Chapter 11
C HAPTER 11
Present Day
A few days later the other bridesmaids flew into Queenstown, and we split our activities more firmly off from the groomsmen. I was ready for that. I needed a little bit of space from Ryan. Every time it seemed like we were on some kind of even footing, things went wrong. But with Quinn’s words from the other day, and the energy from the other women, I was feeling stronger, a little less broken than I had been for a while.
We drove to Glenorchy, a very small town around forty-five minutes from Queenstown, where we walked a lovely, flat hiking trail that gave an incredible view of the mountains, marshes and wildlife. We ate ramen at a tiny shop at the end of a row of buildings, and then bought souvenirs at a yarn store that also had pottery and other items made by local artisans.
The next day we went to Arrowtown, which was much closer to where we were staying. A charming town that reminded me of Pineville. It also had its roots in the 1800s gold rush, though half a world away from the one I was familiar with. Yet, it was the ultimate reminder that people were people.
They were greedy, relentless, brave assholes who pursued wealth at the expense of happiness, for the promise of an easier life later.
The human condition really was something.
We stopped in a candy store and got caught up trying flavors of fudge, and possibly bought more sugar than any group of people could reasonably consume. Though I was intent on trying it.
We went into a souvenir shop where I bought a sweatshirt and some possum/merino wool gloves.
“The possums are a big problem for the environment,” the man in the store told me as he rung up my purchases. “They wreck the trees. Not native.”
“Oh,” I said.
“And you know how we got the possums, eh?”
“I . . . don’t.”
“Well, we had a big problem with rabbits, and so we introduced stoats to kill the rabbits.”
I blinked. “I see.”
“Only then the stoats overpopulated and began to kill the native bird life. They’re a massive threat to kiwis – the birds not the citizens. So the government figured, as stoats and possums are natural enemies, maybe possums would do the trick. So, they introduced possums, but instead of fighting and killing each other, they leave each other be. They don’t have a common dietary need which means the stoats and possums get on famously. But the possums wreak havoc on the trees, which is also bad for the birds. But, handy thing, possum fur makes wonderful garments.”
“Well . . . guess I’m doing my part,” I said, indicating the gloves.
We went into a clothing store, where a woman explained just why clothing made from possum was so coveted for its warmth and softness.
As we walked down the street later, Quinn took some fudge out of the bag and took a bite. “Do you think that there is a possible lobby somewhere, trying to do a hard sell to get people to wear possum, just because they’re actually overly plentiful, or do you suppose it actually is extra nice?”
“I’m going with possum lobby,” I said. “Which both wants to drive up the price of possum fur and eradicate possums.”
“The perfect crime.”
Because that seemed as reasonable as anything.
We did go to the aviary, and I got to see the kiwis running around in their habitat, which simulated nighttime, so the guests could catch glimpses of the round nocturnal animals as they scurried around in their enclosure. They were much bigger than I had imagined kiwis would be. It was such an amazing thing to be outside my life for such an extended period of time, and feel grounded still. To not feel quite so desperate to go back home and cling to my grandmother’s house. To not feel quite so much like I was losing touch with who I was and what I was meant for.
Or even sadder, my whole identity.
I was really beginning to feel that no matter where Quinn lived, we would always have a connection.
My mother had taught me that wasn’t possible.
Because she had left me, and since then contact had been minimal. The person I cared for most, the person I had wanted most when I had been a little girl, had convinced me that out of sight really was out of mind, even with people you loved.
I realized how brilliant Quinn was, setting all this up. And I told her so one night when we were having hot pots at a restaurant in Queenstown.
“I’m so glad that we got a chance to see your new life,” I said. “It’s going to make me feel part of it, even though we’re far away.”
Hannah raised her glass in salute. “To Quinn! The bravest one.”
Sierra laughed. “I don’t know, I feel like your great skinny-dipping escapades in eighth grade were pretty brave.”
Hannah laughed. “Only because the water was cold.”
“Nah, it was brave,” Caitlin said. “There’s a reason I wouldn’t do it.”
I had done it. Because I didn’t want Hannah to think I was a chicken, even though I was. I’d admired that Caitlin hadn’t felt the need to do that.
I didn’t really feel the need to just say or do things to go along with the crowd anymore, I realized. And even if I was tempted to, Hannah, Caitlin and Sierra would never make me feel like I needed to.
This dinner, this moment, was a reminder that while Quinn was my person, I did have other supports back home in Pineville.
I had friends.
And now I had a piece of my heart here, and it wouldn’t be inaccessible to me. It wouldn’t be impossible for me to reach it.
I wasn’t going to be lost from it forever.
Intermittently, during the trip I had gotten texts from Josh, telling me about a road trip that he was on. And even that made me feel pretty good. Because I felt like there was something repaired in that relationship too. It had been important to me for a very long time, and I was glad that we were back on pretty decent footing.
Three days before the wedding, Quinn’s parents, and Noah’s parents, took the bride and groom out to dinner, and most of the wedding party went their separate ways for the evening. And I decided that it was the time to get started on the cake, since I was also going to be busy with the rehearsal dinner the following night. And that was when I allowed myself to really get in my feelings. To think about Quinn and our friendship. And how we had talked about our weddings when we were children.
I put every ounce of love that I had for her into that cake. I thought about all the years we had known each other, and shared our hopes and dreams. I thought of how knowing her had changed my life. How being her friend had genuinely opened up a part of me that had been closed off before.
She was my first friend. And my dearest. And her vanilla and lemon wedding cake would taste better than anything else I had ever made for the amount of feeling that was baked into it.
I heard footsteps coming up the stairs and turned toward the staircase. Ryan. Of course. He had his camera bag slung over his shoulder. It wasn’t lost on me that the both of us were sort of set apart from everybody else in some ways. We had wedding duties, and that was part of it. But also, he was the lone American amongst the groomsmen. But there was also just something . . . separate about him.
In general.
He had friends. Josh was one of them. But there would always be that piece of Ryan Clark that felt inaccessible. I had to wonder how much of it was from his childhood. From feeling like there was something fundamentally wrong with him because his mother hadn’t kept him.
That was how I felt sometimes. It was the wound I carried around underneath everything. That deep fear that there was something fundamentally different about you, and everybody else could see it. That there was something wrong with you, and it was going to come out at some point, and people wouldn’t want to know you.
Because what must be broken in someone for their own mother to not want anything to do with them?
I wondered if that was the real reason he and I always seemed to be the ones that were left behind in a quiet moment.
“You didn’t go out?”
“I have a cake to bake,” I said.
“I see.”
“I don’t mind. It’s nice to have a little bit of time separate from all the activity. As much fun as it’s been.”
He nodded. “I can only binge drink so many nights in a row.”
“Is that really what you guys have been doing?”
“These Kiwis can drink me under a table. I don’t have the energy for it.”
I laughed. “Oh, well. That hasn’t been happening at our girl outings. They’ve been very sophisticated.”
“Maybe I should have gone with you guys.”
“Maybe,” I said.
I knew better than to let out a breath. I knew better than to totally believe that things were going to feel normal between us for the duration of this conversation.
I was far too familiar with the rhythm of our particular dance.
A smooth tango for a few beats, and then a catastrophic failure.
We were a beautifully risen cake taken out of the oven too soon. The end result of that was a crater.
And nobody wanted a cake crater.
I was determined to be vigilant in my watch for that.
Both metaphorically and literally.
“What were you doing?”
“Taking pictures.”
“It’s dark outside.”
“I have a star tracker,” he said. “That way I can take photos of the night sky on a really long exposure, and the stars stay sharp.”
“I don’t really understand how any of that works,” I said.
“I can explain it.”
“I dunno, I kind of like the magic of it.”
“Fair enough. I guess I like the magic of cake without understanding how it all works.”
“I never did get the feeling that you especially liked cake.”
“As a matter of fact,” he said, “I do. You know I’ve had a piece of wedding cake at every wedding we’ve been at together.”
I looked at him, trying to see if he was teasing me or not. He looked serious.
“You never said.”
“Because I’m a dick, sometimes even in spite of my best efforts.”
An unexpected olive branch, and I wasn’t above reaching out to take it.
“Well, I am open to praise.”
“You’re very good at what you do,” he said.
I sniffed. “Feels a little faint.”
“Best wedding cake I’ve ever had.”
“That’s better.” In spite of myself, I was warmed.
“Glad you could be pleased.”
“I’m actually not that hard to please.”
We stood there and looked at each other for a moment. I couldn’t decide what the feeling was that expanded between us. I wasn’t sure I wanted to.
I saw a message flash up on my phone, sitting on the counter, and I turned away from Ryan, grateful for the slight break.
It was another one from Josh.
I drew back in surprise when I opened it and saw that it was a picture of him with a woman.
Met this girl Rose at the Grand Canyon. We decided to travel together.
I gaped at that.
I couldn’t quite figure out what he meant by that. Except it was Josh, and I genuinely didn’t think he meant anything awful by it. He was sending me a picture of himself with another woman. And I wasn’t sure how I was supposed to react to that.
But this was what he had said he wanted to do. He wanted to travel around, he wanted to adventure and all of that.
He had wanted to be with other people.
And I didn’t even know how I could fault him for that when he had been honest.
Enough time had passed that it wasn’t like . . . it wasn’t like it hurt sharply. It was just . . . I still couldn’t quite fathom what he expected me to do with the information. If we were friends, I supposed it was fair.
But I wasn’t sure that we were friends quite like that. I had been feeling like we were. I wasn’t jealous. It was just odd.
I looked up and saw Ryan staring at me.
“What?”
“You look upset.”
“I’m not upset.”
“Liar.”
“I’m not,” I said.
I was lying.
“Who’s that from?”
“It’s really not your business.”
“Really?”
“Really.” I turned away from him.
“There’s not a faster way to make me even more convinced that is something weird.”
“It’s just Josh, okay. He’s traveling around the Grand Canyon, and he met somebody. Which is fine.”
“What the fuck? Why do you accept that from him?”
“He’s your friend, Ryan. You should know that he doesn’t mean anything by it.”
“All the hell he doesn’t. He does mean something by it. He knows that you’re here in Queenstown, saying goodbye to Quinn. He knows that you’re here with me.”
“What does that have to do with anything?”
“Are you serious?”
“I . . . yes. I’m serious. I don’t know what that has to do with him. He doesn’t . . . know anything.”
“He’s fucking jealous,” Ryan said. “He’s always been insecure when it comes to you, do you really not realize that?”
I tried to think back on my extremely unremarkable, extremely placid relationship with Josh.
Nowhere along the way had it ever seemed to me that he was jealous. Why would he be? I had never . . .
I had been attracted to Ryan.
Had I telegraphed that?
I didn’t think so. I had only ever really been exposed to Ryan when we were away.
Was there something that we both put off? Sparks that I hadn’t even noticed until a year and a half ago?
That had been there, but that I had been oblivious to.
“Yes. He’s insecure. That’s why he . . . that’s why he’s sending you those pictures. He wants you to be jealous. You’ve been broken up for nine fucking months, did you really not get that he wanted you back the whole time?”
“No,” I said. “Because he broke up with me. Why would I think that he wanted me back?”
“I think he wanted you to respond to the breakup differently than you did.”
“You think?”
“No. I know . I mean, I know him. He was miserable as fuck after the breakup and he was . . . waiting for you to call and you didn’t. From my perspective, that was what he wanted. For you to chase him down. To beg for him to take you back.”
“I don’t . . . I never saw any of that.”
“Why not? I don’t understand that you were with him for that many years and you didn’t see how . . . insecure he was?”
“You’re his friend. If I said anything like that about Quinn you could be certain that I had been body snatched.”
“Yeah. I’ve been friends with him since middle school. Which means I am pretty well versed in his bullshit – intentional or not. I think he means well, Poppy. But he didn’t always do well, not with you. And he always thought he was punching above his weight.”
“ That I just can’t believe.”
“Because you don’t see yourself the way that . . . everybody else does. I don’t know what you see. I can’t fucking imagine. How you look in the mirror and see somebody that . . . had to work to keep somebody like Josh.”
“He was a good boyfriend,” I said. “He was a good boyfriend who . . .”
“What? I’m all ears. What did he do for you? What did he do other than sit around in your house; he was practically a throw pillow on your couch. What did he give you?”
I felt something furious bubbling up inside of me; at Ryan, at Josh, at myself. Because how dare he, how dare he come in here and lecture me about my relationship. My seven-year relationship that had been so defining to me.
How dare Josh actually be less than I had realized until that moment? And how dare I be so oblivious to it because of my own feelings about myself?
How dare Ryan again, for being right.
For not being wrong about what I accepted. For not being wrong about what I had wanted.
“He needed me. And he made me feel safe,” I said.
“Is that it?”
“What more is there, Ryan? What more is there when you know what it feels like when somebody abandons you. When you know what it feels like to have somebody that you love completely cut you out of their life?”
“That’s not love, is it?”
“Security? It feels a lot like love to me. I’m not . . . the thing is, I don’t want him back. I don’t. Losing him just showed me that I needed to see my life differently. I’m not an idiot. And you’re not any better than he is. Coming in and trying to tell me what I should and shouldn’t accept. I am aware that Josh isn’t the one for me. I’m not looking at that picture and wishing that I was Rose. At the same time, he is a person in my life and I’m glad that he’s still in it—”
“Just because you’re afraid of losing people.”
“I’m sorry, is it better to act like you? Like none of the people in your life matter? Like you don’t give a shit about anything?”
“I give a shit about plenty of things. Maybe you should stop acting like you know everything. About everybody, including me.”
“Why should I stop when you’re doing the same?”
“I do know you. That’s something I think you really don’t get. I don’t connect with people the same way that you do, no. But I know you. I have watched you from the time we were twelve. I have watched you assume that your presence bothers people, that you have to work double time just to keep friends around. I have watched you treat yourself like you matter the least. From upside down wedding cakes to . . . to freaking out about the cake when a bear tears your car apart and your biggest worry is disappointing someone, not your own sanity or safety.”
I ignored how deep that gouged me. “And I watched you use your camera to keep everybody at a distance. To build a barrier between yourself and anybody who ever wants to get close to you. To the point that you can come to me and trash your friend because . . . I can’t even fathom why.”
“You can’t?”
His words ground against something inside me.
“I don’t want him,” I said.
“But you’re not really over it.” He shook his head. “I don’t have the patience for it.”
He turned and walked away, and I felt like someone had taken a giant spatula and scooped my insides out. The last two big blowups with him had more warning.
That the fifth wedding was history we might be doomed to repeat, if we weren’t very, very careful.
And I did not want to repeat that history.
Not even a little.
I pulled my cake out. It was perfect.
The only crater was in my communication with Ryan.
I had no idea how to fix that.
Maybe I didn’t need to.
It was a radical thought.
Somewhere along the line, I had lost track of one of the most exhilarating things about Ryan Clark.
Which was that I couldn’t please him. So, for a long time I hadn’t tried.
Ever since the fifth wedding, I had fallen into trying to fix whatever we were.
Maybe it just couldn’t be fixed.
Maybe I had to be okay with that.