Chapter Six
CHAPTER SIX
“Are you sure you want to do that?” asks Kiera, cringing.
She’s stopped walking on the path.
A breeze runs between us, bringing with it the scent of honeysuckle from somewhere.
I stop too, the phone and Aimee’s contact information waiting there.
“You said we haven’t seen each other in a while.”
“Not really.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know all the details. I think it was sort of a slow falling-out. After the wedding—”
“Wedding? Whose wedding? Is she married? ”
Kiera nods.
Aimee was nineteen the last time I saw her, and we were in no way talking about things like marriage.
I know people get married at that age in like, Utah, and wherever the NXIVM sex cult is still secretly operating, but the idea of getting married was so far from our minds when I last saw her.
Well…
actually, was it?
Aimee was always so much more traditional than I was.
We wanted to come here.
We wanted to be actresses, and we used to say we wanted to get famous and go down in history like the Cates/Kates.
: Blanchett, Winslet, Hepburn.
We wanted to be charming and funny, with a dash of serious acting mixed in.
But I guess I was really the one who talked about it the most.
She loved doing plays, but she was usually in the ensemble and happy there.
Or doing tech.
I, meanwhile, either got lead parts or was furious at myself when I didn’t, overthinking every weak syllable in my audition.
Aimee didn’t crave the limelight like I did.
She had talked about her future wedding.
She even talked about having kids one day.
I talked about walking down the red carpet, and she talked about walking down the aisle.
How had I forgotten that?
“What’s her husband like?”
“You sort of hate him.”
“God, it sounds like all I do is run around hating things. Actors, TV shows, husbands. I keep breaking up with perfectly nice-seeming guys.”
I feel a little sick, wondering if that is how I am in LA too.
Annoying and restless when everything is arguably fine.
“Just the one nice guy, really,” she corrects.
“And you’ve only broken up a few times. It’s really more the fact that, even when you do break up, you can’t stop being around each other, and you keep hurting each other that way.”
“Tell me I’m not as bad as I sound.”
“No! You’re grand. I mean, you’re always down for a good kippy chat, but you’re not really a shite-talker or anything like that. I think your problem with Theo has more to do with your past—”
“Wa-wa-wa-wa-wait,” I say.
“She married fucking Theo? ”
“So you do remember him of all people?” she asks, confused.
“I mean, they were together in high school and then they got back together in college. Yeah, I hated him. That’s a judgment I can stand behind.”
“Okay, so you remember everything up until being, what, like, eighteen?”
She swats at a mosquito; I pause to think it funny that mosquitos are part of this delusion, hallucination, whatever it is.
“No, I remember everything up to this moment. There are no gaps in my memory, it’s just that the lives seem to have sort of… diverged when I went to college. Because you seem to think I’ve been here that whole time, right?”
“Since the first year of college, yeah. I mean, you visit home now and again of course, but yes, you’re here.”
I shake my head.
“How did you and I meet?”
She hesitates, and then half sits on the wooden split rail fence behind her.
“We were in classes together. I was getting a degree in art. Painting, specifically, but we all had to take classes in the other disciplines, you know. I met you and Aimee in a basic acting class. It was not for me, let me tell you.”
“Okay, and how did Aimee end up here?”
“She came in the second semester of your first year.”
“How? She didn’t get in, right?”
“Taken off the wait-list, I guess. Well, look, why don’t you try to piece your life together for a day or so and then think about reaching out.”
This is crazy.
If I’m right that this is the life I would have lived, then it sounds like everything would have gone according to plan if I’d just come.
It’s almost too much to comprehend.
“Well, it doesn’t matter that we’re fighting, I’m going to call her. Is the whole Theo thing why we’re on bad terms?”
My heart is pounding.
“That’s where it started.”
“Okay, that’s fine. Theo sucks. That’s on the record. But if she’s mad at me, we can fix that. It doesn’t matter. I can apologize for that.”
“But Meg, you two drifted apart. You have different lives. You want different things.”
“That doesn’t make sense! You don’t get it. It would never happen like that!”
“Well, what happened in your, eh, other life? What’s your friendship like there?”
She gives me a steady look, the way a good therapist might speak into their patient’s fantasy to get to the heart of things.
I clench my jaw to keep in control, unwilling to go all the way into it.
I can’t, I never say out loud that she died.
And in this case I think it might sound off different alarm bells than I need to.
Aimee might not even see me if I go around saying something like that.
“We’re great,” I lie, instead.
She narrows her eyes at me.
“I don’t believe you.”
“I’m going to call her.”
“Meg.”
My blood runs hot and cold in equal measure as I hit Aimee’s name.
“It’s ringing,” I say.
Kiera nods, accepting it.
She looks almost as tense as I am.
The ringing stops.
And for a moment I’m suspended in wait.
I’m about to hear her voice.
Then…
voicemail.
Hey, you’ve reached Aimee.
Leave a message after the beep.
I’ll call you back as soon as I can .
The beep goes off, and my tongue feels tangled.
I’m so anxious there’s a pulse in my eyelids.
“Ah, uh, hi, Aimee, it’s Meg. Call me back as soon as you can. It’s urgent. And also, I’m sorry. About everything, ever. I don’t want to be in a fight or not talking or—call me back, okay? Anytime. But soon, like right away. Okay. Bye.”
I almost can’t bring myself to hang up.
It’s the closest to talking to Aimee that I’ve come in over a decade.
I manage eventually, and then look at Kiera.
After a minute, I say, “I’m gonna call her again.”
“No, no, no, okay. Let’s put the phone down, let’s, yeah.” She takes it from my hand and locks the screen.
“Let’s give her some time to get back to you.”
“Does she live nearby? Let’s go over!”
“You ever seen The Banshees of Inisherin ? It’s like that. I don’t think she’d chop all her fingers off if you show up, but nevertheless.”
I stare at her, uncomfortable in my own skin.
Now that I’ve called Aimee, I feel frenzied.
It’s like when I decide I want a haircut.
Once I’ve made the decision, I become desperate to do it.
If I don’t get to a salon within hours, I’m going positively feral with a pair of kitchen scissors.
“Listen, we’ve got work in a bit. Let’s get a bite to eat and then go over. It’ll all be all right.”
“Where do I work? And do I have to go? You’d think this would be cause for a sick day.”
She gives me a look, then puts her arm around my back.
“Come along, you poor, ill critter. You have bills to pay. Let’s go.”
We pick up a seafood chowder each and a hunk of bread to share with richly creamy, yellow, salted butter and take it over to the shop called Dinner Party that I noticed last night.
Apparently, we both work there.
Kiera unlocks and opens the front door, which hits a bell that hangs above it, sounding a cheerful jingle.
She flips on the lights.
“Oh, this is so cute ,” I say.
Then, when I feel her eyes on me, I turn and ask, “What?”
“Well, it’s a bit trippy to arrive at work with you and have you act like a customer who’s never been in before.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t—”
“I know, I know,” she says.
“You don’t know.”
“So it’s like a little gift shop.”
She hesitates and then says, “Yeah, so… mad, okay, so, the idea is like hostess gifts, for lack of a less nineteen-fifties-housewife way to put it. We sell chocolates and candies, some small-batch jams and things. Some wines and digestifs. Little gifts you might pick up when you forget your anniversary or go to meet your boyfriend’s parents or something like that.”
“Oh my God, that’s such a good idea. This would kill in Larchmont.”
“That’s a neighborhood in LA, yeah?”
“Sorry, yes.”
She goes behind the counter.
“How’s your wine knowledge?”
“I was a bartender, actually. Before the whole Brilliance thing. I’m not exactly a sommelier, but I know enough to think Sideways was actually a bad movie.”
“Between the toxic buddy bromance and all the pinot noir chat, that movie should be deleted from all streaming services. Though I do agree with them about merlot.”
She switches on the speakers, and Django Reinhardt starts playing.
I look at the wooden shelves of wine and realize that this is where the photo on the wall was taken.
The one of Aimee, Kiera, and me.
This is too weird.
Kiera walks me through the store, showing me what to do during a shift.
Training me, essentially.
Every few minutes she stops to ask, “Do you really not remember? I’ll kill you if you’re making me go through all this for nothing.”
And each time, I assure her that I have no idea.
Eventually, though, she’s shown me everything, and we’re sitting there in the peaceful, quiet little shop, waiting for someone to come in.
Kiera is on the ground using a selection of chalk pens to draw on an A-frame.
I wander around.
There’s a selection of records, and I flip through to see No Angel by Dido (which is the Dido my dog was named after, if I’m honest), The Rhythm of the Saints by Paul Simon, the soundtrack to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid , Caroline Polachek’s Desire, I Want to Turn Into You , and an old, ratty version of Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong’s album Ella and Louis.
There are more, and all of them seem to be entirely a selection of things I listen to on a regular basis.
“This is basically all my favorite music,” I say.
“Makes sense, you picked them out.”
“Really? Oh, that’s so fun.”
The bookshelf is filled with books to give someone who might not read them but will at least like displaying them and therefore seem cultured and interesting.
The orange edition of Last Summer in the City by Gianfranco Calligarich, Answered Prayers by Truman Capote, Hotel Pastis by Peter Mayle, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara, All Fours by Miranda July, and a massive, clothbound Slim Aarons coffee-table book.
My mind cycles around Aimee.
Disjointed visions of my life with her in it.
Imaginings of her as an adult.
I keep looking through the store.
There’s a selection of match jars, a few ceramic vessels, incense holders, a handful of Moleskine journals, a curation of restaurant pens, vintage barware, candles.
“Ugh, I love this one,” I say about the third candle I smell.
Then, after the fourth one, “This one too.”
Kiera sits up.
“To be clear, you picked everything out. You do the shopping for the place.”
“ What? That’s so fun!”
She smiles, furrowing her brow at me.
“You’re effin’ and blindin’ about it all the time.”
“Does that mean I talk about how great it is?” I ask, knowing it probably doesn’t.
“No, it means you love to bitch about it. ” She says the last part in an American accent that rivals the insulting quality of my Irish accent.
“Why do I do that?”
“I’ve no idea. You literally get to travel on the dime of the owner, Fia. You go round to anyplace she thinks, picking up nice trinkets and bringing them back here.”
I touch a tea towel, crisp linen with an embroidered crescent moon and stars.
It says Reaching for the Moon in dusty blue thread and a mid-century font.
“That seems like a dream job.”
“It is, trust me. Half the time I tow along with you. It’s all been delightful, but for the one nervous breakdown.”
“Nervous breakdown?” I ask, alarmed.
“A wee one.”
“Mine or yours?”
She points at me.
Should have known.
“Why?”
“It was in Italy. We went to an old movie theater where they were showing La Dolce Vita, and afterward you had a right fit.”
“That’s—what was the fit about?”
She sighs.
“It’s a bit hard to repeat now, considering everything you’re telling me about how you’re a movie star in your real life and all. But you were upset because you thought you’d given up. When I say upset, I mean you were yelling down the alleys of Rome. We were a little overspritzed, possibly. I think it was the heat that got to you. You were insisting that your life was too small, too… um. Provincial.”
“Provincial—”
“Like in Beauty and the Beast, that’s right.”
“I wasn’t singing though. Please lie to me and say I wasn’t singing.”
“No, no. Nothing as bad as all that. You thought you belonged somewhere else.”
I gnaw on my lip for a moment and then say, “Well, that’s embarrassing. I mean, it wasn’t me me, but still.”
“Nah, it’s not embarrassing. We’re friends! You’ve seen me tear through three party-sized bags of crisps in one sitting and I’ve seen you lament your existence in front of an audience of Roman tourists.”
“Eating a lot of junk food is hardly on the same level. Although that is a lot.”
“Well, you were also there for me when I tried to squat and pee on a long walk home from a party once but filled my shoes instead of the grass. And the time I accidentally called my boyfriend daddy, not in a hot way, that was a fun one. Or the time I was at my other ex-boyfriend’s mean parents’ house and tripped, only to spill hot Bolognese sauce all over a chair that cost more than I’ve ever earned. I could keep going.”
“And I could listen to it all day.” I laugh.
“Did I tell you about the one who kept his toenail—”
The bell sounds above the door and we both turn and see a tall figure come in, sleeves of his sweater pushed up to his elbows, a bit of mud on his boots.
“Cillian,” says Kiera.
She looks to me, and then he does too.
I cannot explain the physical reaction I have when I see him.
My chest feels hollowed out, my hands begin to tingle, and heat rushes to my face.
It’s all the feelings I’d expect when seeing someone I have strong feelings for, only I don’t know him.
And I’ve never had this feeling.
Not ever.
“Hi, Cillian,” I say.
He nods, his lips forming a straight line.
“I need some of those crisps everyone’s obsessed with.”
“Speaking of the crisps in question,” she says to me, then reaches for a bag on the shelf.
They look expensive, with soft matte turmeric-colored packaging and a single graphic of a potato.
Beneath the image, it says Butter Cheddar Thyme bend inelegantly over the arm of the couch instead, tugging on the coaster beneath the glass and catching it before it falls.
I could have gone to Avalon, instead I went to LA.
I take my sip.
It’s even better than the first.
“Okay, so I was at the pub.”
“You were at the pub, he was your bartender that first night—his mam, Marcia, owns the pub, by the way. You two got to talking, God knows about what—probably something about how Hemingway is overrated or some such pretentious shite. Anyway, you started up all innocent-like at first, you were both too shy to make a move. It took ages, my God, Aimee and I were dyin’ for you two to get together. You both had these ridiculous puppy eyes for each other. You were always trying to get us to go to the pub instead of any parties or anything like that. You used to have him come fix things at Surrey House when you and Aimee lived there—”
“Aimee and I lived at that house together?” I asked.
“For years, yes. Fia owns it. Charges you nearly nothing. You both stayed there until Theo. But that’s another story. Okay, so he’d come over and fix things. He’d ask for your help buying Mother’s Day presents, you’d help him find shoes that didn’t make him look like an old man. I’ve never seen two people more obsessed with each other or more blind to it. You were in complete denial about each other. It was madness.”
“I mean, it’s also kind of cute,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and pours another splash of wine, this time the Chablis from the third spigot.
“It sounds cute now, but for me as your overly involved pal, it was exhausting , I’ll tell you. Anyway, so then you finally, after four bleeding years of this, you go out to dinner. It was him who finally made the first move. He asked you to be his plus-one at a wedding in Dingle and you shared a room. Believe it or not, you still didn’t do anything, but you stayed up all night talking. I actually remember that you had some kind of amazing-sounding chicken fried rice and ate it in the backyard of a pub, oh what was it now—O’Sullivan’s! Yes, and there was music that night, you said. Then you had espresso and beer from the hotel bar and sat outside until the sun came up.”
“Aw, that’s so nice.” It sounds like something out of a fantasy.
“But are you serious, four years ? I mean, that’s a little insane.”
“It was like you both knew it would be the real thing when you got together, so you were both in conniptions every time it got close, afraid you might feck it up.”
“So how did it finally happen?”
“Ah,” she says.
“Well, one day after he broke his collarbone—”
A shiver runs through me, involuntarily.
Aimee broke her collarbone on a ski trip when she was twelve.
The scar had always given me chills.
“I know,” she says, “you can imagine what it did for his already gruff exterior. So he broke his collarbone and his dad, you know, being a doctor and all, was ready to take care of him, but then you said you would play Florence Nightingale for him. So he’s lazing on your couch, absolutely banjaxed on painkillers, and then right in the middle of The Notebook , which you were so generously airing for him, he told you he loved you. He said you two were like Noah and Allie and that you ought to be together forever.”
My mouth falls open and then I shut it in a pout.
“That’s adorable.”
“Yes, but then he fell asleep about five minutes afterward and slept for fourteen hours. Woke up the next morning without any memory of it.”
“Oh my God.”
“But it was fine, because you told me, and I decided enough was enough after the donkey’s years saga, and I told him what he’d said. You two finally talked, and then you were together for two good years.”
“Two years? That’s a long time.” To someone like me, who has usually freaked out around that time.
“You had wee breakups in between, you’d bicker and then throw the baby out with the bathwater, be apart for a few days, and then go crawling back to him.”
I hate hearing about myself.
“And he always took me back?”
“He made you beg sometimes, just to keep a bit of his dignity, but yes. Always. Then around the two-year mark you broke up and it stuck. You freaked out.”
Ah.
“Okay… why did I freak out?”
I feel like I could guess.
“Oh, you know.” She pours us more wine.
“You were afraid of living some humdrum little life. You didn’t want to become a wife and a mother and then forget you ever had dreams.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. I mean, I get it. Lots of people don’t want to keep a small life.”
“What about you?” I ask.
“Me? I lead an almost delusionally contented life, me. All the rushing around, hustling and bustling—not for me. I want good wine, good food, and some good sex. Until I tire of sex in my old age, and then I’ll care about some good orthopedic shoes and say endearingly inappropriate things to my young, fit masseuse.”
“Sex right up until the orthopedic shoes, huh? Then no more.”
“No more. I’ll be tired then. Okay, so you broke his heart, and then about six months ago, you got back together. It seemed like things were okay. Great, even. Always the bickering, but in a cute way. And then out of nowhere, it seems, you broke up with him. Again. I don’t think anyone thought it would happen again. Least of all him.”
“Sounds like… I mean it sounds like a mess.”
“It is. But I tell you, I’ve never heard one of you say a bad word about the other. You were and are obsessed with each other. Always taking up for each other, helping each other out. You’re too scared. You’re always threatening to leave, saying you want to move somewhere like London or New York or…”
I catch where she’s going and say, “Or LA.”
“Yep. Everything seemed perfect. Then suddenly everything was over. I don’t know what happened. You’d been acting weird for about a month, anyone could see it. You told me nothing except that the breakup was for real this time. Cillian is a wreck, poor thing. Puts on a brave face.”
“This is appalling,” I say, my heart clanging in my chest for Cillian.
For me.
A phone rings and we look at each other.
I run across the place, only barely managing not to drop the wineglass.
I get to the phone and see the screen.
It’s Aimee.