko applauds me. “I gave in once, and she had me dolled up like a mod girl from 1962.”

  “And she looked amazing,” LuAnn adds before turning her attention to a bargain bin of battered old CDs.

  “So, you like The Smiths?” I ask Aiko. The cases hit each other with a rhythmic clacking sound as I methodically flip through the stands.

  “Hate them,” she replies cheerfully. “Overwrought pretension for teenage boys who think that just because they’re old and British, it makes up for all that emo self-indulgence.”

  “But this album is a classic!” I protest, shocked.

  “And?” She shrugs, seemingly unconcerned by the musical sacrilege she’s just committed. Aiko sees my expression and laughs. “Just because people say something’s great, it doesn’t mean you have to agree, not if you don’t actually enjoy it.”

  “Well, it’s not that I enjoy them,” I admit, because seriously, those aren’t the most uplifting songs in the world. “But still, there are some things you should listen to. You know, like reading great literature or watching classic films. You just should.”

  “Why?” LuAnn looks up.

  “Because!” I splutter. The question of why has never come into it for me, but now I scramble for an answer. “Even if you don’t like them, they’re still important.”

  “Says who?”

  “People!”

  LuAnn laughs. “Easy there, kid. I’m not saying you can’t be into that stuff if you genuinely like it. I just mean, your argument kind of dooms us to spend all this time on books and movies and music that we don’t actually like.”

  “She’s right,” Aiko adds, her arms full of vinyl selections. “What was that book you were talking to me about the other day? That Russian one you’ve been reading forever.”

  “Crime and Punishment.” I gape at them. “You can’t tell me that’s not a great book.”

  “Great with a capital G great?” Aiko asks, head tilted to watch me. “Or great because you found it moving, and inspiring, and it made your life better somehow?”

  I don’t answer for a moment. Sure, Dostoyevsky is no picnic, but he’s not supposed to be! And yes, I spent the better part of a year trying and failing and trying again to finish that lump of a book because it was so unbearably dense and depressing, but that’s not the point.

  “Isn’t Garrett the one who introduced you to this stuff?” LuAnn asks meaningfully, before I can answer. “Maybe you just think it’s great because he said it was?”

  I tense. “So, you’re saying I’m just some sheep, doing everything he says? Gee, thanks.”

  “Sadie,” Aiko says, trying
to placate me, “we’re just trying to help.”

  “How is this helping, to say I’m some pathetic girl with no mind of my own?”

  “You know that’s not what we mean.” LuAnn puts down her CDs. “But it sounds like this guy has been the center of your entire universe for way too long. Believe me, I’ve been there! That’s why I just want you to think about it.” She looks at me dead-on. “How much of your life do you choose because it’s what he likes?”

  I snap. The pity in her expression is too much to take. “I’m not one of those girls who gives up everything for a guy,” I tell them, my voice rising. “I’m not! And just because you threw away your life on someone and it didn’t work out, it doesn’t mean I’m doing the same thing!”

  Silence. LuAnn’s face tightens, and right away I feel a wash of guilt — but not enough to take it back or apologize. Not after what she said.

  For a moment, nobody moves. A boy in skinny jeans and a plaid shirt edges past us to reach the vinyl. Up at the front counter, a trio of tweens in brightly colored vests demands the latest album by Justin or Jason or Jared.

  “OK,” Aiko says, looking back and forth between us. “Time out. Let’s go get some ice cream and calm down.”

  Neither of us replies.

  “Gelato?” she tries. “Fro-yo?”

  “No, thanks,” I answer shortly. I hoist my bag onto my shoulder. “Look, I’m just going to take a walk, get some air. I’ll meet back with you guys later.”

  “Sadie —”

  I hear Aiko call after me, but I’m already striding away. I push past the giggling tweens and out onto the street, not once looking back.

  Admit it: you’ve been shopping for him all this time — hunting the sales racks in the secret hope that yes, this low-cut shirt is the one to make him see you in a whole new nonplatonic light, those skinny jeans will spur a blinding epiphany, and this raspberry lip gloss will finally make him fall hopelessly in love with you.

  Forget raspberry gloss. You like plain lip-balm better. And forget low-cut shirts and skinny jeans, too. Forget everything you wouldn’t choose without his opinion in the back of your mind. When you look in the mirror, what do you want to see: yet another reminder of your hopeless attempt to be the girl of his dreams, or you?