by Anne Heltzel
“Sometimes I forget you’re a little older, I forget you’ve done things,” I started.
“None of it matters. It’s all new with you. It’s all a first with you.”
“You’re so melodramatic,” I told him, masking how I really felt: hopeful. I wanted him to mean it.
He pulled away and looked me in the eye. “Have you ever been here?” he asked, tapping his heart with one palm. “That’s kind of how it works.”
Charlie and I didn’t stay in that hotel. He said he got it all wrong, kept repeating that with a funny scowl on his face. “I’ve got it all wrong,” he kept saying. “I thought you’d like the books, the atmosphere . . .”
“I did! I do!” I kept insisting.
But he said, “No, no, I screwed it up. It’s not something you want. I should have seen that. We’re not staying.” He was upset with himself the whole way out of the hotel, until we ordered a rental car and climbed inside it with our bags and began to drive.
“What about the money?” I asked. The hotel must have been a few hundred dollars at least.
“Money doesn’t matter,” Charlie said. “You being happy matters.” Sometimes it was like Charlie read the manual on stuff boyfriends should say, or maybe wrote it. So we drove from Montreal all the way along the Saint Lawrence River until we reached Quebec City. Along the way we stopped in a park and lay in the grass and wrapped our coats around us until there was just a tent of coats and us and some geese squawking in the background. “A coat taco,” Charlie said. “We’re the filling.” And I laughed and thought about how perfect it all was, sans grandeur, because in this way I could be myself: I could bring a little of me into his world instead of leaving myself behind.
When we got to Quebec City, we stopped in a roadside dive and ate poutine until we felt sick, our fingers coated in cheese and gravy. Then we found a cute little place to stay, a mom-and-pop B&B that didn’t even ask us for ID, and we were so tired from the day that we curled up atop the mattress and fell asleep with all our clothes on, his arms wrapped around me.
The next day we got under the covers, and some of our clothes came off. We didn’t sleep together, but everything we did do was on my terms. “There’ve been a couple of times that I’m with you,” he whispered, “and it’s like, there’s no air in the room.” I smiled. That time, I didn’t tease him. Our heads were nearly touching on the pillow. He moved forward, closing up those last inches, and placed his lips on my forehead. I woke up happy that morning and stayed happy all through the rest of that perfect weekend. It was one of a handful of times we really got away, just the two of us, for an entire weekend. Each time it took all kinds of finagling on my part—lots of lying to my parents. Back then, I thought it was worth it.
So many mornings, I woke up happy that Charlie was in my life.
Then one morning, I stopped waking up happy.
I haven’t been in many long-term relationships—only two—but here’s what I think: For a while, you wake up happy. Then other things happen, small things—misunderstandings like the one in the hotel. And they accumulate, and one day you wake up with a weight on your chest, one that takes all day to shake. And that’s when you know: happiness with that person is only fleeting. That person, that thing—it feels for a while like it might be right, until you realize it isn’t, not quite.
I tell Adam to leave, even though it’s the last thing in the world that I want.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he wants to know. “I don’t like her, Aubrey.” He glances back through the warped glass windows of the café where Lena sits, her blond hair draped around her shoulders, concealing her face. The expression Adam gives me when he faces me again is protective. This whole time, Adam has made me feel cared about in small ways. It was something Charlie never did. It’s given me so much comfort as everything around me has started to fall apart.
“You don’t like her because she wasn’t afraid to call us out,” I remind him. “You don’t really know her. She’s my friend . . .” I trail off, my cheeks burning. It’s just so weird to talk about Charlie with Adam, after everything. It was true what we told Lena; we only saw each other that one time. I only cheated that one time. But all the letters, phone calls, flirty texts, over the next eight months . . . those counted for something. It was unconscionable. And yet, I cared about them both. I didn’t exactly let myself fall for Adam; I always felt like it happened despite everything, like I didn’t have a choice.
“So I guess people can tell,” he says, smiling a little, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I guess we have some sort of invisible yet obvious bond, huh?”
“It seems like it.” I reach out to him, burying my head in his chest and wrapping my arms around his back. I pull him to me in a tight hug.
“Aubrey.” He rests his chin on my head. “I’m just so sad for you.”
“I’m sad for both of us. Charlie, too. And Lena. We’re just a huge, sad mess.” I don’t have to say why I’m sad for both of us; he knows. We can’t be together, not yet, and not this way. Probably not ever. We never talked about it until last night.
“Last night can’t happen again,” he says, more like it’s a question.
“You know it can’t.”
“And you’re sure you want me to go?”
“I don’t even know how much longer we’ll be in Bombay, Adam. Knowing Lena, she’ll want to hop the next plane to Kerala. Track Charlie down there.”
“What do you want?” The question is simple. Too simple. His heart beats against his chest in a way that’s so normal I can’t stand it. A simple thing, a heartbeat, to make sense of the mess this summer has become. Two months ago, Charlie was still here. I’d never been to Asia at all. I didn’t know Lena. I only knew what I thought was the truth—my truth, Charlie’s truth—never mind all the dark layers beneath it.
“I don’t know what I want.” What I don’t tell him, but what I’m thinking, is how it’s not about wanting at all: I need to know what happened to Charlie, to determine whether my secret is safe. My stomach turns when I think about what Lena would do if she found out that Adam is the lesser of my evils. My palms are sweating, and I’m struggling to figure out the best way to answer Adam’s question. “I think I need to stick this out, figure out as much as I can about what was going on with Charlie. I can’t explain it. I can’t not chase this now that we’ve started.” Adam pulls back from me a little, tilting my chin up so I’m forced to look into his huge green eyes.
“I’m not going to see you again, am I?”
“I think you’ll do okay without me,” I tell him. What I don’t tell him is that he’s far better off this way.
“You were way too good for Charlie,” he says. His eyes pull down at the corners, and I look away to avoid tearing up again.
“You didn’t really know him.” It’s weak, unconvincing.
“Neither did you.” He hugs me again, drawing me into his chest, and all I want is to hit pause at this moment so I can stay in it forever. All year, I tried to put Adam out of my mind. I have him now, and we can’t be together. It seems so unfair. Underneath that there’s the same pulsing guilt I’ve felt since I met him. Miserable, relentless, unforgiving. So many times, I tried to choose. Then Charlie stripped me of the choice altogether.
The door to the café swings open and Adam and I break apart. Lena strides toward me, ignoring Adam.
“I paid.” Her voice is cold. “But you already knew that. Or at least expected it. Am I right?”
I reel, feeling as if I’ve been slapped. But how could she not be angry?
“Bye, Adam,” Lena says. “Be sure to send Aubrey that info. The guy with the houseboat. I’m sure you two will be talking anyway.” Adam’s eyes dart to me and I nod, urging him away with my eyes. His presence will only fuel her fire. And we’ve already said our goodbyes.
“I’ll email you,” he tells me. Then he shoves his hands in his pockets and walks back the way we came, disappearing into the throngs of people that line Mahat
ma Gandhi Road. Clouds of dust rise up behind him until a chai wallah’s cart obscures him altogether.
“You disgust me,” Lena says, her voice thick with venom. Her eyes are a monstrous black color, and I’m so shocked by the strength of her anger and what it looks like, her hair floating around her small frame like a false halo, that for a second I can’t speak.
“You dragged me out here—took advantage of me—just to sleep with some guy?” Her voice is accusing, unforgiving. “You act like you’re in this with me, like you really need this—journal or whatever—like you’re my friend. And really you just want a free ticket to see your new boyfriend. You’re as sick as Charlie.” She’s nearly yelling now and I’m backing away, and the few people who are leaving Trishna’s stare. We’re these two white girls, behaving in the worst possible, most American way.
“Aubrey,” Lena continues, “I want to kill you this instant.” I know by now that she’s melodramatic, but somehow this time I don’t doubt her.
“Lena, let’s—”
“Shut up.” Her voice slices through my words like a razor. “I just want to know one thing from you. Did he know?”
“Did who know?” I’m nervous. My palms are clamming up.
“Cut the bullshit, Aubrey. When did you tell Charlie you were cheating on him?”
Relief floods my entire body. She’s still only talking about that. For a second, I thought she meant something else. “It only happened once,” I say.
“When did he find out? Tell me, Aubrey. TELL ME.” There’s a crowd gathering now: a little boy leading a cow ten times his size, a well-dressed middle-class woman in a pink and orange patterned kurta, three men eating from the kinds of tin trays they have at roadside food stalls. I just want to get out of there as fast as possible.
“I tried to tell him a few times,” I say quietly. “It just never worked. He never wanted to listen. I finally told him three months ago. When he was visiting me at my parents’ place in Illinois.”
“Your parents met him.” Her voice is dull, flat.
“Of course. They never would have let me visit him those other times if they hadn’t.”
“What was the date?”
“Why?”
“You don’t have the right to ask questions right now. Just tell me the date.”
“I guess it would have been . . . May nineteenth. Yeah. That’s right, because he was in town that weekend for my high school graduation, and I told him the night before he left. He had to fly straight back to school to finish the year out.” Lena sucks in a breath, and her already pale skin turns an eerie shade of blue-white. “What? What is it? Lena. Tell me.”
“I don’t have to tell you anything,” she says, then whirls on one heel and heads back down the crowded, filth-strewn roads in the direction of the hotel. Once again, Lena’s in charge. It’s all I can do to keep her in my line of vision as she moves, weaving her way expertly among cows and goats and peddlers and beggars. I’m afraid, suddenly. I’m afraid because I’m wholly dependent on her. She’s my ticket home, my way through and away from this messy city.
Also, I realize for the first time: I’m in this. I’m so far in it that I honestly can’t envision returning to my other life, the safe and supported one back in Illinois, where everything was predictable and ordinary. Maybe meeting Charlie a year ago set this chain of events in motion, but Lena’s infused it with purpose.
I have this weird feeling, pain twisting in my stomach and squeezing my heart. Lena feels betrayed. Like I used her for a free ride.
Adam was on my mind when I suggested Bombay. But I would never have pushed her to go all the way out here—or taken advantage of her kindness—if Z hadn’t mentioned the journal. If I hadn’t seen it for myself in the photo. I never would have come just for Adam. I need her to know that.
I run after her, following her yellow shirt through the crowd, bolts of adrenaline and fear shooting through me. I can’t tell when Lena became important to me, but she has. I breathe a sigh of relief when I see her turning onto Colaba Causeway, still in the direction of our hotel. She’s so impulsive, she could have gone anywhere. I follow her up to the room and let myself in with my key before she can change keys or figure out a way to lock me out. She curls up on her queen-size bed and turns away from me toward the wall, humming softly to herself like she does sometimes when she’s not talking. I sit on the edge of my bed next to her. I want to hug her but I don’t feel it’s my right. Her legs are folded up behind her, and her curls spread out over the white bed cover, just faintly yellow against its silken embroidery. Sun streams in through the window, casting a beam over her. She looks ethereal in its light. In a few hours the sky will turn orange, yellow, pink, and purple with another breathtaking sunset. I know, because that’s how it was last night; and nothing seems to happen in India without Technicolor.
“Talk to me.” My voice is unabashedly pleading. “Please. Lena, I’m sorry. I didn’t come out here for Adam. But I should have told you anyway.”
“You should have,” she agrees. Then she’s silent.
“I’m sorry,” I say again. “I truly am. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was just . . . afraid to trust you. I didn’t know you yet. But now I see how wrong I was.”
She doesn’t tell me off. She doesn’t move. I sit there for an hour before I give up and turn on the TV, flipping on a Bollywood dance channel because I hope it’ll pique her interest. She barely shifts position. She’s so quiet and so still that she could be sleeping, but I can tell by the sound of her breathing that she’s not.
Two hours later I order room service. The waiter brings up butter chicken and palak paneer for me and shrimp korma for Lena, along with two portions of cheese naan; and still she doesn’t move. She hasn’t eaten all day. I wonder what she’s thinking about. I feel like a sentry, standing guard. I feel like I’m too obsessed. But this is my new reality. My hands are clammy, I’m anxious, I’m wildly afraid she’ll leave. I’m acutely aware of the strength of my feelings for her. We’re like that for the whole rest of the night: Me watching, waiting. Lena thinking, rejecting.
12
Lena
I tell people that I met Charlie at a summer enrichment program in London. Which is mostly true. But Charlie wasn’t in the Talent Identification program sponsored by Duke, the one masquerading as a résumé booster that was, for me, just an excuse to jet-set like I always have every summer, thus getting me out of my parents’ hair and freeing them up to go wherever they want: a safari in Botswana, a treehouse village in Provence, et cetera. I love that my parents are in love and want alone time. I do.
What people don’t know about having parents who are madly in love is that it makes it harder to fall in love yourself—the bar’s set way too high. I was never expecting to fall in love with Charlie. I never expected to fall in love with anyone the way my parents are in love. Their love is like the fucking white whale. No one else has it. No one in our world, anyway. But there it was, the night I met Charlie. Maybe we Whitneys are blessed, maybe we’re cursed. No one knows for certain, but it sure feels like a curse right now.
What people also don’t know is that Charlie, though a frequent patron of many other summer enrichment programs, was just kind of bumming around London that summer. I met him while I was in the program, but he was selling a bunch of old vinyls online. That’s why I don’t mention it a lot—because Charlie and I technically met online. And that’s still vaguely embarrassing if you’re under the age of twenty-three. He posted the vinyls on Craigslist and put a link to the ad (labeled “Moving Sale”) on the campus online message boards, and I answered it, and that was that.
Well, not exactly.
I showed up at Charlie’s place around eight thirty on a Sunday night. I had classes the next day at seven a.m. and had just moved all my stuff into my summer dorm room with this girl, a violinist named Alice Choi, who barely looked up from her book when I came in. It was going to be a super fun summer.
I got to Charlie’s
and knocked on the door and it immediately opened because two shirtless dudes wearing black jeans and carrying a bookshelf walked out. They let the door slam shut behind them before I could grab it, so I had to knock again. This time a girl—tall and blond and big-boned—answered.
“I’m here for the records,” I told her. My hair was red then and my fingernails were gray and chipped.
“Charlie’s back there.” The girl motioned with her head down a long hallway, so I walked past a bathroom and a tiny bedroom with exposed brick walls, barely big enough to fit a twin bed in it. It was more like a glorified closet. I remember thinking how I’d never live there, not in a million years and (I thought later) not for a million Charlies. That’s where Charlie and I differed. He was adaptive; I had standards. He had access to money but could take it or leave it. Not me, no way.
I saw Charlie a second later. He was standing in a little room that served as both a kitchen and a living room, talking to some old guys about a lamp. “I mean, I liked the look of it,” he said. “I’m not really familiar with antiques, so I don’t know if it’s worth anything.” His eyes flickered over to me.
“I’m Lena,” I said. “I emailed you about the vinyls.”
“Right.”
It sounds stupid, so I never bothered telling anybody this, but in that one little flicker of the eyes was everything: our whole relationship, an infinite path I just had to let myself step onto. I could see everything laid out in front of me, mostly in shades of blue and ivory. Which is strange to think about now, because those are calming colors, and nothing about us was ever placid. I could envision our first kiss and all the things that would go along with it. It was certain—I didn’t have to do anything. And I wanted to step onto that path. But I also wanted to make him work for it. I grabbed the carton of vinyls, which was super heavy, and tried not to strain too much under its weight. My red hair was pulled back in a messy bun and I was wearing this big baggy dress I’d found in a designer consignment shop, something supposedly fashionable that was probably more akin to an old lady’s discarded muumuu. I knew how I looked (crappy) and I knew I didn’t care and he didn’t care and it didn’t matter. It was all there in that one look: the inevitability of it.