Chapter 32
Tonight’s theme is Party: The Party (Parties throughout the Ages) , which means everyone’s dressing up like characters from iconic TV and movie party scenes, like Bailey originally envisioned.
This is her thirtieth birthday, and she had a grand vision from the start.
“Someplace with a fancy staircase, like on the Titanic, ” she mused months ago.
“And the band that played my cousin’s wedding.
They somehow nailed Bruce and Shakira and the Scooby Doo theme song. ”
“Why did they play the Scooby Doo theme song?” Giana asks tonight, eyeing herself in Bailey’s bedroom mirror and adjusting the jeweled headpiece that matches her silver Daisy Buchanan dress.
Bailey pauses, lip gloss wand hovering midair. “You know, I’m not really sure. But it brought the house down. Strap me in?”
I pick up the contraption sitting on her bed. “Are you sure you don’t want to wait until we get there?”
After Bailey hired the band, there was no money left in the budget to rent out an opulent yet doomed cruise ship.
She settled for the cafeteria at First Cove, which Logan’s parents graciously offered free of charge.
Sam’s husband’s restaurant is doing a barbecue buffet at a discount, and the rest of us pitched in to stock the bar with the basics.
The other guests will bring plenty more booze, though hopefully none of it will be cherry rum.
The idea of spending the evening in a place that carries so much weight—a place where Nate, hopefully, is going to build his life—makes my knees wobble. But not as much as the knowledge that I’m going to see him there.
It’s going to be fine, one part of me insists reflexively.
It might not be fine , another, newer part of me counters. But that’s okay too.
I’m still figuring this stuff out.
“Yes, now,” Bailey says. “I don’t want anyone to see my outfit without getting the full effect.” She turns her back to me, and I Velcro her into the brace, completing her Regina-George-at-the-Spring-Fling look.
My phone vibrates on the dresser. It’s an email from Tracy, and I can’t not look, especially after the chilly voicemail she left when she saw my last post. This email has a surprisingly different tone:
Quinn, I’m not afraid to eat my hat when I’m wrong.
I understand now what you were doing with your post—disclaiming authority to enhance trust. The reaction has been incredible, so we’re going to pivot a bit.
We’ll still highlight independence as one of your core values, but also be strategic about emphasizing authenticity and vulnerability.
Let’s discuss perhaps testing a more confessional style in an upcoming ride.
I’d love to sit down with Bailey to dissect the absurdity of the idea that my attempt at denying that I have expertise has somehow made me more credible, and that Tracy’s conclusion is that we need to focus-group my sincerity.
But most of this week has been about me, and tonight is about Bailey, so I keep my mouth shut.
Giana’s fiancé, Andy, picks us up after putting their son to bed at Grandma’s house.
Bailey lies across my lap in the backseat because she’s uncomfortable sitting in the back brace.
She looks up at me, her hair splayed across the skirt of my 13 Going on 30 striped minidress, and we dissolve into hideous snorting laughter.
Once we recover, she tweaks my giant butterfly necklace. “Thank you for committing to my theme.”
“I will always commit to your theme.”
“You’re the best,” she says. “Love you.”
“Excuse me,” Andy says. “On my one night with free childcare this month, I put on a very uncomfortable tuxedo to attend this party. So I too would like credit for committing to the theme.”
“You’re the best, Andy,” I say as he pulls into the camp parking lot. Nate’s parking lot, probably. My stomach bobs like a poor swimmer in rough water.
“You’re a great Jay Gatsby, Andy!” Bailey tries to sit up as she says it, forgetting her back brace. She loses her balance and rolls to the floor. “Oof.”
Moments of joy, no matter the circumstances.
For a cafeteria, it’s pretty nice. Light wood floors, high ceilings with exposed rafters. A wall of windows. People stream in steadily: Sam and his husband in matching black-and-white tuxedos a la 21 Jump Street, a group of Bridgerton aristocrats, and a big-haired Barbie in a sequined jumpsuit.
I’m clutching a vodka soda, but even against the cold glass my hands get sweatier by the minute.
During the day, the windows provide a clear view of the field where the kids play kickball.
But tonight in the dark, they reflect the action in the room, and from where I stand, I can see a glass-warped version of each person who walks in the door.
Every time someone steps into the room who isn’t Nate, I’m one step closer to the moment when the person who walks in is Nate. And then what?
I chat with Sam and a couple of Bailey’s old friends from her high school soccer team, and her parents, trying very hard not to be that person at the party constantly looking away from my conversation partner.
Once Bailey’s parents shimmy away in their Dirty Dancing costumes to check out the dance floor, I’m alone.
Then two women with crown braids—one in a white embroidered dress with flowers in her hair and the other wearing a ruffly black gown and heavy eye makeup—step away from each other, and through the gap I spot a face I was not prepared to see.
“Michelle?” I call out, striding forward. “What the hell?”
My roommate—almost former roommate, I guess—breaks into a slow grin and winds through the crowd toward me.
I’m so shocked to see her that it only then registers that she’s wearing a cropped plaid blazer and a choker, like Tai in Clueless, and she’s holding hands with a guy channeling Travis Birkenstock in a wig and baggy windbreaker.
“Tim!” I hug them each in turn.
“Hey, Quinn.”
“Congrats,” I whisper.
I can’t see his face, but he pats me on the shoulder warmly, gestures toward the makeshift bar, and wanders off.
“Tim was going to come down tomorrow to get the car,” she explains. “But Bailey and I texted a lot during your trip to compare notes on how you were doing, and she kept resending me the invitation. I thought, Why not? It seemed fun, and I suddenly have a lot of free time. So how are you?”
A few weeks ago, I would’ve been embarrassed to learn that they were consulting each other about my well-being—to learn that my well-being was even in question.
But now, knowing that both of them cared enough to do that?
It moves me. So does the accessory on Michelle’s head, a nod to the flying object that knocked Tai out in the movie: a headband with a shoe glued on top. A tiny, adorable baby shoe.
“Michelle,” I whisper, grabbing her by the shoulders and leaning in. “You’re pregnant.”
“Holy shit, Quinn. It sounds weird when you say it!”
“I’m so happy for you two. And for me, because I finally have a reason to buy someone the sparkly red Dorothy shoes I always wanted as a child.”
She shudders. “You’re going to be on a strict glitter limit when it comes to my kid. I hate vacuuming.”
“Your kid, ” I say. “You’re having a kid.”
We hug again, and I think for the first time ever I catch the glint of tears in her eyes, which sets me off.
Tim comes back with an IPA for himself and a glass of water for her.
He stops short at the sight of us, me blubbering and Michelle doing her version of blubbering.
She takes her drink and whispers something in his ear, and he heads for the chip-and-dip table.
Once we compose ourselves, she asks again, “How are you?”
“Not good.”
“Oh, thank god.”
I laugh in surprise. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“It means you’re telling the truth. It means maybe now we can actually get somewhere,” she says.
The room is filling up, but everyone is milling around, saying hello, and scoping out the food selection. No one is sitting at the long row of picnic-style tables along the back wall, so I tilt my head and Michelle follows me to the one in the corner.
“I’m giving you the CliffsNotes,” I warn.
Across the room, Bailey shrieks, stretching out her arms to gesture wildly at a couple in impressively gruesome Red Wedding attire.
“This is a really special night. All my favorite people are in the same place, and that makes me so happy it feels like I’m going to drown in it. After this, we’re going to have fun.”
“Of course we are,” Michelle says. “This band is incredible.”
I run my finger along the initials some M.G.
carved into the table. “I’m dreading going back to work,” I say.
“It feels like I’m trapped, and the worst part is I’m not, but I’m going back anyway.
The past few weeks have been…horrible, and confusing, and wonderful.
I fell in love—or maybe I was always in love, I don’t know, but it came to the surface—and now I’m heartbroken.
Bailey and I talked, and I understand why we’ve grown apart.
I know how to fix it, but I’m worried I’ll fall back into my old ways instead.
I think I’m a bad feminist and I worry that I’ve turned into my mother and no matter which direction I turn, I’m making a mistake, and I’m giving up something I don’t want to lose.
And on top of all that, I’m addicted to Diet Coke again. ”
“Quinn.” She grabs my hands across the table and squeezes. “That’s huge.”
I drop my head. “I know. Yesterday the Freestyle machine at Wawa was out of regular Diet, so I got caffeine-free. Caffeine-free Diet Coke. That means I just like the taste of chemicals.”
“Shut up about the soda. You’re being honest with yourself about work. You had a difficult conversation with a friend. You fell in love. ”
Yeah. And all of those things have rubbed me as emotionally raw as my thighs in Tahoe.
“How do I make it okay?” My voice is ragged.