Chapter 23 Margot
23 MARGOT
The thing is, when you have the best sex of your life, you have to tell your best friend about it. Details must be discussed and verified for posterity so that someday, when the two of you are drinking mai tais in your poolside nursing home and slathering SPF onto your suspiciously wrinkle-free faces, you can reminisce accurately. It’s why I find myself feverishly typing words like “five times” and “vaginal orgasm” and “FIVE TIMES” in an email to my sister the next day, when I should be working.
I know I’m not supposed to contact you, but this seemed like a force majeure situation if there ever was one , I type out. Counting down the seconds until I see you again!
I look over my email, making sure I’ve left out just enough to tempt her into writing me back. I know it’s a long shot, but I really want to talk to my sister. More than anything, I need her to tell me to stop panicking about sleeping with a man who makes me feel things I thought died, decomposed, and scattered to the four winds when I slid off my engagement ring.
A prickle breaks out under my arms, threatening nervous sweat, and I look up from my computer to gaze out the front windows. I can see Forrest in the distance, plowing the biblical amount of snow that dumped on us last night. This morning he had to build a snow ramp to get us out of the cabin with the snowmobile. Not that I really wanted to leave.
Spending the night with him redefined the Snowed In trope for me, even though I thought I’d written the book on it. Two, actually. I learned that in between the pages of sheet-grasping pleasure, the smaller details hit even harder. Like the way my feet fit perfectly on the tops of his. Or how the weight of his arm in the crook of my waist feels like a missing body part returned at last. I’ve learned the smell of his skin when he sleeps, and the scratch of his voice when he wakes me up with a rough and quiet “Need you.” And I’m ruined for it all. Ruined for him and the thought of him following me back to L.A. so that we can do what we did last night, every night, in perpetuity, or else.
Oh my God, I need help.
Like the answer to my prayers, there’s a ping in my inbox, and I lift my head out of my hands, where I’ve been trying to deep-breathe some rational boundaries into place. It’s Savannah. I click and am almost bludgeoned by her use of all-caps.
MARGOT OH MY GOD OH MY GOD YES!!! FORCE MAJEURE ACKNOWLEDGED UNDER THE TERMS OF COITUS SURPRISUS!!!
I know I shouldn’t give in to this very obvious trap (well played, sister), but can we talk?? I have the satellite number to North Star Lodge, so be waiting by the phone in five minutes, okay?
I get up so fast, the rolling office chair hits the bookshelf behind me. I begin searching around the lodge for a telephone like I’m Indiana Jones in the Temple of Doom . I’ve slung myself halfway across the room when there’s a ringing sound, and I turn to see that, naturally, the phone is right next to the bookshelves I’ve been sitting in front of for weeks. I break into a run, grabbing the receiver off the hook with a breathless “Hello?”
“Margot!”
“Van!”
“Margot!
“Van!”
We’re shouting at each other, and tears are free-flowing down my face at the sound of my sister’s voice—a sound I’ve missed more than I even realized.
“Stop crying, you know I can’t handle it when you cry!” Savannah says with a wet sniff.
“Oh my God, I’ve missed you, Van,” I say, pressing the plastic to my ear as tightly as I can.
“I’ve missed you too! You have no idea the kind of self-control I’ve had to have. Taylor dropped her newest rerelease, and Cooper has no appreciation for her early work. I’ve had to choose all my merch completely alone!”
“I can only imagine the hardships you’ve endured,” I say, but I’m grinning ear to ear. She sounds healthy, and a cold coil of worry is unwinding slowly in my stomach, releasing my shoulders down my back.
“That’s right! Unlike you , cozied up with your mountain daddy!”
“Oh my God, please never say those words again,” I beg. “And isn’t Cooper with you? Don’t even pretend like you two haven’t been taking full advantage of my absence. I’m buying a black light when I get home.”
“Ew, Margot, inappropriate.”
“And #8216;mountain daddy’ is appropriate?” I’m laughing, practically radiating endorphins.
“It’s exactly accurate! Now spill. Did he or did he not tie you to the bed with a flannel shirt?”
I laugh again, thinking about everything we did last night, and my weird, embarrassed giggle somehow morphs into a sigh.
“Wait. Wait, wait. Did I just hear a wistful sigh of longing?” Savannah says, instantly alert.
Because I can’t help it, I do it again. “Maybe?”
“Oh my God, Margot. Do you actually like this guy?”
Like? It seems like such a tiny word for the equally terrifying and stupid tornado of feelings in my chest.
“I’m trying not to, Van. I’m really trying. And it shouldn’t be that hard. He’s so grumpy, and so sure he’s right about everything, and so annoyingly competent and caring, and he’s a doctor , for the love of God. You can’t even get a more basic trope, right?” I bite my lip, but I’m unable to hold in the next sentence. “But he got me avocados , and they’re, like, impossible to get here, Van.”
I take a breath, and I can pretty much hear Savannah’s jaw swinging in the wind. “And worst of all,” I continue, “he didn’t say it, but I’m getting this feeling that he might be considering moving back to L.A. So it’s not like I can just enjoy the best vacation sex of my life and then forget about him when I go home, like a normal person!”
Savannah is still quiet, and I begin to worry our call has disconnected. Then she says, “Margot, listen to me very carefully. I know you’re supposed to be working on your manuscript, but as far as I’m concerned, not fucking this thing up with Dr. MD is your new number one priority.”
“His name is Forrest,” I cut in.
“His name is Dr. Mountain Daddy—MD for short—and I haven’t heard you sigh over a man since, like, 2016, when that barista offered you a free refill on your matcha latte.” I give a weak laugh, but she rolls right over it. “Margot, I’ve never heard you talk about someone like this before. Not even Adam. And he’s moving to L.A.? This is your HEA. I just feel it!”
I switch the phone over to my nonsweaty ear, trying not to get caught up in Savannah’s excitement. My sister “just feels” a lot of things. “Van, do you know the last thing I saw before getting off socials? It was a Bookstagrammer theorizing that I’m the hate child of Miranda Priestly and Voldemort. I was literally canceled for not believing in love.”
As soon as the L-word is out of my mouth, I want to suck it back in like a piece of spaghetti. To cover up my slip, which I will not be examining later, I give her something else to latch on to. “But I do like him. Despite all my desperate, flailing efforts not to.”
She makes a squealing sound that probably lifts the ears of every wild animal within a ten-mile radius. “This is literally the best news I’ve ever heard in my life,” she gushes. “I knew I was brilliant for sending you to Alaska, but I didn’t know I was a genius ! I need to contact Mensa!”
I’m letting her ramble on about all the secret tests I need to give Forrest to confirm he’s not a sociopath, still in awe that I’m talking to my sister, when I realize she never answered my question from before. “Van, you never said if Cooper is staying over,” I interrupt. “He is staying with you, right? Or Mom is?”
There’s the barest hint of a pause. A millisecond of hesitation before she says, “Of course I’m with Coop. Mom has been around too. They’re quietly but viciously trying to outcook each other for my approval, it’s hilarious. Thanksgiving is going to be a bloodbath next week.”
Thanksgiving . I’d nearly forgotten that was happening. My homesickness nearly chokes me, but I won’t be derailed again. I let my own pause draw out until she knows I’m suspicious. “Okay. And no hint of a flare-up?”
“No, I’m good . And even if I did have a flare, I’d be fine, Margot. I’m hashtag thriving.”
There’s an edge to her voice I don’t like. It’s not the usual frustration she has with me when I coddle her. It seems more nervous. I don’t think she’d lie to me about a flare, but she might lie to me if things were on the rocks with Cooper. More than anything, she wants me to believe in love everlasting.
“That’s so good to hear,” I say, trying to sound relieved. After a moment, I add, “So what have you and Cooper been up to besides defiling our house?”
This time there’s no mistaking her nervous laugh. “Me and Coop? Oh, you know. Going out to eat. Training for American Ninja Warrior . The usual. But listen, he’s coming back in for lunch, and I’m not allowed to be talking to you! Force majeure adjourned!”
I try swallowing down the lump of worry that has wedged itself in the back of my throat. I know how much Savannah loves Cooper. A breakup would absolutely send her into a flare, and I wouldn’t be there to help. The urgent sense that I’ve been away too long tightens in my chest.
“Right,” I croak. “Well, you know you can email or call me for anything, right? I will get on a plane in a heartbeat and come back if you need me.”
There’s an exasperated huff. “I know you would. Which is exactly why I’m ending this phone call before I let slip that I have a paper cut and you show up in a helicopter.”
“Van, I haven’t even thanked you for your letters,” I say, stalling our goodbyes. “You have no idea how they’ve gotten me through—”
“Stop! Stop that right now! NO talking about the letters until you’re finished with all of them, Margot!”
I roll my eyes. How can one person be so bossy and endlessly giving at the same time? “Okay, fine. Sorry. I love you.”
“I love you more,” she says, and I close my eyes.
“Impossible.”