Chapter 10 Nellie Today #2
And it is. It really is. There is nothing I love more than wandering a quaint town with my favorite people. But I need her to stop jumping up and down while holding my hands. Against my will, I wince.
“Oops!” she says, a hand to her mouth. “Shit. Your arm. I keep forgetting.”
“Totally fine,” I assure her. “All good.”
I swivel around, taking in the delightful single-story tea shops and sundry stores selling olive tapenade and handwoven table runners; clothing and home decor boutiques; tasting rooms and eateries with al fresco dining areas strung with twinklers and cordoned off with blooming trellises.
Vintage streetlights stand guard outside a town hall with proper archways and colonnades.
“Isn’t it so cute?” Cara gushes.
“The cutest.”
I love seeing her so happy and free.
“And,” she adds, leaning in, “I may have the antidote to your problems.”
I doubt it. But then she has no idea how myriad they are.
Still, I know this look on my best friend’s face. It’s the best kind of trouble. Cara is up to no good.
This is the look she gave me in sixth grade when she stole a cigarette from her stepfather for us to try in Riverside Park.
This is the look she wore in tenth grade when she presented me and Sabrina with homemade—pretty believable—fake IDs.
This is the look she gave us over fall break in college before she whipped out quaaludes and tickets to Liz Phair at the Troubadour in LA—and convinced us all to get tiny ankle tattoos.
It’s good to see that look. I realize it’s been a minute, and I’ve missed it.
“Okay, CB,” says Sabrina, a hand in the back pocket of her high-waisted jeans. “Dish. Whatcha got brewing?”
“These!” Cara says, holding open a tote bag filled to the brim with every kind of edible imaginable. “Tada!”
Suddenly the Pharcyde song makes sense.
“Alright, alright, alright,” says Rita, nodding like she’s Matthew McConaughey in Dazed and Confused. “This works for me.”
“Take whatever you want! There’s plenty,” Cara grins.
“Ooh!” Sabrina props her oversized sunglasses on her head and plucks a tin of pomegranate-flavored gummies from the assortment. “Good call. I was already psyched to wander galleries—and now it’s going to be next level.”
“Are there good galleries here?” Noah asks.
“Nope,” says Sabrina. “Which will make it even better.” She pops a gummy in her mouth.
Lydia grabs a weed lollipop, of course. Because she sucks. And she sucks.
Cara’s college friends choose sour lemonheads. Damien sorts through each option until he finds the highest dosage product—a 20mg tincture with a skull and crossbones on the label.
Then Cara turns in my direction, sifting through what’s left and presenting me with a package of grapefruit CBD gummies. “I know you’re not really a weed person, so I got you these. No THC. Just straight chill. And they’re good for pain, probably!”
Damien scoffs. “Good for pain but not for fun.”
“What are you, an afterschool special?” Sabrina snipes, scrunching up her nose at him. “You’re going to peer pressure Nellie into taking drugs?”
“Yeah. We’re full adults,” Cara agrees, unironically dropping a gummy bear on her tongue and tossing one in Ben’s waiting open mouth. “Nellie is always fun, regardless.”
Lydia scoffs.
I choose to ignore her.
“I’m not saying that Nellie isn’t fun,” Damien says, sliding an arm around my good shoulder, so that his hand rests on my bare back.
“Nellie is the best. She knows I think that.” He looks to me for confirmation.
I nod like sure, because what is the other option?
But I take a small step forward to escape his sweaty palm.
“I just think you’re underestimating her—she can handle one gummy. ”
“It’s true that it might help with the shoulder,” Rita says, fishing a pack of gum out of her Clare V. tote (clearly stolen from Sabrina).
“Yeah, but… have you heard the story about the bong hit at Ben’s house?” Cara stage-whispers, her eyes widening meaningfully. “Nellie never recovered!”
“Hello!” I say, “I am literally standing right here. I don’t need you guys to litigate my weed consumption.
“Thank you, Damien,” I add, turning toward him and, only in that moment, fully taking in the cheesy pink polo he’s rocking. “I do think I could handle one gummy…”
And I am about to finish with a big but and a hard pass on the THC when I hear someone cough behind me. But not cough cough. Like he’s got allergies or tuberculosis. Cough with meaning.
I turn around to find Noah standing to my right, looking innocently up at the sky.
“Excuse me,” I say.
He drops his gaze to meet my eyes, his hands behind his back, like, can I help you?
“What the hell was that noise?”
He shrugs. “Nothing.”
“It sure sounded like something.”
“And yet it wasn’t.”
“So, you do think I can handle a gummy?”
He opens his mouth, closes it again. “I mean, maybe if that’s…”
“Cut the shit, Noah.”
“No. Nope. Not at all. Not even a little bit. Don’t take the gummy. You absolutely cannot handle it.”
My eyes narrow at him; I swear the whole group holds its collective breath. Even strangers coming in and out of surrounding shops seem to go silent, like they can feel the weather turn.
I take a step toward him; I see him consider taking a step back.
“What—you think you fucking know me?” I demand, a finger in his face. “Because you felt me up two decades ago when I was a literal child?”
An older woman passing by on the street looks at Noah aghast.
“No, that’s… I was a child too,” he says to her. She hustles away.
I turn to Cara. “Hand me the fucking gummy.”
Cara looks unsure of what to do. I have clearly hit deranged on the rage-o-meter.
She nods toward Sabrina, who is still holding a tin, maybe hoping she’ll talk some sense into me. Sabrina is the direct one; the unafraid one.
“Nellie,” Sabrina cautions. “Are you sure? ’Cause it’s not worth it to prove a point.”
“Positive,” I say, my hand out. “Give me one. Please.”
Sabrina opens the tin, struggling a moment with the child proofing, and then places a gummy in my palm. It looks innocuous enough.
I throw it in my mouth.
“Maybe start with half—” she begins. But it’s too late. I have already started eating the whole thing.
It’s sweet and tangy. See? No big deal.
“You can still spit—” Sab says. “And you swallowed.”
“That’s what she said,” Noah and I both respond.
I turn to Noah and give him the finger.
“Oh boy,” he says.
And though I’d never admit it, I am thinking the same thing.
Two hours later, I am questioning my choices.
Not just about the gummy or about forgoing the gallery crawl with Sabrina and Rita to go wine tasting with Damien, Cara, and Ben.
But also about my career trajectory, love life, and the dress I’m wearing, which keeps slipping down so my cleavage is on parade.
Perhaps most of all, I’m wondering how I could possibly have sanctioned sitting at this picnic table in the direct sun, baking like a hot dog in a floral bun.
Cara and Ben seem unaffected—in fact, they’re joyous. For one thing, Cara is, of course, slathered in sunscreen because she’s responsible like that. She has surely made sure that Ben is too.
No one hates this kind of heat like I do—being out in the elements like this.
I am sweating balls. But also the two of them—on their side of the slatted wooden table—have been in constant hysterics for the last thirty minutes about the convoluted tasting notes in the wine.
And it has devolved into the kid-friendly version.
“Hmm,” Ben is saying. “I taste top notes of gluten-free chicken nuggets and burnt broccoli that assault the palate with an aroma of full-bodied ketchup, but of course not touching the chicken nuggets or the broccoli.”
Cara is literally sobbing with laughter and, despite a hand to her mouth, very nearly about to spit-take a gulp of a crisp Riesling.
I wonder how long it’s been since they’ve had extended time alone together, without the kids.
Damien is oblivious. His pupils are so blown out from that high-intensity weed tincture, his once-frosty blue eyes so obscured, that he may have left the planet.
It hasn’t seemed to matter at all that I’ve been drifting in and out of listening while he talks about how day trading is like a metaphor for life—or maybe life is a metaphor for day trading. I can’t keep track.
If I’m honest, I only kind of know what day trading is.
Besides, all I can think about is how my body temperature is so high that soon I am probably going to throw up and pass out simultaneously.
How there’s a child with his family at the next table who I will traumatize for life.
I can picture him as an adult, sitting on his therapist’s couch, talking about how he can’t even smell wine without flashing to the woman with the giant hair and overflowing boobs, sweating profusely into her vomit.
I want a glass of ice water so badly instead of the wine sitting in front of me, which is growing warmer by the second, but I no longer recall how to make that happen.
Surely, I am not expected to stand up on my own, walk to the bar inside, and order from a total stranger!
My mouth is glued shut. I can’t even remember how money works.
Money. Money?
Where is my bag? Shit! Where is my bag? I left my bag. I lost my bag! The child at the next table stole my bag!
Nope. My bag is slouched next to me on the bench. Where I left it.
I heave a sigh of relief like something actually happened and place a hand on my purse so it doesn’t flee.
“Anyway,” Damien is saying, “you get it.”
I nod. Yes. I totally get it. Whatever the hell he’s talking about.
“And you always get it,” he continues. “Or, I guess, I feel like you’ve always gotten me. Which is why I’m so glad that I got you alone for a minute—well, sort of.”
He gestures with his chin toward Cara and Ben, who are too busy concocting plans to build a tower out of beer-branded cardboard coasters to notice anything else.