Remy
REMY
I can’t stop my knees from shaking. I’m that nervous to see her again.
She’s agreed to meet me at a coffee shop, and I’m not even tempted by the muffin I ordered.
My phone vibrates on the table and I jump at the sudden noise.
It’s an email from Tara. I hesitate to open it because it’s no doubt a response to my one-page Word document of other second-book ideas, each one as boring and as half-formed as the one before it.
I see the first couple of lines on my screen and decide that I can only deal with one person’s disappointment in me at a time.
I’ve just swiped the email away when Simone walks in.
The last time I saw her she’d been withering away; her skin had been dry and sallow, her shoulders hunched forward, and her eyes fighting to stay open.
Today, she is the Simone I know well, in jeans and a fitted white tee, with her hair in a low ballerina’s bun; her back is straight and her chin high, with a soft bronze glow to her skin and an indecipherable expression on her face.
A soft smile tugs at her lips when she spots me and I know then that if Simone tells me she never wants to see me again, she’ll still be one of the most incredible people I’ve ever met.
Really, I’ll prefer to have loved and lost her than to have never known or loved her at all.
She takes the seat opposite me. “Hello, Remy.”
“Hi, Simone.” I clasp my hands under the table. “How are you?”
Simone sighs. “Well, that question could be answered in many ways, so I’ll just say: better.” She nods. “I feel better. How are—”
“I’m so sorry!” I cry, not even letting her finish, and the table beside us stops spreading avocado on their toast to listen in.
“I’m so sorry for everything ,” I continue regardless, holding my arms out in front of me as if literally carrying the everything I’m referring to. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am!”
“Remy, people are looking.”
“I barely eat,” I tell her. “I can’t sleep. I haven’t pooped in days.”
“Remy, again, people are—”
“I should never have taken aspects of your life and written about them.” I press on. “I should never have gone to your family’s church, or their house, and I should never have spoken to your sister. If I could go back in time—”
Simone shoves an entire muffin into my mouth. I stare at her over the muffin wedged into my teeth and hanging in midair.
Simone leans back in her seat. “I didn’t know how else to shut you up,” she says. “Is it good?”
I remove the muffin and swallow the dislodged chunk. “It’s delicious,” I answer. “It’s chocolate, marshmallow, and cereal milk, but it’d be even more delicious if it weren’t tainted with my guilt and—”
“ Enough , Remy.” Simone holds out the palms of her hands. “You’re laying it on too thick now.” She picks up the menu and momentarily studies it. “Wait here while I go up and order. Try to breathe.”
Watching Simone approach the counter, I notice an almost undetectable spring in her step. I’m sure I’ve never seen her move like that before. It’s so… animated. By Simone’s standards, anyway.
When she returns to her seat with a slice of honey and ginger cake, she says, “I think I should speak now. I have a question.”
“Of course. Anything.”
“Were you trying to reunite me with my sister?”
I nod.
Simone considers me. “Why?”
“I have no boundaries or moral compass?”
“Obviously. Why else?”
“I don’t know,” I admit, playing with the muffin wrapper. “I just… I could tell you both missed each other and loved each other, and I thought, maybe it’s up to me.”
“You thought you were the only person who could do it?”
I shuffle in my seat. “I might also have narcissist tendencies?”
“Might?” Simone smiles.
“I just felt like since I had access to the both of you, I had to at least try. I thought, what harm could it do?”
“To me or your book?”
I don’t answer that one.
Simone takes a deep breath. “Why were you writing about me?”
I tell her all about my trouble writing book two, about lead titles and Tara.
“I didn’t plan to write about you at all,” I say.
“I was trying to follow the model that worked with These Four Friends— I pick out some true details and make up the rest as a creative exercise, but then I accidentally sent the chapters to Tara, and she convinced me to keep going. It’s no excuse and I should have told you straight away.
I planned to that evening, but it was way too late. I’m genuinely so sorry.”
Simone sits still and considers me. This lasts for at least a minute. “I have conflicting emotions, as I’m sure you understand,” she finally says. “I know you’re not a cruel person with bad intentions, but you are selfish and incredibly intrusive.”
I stuff my mouth with more muffin and chew sadly. “Ouch, but fair.”
“And I ,” she continues, “am closed off, blunt, withholding, and nosy without reciprocation.” Simone casually takes another bite of her cake.
“We make quite the pair.”
“But,” Simone says after swallowing, “you also happen to be kind, thoughtful, funny, open, warm, entertaining, and forgiving, and I am able to honestly say that my life changed for the better the day I met you.” She places her cake fork down.
“So, the question, Remy, is whether I leave for the thing you did wrong, or stay for all the things you do right?”
I wipe muffin crumbs from the corner of my mouth. “And?”
“And…” She takes another bite of cake and chews slowly. “And I’d like to stay.”
“Told you!”
Simone and I both turn to the avocado-toast table; two young women blush watercolor-pink at being caught eavesdropping.
Simone turns back to me. “But I hope you realize this means we’d have to start again,” she says, quieter now. “We’ve both lied or omitted the truth from one another, but if we both agree to move forward in this relationship, our best chance of survival is to start at the very beginning.”
“You mean, a clean slate?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m willing to put in the work. Would you like to spill wine on my shirt again? I’m not as emotionally invested in this one.”
Simone rolls her eyes. “We don’t have to go back in time, Remy. Just start again, and go slow. If that’s okay.”
I smile. “I can do that.”
“So can I. Well, figuratively. I can’t right now.” She looks down at her watch and brushes the icing sugar from her fingers. “I’ve been called into school. To be fired.”
“Wait, what? Why are you being fired?”
“They found out about my other work,” Simone tells me. “My colleague was one of my clients and… it’s a long story.”
“Your colleague was a client?” I repeat. “How did I not know… never mind. They’re firing you because of that?”
“I think so. I’ll find out soon enough.” She lifts her bag but then stops. “Any chance you’d come with me?”
“Really? You don’t think we’re moving too fast?” I ask, already pulling on my jacket. “We just met, after all.”