Chapter 11 #4
“Be that as it may, Jake’s Post-It note worked. All the thirsty guys have already taken down their comments. I don’t know what the fuck I’m gonna do…”
“Accept you’ve met someone you like and not commit violent acts of revenge at our high school reunion?” I say hopefully, bumping my knee against hers. “Huh? Huh?”
“Magic 8 ball says, ‘not fucking likely,’” Ada shoots back, but she’s smiling.
“I’ll shake again tomorrow,” I say. “Thanks for coming back to be with me.”
“Wouldn’t be anywhere else. Especially not with the dude putting a digital dog-collar around my neck.”
“Ada…” I say as gently as I can through all the gin. “You completely lost the right to make that argument when everyone in this bar heard you coming on his dick.”
She gives a grudging laugh. “Fair.”
Aggie reappears with another crust-trimmed toastie and places it in front of Ada.
“Want another one?” she asks me.
I shake my head. “Thanks though.”
Aggie smiles and dashes back to the kitchen as Ada bites into her toastie with a moan worthy of what I heard upstairs. “God, that woman can cook. I mean, besides spaghetti.”
I nod, but while she’s distracted by the melty cheese, I slide my phone from my jeans pocket and start typing:
What’s this I hear about you treating my best friend like property in your old-man golf chat?
Jake’s reply comes in a second later:
She’s not property, but she’s still mine.
He sends me a screenshot from a chat called ‘Grip It and Sip It,’ which I pray to God is a golf euphemism and not something even more disgusting.
There’s a post from Thrasher up top; a selfie of him brandishing a golf club like a championship trophy.
Below it sits Jake’s message, short and to the point:
Any of you cunts think you’ve got a shot with Ada Renaldo, you’re wrong. I’m gonna marry that girl. Try it on with her, and I’ll take it personally.
Colin Wintergreen’s reply is a GIF of Jake slamming a Springbok into the ground during the last Rugby World Cup semi-final. The subtext is clear: He’s not joking. Back the fuck off or get hurt.
My chest pulls as tight as a drawstring.
I’d give my left tit, my best tit, for Will Sharpe to be as into me as Jake is into Ada.
To be claimed like a treasure worth fighting a crew of ex-rugby players for.
Even in my wildest dressing-mirror fantasies, I can’t imagine Will Sharpe going to war with his mates over me.
And Jake not only told half our class—in writing— that he wants to marry Ada, he also showed said writing to her best friend.
Pukekohe’s Golden Boy is, actually, as serious as the grave about her.
Oblivious to the storm she’s the centre of, Ada licks cheese off her thumb. “So, what are you going to do about money?”
“I dunno,” I say wearily. “Sell feet pics to Thrasher?”
“I wouldn’t count on the big bucks there, my dude. He’ll probably Venmo you $8.50 and demand you show hole.”
I grimace. I know she’s just calling Thrasher a cheapskate loser, but her words still sting. I’ve known most of the popular Pukekohe guys since birth, and not one of them has ever seen me as anything other than “Tristan’s Sister.” Even Will Sharpe’s comments are hardly the stuff of romance.
Ada might have hated high school, but everyone still treated her like the tragic hot girl in a CW drama. “No one really knew her, but everyone had a theory…”
Thrasher would probably bankrupt Thompson Farms just to glimpse her toes.
Me? I was the Almost Girl. Almost popular.
Almost on the A-Grade netball team. Almost the lead in the musical.
Almost everything, but somehow forever on the fringes.
It wasn’t just because of Tristan, either.
Even once he graduated, my status remained unchanged.
And now I’m thirty-two, and no one wants pictures of my feet, paid or otherwise…
“Cece?” Ada asks. “Money? And you not having it? What’s the plan, buddy? I mean, besides the feet-pic account?”
I return her smile. I’m so glad she came home tonight, to keep me company, to look after me.
I’m so glad she came home from Europe and NFR.
I may be super poor right now, but having her here by my side is like winning the life lottery.
I wonder how the last few years would have been if I’d had her next to me.
If we’d been living together while I was nursing, or even just in the same city.
It might have changed everything about working through the pain of the job.
Addy made sure I knew she was always just a call away.
There were nights I’d get home from a horror shift and ring her, and we’d talk for hours as she went about her morning.
But it’s not the same as sitting next to her, seeing that beautiful smile beam at me.
I understand she had to leave New Zealand as soon as she could.
School was hell for her. I wish she’d confided in me at the time just how hellish it really was.
I knew about the bullying—no one escaped that Pukekohe High tradition—but I didn’t know about how lonely she was, how isolated not just at school, but at home.
It wasn’t until we really connected once we graduated that we grew close enough for her to trust me with the truth.
A throb of guilt passes through me as I stare into my best friend’s eyes. I wish it could have been different for us, that we could have been each other’s person then, too. But she was too determined not to fit in, and I was trying to wedge myself into whatever space would have me.
I wish I’d been braver and put my energy in the person who deserved it, rather than into those who didn’t care about me.
That’s part of the pull of the reunion for me.
I want a do-over, for both of us. I do want to make my move and tell Will I’m interested, but I also want to walk into that hall with Addy, the way we should have walked into school together every day.
“I don’t know,” I say. “About the money. I just can’t go on like this. My savings are almost out, and I need to pay myself a wage.”
Ada jolts like she’s been tasered. “You’re not paying yourself?”
I hunch my over. “Sorry.”
“Va' a cagare! Cecelia, don’t be sorry! Just… why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because it’s embarrassing!”
“No, it’s not! I let Oliv—I mean, some random British fuckbag— ruin my life, then cried about it to you for months! While crashing at your house! That’s embarrassing!”
We look at one another, then both make the sign of the cross at the almost-mention of Name Forever Redacted’s name.
Ada narrows her gaze. “What else haven’t you told me?”
After everything that’s happened, I’m already raw to the bone, and there’s no point hiding the last thing in the recesses of my mind. The truth I haven’t been brave enough to admit, even to myself. I take a small sip of gin and let the words tumble out. “I don’t wanna run a bar.”
I want to grab the sentence and stuff it back into my mouth, but it’s too late. It’s out now, unignorable and devastatingly true.
Ada’s brow bunches. “Then why the fuck are you running a bar?”
“You know why! I wanted out of nursing, and it just came up, and I thought maybe I could make it mine. And I do want to run a business. Just… not this one.” I gesture in the direction of the kitchen, praying it—and my dead godfather—will forgive me.
“So, what do you want?”
Her question echoes Davis’s. And tonight, with the aid of copious amounts of gin, I relent. “I want to turn Afterglow into an urban hotel. Like the one we stayed in in Delphi.”
Ada’s face softens. “That place was magical.”
“It was.”
Omphalos House was a small building, not super expensive but gorgeous.
Every detail was luxuriously thought out; soft sheets, a perfectly stocked mini bar, and the kind of dim lighting that made you feel like a princess.
It was a place that welcomed you back to safety and comfort after a day of getting sunburnt in ancient ruins and crying in museums.
“I want that here. In Auckland,” I whisper like the universe is about to slap me. “There’s enough stuff nearby for tourists, the Lord of the Rings things, wine tours, galleries. And I think…”
“You think?” Ada presses.
“... I think I’d be good at it. Better than I am at pouring espresso martinis for finance bros, anyway.”
“You’d be amazing,” Ada says fiercely. “Just like you’re amazing at pouring espresso martinis for finance bros, but fuck those guys. So, how do we get you that hotel?”
Gratitude punches the air out of my lungs, and I blink back another wave of gin-based tears.
“Thanks. Seriously. But just running this place nearly broke me. Hotels are a whole different world. My landlord would have to agree to the change in industry. I’d need a loan for renovations, a business plan, a clue.
And what bank’s gonna lend me money when my finances look like that house-on-fire ‘This is fine’ meme? ”
Ada stares straight ahead, chewing the inside of her cheek. “Well, maybe you don’t go to a bank. Maybe there’s another way?”
I stare blearily at her. “Addy, there’s no way I’m taking your money.”
“I’m not offering. But what about an angel investor?”
“Like who? The guy who pissed himself in the back booth last Thursday?”
“No. Someone else. I’m serious. There are a lot of good people out there.”
My guts squeeze tight, my usual optimism on hold. After everything that’s happened—Jake and Ada fucking like rabbits, the thing with Davis, Lisa being a thieving bitch—being honest about my dream terrifies me the most.
And of course, Ada is being supportive. She loves me.
She’ll do anything to support me. But that’s the scary bit.
By saying it aloud, I’ve made it real. My dream has legs now.
It’s walking around in someone else’s mind, and the fact of that is terrifying.
Now, every time I bitch about Afterglow, Ada will be thinking, ‘Why don’t you just run an urban hotel?
’ She’s never been afraid to shoot big; she went to Juilliard, for God’s sake.
And she’s never failed professionally, either.
Even now, crashing in my spare room, she’s still raking in royalties without so much as cracking open her flute case.
I don’t know if it’s ever occurred to her that she could fail at her chosen career.
Maybe her confidence is the reason she hasn’t.
I don’t know. But I do know that if I try to turn Afterglow into a hotel and fail, it would break my heart worse than Will Sharpe ever could.
“It’s a pipe dream, Addy,” I say into my empty glass. “Let’s focus on things we can control, yeah?”
“Okay,” Ada says. “Want to get drunk and listen to Fiona Apple?”
The mention of our old wallow music makes me smile. “Why not? Not like I can head back behind the bar in the state I’m in.”
So that’s what we do. Listen to Tidal, drink liquor, and sing along when we can remember the words.
When the bar is finally shut, Davis walks us up to my apartment to “make sure you don’t pass out on those shit stairs.”
Ada rushes inside, but I linger with Davis. When he smiles at me, my gin-soaked body leans in for a hug.
He meets me with that T. Rex situation men do, where they try not to embrace the other person fully. An Almost Hug for an Almost Girl.
“Night, Cece,” he says roughly. “Drink some water.”
Then he’s gone, and I’m left watching the space where he stood, swaying slightly. Tristan Taylor’s Sister misses out again.