32
A few weeks later, pulling up to the Green Hills train station in Conrad’s leased Prius, MC realized that big changes might be painful, but small changes were the ones that haunted you.
Take the car: a newer, depersonalized twin to Gabby’s.
Or the fact that MC was the one driving it, after coming to this train station almost seven months ago with every intention of turning back around.
And then there was her visitor, the catalyst for all of it, who’d somehow managed to float along, untouched, the entire time.
“Ugh,” Joe said when MC rolled down the window. “Fuck. This. Place.”
“Hi,” she said.
He opened the passenger door and ducked in as if from a rainstorm, hunched and squinting and disheveled. It was a sunny day, unseasonably warm for March. February’s snow had almost melted away, leaving only patches of stained ice in the shadier areas of the parking lot.
“Do we really have to go to the meeting?” he said, nibbling at his nails, a habit she thought he’d kicked. “Like, I know you have to go. But I could wait for you somewhere, and then we could just hit up the Horny Ram.”
“I think you might enjoy the meeting more than the bar.”
“I think I might spontaneously combust.”
“Trust me for once.” She shot him a look. “You owe me that.”
“Oh my god, when are you going to let this go?”
“Maybe when you stop trying to get out of feeling guilty.”
As she drove them toward the school, she caught him staring out his window, his expression tight.
He’d texted her the night before to ask if he could visit, terse and defensive and a little petulant.
But she wasn’t dragging him to the meeting as punishment.
She wanted him to let go of whatever it was about Green Hills that made him chase coolness so hard he’d almost destroyed their friendship over it.
“How are things with Tyler?” she said evenly, having already guessed the answer but trying to pretend she didn’t.
“Let’s not play this game.” Joe leaned his head back and rolled his neck, staring at her like he’d just been shot in the chest. “I’m dumb, okay?”
“You’re not.”
“I really am, though.”
“No more cool city guys.”
“That is my vow.” He gestured toward a strip mall. “I’m going to find a hometown hottie. Tonight.”
“Jim McDade is taken, by the way.”
“Obviously.”
“But Jerry Bickley is still single.”
“You’re not helping.” Joe put his face in his hands. “I can just sit and listen at the meeting, right? You were joking before, about the guest speaker thing.”
“I think if you just sat and listened, it’d be pretty weird. But you don’t need to give a presentation.”
“MC, you’re killing me.”
“I know for a fact they read Jawbreaker. You’re basically a celebrity.”
“You mean a trashy D-list celebrity chaser.”
“Even better.”
“I hate teenagers.”
“That’s very teenage of you.”
As MC turned off Main Street, Joe asked for updates on Gabby and Conrad—MC had texted him a little about the drama—and seemed on the fence as to whether Gabby should forgive the cheating.
Now she told him about how her brother and Gabby had started seeing each other again, though always out.
Conrad was convinced they were on track to get back together for real before the baby arrived.
But Joe thought as long as Jae was Conrad’s boss, Gabby wasn’t going to be locked down again anytime soon.
“And you and Nora?” he added.
“Things are thawing a little bit there too.” She pretended to focus on the turn into the school parking lot. “But she’s moving.”
“To where?”
“She doesn’t know yet. She’s helping her parents get the house ready to sell.”
“As my therapist would say: How does that make you feel?”
“Bummed. I mean, I think it’s the right thing for her. Getting out of here finally.”
“But you’re going to miss her.”
She nodded. She expected Joe to add something sardonic to keep her from getting emotional.
But all he said was, “Maybe she’ll end up closer than you think.”
And at long last, she found herself confiding in him again—telling him about how she and Nora had gotten back into texting and added talking on the phone, Nora’s name appearing on MC’s screen out of the blue, usually late at night.
How their conversations lasted for hours, MC spitballing about applications to teaching programs, the old video games she was playing to kill the lonely hours; Nora fretting over the decision to move Fuzzbox to Lois’s for the foreseeable future.
How Lauren Horowitz was breathing down her neck about pitching another manuscript, which was, Nora claimed, never going to happen.
By the time they’d parked in the lot by the back entrance to the school, it was like a weight had been lifted between them—even as Joe turned up the collar on his wool coat and glowered at the crucible where all their dramas had been forged.
“Missing your old VW?” she said.
“Oh, just missing everything,” he grumbled.
When they reached the doors, Conrad was waiting on the other side to let them in.
“Look who it is,” he said, pulling Joe in for a hug. “As handsome as his Instagram.”
“God, don’t make me blush.” MC had forgotten how Joe preened under Conrad’s attention. “Congratulations on the impending bundle of joy, by the way.”
Conrad coughed. “Oh, yeah, thank you.”
“You and Gab’ll work things out.”
“Thanks, man,” Conrad said. “We’re trying.”
“I’m going to go set up,” MC said, heading for the classroom.
“I’m late for a meeting,” Conrad added. “Drinks after?”
Joe pressed his hands together. “The Horny Ram is actually my sole reason for being here.”
“It’s a date.” Conrad winked and walked off, still managing a saunter in his khaki chinos.
“You know,” Joe said, watching him leave, “it’s really a shame—”
“Don’t,” MC said, eager not to linger on an old nuance in their group dynamic that she’d worked hard to block out. “Come on, we’re late.”
The students were already in the classroom, the desks arranged in the usual circle. But instead of talking in small groups or passing out packets, they were listening intently.
To Nora.
“I never thought of myself as a writer,” she was saying, her gaze flicking to MC and Joe for a moment. She didn’t tense up, but it was like the air in the room changed as soon as they walked in. “I wrote online as a hobby, and that’s as far as I thought it’d ever go.”
“Are you working on anything now?” Sheila asked, looking as close to adoring as MC had ever seen her. She’d propped her chin in her hands. Heather was sitting right next to her, a smug smile on her face.
“Not at the moment,” Nora said. “The response to my book was a little too much for me.”
MC and Joe had taken their seats quietly, not wanting to interrupt. Now every eye in the room swung toward them. MC had the urge to stand again, excuse herself, run away, and never come back. But Nora headed her off by saying, “And here are the two people I have to thank for that.”
“Nora and I,” Joe said, leaning back with a smile, “didn’t exactly get along in high school.”
The kids seemed to be holding their breath.
Then, a second later, Nora smiled back. “I did appreciate his spirit of competition.”
“I noted that in your book.” He spread his arms. “I’m Joe Khoury, by the way, aka Jake Haddad, aka the cartoonish hipster who’s constantly trying to climb the social ladder of White Springs High while pretending I’m not.
And in case any of you think graduating will save you from the tortures of high school, we’re living proof that the most annoying ghosts never die. ”
Ben raised his hand, cautiously. Joe blinked and said, “Yes?”
“So, you’re the editor at Jawbreaker who commissioned MC’s piece?”
“I am,” he said, lifting his chin, clearly ready to go on the defensive.
“I really liked the article you guys did last summer on Tina Van Der Beer.”
MC was pretty sure that this was the Real Housewife who Jawbreaker had discovered was funding a small island government MC could never quite remember the name of.
“And the shitcoin ring in Venezuela,” said Heather. “Did you get legal blowback for that?”
“Oh god,” said Joe, folding his arms across his chest. “Where do I start?”
As it turned out, the group had a lot of questions for Joe.
How he’d gotten involved in media, who he’d met along the way, who he’d pissed off.
Every dirty secret he’d ever uncovered and how it affected his worldview.
Was he cynical? Only to the extent that the human species was inherently selfish.
Did anyone ever try to get back at him? Yes, but they’d never succeeded.
MC and Nora traded looks as he held court, marveling at the way Joe was somehow coming out on top after his less-than-ideal behavior. Apparently, while it was cool to be a bestselling rom-com author, being a shit-stirring raconteur and real-life New York City bad boy was a lot cooler.
Joe rounded out the conversation an hour later with reassurances that he would come back to assist with a magazine-assembly session in April.
“Well,” he said when the room had cleared, “that wasn’t too bad after all.” He threw an arm around MC’s shoulders. “Maybe I should trust you more often.”
“I’d be careful with that,” Nora said.
“Darling Nora. I offer you my apologies, for wrongs past and present, while fully expecting you to reject them.”
“How generous of you.”
“At least let me buy you a drink. Me and MC are going to the Horny Ram tonight with Con and Gabby. Past time for a reunion, wouldn’t you say?”
“I’m not really the reunion-attending type.”
“Consider this a private and high-profile gathering at one of Green Hills’ most illustrious watering holes.”
“When you put it that way,” she muttered.
“Also, MC might’ve mentioned you’re about to move, and I think it’s basically killing her. Any extra time you can spend with our lovelorn princess would be much appreciated.”
MC stared at him, horrified at this breach of trust.
And yet, miracle of miracles, something lit up in Nora’s expression.
“I think she’ll be just fine,” she said. “But what time were you thinking?”