Chapter 21 Magnolia
MAGNOLIA
How does one cheat without cheating? On the surface, nothing that Ellery and I were doing would count as cheating.
We were friends, best friends at the most, just hanging out with each other.
It didn’t take long for us to fall back into our old, cozy pattern.
Didn’t take us long to fall back into laughing so hard that we collapsed into each other’s arms. But there was nothing wrong with hugs between two buddies, nothing at all.
How does one cheat without cheating? One does it by loving every second spent together, consuming every moment with her greedily, memorizing every facet of her, down to the way she blinks her eyes.
One does it by making up more and more excuses to spend time with her, running all sorts of mundane errands with her, like changing the oil in your car, which you know very well how to do, but you pretend not to so she’d have to come with you.
One does it by thinking of her nonstop when she’s not around, wondering how she would react to every little thing that happens in your life.
Whenever something funny/interesting/sad happens, you don’t think: What would my husband say?
You think: What would she say? How hard would she laugh at this? And this, and this?
I promise you, Izzy, when I went to LA, I had no thoughts of Ellery.
Aside from writing the occasional letter, I’d left her behind as a phase in my life that I’d largely gotten over.
I did not harbor any secret hopes of meeting her.
How could I? As far as I knew, she was still in London.
But once we reconnected, there was no way in hell I could’ve stayed away from her.
We spent almost every day together. And, god, those were the days.
Even now, decades later, when I look back at that time in my life, it shines so brightly in my mind, overshadowing all other memories.
So vibrant. I hadn’t realized how much living in Indonesia as Parker’s wife had dulled me.
It was as though I’d been asleep for the past ten years and hadn’t even realized it.
Like my name, I felt like I was a flower and Ellery the sun, and without her, I’d drooped low and sank to the ground, and now she was here once more and I felt her warm, bright light.
I was unfurling, my stem straightening up, letting the skin of my petals soak up every drop of her.
We took Hazel everywhere. Venice Beach was a favorite of ours.
Hazel hated the sand at first, but she soon took to it and enjoyed paddling in the slow rush of the waves.
Ellery sometimes surfed, and I would stand until the waves were up to my hips, carrying Hazel, and we’d watch Ellery riding the waves, her blond hair catching fire in the sunlight.
Hazel would clap and squeal, and I’d murmur, “Yeah, she’s pretty amazing, isn’t she?
” People would often stop and stare, especially when Ellery swam back to shore and came out of the water like some goddess, her toned shoulders rippling as she stripped off her wet suit.
For lunch, we’d buy a large bowl of tuna poke from a stand called Poke Poke.
The tuna came in big chunks, firm and well seasoned.
Hazel was on solids now, and she absolutely adored that poke.
She’d grab a square of tuna and gnaw on it while grinning and saying, “Yummy, Wia!” I’d say, “Yeah, it’s pretty freaking yummy, isn’t it?
” Then she’d offer Ellery a chewed-up chunk of tuna and say, “Lewy, yum-yum.” Ellery didn’t even hesitate before taking the bite of half-eaten tuna from Hazel’s hand.
It was yet another thing on the endless list of things I adored about Ellery.
She never hesitated when it came to Hazel.
Nothing was too gross or too dumb or too troublesome.
I could never imagine Parker eating anything Hazel had gummed.
I mean, that chunk of nibbled-on tuna was gross.
Even I would’ve grimaced and tried to wriggle out of eating it.
Then we’d walk up and down the beach, sucking on popsicles and going through the street vendors’ wares until Hazel fell asleep in her stroller.
We’d find some shade and sit on the grass and chat.
At some point, we’d end up lying down on the grass, still talking about nothing and everything until the sky changed from bright yellow to late-afternoon blue.
What did we talk about on those long, slow days? Everything. There were no limits. She told me about London, finally giving me a glimpse into the last ten years of her life.
“My first place there was this really old flat—you gotta call them ‘flats,’ Tulip, not ‘apartments.’ Anyway, it was so old the window frames were handmade. The wood was slightly wonky and curved, and if you looked closely, you’d see that the glass was thicker at the bottom because it had set that way. ”
“That sounds so cool,” I said.
“Yeah. I thought that was really cool too, until winter came. Then I realized old windows didn’t do shit against English winters. Holy crap, I nearly froze to death. I basically spent the whole winter wrapped in my ski jacket.”
I laughed at the thought of Ellery huddled in her tiny London apartment. I told her about my life in Jakarta and how I hadn’t been allowed to put my education to use at all. “I was a glorified gopher. Until I got married. Then I became a housewife. That’s it. The end.”
She tugged at a lock of my hair. “The end, huh? You’re not even thirty yet, I don’t think you can say, ‘The end.’ ” She looked at me so intently that I felt my face grow warm. “You’re very far from the end. You’ll write it. Your own story. In your own time.”
When Ellery said it, I could almost believe it. That there was a better future out there for me. That it wasn’t too late for me.
She told me about being isolated in one of the biggest cities in the world. “English people are hard to befriend. They are friendly, up to a point. But it was hard to make close friends. I didn’t have anything like this back there.”
“Why did you stay there, if you were so lonely?”
She was quiet for a bit. “I don’t know. Out of habit, I guess. By the time I graduated from uni, I’d gotten used to living there. Forgotten what it was like here, really. Forgot what it was like to have a friend like you. You were my best buddy, Tulip. I can’t believe I fucked it up so badly.”
“You didn’t fuck it up. You didn’t fuck anything up with me.”
“Oh, I fucked up plenty of things with you. I’m just glad you don’t hate me for it.”
Every word was a drop of honey that warmed me to my very core.
I drank in her words and luxuriated in the glow of them.
They fed my soul. I couldn’t have enough of them.
Story after story we fed each other, unable to get enough.
Desperately piecing together all of the lost puzzle pieces to get a blurry image of what our lives had been like all those years.
Then we’d drive back to Pasadena, where Ellery dropped off me and Hazel.
Hazel would rest her warm cheek on my shoulder as I waved at Ellery.
Watching her drive off was always hard. I felt a piece of my heart leaving with her each time her car drove away into the distance.
As the days went by, that piece became bigger and bigger.
Some mornings, Ellery and I would go to the farmers markets.
There were a ton of different ones in LA, and we visited them all.
The most famous market was probably the one at The Grove, but it was kind of out of our way, and very expensive, so we tended to stay around the Pasadena area.
Ellery would bring this wicker basket that was so ridiculously huge, I told her she looked like someone out of Children of the Corn, and she laughed and told me I was just jealous of her cool basket.
She was still growing her own plants—we’ll get to that later—and her cooking repertoire had expanded since the last time we’d hung out.
At the farmers market, she would buy clover honey, locally made stinky cheeses, and spicy sausages.
Then we’d go back to her place, where we would gather other ingredients from her beautiful patio.
When Ellery moved back, she’d splurged on a ground-floor apartment that had a large patio.
It was really a modest space, plain concrete with a wooden fence around it, but Ellery had transformed it into something magical.
She’d installed multiple hanging racks to maximize the space, and from these racks hung pot after pot heaving with herbs and vegetables and fruits.
There were tomatoes and chilies and strawberries.
In the front of her apartment, there was a row of huge pots, and in these she’d planted a lemon tree, an orange tree, and a lime tree.
Ellery would take out the treasures she’d found at the market (that was what she called them. She’d say, “Let’s see what treasure we managed to find today.”), lay them out on the kitchen counter, and stand there looking thoughtful.
“Clover honey and spicy chorizo,” I’d say. “Kind of a weird combo, Bellery.”
And she’d say, “Oh, you just wait, Tulip.” Then she’d step out onto the patio.
I’d follow, because I loved Ellery’s patio, and I especially loved watching Ellery in this magical space she’d built for herself.
She had such a graceful way of moving, especially when she was surrounded by plants.
She’d pluck the tomatoes and plop one in my hand.
She grew two different kinds, and they were both the most delicious tomatoes I’d ever had, so tart and sweet they were almost like candies.
Then she’d trim a few sprigs of basil and rosemary and press the sprigs into my hands, still warm from the LA sun.
By the time we went back inside, my skin would smell of herbs and fruit.