Always Something There to Remind Me

by Beth Harbison

  It felt like I just had a moment to lean against a fake palm tree and breathe when Roxanne approached from behind, crying, “Erin!”

  I turned, finding it hard to muster the energy to deal with yet another tantrum. “Roxanne.”

  “You know the date you set me up with for the evening?”

  I looked at her uncertainly. I thought she was going to pass him off as a guy who was legitimately interested in her. “Your date … Troy?”

  “Yes, Troy.” She didn’t seem to care that people were around who could hear her. That was a bad sign. “Do you know where I just found him?”

  “N-nooo…? Where?” Please, God, not floating facedown in the mermaid tank outside.

  “Making out with a server behind the Coke machine! A male server.”

  Now I understood. She could either blame me or look like she was so unattractive she drove her boyfriend to other boys. “There must be some mistake,” I said.

  Bill, behind the cameraman, shook his head. No mistake.

  And they’d captured it on film.

  “I am so sorry, Roxanne. I had no idea he was…” Gay? Of course I had. Unreliable? He was an actor. “… Behind the Coke machine with anyone.”

  She turned on the waterworks then. “This is the worst Sweet Sixteen party ever.” But then her eyes alighted on someone coming in from the locker room area.

  I turned to see who it was, expecting Brad Pitt or someone equally worthy of shutting her up, but there was just a skinny kid in a tracksuit, schlumping in and trying to look cool.

  I realized who he was just as she said his name: “Justin!”

  She ran over to him and tackled him, kissing him in a way I was pretty sure would be edited later for decency.

  “Hold on, hold on,” Justin said, making some sort of splayed-finger rapper gesture with his hand. “I wanna say something.” He strutted over to the band and, right in the middle of a song, stepped between the lead singer and his microphone.

  The band petered out the song and looked to Jeremy for an explanation, but he had no answer beyond a pale-faced, wide-eyed panic.

  “Yo! Can everyone hear me?” Justin said over the mic. It buzzed and zinged with feedback. “I just wanna say, I’m here for Roxanne on her birthday. We’ve had some rough times, but I’m here for my girl.” He paused and there was a small smattering of applause.

  “Happy birthday, babe!” he said, and there were more cheers.

  She blushed and gave a little wave.

  Her parents beamed.

  “So now I’d just like to do something I haven’t done for a couple of weeks and I’ve missed it,” Justin went on. “Come here, Roxy.” He reached out a hand and drew her up to him, where they kissed sloppily and with loud, horrendous noises that bounced around the room courtesy of the speakers Jeremy had managed to score.

  They left the stage, hands up like triumphant wrestlers, and Roxanne looked thrilled. “I can’t believe you did it!” she whispered to me as they stopped near me. “What a great surprise! You were so right about staying away so he’d miss me!”

  I may have been right about that, but I realized now I’d been really wrong about something else.

  For all the times I’d complained that Nate hadn’t made any grand gestures when we were Roxanne’s age, it had never occurred to me what the grand gesture truly was at that time.

  Justin had made an ass of himself, as far as I was concerned, but what he’d done had completely made Roxanne’s day. No, probably her month. Maybe even her year. To her, this was the romantic gesture.

  But I saw it for what it really was: a public masturbation of Justin’s own ego. He hadn’t done that for Roxanne. He hadn’t sacrificed anything to step up to that microphone; he knew before he walked into the place that she was desperate for him to be there.

  He hadn’t laid his heart on the line in any way.

  He’d just flexed what muscle he could, for a captive audience.

  I couldn’t believe that after all this time it had taken that punk to show me that real love was quiet and steady, not showy and loud and self-congratulatory.

  Though make no mistake, that showy, loud, self-congratulatory performance had done some heavy lifting as far as salvaging the night. Everything that went wrong, and there was a lot, was a source of giggles for Roxanne once Justin arrived. Ultimately, her review of us for the VTV cameras had been glowing, intoxicated by her infatuation.

  Worked for me.

  And, for now at least, it clearly worked for her.

  Chapter 24

  June 1993

  Apart from the fact that it was hers, Erin Edwards had found the baby shower to be really fun.

  She saw friends she hadn’t seen in ages, laughed at the old stories of their decadent pasts together as well as the foibles of being grown-ups now when no one really felt like one, and got presents. That was always fun, even though they weren’t for her, really, and most of the tiny shirts and outfits served more to make her feel like a big fat whale—at seven months pregnant—than a joyful Madonna figure.

  But that was probably normal, right? Get pregnant accidentally at twenty-two and you’re not necessarily going to be feeling all that naturally maternal and benevolent.

  There she was: twenty-three, a year out of college, still unsure of what she wanted to do with her life, faced with an uncertain future involving a small dependent being she’d never met and had no real sense of as a person. A small being that, up to and including now, felt more like a medical condition than someone she was going to bond with and love and know for the rest of her life.

  Also, she was unmarried. A fact her mother was not thrilled about. Erin had been raised better than this—it was unbecoming for someone like her to get knocked up. And stupid—she and Jake had split up already. She’d stopped taking the pill because it made her feel like crap and there was no point in continuing it. Once they’d split up, that didn’t seem to matter.

  Until that night, one bored night, when she had a lot of mescal and a little mistake with Jake, and the next thing she knew … six positive pregnancy sticks lined up along the sink.

  It was the easiest test she’d ever passed.

  There followed several months of vomiting, losing weight then gaining it, and telling a seemingly relieved Jake that she didn’t see the point in making one mistake into two by getting married.

  That was followed by more vomiting and two hospitalizations for dehydration from the vomiting.

  It was not the best time in Erin’s life.

  So when her friends Theresa and Jordan suggested a baby shower once she felt better, it really didn’t feel like much of a reason for a party. Also, it didn’t happen until she was seven months along and had gone from feeling half dead and constantly sick to feeling sick only some of the time and huge and awkward all of the time.

  But she was also broke, so the baby shower was genuinely helpful and she appreciated her friends coming together for her that way.

  “So you guys aren’t getting married?” her cousin Susannah asked after Erin opened a gift from her, a box of onesies for the baby and a filmy negligee for Erin, who couldn’t imagine ever fitting into it. Or wanting to.

  “No,” Erin said quickly. She’d been waiting for this question, and the judgmental raise of the eyebrow that accompanied it. “We’re just … going to coparent. It will be fine. Good. It will be good.” Their attraction had been short-lived, and had burned itself out fairly quickly. However, the basis of the attraction—their friendship—was solid. Had been, ever since Erin had met him when they were on a white-water rafting trip near Harpers Ferry. The good news was that, even if it weren’t for the baby, she and Jake would probably still be friends.

  Maybe not super-close friends, but at least stay-in-touch friends.

  “But aren’t you in love with him?” Susannah pressed, crinkling her nose and appearing to try and understand the hedonistic creature she was apparently related to. “You must have been at one point!”

 
; Susannah was from the more religious side of the family. It was bad enough that Erin had had sex before marriage, but they would never understand how she could have done it without being in love.

  It was just easier to say, “Yes, of course.”

  But for her part, Erin didn’t believe in being in love anymore. She’d given Jordan a long diatribe about that very thing, upon being questioned, but the upshot was that in love was—in Erin’s theory—a form of infatuation that was as highly unpredictable and flammable as stibine gas.

  Lives couldn’t be built on chemistry, they had to be built on logic: compatibility and similar goals.

  She and Jake had neither of those. And frankly they didn’t have even a little bit of the chemistry anymore either.

  “Whoa, let me help you carry those,” Jordan said, seeing Erin piling the shower gifts on top of each other in order to make fewer trips to the car at the end of the party.

  “Thanks.” Erin handed over a pack of diapers and Jordan took the pile of clothes Erin was wrestling with as well.

  They walked out side by side to Erin’s Camry and Jordan opened the back door of the car for her to put the gifts in.

  “So I’m leaving for school again tomorrow,” Jordan said, leaning against the passenger door of Erin’s car. The late afternoon light slanted down and cast them both in amber, but the mid-June breeze was unusually cold. “I won’t be back until it’s time for the baby to come.”

  The baby’s due date was two months away. Now it was Jordan’s school break. Their old friend Theresa had planned the shower now on purpose because she knew it would be important to Erin to have Jordan there. Theresa had never been as close to Erin and Jordan as they were to each other, but she’d been there through a lot nevertheless and she knew how important it was that Jordan be part of this.

  “I wish you didn’t have to go.” Erin sighed, then smiled, hoping to disguise just how badly she wished Jordan weren’t leaving. “Why couldn’t you just stop at a BA like everyone else?”

  “Just contrary, I guess.” Jordan laughed. She was going for her Ph.D. so she could be a counselor, so this school thing was going to go on for quite a while.

  Erin knew it was selfish and unrealistic to wish things could be more like they were in high school, when the two of them could gab all night on the phone, see each other all day in school, and then hang out afterward, but it didn’t stop her from missing those days sometimes. Things were so much easier then.

  But she knew things would never be like they used to be.

  Erin went to her and hugged her, holding on tight for a long time despite the belly bulge that kept them at a slight distance. “I’ll miss you so much!”

  “I’ll miss you too!”

  Erin let go reluctantly. “Call. Often.”

  “I will,” Jordan reassured. “But remember, you can call me anytime. Absolutely anytime. I can be here in a flash.”

  “Thanks.” Erin smiled, but she was suddenly overcome by emotion. She was tired, and lost, and didn’t want to be playing this role she’d found herself in. It felt like she was on the slow part of a roller coaster, climbing the tracks, and it was about to get fast and crazy and completely out of control.

  There was no stopping it.

  “Erin,” Jordan began, then bit her lower lip.

  “What?”

  There was a long moment before Jordan let out a pent-up breath and said, “I don’t want you to get mad at me for asking this, but it’s my job as your best friend to ask if you’re sure you don’t want to look into adoption before you commit completely to the idea of single motherhood.”

  Erin closed her eyes for a moment, wishing it could be so simple. “I did. I can’t do it. I would always wonder, every single time I saw a child about the same age.…” A lump formed in her throat.

  “But are you ready to change your life like this?”

  Erin didn’t necessarily want to give the true answer to that, because she hadn’t allowed herself to dive too deeply into it, but she did have the correct answer at the ready. “Yes, Jordan.” Her voice sounded confident, even to her own ears. “I’m ready. I’m sure.”

  Jordan smiled, and it almost completely disguised the doubt in her eyes. “Good.” She started to go, then turned back. “I’ll help however I can. You know that.”

  Erin raised an eyebrow. “Cool. So you’re moving in? Which diaper shift do you want?”

  “You think you’re joking.”

  “I am joking.”

  Jordan looked at her for a long moment. “Call me if you need me. I don’t care what time it is.”

  “I always need you, you know that. But thanks.”

  They said good-bye and Erin went back into her mother’s house, where the shower had taken place, to get the last of her things and help with any residual cleanup.

  “You just got a call,” her mother said from the kitchen after the storm door slammed shut.

  “Yeah?” Erin asked absently. God, she had to pee again. She never thought a catheter would seem like a luxury. “Who?”

  Her mother kept putting utensils in the dishwasher, the clanking sound so loud it almost obscured the answer. “Nate.”

  Erin froze.

  “I thought you’d left,” her mother went on, as if she were just relating the news that a telemarketer had called about her People magazine subscription. “So I told him I’d let you know he called.”

  Nate.

  Nate.

  Erin’s first thought was that something had to be terribly wrong for him to call her, but her second thought was that she couldn’t imagine what could possibly go so wrong that she was the only one who could help him with it.

  She took small tentative steps toward the kitchen. She had to have misheard. Misunderstood. Maybe she was dreaming it. Maybe she was dead.

  Did pregnancy cause hallucinations? Was it a sign of premature labor?

  Now was no time to think about the past. Especially that past. She wasn’t up to that.

  “Did he say what he wanted?”

  Her mother shook her head and met her eyes, her own betraying nothing. “I didn’t ask him that. Just told him I’d tell you he’d called.” She returned to the dishes. “We should have used paper plates.”

  Erin swallowed and ignored the paper plate complaint. “Did he leave his number?”

  “He’s at his parents’ house.”

  The number flashed in her mind like she was Rain Man or something. She was twenty-three now, not seventeen, and sometimes she forgot her extension number at work, but Nate’s number was safely tucked away in her brain with her Social Security number, bank account number, and GFEDCBA piano scales.

  This was it. He was back home. She knew it. After all those years away, and all but out of her head, he was back and he’d called her. He’d finally realized what they had and he’d come around to it now, of all times, when it was without question too late.

  She tried to find her voice. “I’m going to…” She cleared her throat. Her hands were shaking like she’d had too much caffeine, though, of course, she hadn’t had a coffee or Diet Coke in months. “I’m just going to run upstairs and … you know … call back and see what he wants.”

  Her mother nodded and returned to the dishes in the kitchen sink. She must have realized that Erin was freaking out; in fact, in all likelihood Erin didn’t seem nearly as composed on the outside as she thought she did, but her mother let it go without comment.

  Erin hurried up the stairs to her old room, hoping the burst of exertion would get rid of some of this nervous energy, and closed the door behind her. The latch of the lock gave a familiar click, and the bed squeaked as she sat down on the edge.

  She was sixteen again.

  And yet she was so, so far from being sixteen again. From being carefree, and flopping onto the bed to call Nate. Then it would have been What are we doing tonight? Or Are you on your way over? Hurry up! Or Meet me on the corner at midnight.

  There would be none of that today. />
  After a moment, she picked up the phone and dialed.

  He answered the same way he always had.

  Something deep inside of her moved in its sleep.

  “Nate,” she breathed. Her heart was pounding. This was just sad. “It’s Erin.”

  “Hey.”

  That voice! That voice! One word, and it was like fourteen thousand memories sprang to life.

  “Hey.” Her stomach was in her throat. Of course, it almost was. Literally.

  But she didn’t want to feel this.

  Not now, and not ever again.

  There was one small part of her that was still subject to this kind of broken heart, a part of her that was so distant it might have been close to subconscious, and she’d just tapped right into it.

  “So,” she said, the word too small, the feelings too big. “My mother said you called. What’s up? Are you back?”

  He’d been away at school for years. He’d gotten a bachelor’s and then a master’s. She knew that much from talking to his mother every now and then, but they had eventually lost touch too. She had no contact with Nate. She’d never told him she wanted him back. It was pride, maybe. Or the feeling that he should have known. The wish that he’d come after her.

  But he never did.

  It had been six years or so since she’d talked to him or seen him now. She’d grown up a mile from him, but before they’d met, and certainly since the last time he’d left, they might as well have lived on different planets, for all that their lives intersected.

  “Yes, I’m starting a new job in D.C.,” he said. He sounded a little nervous. Like he wasn’t sure how to act either. “Now I’m just looking for a place to live.”

  She’d thought about this day a lot once. “Well. Welcome home.” She twined the phone wire around her fingers and looked out the window. The leaves were rustling on the cherry tree outside one window and the magnolia scraped the other window when the wind shifted.

  She knew this wasn’t his usual call. Something in him had finally yielded, she could feel it.