Chapter 20 #2
I lean back in my chair, stumped. I wasn’t expecting that question.
Up until now I had thought this was going pretty well.
She’s annoyed at me, clearly, but the focus was all on Jacob.
Angie seems sad, but she seems content with her decision and with him being out of her life.
For a second, just for a blissful, foolish second .
. . I thought that might be it. No such luck.
“Why?” I repeat. “Isn’t it obvious?”
“Not really.” Angie folds her arms.
“Well . . . I’ve never trusted Jacob. I felt like you should know.”
“So you said it purely for my benefit?” Angie doesn’t sound convinced.
I don’t quite know what to say. I knew she’d be mad about the letter, I just wasn’t expecting this particular line of questioning. “Of course,” I insist. “Why else would I?”
“I don’t know, it just seems odd. You could have spoken to me about it. Why write a letter like this?”
“What about all the stuff you just said?!” I can feel my voice rising an octave. “About his secret messages from ‘Mark’?!”
“Yeah. But you don’t get let off the hook because things happen to have worked out. What if you’d stirred the shit for nothing?”
“Well, it’s still better that you’re warned, surely?!” Another octave.
Angie steps across the kitchen, opens a drawer, and retrieves a little piece of paper. My stomach plummets.
YET AGAIN THE LLAMAS COME BACK TO HAUNT ME.
She unfurls it and begins reading. “‘Dear Angela, Do you remember how grossed out you were by the alien in The Thing when I made you watch it? How you said if it touched you, you would shower until you had no skin left? Well, that’s how I feel about Jacob.’” She folds the paper back up and looks at me.
My face heats up. I thought it was funny when I wrote it.
This time it doesn’t sound so hilarious.
“OK, maybe my delivery left a little something to be desired . . .”
“You can say that again, Becky. It doesn’t exactly sound like a concerned friend. It sounds . . .” Her voice cracks with exhaustion. “It sounds spiteful.”
I splutter. “I mean, I was concerned . . .”
“And why now?” she interrupts. “I mean, you could have chosen any time over the last eight years to bring this up. Why now?”
“I thought I was going to die,” I squeak. It sounds so lame.
“Right, sure.” Angie rolls her eyes. “You thought you were going to die, uh-huh, even though you’ve literally never believed in tarot before. Come on, Becky.”
“I did believe it!” I protest.
“I think you did, in a way,” she concedes.
“But I think, on some level, that you wanted to believe it. I think you were looking for an excuse to send these letters. You’re angry with us.
About Dami’s wedding. About my business.
For having jobs we enjoy and relationships we care about and homes we take pride in. ”
Does she think I’m that petty?
“I don’t care that you have jobs and partners and homes,” I snap. “It’s that you never stop talking about your stupid jobs and partners and homes!”
“There it is.” Angie’s mouth twists like she’s tasted something unpleasant. “Stupid. Our lives are stupid.”
“I didn’t say that, I . . .” I stumble over my words.
She’s distorting everything. All they’ve talked about for months now is Dami’s wedding and Angie’s new bathroom and somehow I’m the bad friend?
“Do you think it’s easy for me, listening to you going on for hours about floral arrangements and renovations and business plans, when I don’t even have a relationship that’s lasted more than a few dates? ”
Angie sighs. “Oh, please. Don’t get me started on that.”
“What?! Go on. Enlighten me. What does Angie, someone who’s never even had to use a dating app, have to say about my romantic life?” I don’t know why I’m encouraging her. I don’t want her to say any more hurtful things. But I’m fully engaged in self-destructive mode now and I can’t stop.
“Romantic life?” Angie scoffs. “You don’t date, Becky. You go out with strange people and have a terrible time and come back with a funny story for Max. Or if you do meet someone you like, you don’t allow it to develop. Like Vera. I mean, why did you go at all? Why waste your time and Vera’s time?”
Even though I’m wounded by her words, I can’t help but crack a smile at the name Vera being used in a serious context. “What . . . should I not try?” I defend.
“You’re not trying,” Angie mutters. “I mean, on paper you’re trying, but you’re not really trying.”
I take a breath. God, I hate her sometimes. She’s talking to me like I’m a child. Not trying?! Is she serious?
“What?!” My voice is pure disbelief. “I’ve been on loads of dates! How many do you want me to go on? Should I get one of those bots that sends out automated replies?!”
Ugh. Angie has NO idea. She thinks I’ve not gotten anywhere because I’m not trying . . .
“You used to,” she says. “But you barely go on any dates anymore. When you do, you expect it won’t go well, so it doesn’t.”
Is she right? Did I stop trying? In among all the shit dates, the letdowns, the disappointments, did I stop opening myself up to the possibility of letting someone in and start going through the motions?
No. She’s not right. I go on fewer dates now, sure, and with less enthusiasm than my early twenties, yes, but I still go. This is ludicrous. “You’re saying I haven’t met anyone on purpose? I’m alone on purpose?”
“I’m saying, it’s hard out there, and you gave up. You don’t give anyone decent a chance. You’d much rather the date was shit so you could make a spectacle of yourself for Max’s benefit.”
This is insane. Angie has well and truly lost it. Months of staring too hard at The Folder has eaten away her brain. “Well, by the sounds of it, Max is the only person in the world who actually likes me,” I say.
“Oh, here we go,” says Angie. “It’s always you and Max against the world and he’s the only one who understands you, like I’m some different species because I have a mortgage. Well, guess what, Becky? So. Does. Max.”
I don’t understand what she’s implying, but I know I’m not going to like it. “So?”
“Max has a job he cares about!” Angie waves her arms around. “Max bought a flat. Max has moved in with his girlfriend. Compare me and Max on paper, and you and Max, and me and him come out looking a lot more similar than the two of you.”
Resistance flares up in my stomach. My immediate response is She doesn’t know what she’s saying. She doesn’t get it. She and Max are not in the same universe.
“Who you are is about more than those things. It’s about a mindset, Angie. Sure, Max has a flat, but he didn’t spend an entire week choosing which lasagna dish would best go with the kitchen counter.”
Angie folds her arms. “Oh, because you’re so much fun, and I’m so boring, right, Becky?”
“That’s not what I . . .” I don’t finish because, yes, that is a bit what I meant. “I just meant that you don’t have to agonize over every little decision. Sometimes can a lasagna dish just be a fucking lasagna dish?”
Ang tilts her head to one side. “And Fran moving in? Do you think Max thought about that decision?”
“No,” I say quickly. “Not properly. I mean, maybe a bit. But he’s impulsive . . .”
She’s got me. She’s rattled me. She knows it too. She sees in my eyes that her point has finally hit home. No amount of denial, no matter how hard I’ve been trying, can cover up the fact that somewhere along the line Max did decide to make a colossal commitment to another woman.
“You’re the only one who’s been acting like a kid, Becky,” she says finally. “Just you.”
Her use of the word “kid” reminds me of the first card in the tarot reading that started all this. Six of Cups. Overgrown. She’s wearing a fairy-tale costume that no longer fits, living in the past.
“If you don’t change,” Ang carries on, “you’re going to alienate everyone worth having in your life for good.”
It’s the worst thing Angie’s ever said to me. My throat begins to close up. She must be wrong, she must have it all wrong. Except, everything she’s saying about my dating behavior is eerily similar to what Margaret and Ted said about me at work, and they were totally right.
I’m too choked up to speak. It feels like I’ve swallowed a golf ball, but I can’t think of anything else to say to defend myself anyway. I put my mug down, pick up my bag, and head to the door. Angie doesn’t stop me.