by Meg Cabot
Luke opens his mouth to say something, but I barrel on.
“But it’s too late now. Because you’re leaving for France the day after tomorrow. And so,” my voice adds ruthlessly, without my consent, “whether you want to call it that or not, we’re taking a break. Because I need to think, Luke. I need to think about what’s going on here. What we’re doing. What I’m doing.”
“Right,” he says.
And he removes his arm from around my shoulders.
We sit for a moment in silence. But the city isn’t silent, of course. Taxis rumble by, and a siren sounds over on Third Avenue. I’m not sure, but I think I hear a window open above our heads. Ava is eavesdropping.
That’s all I hope she’s dropping, anyway.
There’s another thing I think I hear in the silence that’s fallen between us as well: the sound of my heart breaking.
When I get back upstairs to the apartment, Ava is on the couch again, innocently flipping channels while still holding the phone to her ear. She looks up and smiles at me as I come in, fending off Snow White’s enthusiastic mini assault.
“So?” she asks. “How’d it go?”
“Like you weren’t listening,” I say, dropping my keys in the fruit bowl I keep for this purpose on the bookshelf by the door.
“I was not,” Ava says with a sniff. Then, seeing my expression, she says, “Well, okay, I totally was. But I couldn’t hear. I was all ready to pour orange juice on his head if you started crying, though. Did you? I didn’t think you did.”
“I didn’t,” I say, and flop down onto the couch beside her. Snow White leaps up onto my lap, and I pat her distractedly. “We’re taking a break.”
“Really?” Ava stares at me, bug-eyed. “What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.” I shrug. “I just heard the words coming out of my mouth, and I went with them. That happens to me sometimes.” Try all the time.
It hadn’t made any sense, either. I mean, that I had said what I had to Luke. What had I been thinking, asking for a break? I love Luke. At least…I’m pretty sure I love Luke. I know I love waking up in the morning before he has and just staring at him and his incredible eyelashes, resting so dark and sooty against his cheekbones. I love how, when he’s awake, those dark eyes still look so sleepy, like they hold the promise of a thousand secret dreams.
Most of all, I love that I’m one of those dreams, me, Lizzie Nichols, who no boy in my high school ever even asked out, because I just wasn’t the kind of girl you asked out in high school…unless you were a gay boy and you didn’t want anyone to know that, of course.
Oh yeah. I forgot. Gay boys asked me out. A lot. I was always the fat girl gay boys asked out to make their mothers happy.
So what was I doing? What was I doing telling this guy—this guy that I love so much, and who, more important, loves me back—that I wanted to take a break? Am I crazy?
Why couldn’t I, for once in my life, have kept my mouth shut?
But the words just came out, and once they were spoken, I couldn’t stuff them back. Well, I mean, I could have, but…
I didn’t want to.
And that was maybe the weirdest part of all.
“Oh my God,” Ava gasps. “How did he take it?”
“He was okay with it, I think,” I say. Actually, maybe that was the weirdest part of all. “I mean, he says he understands that my work has to come first right now, and that I don’t have time to be planning a wedding at the moment. But…he’s still leaving for France. It’s not like he offered to stay. Even though I told him I’d be happy with a much smaller wedding that didn’t cost as much, so he wouldn’t have to go work there. He’s still going.” Is it wrong that this bothers me as much as it does?
Ava makes a face. “Men are all such dicks.”
Yeah, okay. So…not wrong.
“Tell me about it,” I say. I look at the phone Ava is holding to her ear. “Are you still on hold with Sistina?”
“Oh, no,” Ava says. “They’ll be over with the food in half an hour. This is your grandmother. She wanted to know how to record something with a season pass on TiVo. So I told her how to do it. It is tricky, after all. Then when she told me how much she likes Byron Sully from that old show, Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman, I told her how to do a Wish List for the actor, so that anything with him that comes on will be recorded. She seemed really grateful. I told her you were downstairs with Luke, so she said she’d hang on till you got back upstairs. Do you want to talk to her?”
I take the phone from Ava, feeling more stunned than ever. “Sure,” I say. “Hello?” I murmur into the receiver.
“So,” Gran’s voice crackles into the phone. “You haven’t shtupped him yet?”
I nearly choke on my own spit, I’m so shocked by the question. “I beg your pardon?”
“Sorry,” Gran says. “This Chaz character. Why haven’t you shtupped him?”
“Because,” I say, horrified, “I happen to be engaged to his best friend.”
“Is she asking about Chaz?” Ava wants to know from the couch. “I was wondering the same thing. I mean, when are you two going to get busy? Now that you’re on a break.”
“It’s not that kind of break,” I say, irritated.
“Well, what kind of break is it?” Ava wants to know. “I mean, if you can’t fu—I mean, make love with other people, what’s the point of it?”
“It’s just…it’s to…” I stare blankly at the television screen. Ava is watching an old rerun of Celebrity Pit Fight, in which Ava is wrestling with Da Brat in what appears to be an outdoor vat of pudding. “It’s so that we can concentrate on our professional goals at the moment, and not be bogged down with romantic problems.”
“Oh God,” Gran groans over the phone.
“Oh,” Ava says, brightening. “Like me and Alek. Well, like me, I mean.”
“Exactly,” I say. “Only Luke and I aren’t broken up. We’re just on a break.”
“Who is that I was just talking to?” Gran wants to know.
“No one you know,” I assure her. “Just a friend of mine. Her name is Ava.”
“She sounds just like Ava Geck,” Gran says with a snort. “You know, the skanky crack whore. What’s Ava Geck doing in your apartment?”
“She’s just staying here for a few days,” I say. The call waiting goes off. I say, “Gran, can you hold on a sec? Someone’s on the other line.”
“What else have I got to do?” Gran wants to know.
So I pounce on the other call. “Hello?”
“Lizzie?” It’s Shari. “Are you all right? I called as soon as I heard.”
I blink. On the television screen, Da Brat has seized a handful of Ava’s golden hair (extensions) and is using it to drag her through the pudding.
“Of course I’m all right,” I say. “What are you talking about?”
“I was just talking to Chaz,” Shari says. “His call waiting went off, and it was Luke saying you two are breaking up. I called as soon as Chaz told me. I thought you’d be upset. But you seem awfully calm about it.”
“Because we’re not breaking up,” I say through gritted teeth. “We’re on a break. Of course I’m calm about it. It was my idea.”
“Oh,” Shari says. “A break. I thought Chaz said a breakup. He was talking so fast. He wanted to get off the phone with me so he could talk to Luke—”
“Oh, watch this part,” Ava says, pointing at the television screen. “This is where I make her eat it. The pudding, I mean.”
“Who is that with you?” Shari asks.
“That’s Ava Geck,” I say. When Ava makes a frantic slashing motion at me, I roll my eyes and say, “But don’t tell anyone she’s staying here. She’s hiding out from the paparazzi. She just ditched her Greek prince boyfriend, who she was supposed to marry this weekend.”
“Holy crap,” Shari says. “And she’s staying at your place? Can’t she afford to hole up somewhere a little nicer?”
“Thanks,” I say sarcastica
lly.
“Well, sorry. But you know it’s true. So…you’re really all right with this break thing with Luke? I thought you’d be in hysterics.”
“I’m really all right with it,” I say. “Like I said, it was my idea.” I pick up the orange juice container and head to the kitchen with it. “It’s like all this stuff that had just been festering in me for months came pouring out. I even told him about my Spanx.” My cheeks begin to burn at the memory of it.
There is silence at the end of the line. Then Shari says, “Lizzie. Are you telling me your fiancé didn’t know that you wear control top panties?”
“No,” I say, opening the refrigerator door. “He didn’t know. No wonder he doesn’t respect me. What is there to respect? I’m a complete fake.”
“Oh, honey,” Shari says. “I don’t think you’re fake. Just…complicated.”
“Face it,” I say, slamming the refrigerator door with my foot. “I’m a fake, Shari. A big, shallow fake who would rather spend time renovating wedding dresses than with her own fiancé.” I wasn’t making that last part up, either. What does that say about me?
Shari sighs. “I think this break is a good idea. Both of you can spend the summer getting your heads together, putting things in perspective. Giving yourselves some space. It’s been a very intense twelve months since you met on that train.”
“Right,” I say. I know what she’s saying makes sense. I know what I’ve just said to Luke, out on the stoop, makes sense. It all makes perfect sense.
So why does my heart hurt so much all of a sudden?
“I have to go,” I tell her. “Gran’s on the other line. It’s just—” My voice cracks a little. “Luke and I are breaking up, aren’t we?”
“No, Lizzie,” Shari says. “Not at all. I mean, I don’t think so. Not necessarily. Not if you don’t want to be. Do you want to be?”
“I don’t know,” I admit miserably. I’m so confused. I remember how he kissed me good-bye out on the stoop. Was it my imagination, or had there been something like relief in that kiss? Not relief that we weren’t breaking up, either. But relief that maybe…just maybe…we were a little bit closer to doing so?
That has to have been my overactive imagination. Luke is the one who proposed, after all. I broke up with him last time, remember? He’s the one who came crawling back, begging my forgiveness. He’d done the same thing again tonight. If he wants to break up so badly, why does he keep coming back, every time I give him what he wants?
Do I want to break up with him?
What is it Shari said, all those months ago in this very kitchen? I worry that the reason you said yes to Luke is because you wanted to marry him so badly, and then when you found out he didn’t want to marry you, you moved on. And then suddenly when he came back and wanted to marry you after all, you thought you had to say yes because you’d been so adamant that that’s what you wanted all along. But you know, Lizzie, it’s okay to change your mind.
No. Not that…the other thing. That I love the idea of Luke, not Luke himself.
But that’s ridiculous. Isn’t it? I mean, how can you love the idea of someone, and not the person himself? Of course I love Luke. I love that he wants to be a doctor and save the children, and I love his eyelashes, and that he always looks so impeccably put together, and smells so nice when he gets out of the shower…those aren’t ideas. Those are real…
Aren’t they?
“Fights like this,” Shari goes on, “can sometimes make couples stronger. They’re almost always a good thing. Getting things out in the open can only make things better. Chaz says—”
“What?” I ask, snapping back into the present at the mention of Chaz’s name. “What did Chaz say? I can’t believe he called you. Since when are you and Chaz so chummy all of a sudden?”
“You know Chaz and I always stayed friends,” Shari says. “I love him…as a pal. I always will. And he adores you, you know. He always has. He was worried about you. He says you ran out of the middle of a restaurant and jumped into some limo—”
“Ava Geck’s,” I say.
Ava, in the living room, looks up and calls, “Seriously, you have to watch this part. This is where Tippy comes in and starts shaving his legs! With pudding!”
I head obediently back into the living room. “Really,” I say into the phone. “I was fine. I just got so mad at Luke. You know? He said the shittiest thing to me, and right in front of Chaz’s new girlfriend, Valencia. Who’s perfect by the way. You should see her, no cellulite whatsoever and tan all over. Plus, she’s got a Ph.D. She called me solipsistic.”
“She called you what?”
I try again. “Solipsistic.”
“She said that?”
“Right in front of me,” I say, nodding vigorously, even though Shari can’t see me. “Why? What does it mean?”
“Um. I’m not sure,” Shari says. I can tell she’s lying. “Look, just call me back after you’re done talking to Gran. Pat and I are having a Fourth of July barbecue next week, and we want you to come.”
“Really?” I’m touched. “Shari, I’d love to.”
“Great. It’s going to be fantastic. We’ve got the back garden to ourselves, you know, for the barbecue, and then we’ve also got roof rights, so everyone can go upstairs after nightfall and watch the fireworks. We’ve got a great view.”
“Oh, Shari, it sounds perfect. Can I bring anything?”
“Just your lovely self. Chaz is bringing a strawberry rhubarb pie, and maybe a blueberry pie too, if he can wing it—”
“Wait.” I can’t believe what I’m hearing. “You invited Chaz?”
“Of course I invited Chaz,” Shari says. “You don’t think I’d let him be alone on Fourth of July—or go off with that horrible Valencia—do you?”
“No,” I say, thinking that there was no way, if Luke had been in town, she would have invited me to her place. Not if she thought there was a chance I’d bring him. Not in a million years. “I just didn’t know you guys were that tight.”
“Hey, I didn’t break up with the guy because I don’t like him anymore,” Shari reminds me. “I broke up with him because I fell in love with someone else. He’s a great guy. I just hope he finds somebody who can appreciate him, you know? He’s got a lot to offer.”
“I think he already found somebody,” I say gloomily. I don’t mention the loop-de-loop my heart gave earlier in the evening when I saw him. I still haven’t figured that part out. I’m not sure I want to, either.
“I mean somebody nice,” Shari says. “Not vile cellulite-free philosophy department skanks. Don’t tell him this, but there’s a cute new girl in my office I’m hoping to set him up with at my party. I specifically told him to come stag so I could fix them up together. I think they’ll get along great. She loves college basketball too. I don’t think she cares about baseball caps. And I know she’s never used the word ‘solipsistic’ in conversation.”
I feel as if Shari’s just shoved a steak knife through my heart. Really. My best friend. I can barely breathe, in fact, I’m so wounded.
“Is she pretty?” I hear myself wheeze. It’s surprisingly hard to talk with a steak knife in your chest.
“What?” Shari asks. “Did you just ask me if she’s pretty?”
“No,” I say quickly. “I said is she witty. Because you know Chaz likes only witty girls. Because he’s so…smart.”
Oh. God. What’s wrong with me? How can I even be worried about this? I’m possibly—okay, probably—breaking up with my long-term fiancé, the man of my dreams, right now. Why am I even giving a moment’s thought to the fact that Shari is setting up Chaz with some girl from her office?
I’m engaged to Chaz’s best friend. Even if we are on a break.
“That’s great,” I say with forced enthusiasm.
“I know. Anyway, so we’ll see you on the Fourth, around seven?”
“I’ll be there,” I say, and after Shari asks me one more time if I’m okay, and I assure her that I think I
am, even though I’m pretty sure I’m not, we say our good-byes, and I hang up.
“Oh shit,” I say, remembering Gran when I hear her breathing.
“Yeah.” Her cranky voice fills my ear. “Still here. Remember me? The grandma?”
“I’m so sorry,” I say. “That was Shari.”
“Of course it was,” Gran says in a bored voice. “You still haven’t answered my question. Why haven’t you shtupped him?”
“I did answer your question,” I say. “Because I’m engaged to his best friend. And where did you learn a word like ‘shtup’?”
“TV,” Gran says, sounding wounded. “Where else? And what should it matter who you’re engaged to? When it’s right, it’s right. And with that one, it’s right.”
“Gran,” I say tiredly. “How do you even know?”
“Because I’ve been alive a lot longer than you have. Now, what are you going to do about it?”
“Nothing, Gran,” I say. “He has a new girlfriend. She’s really pretty and smart. Her name is Valencia.”
“Isn’t that a type of orange?”
“Gran. You know what I mean. She’s perfect for him.”
“So?” Gran sounds offended. “And you’re not?”
“No, Gran,” I say miserably. “I’m not. I’m just…I…I—”
I don’t know how to go on, really, or what more there is to say. I find myself, for one of the first times in my life, at a loss for words. How can I explain to her just why it is that Valencia is so perfect for Chaz—for any guy, really—whereas I, on the other hand, am not? So not.
Gran, however, comes to my rescue.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she says. “I know. You’re engaged. I heard. Engaged isn’t married, you know. Engaged isn’t dead. Listen, I gotta go. My show’s coming on. I’ve seen it before. I’ve seen them all before. But that’s one of the good things about getting old. I can’t remember how a single one of these goddamned episodes turns out. I’ll talk to you later.”
She hangs up. I do the same and turn around to find Ava looking up at me with a wounded expression on her face.