Chapter 1 Nellie Today #2
Hmm. Right. Grace and ease ARE your specialty. Tell me again about that time you got so drunk you tried to throw up in a tiny water bottle?
Nellie
That never happened.
Sabrina
I saw it with my own two
Nellie
As far as the rest of the world is concerned, THAT NEVER HAPPENED.
Damn. This is the problem with having lifelong friends. They’ve seen it all—and they don’t let you forget it.
Sabrina
Fine. And yes. Of course I’m on the Noah Sucks Ass team.
Cara
Oooh. I like that. The NSA!
Nellie
That acronym might be taken.
But Sabrina is not done:
Sabrina
But you know, Nellie, it might help if you finally told us WHY we hate him. Aside from the fact that he’s an entitled jock who once took your maidenhood.
I gag while speed-typing:
Nellie
Maidenhood? I think I just threw up in my mouth.
Sabrina
Better than in a water bottle.
I can practically see Sabrina shrug, all attitude. Her black lob grazing her shoulders.
Surely to defuse any tension, Cara types:
Cara
I bet you’re really wishing Alfie was here, Nellie. I’m so sorry he couldn’t come.
I give her message a thumbs-up. It’s all I can muster in answer.
Nellie
Uh, oh. Gotta go! Bags are coming. Bags, bags, bags!
The bags are not coming. In fact, some of my fellow travelers have given up, sinking down to the floor against enormous blue cement pillars as they wait. Like they might live here now.
I sigh with resignation. In truth, I am not sad Alfie is absent, even if he would have served as a convenient buffer.
But I don’t want to get into that with my friends.
Right now, he would be complaining about something—the pathetic snack selection on the plane, the luggage delay, the fact that people on the West Coast are not from the East Coast.
Not that some of those things aren’t annoying, but sometimes it’s better to accept your circumstances and make the best of things rather than torture the people around you. Suffer in silence. Or go silent so others don’t have to suffer through your bullshit.
Griping doesn’t make adversity more tolerable.
It isn’t until the luggage starts dropping down from that trapdoor in the sky and rotating around the carousel that I do sort of wish he was here, for manual labor’s sake.
The airline—in its infinite wisdom—has decided to combine bags from two flights willy-nilly, one from New York City and one from Portland, Oregon.
The carousel is a full-on culture war in the making.
New Yorkers elbow their way up to grab their belongings, while Oregonians shoot them horrified looks.
As a stout woman in a Brooklyn’s Finest T-shirt pushes aggressively to the front, a young skater dude nearby mumbles “Chill” under his breath.
She whips around. “You fucking CHILL!” she snaps, her finger in his face. His eyes bulge.
That’s when I spot my suitcase. Hallelujah!
It is giant. It is green. In fact, a while back, Alfie nicknamed it the Jolly Green Giant during a semi-joking rant about my overpacking habit. And it stuck.
An expert in crowd weaving, I work my way to the front of the group, a bit ahead of the bag, my shins braced against the metal frame for leverage.
My suitcase is behind some other luggage in a kind of de facto second row, though.
So, as it nears, I have to lunge toward it.
Only Brooklyn’s Finest thinks I’m trying to cut in front of her and she boxes me out, so by the time I grab on to my bag’s handle, it’s for dear life.
It’s too heavy and too far away to yank from its position, but I will not let go.
My bad shoulder is not amused.
Just when I lose my grip and almost topple onto the carousel, along for the ride with the Saran-wrapped duffels, I watch a disembodied strong hand grab the Jolly Green Giant by the side handle and lift it easily off the revolving death trap.
I can’t see this heroic human through the mess of people, but I exhale and push myself to standing, grateful.
See? There’s still kindness in the world! Or thieves. Who steal bags. One of those.
Ducking through the crowd, I spot my luggage waiting peacefully to the side, away from the fray. See? No one stole it! I’m so relieved that I race up with a singular focus. “Hello, Beautiful!” I say, and caress it as I repeat “Thank you, thank you, thank you” about a million times.
It’s not until he says “You’re welcome” in a deep throaty voice that I realize. And slowly look up, dread settling over me.
It’s him.
For just an instant, I white-out. There is a rush of air that moves through me like a sonic boom. It steals my oxygen, then returns it too quickly. I wheeze. Then work to regain my composure.
Noah stands before me—of course, the picture of good health and relaxed ease. Not only has he made it here to Northern California coma-free, but he looks like he just spent a day at a spa instead of on a packed flight. His hands in his pockets, he is refreshed. Groomed. Handsome as hell. Bastard.
It’s only then that I realize my mouth is hanging open. I shut it like a trap.
“Hey, Nell,” he says.
“Eleanor,” I correct him. Because he doesn’t get to use a nickname.
“Okay, Eleanor.” He rolls his eyes. His beautiful hazel eyes—that I want to rip out of their sockets and use as ping-pong balls, I remind myself.
A small part of me, an almost physical pull at my core, has an impulse to hug him, feel the comfort and warmth his body once gave me, pressed up against mine.
This man—a grown-up version of the boy I knew so well.
I am stunned by the sense that I know him still, every mannerism, every impulse, every freckle.
He feels like… family. And so much more.
Luckily, the other part of me, that hates him with the fire of a thousand suns, is way stronger.
“I see you still have a lot of baggage,” he says.
“I see you’re still a cocky tool,” I reply.
And we’re back!
He flinches, visibly. Lifts his chin in the direction of my bag. “Um. You’re welcome?”
“Um. You’re not?”
“Well, this is delightful,” he says, frowning. “Can we at least be civil?”
“Sure,” I growl, crossing my arms over my chest. “If you stay away from me—and my stuff.”
Now his mouth drops open. Now he is incredulous.
It gives me a real jolt of satisfaction.
“Dude,” he says, his hands raised palms up. “What’s your problem? I was just trying to help. I figured maybe you’d have trouble… ’cause of your rotator injury. I imagine it’s still an issue.” He gestures toward my bad shoulder. And he’s right about which one it is.
“Nope,” I lie, though deep down I experience a twinge of recognition and, fine, maybe the tiniest bit of hurt. He knows me. Just like I know him. Or he knew me. Before he trashed everything.
He doesn’t know me now, I remind myself. Because I cut him out of my life. With good reason. “The rotator cuff is not a thing.”
You don’t know me.
“Okay. That’s great. I was just trying to help.”
“Well, don’t. I’m not your concern.”
“Fine.” He shrugs. “I guess old habits die hard.”
Why do people keep saying that to me?
I glare at him. “If only that were true.”
He stares down at my face for a beat, long enough for me to shift uncomfortably as warmth shimmies up my spine, then he shakes his head in disbelief. “Well, I can see you haven’t changed.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.” He fixes me with a look. But I will not be deterred. “Why are you even here?” I ask, motioning toward the baggage carousel. “Aren’t you flying in from somewhere else? Like Newark? Or Hades?”
He glares back at me. And it’s a look filled with ire, but just this side of smoldering. I can too easily recall a different version of that fierce focus on me, in a very different scenario. I am blindsided by a flash in my mind to skin against skin.
I try to blink it away, but it persists.
There’s a burst of heat at the back of my neck.
Damn. It would be helpful if he didn’t look so good. But Noah’s skin is tan and smooth except for some perfect stubble, his hair is short like I always liked it, and, in the intervening years, some of his boyishness has transformed into something more rugged and chiseled.
“I was just cutting through to exit,” he says. “I flew here private—with the team.” Private. With the team. Like it’s no big deal.
Is there no justice in the world? No wonder even his white T-shirt looks crisp. And hugs his biceps when he… ugh.
I change course: Why is he flying with a team? This is confusing to me since I know he isn’t playing sports, though he had all that promise. Because wasn’t that where all the problems began?
“What team?” I sneer. Why does he just assume I know about his life?
“Oh. The Dodgers. For the last few years, I’ve been working for them and living in…” He hesitates, then mumbles, “LA.”
“In LA?!” I say with alarm. More than I’d like. The last thing I want him to think is that I care.
But LA? Of all the fucking places? My insides twist, ringing out a slow drip of bile.
What is he—some stupid sports marketing bro?
I have done my best to avoid keeping tabs on Noah.
And, let me just say, that is a feat in this day and age.
Last I heard, when I ran into a girl I knew from high school who didn’t know enough not to tell me, he was living in Cleveland.
And I liked thinking of him there, getting fat, bald, and pasty under gray skies.
Meanwhile, he was busy jogging up canyons and getting Hollywood tune-ups—in my onetime city!
He bites his lip as we eye each other, like he at least has the sense to feel a little ashamed.
My gaze catches on his mouth. And, when I finally meet his eyes, I watch them drop down to my mouth too.
Ugh! I’ve got to get away from this man!
This is not how I wanted things to go. It’s all wrong.
I had plans, dammit! I was going to float out onto the estate’s veranda under the gauzy light of dusk in one of my new dresses, the embodiment of effervescent hate-glam.
I wanted to look past him, through him—like the ghost he is—as he stared at me longingly from the other side of the reclaimed wood deck, all night long.
Under a canopy of majestic redwoods, I wanted to toast with Prosecco and laugh with my girls and ignore him into desperate submission until he skulked home early and got a jump on that coma.
Instead, I am staring at his handsome hateful face, feeling the vestiges of our past burn through me, fresh and raw. Like a brand-new smack to the face. And I am doing it in a sweatsuit with a red kiss appliqué on the upper left-hand side.
“We’ve got to go,” I mumble as much to myself as to him.
“We?” he repeats, like maybe I mean him. I can’t read his expression. Surprise? Disdain? Hope?
Maybe it’s just confusion.
“I’ve got to go,” I say. “Me. And the Jolly Green Giant.”