Chapter 9 #2
She was joking, of course, but Nora felt irritated by the implication, nonetheless.
Though she was twenty-three, Julia still saw her as that little girl she had to look after when the three of them had flown to visit Grandma Vera on their own and Dad told Julia she was in charge.
But Nora had grown up, become a woman of the city, a woman of the world.
Leo had even promised he would be setting up an audition for her for a new show he was investing in when she got back.
She was starting to feel certain that soon, she would be someone.
Then, even Julia would have to see that.
Nora changed out of her airplane clothes into jean shorts and a sweater, put on a little makeup, and left to go to Vons to buy graham crackers. But as she walked out the front door, she suddenly heard Nate’s voice from across the yard.
“The Trouble Trio’s back in town!” He stood and bounded down the porch steps, across the grass, and wrapped her in a giant hug. He smelled like the ocean, like her childhood, like if happiness itself had an actual deep, woodsy scent. That was all Nate.
He pulled back, held her at arm’s length for a moment, and then broke into a smile. “Nora, you look great! How have you been?”
She felt her cheeks redden, at not only his gaze but his comment that she looked great.
“Well, I’ve been great.” She laughed. Maybe that was a slight exaggeration.
But she imagined by this same week next year, she might be living with Leo in his Upper East Side apartment, after having secured a role in his new show.
“Hey, come meet Becca.” He grabbed her hand and pulled her toward the redhead on the porch lounger. Becca was listening to music on one of those fancy new iPods Nora had started seeing pop up all around the city. “Bec, this is one of the May girls I told you about that I practically grew up with.”
Becca pulled off her headphones, raised her sunglasses to the top of her head, gave Nora a once-over, and smiled. “Is this the one you dated? Or the one you taught to surf? Or the other one?”
She was, of course, the other one. Was she not even memorable enough in Nate’s stories to get some kind of distinction?
“This is the singer, the actress,” Nate said. “Nora’s the one making it big in New York City.”
“Well, trying to make it big.” Nora laughed again. “Working on it.”
“Oh!” Becca smiled. “That’s adorable.”
Nora didn’t like the way she said adorable, like she was patronizing Nora for being young, easily dismissed.
“Nora, Becca moved in a few months ago,” Nate said. “Maybe we could all go out on the boat sometime this week while you three are in town. I want her to get to know all of you.”
Moved in? So Becca was serious.
“Oh,” Nora heard herself saying. “Wow. Yeah, of course. The boat would be… so much fun,” she stammered.
And before she knew it, she’d signed them up for sailing later in the week with Nate and Becca. A slight deviation in their schedule. She hoped Julia wouldn’t kill her.
That old stupid saying about muscle memory, that it was like riding a bike, didn’t apply to Emily. The truth was, she never really learned how to ride a bike. She could never quite get the hang of how to balance and pedal at the same time.
She reminded her sisters of this fact as they roasted their s’mores over the backyard firepit and browsed the schedule Julia had handed her for the week.
“Anyone can ride a bike,” Julia said in response. She’d had half a glass of wine two hours earlier, after their walk, and still sounded a little woozy.
“You don’t do boats,” Emily retorted. “I don’t do bikes. If you’re forcing me to bike, maybe I’ll see if Nate can get us out on the sailboat.”
“Um… actually,” Nora said, her mouth full with a gooey bite of a s’more. “I told Nate we’d go on the boat with him and Becca Friday morning, so we have to edit the schedule.”
“What?” Julia said, sitting up.
As Emily said, “Who the hell is Becca?”
“Nate’s live-in girlfriend,” Nora said, licking marshmallow off the side of her thumb.
“She lives there?” Julia raised her eyebrows.
Emily looked back and forth between her older and younger sister.
Nora was focusing very hard on her s’more and Julia looked like she’d just tasted something sour.
She suddenly longed for the freedom of last summer, when Julia had shown up with Veronica and they’d pretty much ignored the schedule and had done exactly what they’d wanted all week.
“How about no bikes, no boats,” Emily said.
“We could all just sit on the beach and read, and then drink and eat s’mores out here at night? You know, relax.”
Nora and Julia simultaneously glared at her.
“I already told Nate we would go,” Nora said.
“I already paid for the bikes,” Julia said. “And besides, I spent a lot of time making the schedule this year. We have to make up for last year when we missed out on everything.”
“It’s great you’re both so flexible. I can already tell this is going to be a super fun week,” Emily retorted. She popped the rest of her s’more in her mouth and stood, walking back inside the house.
“You don’t have to be such a bitch!” Nora called after her.
“Nora!” Julia said. “Be nice.”
But Emily pretended not to hear, walking up the stairs to her bedroom.
It wasn’t that she was all that annoyed by her sisters.
It was more that she hadn’t been in the best mood these last two months, and even here, in her favorite place in the world, she felt stretched thin, weary.
She’d waited for the calm to hit her from the back seat of the taxi as it drove over the bridge to Coronado a few hours ago, the way it had her whole life.
But so far, she still felt tense and annoyed.
After she’d gotten back to Boston last summer, she had called Cara.
They’d met for a drink, then a movie, then dinner.
By the fall they were up all night, talking on the phone, and by the winter, up all night exploring each other’s bodies in Cara’s apartment.
They were dating. Though it was only in hindsight that Emily realized, not officially.
They’d never actually agreed it was anything exclusive.
But this wasn’t high school! They were together all the time for six months.
And for the first time in her life, Emily thought she understood what it meant to really be in love.
Like what Julia had said when she married Ted: Emily was dazzled.
In March, Cara’s mom suddenly took a turn for the worse. She went out to California again to see her, promising Emily she would call as soon as she got back into town. And two months later, Emily still hadn’t heard a word from her.
After the first week passed, she was worried. Is her mom okay? Is Cara okay? She tried to call her. Just once. But when Cara sent Emily to voicemail she tried again. And then again. And then it was too many times to count. A number maybe verging on making her look like a stalker.
Then, she did actually become a stalker, as she found herself on Beacon Street at ten o’clock one oddly balmy night in April, walking slowly by Cara’s apartment.
She stopped in the street outside: The light was on.
So she was back from California? Emily could see Cara’s frame through the kitchen window.
She was sitting at the table with another woman, a woman Emily didn’t even recognize, talking.
They leaned in close. Were they laughing? Hugging?
Emily explained this all to Ben, who worked the teller window next to her at the bank, on one very slow Thursday morning a few weeks ago.
Ben had nodded, not even pausing from counting the ones in his drawer before saying, “I’ll tell it to you straight, Em. It’s a classic asshole move guys do all the time. She got tired of you, met someone else, and didn’t feel like going through all the drama of breaking up.”
Emily wondered if Ben had done this, all the time, if that’s why he sounded so versed in it.
He was nice enough to work next to, but she already understood that people were different when they were dating.
Was it that they became their true selves or the opposite?
That part she wasn’t sure of. “She wouldn’t do that to me,” Emily insisted.
“There must be a reasonable explanation. I should call her again.”
“Do not call her again,” Ben had said firmly. “Not unless you want her to take out a restraining order.”
She’d listened and she hadn’t called her or walked by Cara’s apartment again.
But it still didn’t stop her from checking her phone a few times a day to see if Cara had finally called her back.
So far she hadn’t, and even Coronado, the old familiar house on Ocean Boulevard, her sisters—none of that was making her feel any better.
In fact, for some reason, it all was only making her feel worse.
Julia didn’t like the sound of Becca’s laugh.
Objectively speaking, it was too high-pitched, she did it too frequently, and it came off as disingenuous.
Emily was sipping a mimosa—her second—and quizzing Becca on what she liked about Nate, as she picked at the edge of the Band-Aid on her knee with her thumbnail, covering up the small scrape sustained bike riding the day before.
“Where do I even begin?” Becca said. Then laughed again.
Julia felt queasy as the sailboat lurched over a wave and Becca’s laugh penetrated her ears like nails on a chalkboard.