Other People’s Weddings

Chapter 9

C HAPTER 9

We decided to walk to town, even though it would take about fifteen minutes to get there. The parking in Queenstown proper was so difficult, that it just didn’t seem worth it. There was a parking garage, but according to Ryan, it was a far enough walk away from FergBurger and FergBaker, that we might as well just walk and save ourselves the trouble. I stuffed my hands in my pockets, and tried to buffer myself against the wind blowing across the lake, as we walked along the sidewalk.

“Trust me, this is worth it. It’s better than anything you can get delivered here.”

“I am trusting you. Because I’m starving. I didn’t eat on the boat.”

He shook his head. “Me neither. But I’ve been on that tour before. And let me tell you, it’s not worth it. There are carrots on that sandwich.”

I wrinkled my nose. “Why would someone do that?”

“It’s weird.”

I was suddenly even more curious about him. About what had brought him to New Zealand in the first place, and how exactly he had met Noah. I was pretty sure that I had heard the story, but I filtered all these things about Ryan. So, even though I had hung out with Quinn and Noah, and he undoubtedly had been mentioned, it was like I did my very best to not claim details regarding Ryan.

“When exactly did you come to New Zealand?”

“I went to the University of Auckland for a couple of years. I was really interested in traveling around and taking pictures. So I did that. And that’s where I met Noah. During break I came back home with him and met his family. Saw the North Island for the first time. And how can you not love it here?”

“Wow. I mean, I can definitely see loving it here.”

“Then Noah came to the States to live for a couple of years, so we saw each other a lot during that time. Then obviously he was living in Tahoe when he met Quinn.”

“Oh.”

“So, of everywhere that I’ve traveled, this is more a second home to me than anything.”

“What brought you back to Pineville?”

“It’s hard work making money the way that I do. Possible. I’m fine. I bought a house.” He said that casually, but I wondered what it meant to him. To have a permanent base. And right there, I think I grasped the crux of why he was back in Pineville.

It had become home when nothing else had. It was the same reason that I stayed.

But it must be hard, when you wanted to do the kind of job he seemed to love. When your ambition asked you to travel.

I could feel how those things must feel like they were pulling him in different directions. I felt that sometimes. I loved this. Being in this new place. But there was always this underlying feeling of being untethered that made me feel precarious.

I knew it was childhood issues. It was just knowing that didn’t make it go away.

“I wanted to be closer to my dad. Especially after the cancer. I was worried . . . I was worried that we’d have limited time. And even though he’s in remission, the truth is, it makes you realize that you do have limited time. I lived twelve years in foster homes. Moving from house to house. I had parents for six years. Six years of childhood. It wasn’t enough. Nothing is ever really going to make that enough. But it made me feel like I needed to be home. Once I felt that, the time slipping away, I couldn’t make that feeling go away.”

“I get that. And having lost my grandmother, I know that you won’t regret the choice.”

He made a musing sound in the back of his throat. We crossed through the park, down past a lit sculpture of a fern on the edge of town. I stopped and looked at it. And then at the lights sparkling across the lake. There was a bar on a boat, lively and packed full of people. The town had a party atmosphere in the dark, but it felt joyful. There was nothing like the edge of chaos or violence that I had felt in some party cities. And it was a different vibe still to New Orleans, which had a darkness underlying all that glitter.

But being with Ryan felt the same, and that made my whole body go tight.

We walked away from the lake, headed toward a more central part of town, when we saw a massive line extending down the sidewalk.

“This is it,” he said.

FergBurger and FergBaker were right next to each other, and they were clearly very popular. Because it was like lining up for a Disney ride.

“I promise it’s not as bad as it looks.”

There were heaters above, providing warmth while people stood out there, and that sort of joyous, excited atmosphere I had first felt when we came into town continued even to the queue with people bundled up and waiting for food.

“The question is: bakery or burgers?”

“I really want a meat pie first,” I said.

“All right. Bakery it is.”

The bakery did have the shorter line, so given that I was desperate for food, it definitely seemed like the more excellent choice.

What amazed me was how easy Ryan struck up conversations with the people around us. Everybody was a tourist, though many were from the North Island. Apparently, town was extra busy because the ski fields on the North Island hadn’t gotten enough snow, which meant that all of the enthusiasts had taken their gear to Queenstown for the skiing. It was school holidays, and this was the only place to get any winter weather this year.

We chatted all the way to the front of the line, where I saw an array of pies and pastries behind the case. With great difficulty, I narrowed it down to two pies, which I knew I couldn’t finish, especially not when I intended to get a burger, but I was bound and determined to try a variety of things. I got a classic pie, with mince and cheddar, and a chili pie, which just sounded too good to pass up.

Ryan got a chicken curry pie.

“I’ll split the chili pie with you,” I said. “That one feels like a risk.”

We bought bottles of Coke, and then went outside with our spoils, wrapped in paper. Thankfully very easy to eat standing, so we immediately got into the hamburger queue, and I pulled out the mince and cheddar pie and tucked into it with relish. It was so good. I couldn’t even imagine wanting anything as ordinary as a hamburger after exposing myself to the glory of a meat pie.

“I ruined myself for America,” I said.

“It’s pretty good,” he agreed.

“Life changing,” I said.

There was an ease between us that I really wasn’t used to. That made me feel a little bit lightheaded.

The burger line was definitely longer, but I was warmed and cheered by the pies, and no longer hungry by the time we got to the front. I didn’t care.

I ordered the FergBurger and then we went outside to wait until our number was called.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Well, you might want to try your hamburger first.”

“I mean, this is amazing, even if I hate the hamburger. Much more my speed than the ice bar.”

“Must be the company,” he said.

My heart did something weird when he said that. I knew he was kidding. Because of course he was.

The burger was as delicious as everything else had been, and we took our food off to some benches on the sidewalk. I sat down, and tucked one of my legs underneath me, and realized a bit late that it put my knee in extremely close proximity to his thigh. I chose to ignore that, I chose not to make a big issue out of it. Just like I had done earlier in the car.

I took a bite of my burger, which had to be one of the more unsexy things to take a bite of, and happened to look up at him right when he was looking at me.

My breath froze solid in my lungs, and so did my hands, my shoulders, my heart.

It was too easy. To try and look back on every interaction we had and recast it, based on the conversations we’d had earlier today.

It was too easy, and too tempting.

He’d said he liked my face.

It was tempting, also, to weave webs out of the connections that we found earlier. To apply significance to them.

Why?

Even if we could have a friendship, he was leaving. For how long, I didn’t know, and I hadn’t asked, because I didn’t want him to think that I was curious about it.

Though that was old stuff. Old wounds when it came to him, old habits.

Here, it had been like being friends. A little bit.

Except there would always be something else there. An undercurrent that I didn’t want to deal with.

That truth that had hit first in New Orleans, in a sultry roll of warm air, and then like a bolt of lightning in Tahoe.

I was attracted to him.

Undeniable, and harsh. Terrifying.

The fact that it lingered still, after everything. After all of our history, and the fifth wedding. After all the changes that had happened inside of me . . . well, it was a lot. Foolish, even. And yet, if I had ever been in control of that, I would have changed it a long time ago. I never would have opted to remain attracted to Ryan Clark.

I definitely would not have chosen to feel struck by lightning mid bite of a hamburger.

I forced myself to start chewing. To stop being weird.

I looked away.

Suddenly the silence between us wasn’t comfortable. And I had to move my knee, because I couldn’t handle the near touch. The closeness.

I sat down firmly, straight on the bench, and ate half of the hamburger, and about half of the fries. The meat pie was entirely consumed.

It felt like such a strange, domestic moment, or had, here in this place across the world from where we normally were.

But that was sort of us.

Us.

There wasn’t an us. It wasn’t like that. There was baggage, and weird stuff. There was a preponderance of charged moments and mistakes. Of both of us interpreting the other’s actions in the meanest possible way. “Ready to walk back?”

I nodded. “Yeah.”

I stuffed all of my leftovers into a large brown bag, determined to eat them at some point the next day. They were too good to sacrifice.

The walk home felt more awkward. It was crazy to me that I was so affected by a little bit of unexpected eye contact. A rogue glance that had connected the two of us for a moment, and hadn’t quite let me go.

I knew what it was. I wasn’t an idiot.

It was the intensity of it, the profoundness of it, that was what surprised me. Every damned time. It just didn’t feel like it should be like that. Honestly.

It didn’t feel like it should be that intense.

Because if there was one thing I knew, it was that . . .

It couldn’t go anywhere. For so many reasons, and the biggest one was ourselves and our traumas.

We were such spiky disasters with each other.

And, while I didn’t know for certain, I suspected Ryan wasn’t hunting for permanence.

You’re not either. Not anymore.

Which left me with a question I’d never especially wanted to ask myself, but that Quinn’s teasing me about Trev had promoted. At what point was I going to rip the Band-Aid off and have sex for fun? Not to try to keep somebody with me. Not to try to build a relationship that would last . . .

I looked at Ryan out of the corner of my eye. Because honestly, he would be the one.

That thought slammed into me with all the force of a freight train.

Hadn’t I learned anything?

No. I really should hook up with Trev. That was the smarter thing. That would be the more sensible thing. Not to make Quinn feel better about moving to New Zealand, but because I would probably never see him again.

Or maybe I would. Sometime when I came to visit Quinn and Noah for the holidays. And what if he was married, and had children? That would be weird. Still less weird than having to deal with that in your hometown. That was . . . not on my list of ideal things.

I would have to deal with it with Josh.

Someday.

I didn’t feel singed by that, though. Not that.

He stopped walking, and it seemed natural for me to do the same. “I just want to snap a couple of pictures. You can go on if you want. The rental house is just three places up.”

“I’m not in a hurry.”

“Just go,” he said.

I looked up at him, and my stomach twisted. “Ryan . . .”

“We both know you don’t have any intention of following through with this. So stop.”

That was so unfair. That was so deeply unfair.

“I am not the one—”

But it died on my lips, because I couldn’t . . . I couldn’t deal with the truth of it. I didn’t want to rehash what had happened a year and a half ago. The reason that I didn’t think of it now, ever, was because it was just too hard.

Because I felt too damned guilty.

And somehow angry at the same time because it wasn’t all my fault. It wasn’t all one moment. It was years.

But instead of saying that, I turned away from him and made a dash across the street for the vacation rental.

And when I got inside, I greeted everyone with a smile and acted like nothing had happened.

When it came to Ryan, I’d gotten good at that.

He came in about a half hour later, and I ignored him, choosing instead to bustle around the kitchen that overlooked the living area, but made it easy enough to never make eye contact with anyone down below.

“Everything okay?” Quinn asked.

“Totally fine.”

“You had a lot of Ryan today.”

“Everything was awesome. This is the best trip ever,” I said. “Thank you.”

Quinn crossed to me and pulled me in for a hug. “I’m glad you’re here. I’m glad you came to Pineville. I know the circumstances sucked. But, from the minute I met you, I knew you were going to be my best friend. I knew you’d be in my wedding. I knew I needed you.”

All the difficult, sharp things from today were dulled by that.

She needed me.

Maybe my mom never had, but there were people who did. That mattered.

I looked at Quinn and considered telling the truth. But I wasn’t sure what the truth was, so it died somewhere in my throat.

As far as my feelings for Ryan were concerned . . .

I had no idea how to talk about them, because I had never been able to decide exactly what they were.