Chapter 4 #7
Three teen girls sit in the row facing them drinking forties of beer out of paper bags.
They look hipper than Susan remembers kids being, dressed in clothes she herself would probably wear now, and their makeup is expertly applied.
All those fashion blogs and YouTube beauty channels really have made a difference.
With heavy Long Island accents, they’re talking about boys, about which boys liked whose Instagram posts, about other girls they hate, about what they’re going to do later when their parents go to sleep.
Susan feels relieved that she didn’t have social media when she was that age.
Just AIM, which at the time felt illicit, and now seems adorably harmless.
All those “what’s up” and “nmu” messages that used to thrill her.
It was like living on a different planet.
Of course, she knows, there were more adult things happening for other kids. While Susan was fretting over what song lyrics to put in her away message, Eliza was becoming notorious as her naked photo circulated among teen boys.
One of the girls catches Susan staring and says, “Wait, oh my god, sorry, but are you Susan Goldstein?”
Katie and Jake look up simultaneously.
“That’s me,” Susan says, blushing.
“I follow you on Instagram,” the girl says. “I’m obsessed with Rider.”
“Oh, wow,” Susan says, and pride wells up in her. “Thank you so much.”
“Sorry if this is weird, but I want to work in music because of you. Your life is so cool.”
Susan puts a hand on her heart. “Thank you. That’s so nice. I promise it’s not actually that cool.”
The girl’s face falls, and Susan realizes she’s said the wrong thing. “Sorry.” She laughs nervously. “I mean, maybe it is?”
Katie elbows her. “This is amazing,” she whispers.
Susan plays it off like this happens to her all the time, but it doesn’t. She’s never been recognized by a stranger before.
When the train passes Wyandanch, the station before theirs, Katie says, “Susan, are you sure you and your parents don’t want to just come over tomorrow?”
“Sadly, I’m sure,” she says. “They’re committed to being recluses.”
“But you’ll still come over after, right?”
“Of course,” she says. “As long as you’re not trying to go to Thanksgiving Eve.”
Jake glances up from his phone, a mischievous smile on his face. “Are we not?”
Susan groans, shaking her head. “You can’t make me.”
“Oh, yes, we can,” Katie cries, wrapping her arms around Susan and shaking her back and forth. “Thanksgiving! Eve! Thanksgiving! Eve!” she chants.
Susan is laughing so hard she can barely speak. “Ugh,” she says, wiping tears from her eyes. “Fine.”
“Yay!” Katie squeals.
Thanksgiving Eve is a Long Island (and probably elsewhere, she suspects) tradition wherein adult children who have left home all meet up at bars in the nearest town the night before Thanksgiving.
Susan never participates; she didn’t go to bars when she lived here, and she doesn’t feel the urge to start now.
When she’s home, she’s home, with her parents.
Also, the bars on Long Island aren’t exactly hip.
Sports bars filled with the kind of douchebags who never moved on from who they were in high school—as though she’s not doing the exact same thing, in her own lane.
“I don’t have anything cute to wear,” she says.
“Who are you trying to impress?” Katie says.
“I mean, whoever we run into?”
“Who cares about them?”
“If you don’t care, why do we have to go out? Why can’t we just watch bad reality TV on your couch?”
“Because I’m still curious,” Katie says.
The train pulls into their station. Susan sees her parents’ Honda waiting in the parking lot.
“We’ll pick you up at nine,” Jake says.
At home, Susan throws her bag down on her old twin bed and takes out her phone.
“Just got to my parents’ house,” she texts Angie. “Wish you were here.”
Angie sends back a heart. “I’m home too. Can’t wait to see you again.”
If she’s being honest with herself, though, Susan is relieved that Angie didn’t come home with her for the holiday.
Even if Angie is her girlfriend, it still feels too soon.
She can’t imagine Angie seeing the place she grew up in or making small talk with her parents around the dinner table, even though she’s sure Angie would excel.
It feels too intimate. More intimate than sex or sleeping in the same bed.
At 9 PM, Susan climbs into the back seat of Katie’s parents’ car. Jake is driving, and Katie turns around to look at Susan while he pulls out of the driveway.
“Hi, beautiful,” Katie says.
“I can’t believe you’re making me do this.”
“Oh, come on.” Katie grins. “You never come to Thanksgiving Eve. Live a little! You’re famous now. I want to show you off.”
“I’m here, aren’t I?” she says. “Stop looking at me, you’re going to make me carsick.”
Katie faces forward and puts the radio on. The Z100 DJ’s voice fills the car and then a Drake song begins.
“And I’m not famous,” Susan says.
“You have a five-figure Insta following,” Katie says. “You got recognized on the LIRR, for fuck’s sake. You’re the most famous person I know.”
Susan laughs. She barely has over ten thousand followers.
She thinks of all the famous people she constantly interacts with through work.
Her life and Katie’s life are so different.
But, still, it feels good that Katie is impressed with her.
Katie has always been at the top of the short list of people whose opinion Susan truly values.
“So where are you taking us?” Susan says.
“Some bar in Huntington,” Jake says. “Kyle is there already.”
Susan freezes. “Oh, shit,” she says.
Katie glances back at her. “What’s wrong?”
“I never told you,” Susan says, shaking her head and beginning to sweat.
Katie turns the radio off. “Told us what, babe?”
Jake stops at a red light and they both turn around to look at her.
“What he said to me and Eliza at your wedding.”
“What the fuck did he say?” Katie demands.
Susan has had many opportunities to tell Katie and Jake what happened, but tonight feels different.
Maybe it’s the fact that they’re back on Long Island, the place it all began; Susan always feels closer to her teen self here, like if she closes her eyes she can time travel, feel those intense, vulnerable, awkward emotions all over again. She lets them come.
“He called us dykes,” she says. “And like, I am a dyke, whatever, but it’s not his word to use. And then he asked us who the man is. Like, the oldest joke in the book. He’s not even original in his homophobia.”
There’s a pause, and then Katie says, “What?”
“No way.” Jake is shaking his head. “Kyle’s an idiot, but…”
“Jake!” Katie yells, appalled at whatever the second half of that sentence was going to be. “Believe women.”
“Fuck, I’m sorry,” he says, immediately looking embarrassed. “That was a terrible gut reaction.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Katie says.
“I’m sorry,” Susan says. “I didn’t know how. And plus, you guys had just gotten married, and I just felt like I couldn’t bring you into my drama.”
“So instead you just kind of iced me out,” Katie says.
“I’m sorry,” Susan says again. “I didn’t know how to talk about it. There’s more, though. Katie, remember that naked photo of Eliza? The one that Greg had.”
“As if I could forget.”
“Well, Eliza thinks Kyle was the one who took the picture. But she doesn’t know for sure because she was, you know. Drugged.”
Their mouths fall open in tandem.
“So that’s why she broke up with me. I mean, that’s what she said. That she couldn’t deal with the chance of seeing him again. That dating me felt like going backward.”
A car pulls up behind them and honks. Jake turns back around and keeps driving. It’s completely dark out but for his headlights on the road in front of them and quiet but for the occasional clicking of his turn signal.
Katie speaks first. “I want to murder him. I fucking hate men.”
“Is there any way we could go do something else?” Susan says. “I really don’t want to see him.”
“Honestly, same,” says Jake. “I don’t know what I’d say.”
“We could go see a movie,” Susan says.
“I love that for us,” says Katie. “Jake?”
He nods. “Lemme turn around.”
“We could see Lady Bird,” Susan says.
“Oh!” Katie gasps. “That looks so sweet. Yes.”
On the way to the movie theater, after they buy tickets on their phones, Susan says, “I’m glad I told you. It feels good to talk about.”
Katie turns around and puts a hand on Susan’s leg. “He’s dead to us,” she says.
“Thanks for being on this journey with me.”
“I’m on every journey with you,” Katie says.
“Me, too,” says Jake.
“And it explains a lot,” Katie says, turning back around.
“What do you mean?”
“Well…” Katie trails off. “How you acted at our wedding.”
Susan’s stomach sinks.
Jake says, “Katie, we agreed not to bring that up.”
“Bring what up?” Susan asks, but she already knows. A wave of anxious nausea hits her.
“I mean, you missed the rehearsal dinner, and then you guys fucked in the bathroom and left early,” Katie says, still not facing her.
“I knew there had to be a reason why you’d act like such a dick on the most important day of my life.
I just didn’t know why you wouldn’t tell me.
I already tried to make it so easy for you.
I didn’t even have a bridal party because I didn’t want to put pressure on you.
And you still couldn’t show up all the way for me. ”
“Katie, I’m so sorry,” Susan says, her voice cracking with guilt. “I was being the worst version of myself. Have you been mad at me all this time?”
“I was pissed off and kept waiting for you to apologize, but then you didn’t, so I tried to let it go. I feel like everyone has something they’re mad about from their wedding. I try not to be so cliché.”
“I hate myself,” Susan says.
“Don’t, baby,” Katie says. “Really. I already feel better just saying it to you.”
“I wish I could have a redo.”
“I know. Hopefully I won’t be getting married again, though.”
“Yeah, I think that was a one-off,” Jake says. They exchange smiles.