Chapter Twenty-six
On the morning of the podcast, Sloane and I arrive at Liz’s house bearing snacks.
This morning, Lyle got up extra early, kissed my temple, and was out of the condo before I was more than half awake. If I hadn’t had plans with Liz, there’s a good chance I would’ve followed him to camp, because I’m getting very weirded out by the way he’s been acting lately.
At night, when we fall into his huge, soft bed, he says he’s quiet because he’s tired from working all day at camp, plus he’s nervous about the interview with Renee.
But I know his body. It’s in the way his arms come around me a fraction slower than usual, and the way he tucks his face into the crook of my neck after sex, leaving it there for a hundred measured breaths that hitch at the top.
Liz’s door swings open to reveal my friend in her favorite onesie pajamas, which look substantially different given her new postpartum boobs and a light crust of spit-up.
“Hi. You probably don’t feel like hugging when I smell like—oh, yes you do, never mind.” She seems quieter than usual. Not as happy to see me.
Suddenly I wonder why she didn’t ask me to come over yesterday or the day before. Was it really because she had a pediatrician appointment and family visiting? Or is this the first phase of us growing apart? My stomach cramps with renewed anxiety.
“Missed you, babe. We brought doughnuts. I hope you don’t mind that Sloane came with; it’s her last day in town.”
Liz’s eyes track over my shoulder to Sloane, who looks like the movie star she soon will be in her high-necked, sleeveless black sweater with oversize white Fair Isle patterns, flowing black pants, and black platform sandals that put her a cool foot above me in height.
Her softly perfect hair and glowing skin look like she beamed up to the alien mother ship to get re-cloned.
Liz looks back at me, her chin rising fractionally. “Sloane? You two are… hanging out?” She knows who Sloane is; we know everything about each other. And I’m sure Tobin told her my sister was coming to camp this week. But I didn’t tell her Sloane and I have grown close.
“You two would probably rather catch up without me,” Sloane says diplomatically, flashing a movie-star smile. “I could use a double espresso, actually. There were those two places on Main Street—Magic Beans and Jack and the Bean Shop. Which would you recommend?”
Liz sighs, brushing at a stain on her pajamas. “You may as well stay. I’ve already made it awkward, and nothing cures awkward once it’s loose in the world. Come in.”
Sloane gives a bark of laughter; Liz closes her mouth and winces. “I’m sorry. I haven’t really slept since the baby. My filter is pretty damaged, and let’s be real, it wasn’t that strong to begin with. I’m Liz.”
“Sloane. And don’t worry about it. It’s wonderful to meet the person Stellar calls her sister.”
Liz smiles at that, finally. God, Sloane. I love her for always being the better person, but will I ever be able to repay her at this rate?
Liz waves us into the house, laying a finger across her lips.
Rainbow-hued toys lie haphazardly across her precisely placed neutral-toned furniture.
On one cream-colored wall, a painting hangs crookedly above a large splatter of something that’s dried to a sticky sheen.
A baby swing resembling a sci-fi transporter pod sits next to the couch, right where an exhausted parent could deposit the baby while desperately trying to nap themselves.
“Where’s Tobin?” I whisper.
“Emergency run to the pharmacy. We’re out of…” She blinks tiredly. “I forget, but we don’t have any.”
The sound of a fussy infant echoes down the stairs. Liz wilts visibly.
Sloane perks up. “Are you letting people hold her yet?”
Liz wipes her sticky bangs from her forehead. “She refuses to be put down and I’ve had maximum forty-five minutes of sleep in a row for the last two weeks. I’d let Stalin hold her if he washed his hands first.”
Sloane cackles in delight and swans off to the kitchen to scrub up. I install Liz on the couch under the pretext of wanting to sit down myself. It’s the only useful thing I can do.
“I wish I could help.” I shrug my injured arm. “You know. Change a diaper or two. Be the kind of friend you actually need right now.”
“Stellar.” Liz nails me with her signature direct gaze. “You have like thirty stitches. Instead of fixating on acts of service, you might consider telling your so-called best friend about the important things in your life while they’re actually happening.”
I think I actually stop breathing for a second. “Liz, I—”
She puts a hand up, stopping me. “I mean, remember how you didn’t say a single word about how unhappy you were at work until you’d already left two different jobs?
I wish I’d pushed back on that. At least then I wouldn’t be saying the exact wrong thing to your sister—who you swore you’d never talk to again—when she shows up on my damn doorstep.
I don’t want you to change diapers and build baby furniture because you feel like that’s the currency of our friendship.
I don’t want baby-furniture friends, Stellar!
I want to be part of your life for real . Good times and bad.”
My lip trembles. I thought Liz understood the way I am. The way dumping my problems on her felt like too much to ask when she had problems of her own.
“I tell you everything, Liz. Everything.”
“Yeah, you do, once you fix your problems all by yourself. Once you won’t have to ask me for something you feel you haven’t earned. But Stellar, I want you to tell me what really happened over the last few weeks. Today , not six months from now.”
“You already know what happened!”
“ No. I know what happened to the business. I want to know what happened to you . Like how you slept with McHuge again.”
“You slept with him before ? When?” Sloane walks in, jiggling little Jess in the crook of one elbow. The baby’s clean, done up in a fresh white-and-orange BB-8 onesie.
“What?!” I yelp. “I never said I slept with Lyle at all.”
Liz closes her eyes. “This is horrible. I’ve successfully tricked someone into holding my demon child, and I want to nap so badly, but interesting grown-up things are happening for the first time in weeks.
Anyway, of course you slept with him before.
It took me a minute, but I figured it out.
The two of you acted so weird at my improv showcase.
You called him Lyle, same as you did just now.
Only sex can screw things up that badly.
And I want to hear about it, Stellar. I think I’ve earned it. ”
I feel the same odd, uncomfortable pang I had when Lyle said he owed me one.
The way I kept relationships exactly balanced got me through some hard times, but I think what I’m feeling is pain from my life no longer fitting into such a tight shape.
Always exactly even, no room for either side to move. Or grow.
Liz is right. It’s up to me to make our friendship go deeper than who does what for whom.
I take a deep breath. “I had a one-night stand with Lyle last summer. And I slept with him again when we were pretending to be engaged. And… it may not be just sex.”
Liz cracks one eyelid, her gaze sweeping my body. “Interesting. Keep talking, friend.”
“And an hour from now…” I check the time.
Fuck. “Less than an hour from now, he’s doing Renee Garner’s podcast without me.
I was the one who wanted to save the Love Boat, but he put himself in the line of fire because he owed me one.
But I don’t want things to be like that between him and me.
I don’t want it to be that way between me and you, either. And I think I have to…”
“Go and support him,” Sloane finishes, readjusting the baby in the crook of her arm. “And you better get moving. There’s not much time.”
“I don’t want to bail on you, Liz. This is the first time we’ve seen each other in weeks. I don’t want our friendship to change.”
“Too late,” Liz says, one eye on the baby, whose squeaking is morphing from cute to hangry. “Everything changes, Stellar. Your life is about to change, too. Go. I’ll be here when you get back.”
“And I’ll text you when I get to LA,” Sloane says, preempting my objections. “I’ll miss you, little star. You’re a grumpy beast, but you do grow on a person. Take my rental car. Just don’t drive it like you drive the truck.” She pantomimes hanging out the window, shaking her fist.
“Hey,” I protest, but both of them are laughing like idiots. “Quit ganging up on me.” Like sisters , I think.
“Somebody has to, otherwise you’d never listen,” Liz says, scooping Jess from Sloane’s reluctant arms. “ Go , Stellar. Go and get your love.”
It’s been dry in the valley this past weekend, golden days with pure sun shining through air untouched by humidity. Fine, pale-brown dust swirls in my wake as I bump up the road in Sloane’s rented white Mini, which is no match for either the clinging grit or the pitted, gravelly terrain.
At the corner leading into camp, maybe twenty cars are parked on the side of the road—which is more or less the middle of the road on this one-lane track. There’s no way I can get by.
I park behind them and gather myself for what’s to come. An icy drop of panic lands in my stomach, sending frost splashing into my chest.
Am I really about to give up control of my own narrative, at a time when I’ve lost the power to alchemize my terror into anger? Maybe I’m not strong enough to choose who I want to be in this situation. I froze before; it could happen again.
But I have to find Lyle before the show starts. There’s no time to make a spreadsheet of pros and cons.
I step out of the car, swipe my tongue over my teeth, and pat my hair. I did a quick style in Liz’s bathroom, fixing it in place with some of my friend’s one million hair products. My high, puffy braid is still holding. In a way, it feels like Liz is holding me, too.