Loving My Best Friend

by Reid, Roxy

  The man runs his finger around the rim of the shot glass. “You know, it was the best friendship I ever had until he got offered tenure.”

  Ah. Apparently, my friend is one of the infamous academic conference attendees. He hesitates like he’s on the verge of saying more. I could tell him I really just want to sit in silence. I thought that was what I wanted, but it’s kind of nice to get out of my head and focus on someone else’s problems for a bit.

  So I prod him. “Professional jealousy come between you?”

  “No. South Dakota.” He sighs heavily. “He got offered a position in Montana. I’m on track for one in Minnesota. Hardly any place offers a classics program anymore, let alone one with tenure track.”

  “Ah.”

  “We’re both incredibly lucky,” he says miserably.

  “Yeah, you sound happy,” I say, and he gives a bark of laughter.

  “I’m normally not like this,” he says apologetically. “Stiff upper lip and all that. But the conference we were at just ended. I just dropped him off at the airport.”

  “Mmm,” I say noncommittally.

  “He doesn’t want to do long-distance anymore,” he says, his voice cracking as the bartender sets a platter of calamari down in front of us.

  “So. More than just a best friend then,” I say.

  The Minnesotan nods glumly as he munches on the calamari. “So, how’d you … er … fudge things up?”

  I bite back a smile at his reluctance to swear. It’s an oddly endearing trait for a man currently getting shitfaced in a bar. I think about the answer to his question, and my urge to smile fades.

  “She’s pregnant,” I say, at last. “I didn’t respond well. Now, she wants nothing to do with me as a friend or as, well, anything else.”

  “Ouch,” he says.

  When the waiter comes by, I order another round, and then I give in and tell him to leave the bottle.

  We talk about other things. His conference. My business trip. I leave out the fact that my business trip is because I own the hotel he’s staying at. I’m sure he leaves out any number of things, too.

  One thing is clear, and only gets clearer the longer we talk—and the longer we drink. This man is thoroughly in love.

  Fuck it, one of us should be happy.

  “What’s stopping you from moving out to be with him?” I ask. “Or him to you?”

  “Honestly, student loans. There are no college jobs for the classics in his town. There is a high school that offered me a part-time job. It would be a step down, but I actually really liked the kids when I visited, and I’d like the opportunity to work in a smaller setting. Plus, no constant pressure to publish. I haven’t said no yet, but I don’t see how I can say yes, either.” He slops some more ouzo into his glass. “That’s why Thomson left me. He thinks if I don’t take this job, I’m not actually serious about finding a way to get closer to him. But I owe so much.”

  I bend over for my briefcase. Normally, I don’t walk around with a checkbook, but I always bring one on business trips. Mostly because my dad does it, and he does it mostly because my grandpa did it.

  “How do I spell your name?” I ask.

  “Cameron Robbins. C-A-M-E-R-O-N R-O-B-B-I-N-S.” He spells it out without looking up from his calamari.

  “And how much is your debt?”

  “Eighty-four thousand, but that’s just grad school. Once you add undergrad …” Cameron trails off as he looks over at me. “What are you doing?”

  “I was going to pay for my wedding this year, but that’s probably not going to happen. I think you can make better use of this.” I pass him a check for a hundred grand.

  Cameron holds it and sputters. “What? How? You can’t. Surely, you can’t afford … even if you can, you shouldn’t. I’m sure it will work out with your Eva, and then you’ll need it to get married. Also, you’re drunk. I can’t take advantage of you.”

  “It’s fine,” I say, smiling gently. “I won’t miss that money, but you already miss Thomson. Don’t miss him for good if you can help it.”

  “Who are you?” he asks, and then his eyes fall on the name on the check. “Jack McBride. Why is that name familiar? Oh. Oh.” Then, in hushed, reverent tones, “Oh my God. This is real. This is real. I’m moving to Montana.”

  I pat him on the back, then pay my tab. “Just keep it quiet, would you? Don’t tell anyone about Eva and me.”

  I slide off the stool, preparing to leave, and whoops, I may be a little drunker than I thought because the floor rushes at me a little as I stand. I place a hand on the bar for stability.

  “Why me?” Cameron says.

  I shrug, trying to concentrate on not falling flat on my face. “Because you bought me a drink on one of the worst nights of my life. Because I can. Because you didn’t fuck it up. The person you love wants you, and you’re being kept from them by something beyond your control. Or maybe just because you want to be there for the normal stuff. The day-to-day relationship stuff. I’ve been told that’s more important than the grand gestures.” I look away. “Apparently, I suck at all that normal stuff, but that doesn’t mean I can’t give you a boost so you can keep being great at it.”

  I turn to go.

  “What are you going to do about your Eva?” he asks. “Are you going to try to repair the friendship? Or win her back?”

  I hesitate. Then turn back and shrug. “I don’t know. She said she wanted me to leave.”

  “Sometimes, they only want you to leave if you won’t move to Montana,” Cameron says helpfully. “Maybe you just have to figure out what her version of moving to Montana is.”

  Yeah, no. Eva was brutally firm when she said she didn’t want me, but his optimism is sweet. I hope he and Thomson make it.

  “Maybe. Efcharistó,” I say and wave goodbye.

  “Efcharistó,” he says, staring down at the check in his hands.

  At least I did something right tonight.

  23

  Eva

  You know what? SO WHAT if Jack never figures out it was me kissing him. What I want in life is not determined by SOME BOY. I have DREAMS, DAMMIT.

  —Eva Price, journal, senior year of college

  I give myself forty-eight hours alone in Jack’s apartment to wallow in heartbreak and takeout. Then a sort of calm descends. I’m not happy. It’s hard to believe I’ll ever be happy again. But I can move again.

  When the pizza delivery guy says, “Have a nice night,” I can say, “Thanks, you, too,” without crying. So, I figure it’s time for me to start planning. Even if it’s not, Jack comes home tonight. I need to be able to give him a roadmap for how we move forward. If I don’t, he’ll start asking me to give him a chance again, and I don’t know if I’m strong enough to turn him down twice.

  So, I make myself a mug of herbal tea. I sit down on the floor with a notebook in the middle of Jack’s big, spacious apartment, and then I write down everything I want.

  The first thing that comes to mind is Jack, but I can’t have that anymore, so instead, I write love. Then friendship. Then to be a good mom for my kid. Then a career helping people build something. Then my own home.

  Each wish gets its own page in the notebook. Under each wish, I write ideas about how I can achieve it. When I complete a page, I tear it out of the notebook, letting it fall to the ground next to me. I write, and pace, and dream, and write some more. I lose track of time. By the time Jack opens the door, I’m standing in the fading daylight with papers and plans scattered all around me and a dazed look on my face.

  He flicks on the light, and suddenly there’s harsh, industrial-inspired lighting all over my hopes and dreams.

  Jack looks from me to the papers on the floor.

  He’s seen me do this twice before. Once, right before I moved to California when I brainstormed all the things I was going to do to make sure I’d get back to New York for college, and once, when I got fired and ended up deciding to start my own company, Price Consulting, instead.

&nb
sp; Jack clenches the handle on his suitcase. He’s gone too long without a shave, and there are bags under his eyes.

  “So,” he says. “You’ve moved on to the planning stage.”

  I nod, praying he won’t argue with me. Praying he will.

  He lets the door close behind him and walks over until he can bend down and pick one of my papers up. Then another. And another. He reads each of my plans. Smiles at the ones about our kid. Nods at the ones about my career. Then he sees the first two papers—love and friendship.

  “I’m not on either of these,” he says.

  I don’t say anything to that. After days of crying about him, what else is there to say?

  Jack hands me back the one that says love. “I know I can’t be on this one.”

  My throat is tight as I nod.

  He holds up the one that says friendship. “But I’d like to repair this one if I can. We’ve been through too much to give up on it, right?”

  “Jack,” I say hesitantly.

  “It’ll be better for our kid, right? If we’re friends.”

  Now my throat is really tight.

  Jack falters and lowers the paper. “I understand if that’s not an option anymore. But if it is, well, we’re going to be parents, Evvie. I think all of this,” —he holds up the papers with my plans written on them— “works better if we’re there for each other. If you think you can trust me to be there for you and our kid. You know I’m good in a crisis,” he finishes, but he says it almost like a joke. Like I’ve made him doubt how valuable it was each time he put his own life on hold because I needed him to help me put mine back together again.

  I don’t want him to doubt what he’s been to me, but I don’t want him to think that we can keep doing what we’ve always done and that we’ll be enough. Like he said, we’re parents now. It has to be different.

  I go to Jack, and I hug him. The papers get crushed between us. He lowers his head to my shoulder, but other than that, he just stands there motionless and lets me hold him.

  “Jack, you’ve been so important to me,” I say. “Always. Even when we were fighting. But we can’t keep doing what we’ve always done. No more games. No more secrets. No more pretending if we play our cards, right maybe we end up together. We need to be mature about this.”

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “I don’t think we can make a friendship between us work if either of us is looking at it as a consolation prize,” I say.

  That’s when he raises his head and steps back so he can look me up and down. “Evvie. Friendship with you has never, ever been a consolation prize. Do you understand that?”

  I nod, blinking back tears.

  He studies me, and then he holds out his hand. “Friends?”

  “Friends.” I take his hand, and we shake on it. Then I laugh a little in relief.

  Jack holds up my papers. “Now that we’ve settled that, are you open to some feedback? Because I know some people it might be worth networking with if this is the direction you’re thinking for your career. I’ve been thinking about the baby stuff, too. We could order pizza—”

  “Not pizza,” I blurt.

  He raises an eyebrow.

  “I may have scared the delivery man from our normal place. The last few days have been …” I trail off, not sure what to say.

  Here’s the thing about breaking up with your best friend. It turns out, you don’t have to explain yourself.

  Jack doesn’t ask any questions. Instead, he just nods and says, “I know what you mean. I don’t think I’m going to be allowed to fly British Airways for a while.”

  * * *

  I move into Jack’s guest bedroom and spend the next few weeks working my ass off. I go back to work at Rose Hotels, although I keep my head down and stick to working directly with the marketing team. Makeda will be at work next week, and then I’ll officially be done working for Jack.

  Thank God.

  In light of the pregnancy, Jack and I have decided to move up our wedding date to next month. I can’t deal with lying to my family and his during the ceremony itself, so we’re just going to elope.

  The plan is to keep living together platonically for a year of marriage, which means Jack will be on hand for my pregnancy and the first few months of the baby’s life. After that, I’ll move out, and we’ll figure out a joint custody agreement.

  I keep telling myself this is totally fine. This is what I want. Most days, I even believe it.

  Since we didn’t want either of our families to find out about the pregnancy from a paparazzi shot in a few months, we already called and told them. We also blamed the pregnancy for our plan to move the wedding up and elope, since we couldn’t exactly tell them about our secret break-up.

  Of course, this led to Jack’s mom wanting to throw me a baby shower. Jack and I agreed, as long as they kept it to just his immediate family, plus Tracy.

  Which is how I end up standing next to Jack on the steps of Jack’s parents’ mansion. It’s a sunny Saturday morning, and I’m trying to muster up the will to knock on the door.

  The whole thing feels like such a farce. It was hard enough the last time I was here to let his mom give me a giant hug and welcome me into the family, and that was before Greece. Before Jack told me he loved me. Before I said I loved him. Before the pregnancy showed me that it didn’t matter how much we loved each other because fate had other plans, and I couldn’t sit around and wait for my heart to be broken again.

  I stare at the heavy, brass door knocker. “If they make me play stupid baby-shower games, I’m out.”

  “They promised me. No stupid baby-shower games,” Jack says, but he doesn’t sound convinced.

  I’m telling myself to just knock dammit when the door flies open, Mel takes one look at Jack and me. She winces. “I’m guessing now isn’t a good time to tell you Mom broke her promise about the baby-shower games?”

  I force my face into a chipper smile. “What are you talking about? I love baby-shower games.”

  I go inside so I can spend the next two hours lying to my baby’s future grandparents.

  * * *

  The baby shower-game turns out not to be that bad. It’s just a cork board covered with pictures of Jack and me throughout the years. We’re supposed to guess how old we are in each photo. Winner gets two boxes of macaroons flown in from France and a gift certificate for a massage at a local spa.

  Say what you will about billionaires, at least they give good gifts. Or maybe that’s just the McBrides.

  I eat another bite of the delicious lemon cake and wander over to examine the photos and write down my guesses. Macaroons and a massage would be really, really nice right about now. Plus, it’s a way to avoid looking at how happy Jack’s parents are for us.

  My eyes flick over photos of us playing Legos at Jack’s apartment. Checkers at mine. There is one of us in Central Park, about age eleven, trying to teach ourselves how to do cartwheels and failing miserably. There are photos of us on field trips as kids. There are group photos of us as teens going to various homecoming dances. There’s a photo from a road trip we took in college. Another of us on the day we graduated from Columbia.

  I’ve seen almost all of them before, but seeing them together like this, I realize how this all came to be.

  Of course I fell in love with Jack. He’s been in my life as long as I can remember, and he’s so him. Gorgeous and smart. There in a crisis. Generous to a fault. Too stubborn and carelessly romantic for his own good.

  Then my eyes fall on the one photo I haven’t seen before. It’s Jack and me, dancing at his cousin’s wedding, taken early in the night before we started playing mind games. Back when we were just having fun, dancing with each other. The photo captures a moment right after he spun me and pulled me back into him with a little too much force. I’ve caught myself against his chest for balance, and my head is thrown back, laughing. My skirt swirls around us both.

  I run my finger along the edge of the photo. I look so ha
ppy in that picture. He’s looking down at me like, well, like in a few weeks, he’s going to kiss me under an orange tree and tell me he loved me. He’s been in love with me since he was sixteen.

  Suddenly, I know.

  I can’t live with him. I’ve been trying to be mature, but there’s not enough maturity in the world for this. I can’t live with Jack, know there was a time he looked at me like that, and still expect to get over him because he’s still going to be him, and I’m still going to be me, and we’re still going to be trapped in this loop we’ve been in since childhood.

  Tracy walks up next to me and points to the photo I’m staring at. “Hmm. I guess you’re forty-two in that one.”

  “Ha, ha, very funny,” I say.

  She looks closer at the photo, and then she glances back at Jack, who’s being dragged off into the kitchen by Mel and his parents.

  Tracy looks back at the photo. She lowers her voice. “You know, in this photo, he really looks like he’s …”

  “I know,” I say quietly.

  “And now you’re pregnant? I know you were trying not to fall for him, but I’ve been watching you two today, and I know I’m a cynic who doesn’t believe in shit like fate, but I kind of think if you tell him you want a real relationship, he might—”

  “I did tell him,” I cut Tracy off. I turn away from the photos and sit down on the couch, focusing on my cake.

  “Oh. And?” Tracy sits down next to me, keeping an eye on the door in case Jack and his family come back.

  “He said he wanted a relationship, too. The next day, I found out I was pregnant, and it became pretty clear he’s not where I need him to be yet, emotionally. Maybe he’d get there, but I can’t wait around for it. I’ve got a life to build and a baby to raise.” I shove more cake in my mouth. “I don’t want to talk about it.”