by Unknown
“Oh, Courtney,” she said. She looked away. “I couldn’t.”
“I don’t understand.” Because I didn’t.
“Life in Philadelphia was so small,” she said in a rush. She frowned, as if remembering. “I was boxed in. There were so many expectations and assumptions and I felt like I had to do my own thing. I had to be true to myself, and if that hurt you, all I can do is say that I’m sorry you took it personally.”
It wasn’t the same as actually apologizing, I couldn’t help but notice.
She smiled then, announced her break was up but we would talk more later, and leaned over to give me a somewhat misty kiss on the cheek before heading across to the bar.
I watched her transmit her charm with every step: that saucy smile and the twitch of her hips. Men and women alike vied for her attention, and not only because they wanted drinks. She drew every eye in the place. Because she was so cute, yes. But also because she radiated something like heat. Everyone wanted to be close to it.
I didn’t know how to process what she’d told me. Beneath all the self-help-y talk about finding herself and being true to herself, it seemed to me that the bottom line was, she hadn’t thought enough of me to stay in touch with me. Whatever had boxed her in, I’d been a part of it. Enough so that she’d completely cut herself off from me.
There had been a time when I’d shared everything with Raine. I’d valued her opinion above all others. I might not understand exactly what she got out of photographing parts of her body I, for one, preferred to keep private, but it was hard to ignore everything that had gone before.
She thought my life was tiny, constrained. She hadn’t said so directly, but it had been implied. After all, the life she’d felt she had to escape had been the one with me in it.
And what if she was right?
Chapter Nine
But I had to shake that off, immediately. I was being ridiculous.
Raine hadn’t said that—and even if she had, she was talking about six years ago. When I’d been all of twenty-two. She wasn’t talking about the present—because she didn’t know anything about it. She hadn’t even met Lucas yet. She had no idea what my life was like now—big, small, or anything in between.
Which was what reminded me that whatever my life was, it was very likely to be over—given the fact that I was sitting, staring off into space at a table while who knew what was happening beneath the macaroni god.
I got up and tripped over no less than five hippies in my haste to get to Lucas.
Who, when I arrived at his side, only smiled at me as if he spent all of his time hanging out with my ex and they were old buddies.
“Feeling better?” he asked, wrapping his arm around my shoulders and giving me a squeeze.
“I’m fine,” I said. There seemed to be very little reason to panic, if I were to judge the situation by his body language.
I looked from Lucas to Matt, who was watching the two of us closely. The whole thing felt hideously uncomfortable to me, but neither of them seemed to be the least bit bothered.
“You always did have that tricky stomach,” Matt drawled in a tone I might have considered affectionate if I hadn’t been looking at him. He looked at Lucas. “There was this one time when she was supposed to try out for some really fancy cello tutor, and she lost it all over the kitchen floor at her Mom’s place.”
“Oh, no,” Lucas said, laughing, for which I would have to kill him later. “That’s terrible!”
I tried to understand how this was happening. What had I done, in a karmic sense, that had made this moment inevitable, possibly before I had even been born? Who had I wronged? How could I be standing quietly by while my ex-boyfriend regaled my fiancé with tales of me puking up my guts on the kitchen floor?
“That’s nothing,” Matt was saying. Because, apparently, he wasn’t finished. “She had to audition for the conservatory in Baltimore, too, and let me tell you—”
“Enough,” I interrupted. Because my standing there staring at him in horror wasn’t working. “You’re making my life sound like an episode of Jackass, and by the way? This topic of conversation is disgusting.”
“I think I’m glad I met you after that whole phase ended,” Lucas said. It was clear the phase he was referring to encompassed Matt.
“But has it ended?” Matt asked in his laziest voice. “What about tonight?” His implication was also clear.
“Maybe it’s not a tricky stomach after all,” I suggested, baring my teeth at him in a very broad interpretation of a smile. “Maybe it’s just you.”
“Who needs a drink?” Lucas asked then, as if unaware that there was tension between Matt and me. Or, possibly, he was negotiating the peace.
“This round’s on me,” Matt said at once. When Lucas started to counter, he just held up a hand. “I insist. You two are guests in my city.”
“Thanks,” Lucas said cheerfully.
I sensed there was some complicated male oneupmanship going on with that, but I was happy to let it fly under my radar, especially since Lucas didn’t seem to mind. I watched Matt move through the crowd toward the bar, and then duck behind it to help himself.
“Are you okay?” Lucas asked, pulling me closer. “Matt told me that was your sister you were talking to over there.”
“I don’t actually know if I’m okay,” I confessed. “I don’t really know where to start.” I looked at him, and pretended to think for a moment. Then pretended to remember. “Oh, yes: Raine has taken photographs of her genitals and displayed them on that wall over there. Be very careful if you use the bathroom, or you might end up with an eyeful. That’s all I’m saying.”
Pure delight bloomed across Lucas’s face.
“I don’t know if I want to run over there and look right now, or run out the door,” he told me, putting a hand over his heart as if overstimulated. “That’s simultaneously the best and worst thing you’ve ever told me.”
“I can’t speak of it, ever again.”
“I understand you completely.” He gazed across the room in the direction of the photographs. “I thought the dude with the ukulele was going to be the headline story from this place. I had a whole impression planned. But this?” He sighed blissfully. “This blows a paltry ukulele and hippie dance right out of the water.”
“I’m sorry I left you with Matt for so long.” I tilted my head up to search his face. “Was it awful?”
“Did you expect it to be?” he asked, his tone mild but his expression quizzical.
“I don’t know. Yes.” I sighed. “He always seems to push my buttons.”
“I noticed.” He shifted his weight. “You’re kind of twitchy.”
“He’s just . . . ” I looked over toward the bar, where Matt was engaged in an obviously flirtatious conversation with a pretty brunette. He treated her to that slow, sexy smile of his. She responded the way all the girls responded, by practically drooling on the bar. I looked back at Lucas. “I was kind of worried that he wouldn’t be particularly nice to you.”
Lucas let out a bark of laughter.
“What?” I was confused.
“That’s not how guys work,” he told me with another laugh. “It’s not like that movie you keep trying to convince me to watch.”
“Mean Girls?”
“Exactly.” He was still smiling. “He’s kind of what I expected.”
“I’m not sure I want to know what you expected,” I muttered.
“I do,” Matt said, appearing at my elbow, sans drooling girl. He was bearing drinks and looked delighted to discover he was the topic of conversation. He grinned at Lucas as he handed him a beer. “What were you expecting?”
“You’ve got the whole bad boy thing working for you,” Lucas said, grinning right back and leaning lazily against the wall. He waved his beer in Matt’s direction, summing him up. “All brooding and tortured and tattooed. Apparently girls go wild for that shit. And why not? You seem like a nice enough guy.” He raised the beer in a toast and took a
pull.
I wondered if Lucas knew how much Matt would hate to be described that way. A glance at the amused expression on his face assured me he did. Matt had always presented himself as someone who simply was—and therefore couldn’t possibly be deliberately working the whole bad boy thing. Not to mention, the Matt I had known would have died rather than be known as something so insipid as nice.
Nicely played on Lucas’s part.
“Glad I lived up to expectations,” Matt said in a tone of voice I interpreted as pissed. He smirked a little bit as he handed me a large, fruity-looking pink drink.
“What is this?” I asked. Although I knew perfectly well what it was, being female and alive and thus having watched no less than five complete seasons of Sex and the City.
“Your favorite drink,” Matt told me, still smirking.
“Apparently,” I narrated for Lucas, “in addition to being a bad boy who’s good with the ladies, Matt is stuck in a time warp.”
“All I know is, you and that freaky best friend of yours demanded Cosmopolitans.” Matt shrugged at Lucas. “Nightly.”
I loved how he did that—made it sound as if I spent all of my nights with him. Exactly what any fiancé yearned to hear.
“Verena—who is not freaky—had a very serious Sex and the City obsession,” I confided to Lucas. “The only thing that could break it was total immersion in Veronica Mars, and time.”
“You must mean a long time. Like six years,” Matt replied at once, crooking his eyebrow at me. “Because it was really more of an addiction than an obsession.”
Except it didn’t sound like he was talking about Verena.
“Something like that,” I agreed. I raised my eyebrows right back at him. “Either way, it’s gone now.”
We shared a look that didn’t quite tip over into a smirk, but skirted the edges, and then Lucas put his beer down on the shelf behind me and announced he was going to the bathroom.
“And maybe I’ll check out the art,” he said.
“It is definitely unmissable,” I said, shooting for a dry tone that was neither insulting nor encouraging, in case Matt’s support of Raine included approval of those photographs.
Matt watched the interplay between us and then, as Lucas headed across the bar, watched me. I flicked a look at him, but was more interested in Lucas’s progress across the room.
First Lucas had to dodge the five angry hippies I’d tripped over earlier, who had by now gathered together into some kind of healing circle involving knitting and, in one case, a unicycle. Then he stopped for a moment to fully appreciate the ukulele. I watched him stifle laughter, and then turn toward the back of the room and the bathrooms.
“He’s not what I expected,” Matt said after a long pause. I saw that he, too, had turned to watch Lucas make his way across the room. “I guess when you said you were engaged I pictured someone . . . ” He shook his head. “Different.”
“Different, how?” I asked, as he no doubt intended. I immediately wished I hadn’t, as I imagined that qualified as another door best left shut.
“He’s just not what I expected,” Matt repeated. This was clearly supposed to render me insecure and anxious.
I sipped at my drink, which was so sweet I thought the enamel on my teeth might dissolve in protest. I set it down on the shelf next to Lucas’s beer and helped myself to the beer instead. I looked back at Matt.
“I find it hard to believe you had any expectations one way or the other,” I said, emboldened by the pure absurdity of the situation.
Matt held my gaze for a long moment.
“I don’t think I get why you’re so angry,” he said.
“You don’t?” I was flabbergasted. “Are you kidding?”
I wanted to scream at him. I could feel the urge thrum in the soles of my feet and through my blood. But we weren’t alone. Raine was here, and as far as I knew, she didn’t know that there had ever been anything between us besides my endless adolescent crush. Lucas was here, too, and I didn’t want him to see me lose my cool with Matt.
“It doesn’t matter,” I said when I was sure I could speak without giving in to the urge to yell. I was proud of how even my voice was, how calm I sounded. Verging on the dismissive. “It was all a long time ago.”
I didn’t look at him. Instead, I looked across the bar to where Lucas was. And saw that Raine had intercepted him and was giving him a guided tour of her photographs.
Inappropriate hardly seemed to cover it.
“I have to go,” I muttered in Matt’s direction.
“I’m sure he’s fine.” Now it was his turn to sound dismissive. “Raine doesn’t bite.”
“I kind of wanted to introduce him to Raine myself.” I chose my next words carefully. “I’m not sure her pictures are the best way to start off their relationship.”
Matt’s green eyes lit with glee.
“It’s kind of like diving in the deep end,” he agreed. “Sink or swim.”
“It is.”
I didn’t like the way he watched me then, or how unsettled I felt.
“He seems nice,” Matt said eventually. Softly, but distinctly. And I knew he meant it exactly the same way Lucas had.
I ignored him, and then tried to shove him out of my mind as I hurried across the room.
“. . . which, obviously, completely flies in the face of feminist thought,” Raine was saying when I walked up to them.
“Obviously,” Lucas agreed very soberly, as Raine carried on talking. He shot me a bland look over the top of her head, and I struggled to keep a straight face.
Raine had her arm linked through Lucas’s, and was gesturing emphatically. She stopped talking when she saw me and broke into a huge grin.
“Courtney!” she cried. “Your fiancé is wonderful!”
“Thanks,” I said. Lucas nodded slightly when I looked at him, and kept smiling his high-wattage smile at my sister, who seemed to bloom in response.
And then, oddly enough, I thought of Norah, and the warning she’d leveled at me right before we’d left. She likes to top herself, she’d said. You’re a fool if you let Lucas anywhere near her.
It was as if Norah could see all the way across the country from the middle of her Philadelphia night and see that I was still reacting to Matt Cheney. And I felt exactly as guilty as if she had done so. Which didn’t make any sense, since it had been Verena who had been so worried about Matt . . .
“What’s wrong?” Raine asked.
I snapped out of my head. Neither Norah nor Verena were here, I reminded myself. They had been talking about phantoms. Ghosts. I was the one who was standing in front of the real Raine, with the real Matt across the room surrounded by his usual selection of devoted groupies. They were both exactly who I thought they would be, in a place that suited them. It didn’t matter that I thought the place was nutty. What mattered was that they loved it.
“Nothing’s wrong,” I assured Raine. I felt benevolent, and also proud of myself for coming all this way to build bridges. “It’s just really good to see you, and Matt. It’s good to see you’re okay.”
Raine searched my face for a moment.
“Of course we’re okay,” she said. “Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this,” Raine said then, giggling and leaning toward Lucas. “But Courtney used to have the biggest crush on Matt. The poor thing would turn bright red every time he entered a room.”
Lucas shot a scandalized sort of look my way. Which he was faking. He was enjoying himself.
“I am shocked,” he lied. “Courtney, you never told me this.”
“Oh, shut up,” I said, whether to him or Raine I wasn’t sure. “This is the most humiliating night of my life. First Matt decides to give Lucas a little tour through some of my ‘tricky stomach’ moments—”
“Ouch,” Raine said, but she was laughing. Because it was hilarious, as long as you weren’t me.
“—and now this. Turning red in front of Matt when I was like thirteen. Thanks for that, Raine. Really.”
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“It was more like eighteen, maybe even twenty,” Raine told Lucas. She sobered when I glared at her. “What? It’s my job as your big sister to publicly embarrass you.”
I couldn’t deny the warm feeling that produced inside. She was, after all was said and done, six years or no six years, still my big sister. It wasn’t the same as her saying that she’d missed me, but that was how I took it.
“I guess you’re right.” I suspected that the smile I aimed at her was goofy, but I didn’t care. “I would never want to keep you from doing your job.”
She smiled back at me, and then winced.
“Speaking of which, I should get back behind the bar if I want to keep my other one.” She waved a hand in the air as she turned to go. “Come get drinks! Hang out, make friends!”
Lucas and I stood and watched her go for a moment, then turned to look at each other. The carnival atmosphere of Space swelled all around us. Two skinny white guys with dreads were engaged in some kind of tribal dance in front of the bathrooms. Or maybe that was a Hacky Sack they were kicking about.
“So,” I said, turning to Lucas. “You finally met Raine.”
“She’s something,” he said. He reached over and put his hands on my shoulders, his thumbs brushing against my collarbone. “Is everything still okay? Because we can go any time you start to feel weird.”
“I feel okay.” I shook my head. “I mean, I feel better than okay—I think this is good. I’m glad we came.”
“And just think,” Lucas said. “None of this could have happened in a better environment. We have a ukulele, and weeping poets. We have a lot of patchouli. And best of all,” he said solemnly, holding my shoulders in his big hands and then turning me ever-so-slowly so I could face the wall of photographs before me, “I got to meet not only your sister, but her va—”
“Do not say that word,” I ordered him.
“It’s important to name, Courtney. We’re naming and displaying here.”