Chapter Eighteen
Eighteen
Tucked away on a side street off Commercial, the Atlantic House—better known as the A-House—was over a hundred and fifty years old and looked more like a twentieth-century schoolhouse than a bar. Inside, it pulsated with pop music and was crowded with a makeshift dance floor. Britney Spears videos played on a big screen. It smelled like beer and old cigarettes and something musky and damp, and the familiar scent brought Shelby back to past summers.
Shelby and Hunter found spots at the bar. She recognized the bartender, Chris. He’d been there forever. She never knew for sure if he was a few decades older than they were or if he was just weathered-looking from the sun. He was bald, with a full sleeve of tattoos on both arms. Behind him the bar was strung with Christmas lights, and decorated with a wooden bust of a merman.
Shelby had grown up with strict parents. She never drank during high school. So the first time Shelby ever went to a bar had been with Hunter. It was their first week of freshman year. Bryn Mawr College was an all-women college in a suburb of Philadelphia, a leafy campus with Gothic architecture designed like the buildings at Cambridge. The nearby thoroughfare, Lancaster Avenue, was lined with bars, drawing students from nearby Haverford College and Villanova University. That was why Hunter was eager to go off campus. It wasn’t for the drinking; it was for the guys.
Hunter never would have chosen an all-girls school, but she was a third-generation legacy and her mother insisted. Shelby hadn’t necessarily been looking for a Seven Sister school, but Bryn Mawr had an exceptional English program. So while they came to the school from different upbringings and for different reasons, the hands of fate (and roommate assignments) brought them together. Shelby, with her military father, wasn’t a big rule breaker. She’d been nervous to go out with a fake ID. Maybe that was what drew her to Hunter: opposites attract.
Hunter ordered two shots of tequila. When Chris slid them across the bar, Shelby said, “Remember Flannery’s?” Once they’d both turned twenty-one, they’d stopped going.
Hunter touched one of the multiple piercings in her ear, a silver hoop. “Gotta love Flannery’s,” she said, raising her shot glass. Shelby touched hers to it.
“To Flannery’s,” she said. They both knocked them back. Hunter signaled to Chris for another round.
“So...we haven’t discussed the Colleen situation,” Hunter said, turning her empty shot glass around and around on the bar.
No. They hadn’t.
Shelby still couldn’t believe it: the first of their threesome was becoming a mother. It seemed like just a few months had passed since they’d stood together on the beach, wondering what life would look like after college.
“Colleen’s going to be a mother ,” Shelby said. Colleen would be the world’s best mom—Shelby had no doubt. Personally, she couldn’t imagine being ready for such a responsibility. Her career came first, and lately it felt like she couldn’t even manage that. “I think it’s amazing. It’s just a lot to absorb. Babies...”
Hunter pulled a vape out of her pocket and took a drag, exhaling away from Shelby’s face. “Colleen’s upset about the timing,” she said. “But it was going to happen eventually. The way I see it, if you’re going down that road, just...go. You know what I mean?”
Shelby wasn’t so sure about that. It was important to be ready for things when they happened. That was the problem with her relationship with Justin; she hadn’t wanted to fall in love at age twenty-two. She couldn’t handle a long-distance relationship. Looking at Colleen’s situation, she saw the trade-off she was facing: motherhood might come at the expense of losing her dream to take over Land’s End. To Shelby, it seemed like a terrifying trade-off.
“It’s just mind-blowing that Colleen is going to be a parent , and I guess get married and buy a house. And I’m, what—working out of Duke Nestley’s living room and crashing at my parents’?” Hunter said.
“What do you mean? You don’t even want a serious relationship.”
“How do you know what I want?” Hunter snapped. “Besides, what I mean is—at least her adult life has started. I feel stuck in this way station.”
“It’s not a way station, Hunter. You’re here on your own, working for Duke’s press, living your life. This summer would have seemed pretty good to both of us when we were in college. Or even that last summer here. It was hard to leave—for both of us. But now we’re back. I hope we can find a way to enjoy it.” She reached out and touched Hunter’s arm.
Hunter didn’t reply, but ordered a glass of Patron Silver over ice with a lime. Shelby frowned. They should slow down.
“For you?” Chris said, but Shelby shook her head.
“Just water, thanks.”
The song “Shape of You” by Ed Sheeran played, and Hunter smiled. Shelby knew exactly what she was thinking: they’d gone to see him live in Center City Philadelphia sophomore year. On the way home their phones had died, they had gotten off on the wrong exit, and had ended up in a neighborhood called Manayunk, a small hipster town built on a canal. They’d parked and asked a group of people their age for directions, and ended up at a house party where they spent the night. Shelby was anxious, but Hunter had loved the adventure, and her calm helped Shelby roll with it. It was always that way between them: Hunter ran towards the unknown and the novel, while Shelby yearned for comfort and stability.
Hunter got up to use the bathroom and was noticeably wobbly.
“Be right back,” she slurred. While she was gone, Shelby called Chris over and said, “We need to cut her off.”
It was time to get her home. That was what friends were for.
Half a block down Commercial, Hunter sat on the curb and refused to get up.
“You have to walk,” Shelby said, holding out her hand. Hunter ignored her and pulled the vape pen from her bag. Shelby grabbed it away. “Not till you’re home.”
A breeze blew off the bay and the night was comfortable, but Shelby felt perspiration on the back of her neck. She also felt a sense of déjà vu; like they were back on campus, dragging themselves back to the dorm after a bar crawl on Lancaster. But they weren’t college kids anymore, and she wondered if Hunter always got that wasted.
Hunter sat on the curb, and Shelby searched the street for a pedicab. She saw one half a block away. It had a bright blue, open-topped passenger cabin and the driver appeared to be wearing a top hat. Shelby waved down the cab, but a group of men spilling out of 1620 Brewhouse got it first. Behind it, she spotted Justin behind the wheel of his trusty old Jeep Wrangler. He pulled over.
“Everything okay?” he called out. Shelby was relieved to see him, and immediately recognized this was a vestigial feeling. Justin was someone she’d once counted on and cared about, but it wasn’t appropriate to involve him in her messy evening.
“Everything’s fine,” she said. Hunter lay down on her side, as if she were on her bed and not the sidewalk.
“You sure about that?”
“Hunter’s a little wasted. I’m trying to get her home.”
He reached over and opened the passenger door. “Hop in.” He put the car in Park then walked over to lift Hunter to her feet and into the back.
Justin knew the way to Hunter’s house, having driven Shelby home many times that last summer. By the end of July, she started sleeping at his place. And in August, he told her that she didn’t have to worry about where she’d stay when she visited during the fall and winter: she was welcome at his house anytime. He’d give her a key.
She pushed the memory away and looked out the window. Cruising into the West End, restaurants and bars gave way to quiet houses and closed retails shops. It was dark enough down that way to see the stars in the sky.
The Coldplay song “Clocks” came on the radio and with it, she felt the undeniable intimacy of a car ride late at night. With a quick, subtle glance at Justin, she told herself it was normal to have mixed feelings. She’d done the right thing three years ago when she ended it, but at the same time, she hadn’t really had to confront the ramifications. When she moved to the city, everything was different all at once. Missing Justin had just been part of the mix. But now, in the setting of the place where they’d been together, it stung a little. On some level, she’d known it would. Maybe that was why she never returned to visit Colleen or Hunter. It wasn’t only because she was busy in New York.
They turned right before Pilgrims’ First Landing Park and headed up Creek Round Hill Road, passing marshes and dunes. Justin turned down the music and she heard the hoot of an owl. If she’d been with anyone else it would have felt strange not to talk, but Justin was someone who was comfortable in silence. It came from a place of deep confidence, and was one of the many things she’d liked about him.
He pulled into the Dillworths’ driveway.
“Thanks so much for doing this. Sorry for taking you out of your way,” she said.
“No problem,” he said, turning off the ignition. He turned to look at her. A painful few seconds of silence ticked by until Hunter interrupted with, “Oh, fuck off, you two.”
Shelby shook her head. “I’d better get her inside.”