Chapter 2
TWO
“My mother was a very practical woman
and I was… not.”
—excerpt from the unpublished memoir,
Darling, I Must Say by Gloria Hayes
“Did I really just agree to go to this wedding with Abe Ramos?” I asked the jar of pickles where it sat in the passenger seat of my car. “It’s either the worst idea I’ve ever had or the best.”
I hadn’t been lying when I said that Abe’s reputation preceded him. He was part prodigal’s son and part urban legend around Two Harts. When he moved back two months ago, the gossip had moved into overdrive.
“Where’s he been all these years?”
“Is he back for good now?”
“What are those holes in his ears?”
Abe seemed to be taking it all in stride and given enough time, a good five to seven years, the town would warm up to him. He was so totally different from anyone in Two Harts. And that did make him the perfect date to Aidan’s wedding, the perfect foil to Aidan’s starched appearance.
I frowned as a thought occurred. “Do you think Abe even owns a suit?”
The jar rocked as I drove down the state highway toward the double-wide trailer that I’d called home my whole life. It was almost nine at night, but the sun had just kissed the horizon, leaving the sky awash with brilliant pinks and oranges.
After my encounter with Abe, I’d braved the party again, trying in vain to pretend I didn’t know where Aidan was every second. And trying to forget that wherever Aidan was, so was Missy. How were they getting married in just a month’s time?
They’d only met six months ago. She was the niece of one of the partners at the accounting firm Aidan worked at and he’d asked Aidan to do him a favor.
It was supposed to be one date to earn some points with the boss.
Except one date led to another and another.
I’d heard all the details on my late-night phone calls with Aidan or from the rambling voice notes he sent.
After all, Aidan was my closest friend. Of course, he would tell me.
So what if he happened to be my former boyfriend…
who I was maybe, still, sort of in love with. I think.
When he told me he was proposing, it had felt like he’d taken my heart and stomped on it. Now the pieces jangled around in my chest, always hopeful he’d one day realize the mistake he’d made and come crawling back to me.
Between Aidan and the people and the karaoke, my mom must have sensed my strong desire to leave the party. It could also have been because I cornered her and said, “I need to leave this party.” She helped me sneak out but stayed to help with the clean-up.
“This wedding is going to be the worst, isn’t it?” I glanced at the pickles. “I have to smile and nod and stand up next to Aidan while he marries someone else. Easy, right?”
But even the thought of going to their wedding made my palms sweat and my chest tighten and yet, I hadn’t just said yes when Aidan asked me to be his best woman, I’d said yes with enthusiasm. I gushed with excitement. I hugged Missy and Aidan like I’d never hugged people before in my life.
My lying skills were supernatural. My sense of self-preservation? Non-existent.
“Maybe it won’t be so bad?” I snorted. “Who am I kidding? It’s going to suck. That was supposed to be me, you know. I’m the one who should be marrying him.”
Not to sound too dramatic, but our break-up three years ago had been soul crushing.
On my part, at least. We’d met when he’d moved to Two Harts after getting expelled from high school senior year for hacking into the school grading system and changing the grades of a bunch of school athletes who’d been cheating on tests.
Even his rebellious acts were for the good.
He’d done his required community service hours at the Two Harts library where Mae was the head librarian. She’d quickly caught on that he was not a future felon and that he was good at math, a class that I was failing miserably.
Those tutoring sessions had been when my teenage heart had fallen for him.
He’d talk about equations and factors and volume and I wouldn’t hear a word of it, as I was too busy waxing poetically about him in my mind.
Back then, he’d been a little shy, quiet, clean cut—he’d worn khakis regularly.
To school. While I was that girl who dressed in black band t-shirts, and actively worked to seem disinterested in everything.
We’d been opposites but, somehow, we’d fit.
For a girl whose deadbeat dad had a criminal record a mile long and more friends in prison than out, Aidan’s good guy qualities had been like a salve to that wound.
He’d been my first for so many things—first kiss, first boyfriend, first love.
That last Christmas we were together, he’d given me a promise ring, a promise to one day ask me to be his wife.
We were only twenty and still had a couple of years of school left, but I knew he was it for me.
Hours were spent talking about graduation, future careers, the wedding.
Aidan, being the planner that he was, had even created a Five-Year Plan (with a PowerPoint).
I’d loved it. Loved that I knew the future and that that future was Aidan. It had all seemed perfect.
Except Aidan had wanted to change the plan.
That spring, Aidan transferred to a university in west Texas and I stayed in Two Harts, commuting to Houston for school. A mere five hundred miles separated us (’cause everything is bigger in Texas, including the actual state).
It started out as small, little hints about speeding up our plans. He complained about how much he missed me. “If we were married, you could move here with me.”
He knew there was no way I wanted to leave Two Harts. It was in the Five-Year Plan. After college, we’d get married and save up for a down payment on a home here in town. We’d be close enough to Houston to commute for work if we needed.
Soon the hints became demands. Aidan was used to getting his way.
In hindsight, I could see that now. I was always the one that compromised.
After all, Aidan was a good, smart, responsible guy who made good, smart, responsible decisions.
Why would I ever argue with him? But, for perhaps the first time in our relationship, I refused to budge on this.
Then the ultimatum. Aidan surprised me one day, showing up at the Sit-n-Eat one normal Tuesday afternoon in June.
It had been almost two months since we’d seen each other face to face.
Despite our efforts to visit more frequently, an eight-hour drive one way was nearly impossible between school and work.
I’d been so excited to see him. I got off work early and we drove to our favorite restaurant for an early dinner. There, at a quiet table tucked in the corner, Aidan laid out his new five-year plan; it did not include me.
He wasn’t cruel about it, just calmly explained that we were going in different directions. He wanted to settle down now, I wanted to wait. A sensible explanation. I imagined him sitting down and writing a pros and cons list called DO I brEAK UP WITH IRIS?
My hands on the table were shaking and he covered them with his own. “Our relationship will just be different,” he’d said.
It had been one of the few times in my life I was speechless. I didn’t yell or scream or argue or even beg. I didn’t tell him that I didn’t want to be his best friend or that I loved him or that he’d just ripped my heart out. Instead, I sat there shellshocked and numb.
“You’ll always be one of my best friends,” he’d said.
But that was fine for him to say, given he was the one who broke up with me.
What followed were three years of late-night phone calls and text messages telling me he missed me.
Three years of him standing too close, his hand brushing against mine.
Three years of “friendly” dinner plans that felt like dates.
Three years of me never knowing quite where I stood with him.
Three years of still loving him… Then his engagement to someone new after only a few months of dating.
“What if I should have fought harder for us?” That question had always plagued me.
The pickles didn’t reply, but it felt like a burden had been lifted off my shoulders to say all this out loud to someone… er, something. Who needed to pay for therapy when I could get the same results from the condiment aisle of the grocery store?
“Thanks for listeni…” My voice trailed off as I noticed the smoke. It began to trickle from the hood of my car, about the same time a little red warning light lit up the dashboard. “This cannot be good.”
In response, the smoke increased, coming out in white puffs, like it had heard me and was laughing.
“No. No. No,” I chanted, dread filling me. “You are not allowed to die on me.”
I pulled over onto the shoulder beside a patchy field of wild grass. After the smoke cleared, I propped up the hood and stood there, staring down into the engine like I had any idea what I was looking at.
This birthday would surely go down as one of my worst. I grabbed my purse and the pickles and started walking on the uneven, grassy shoulder toward the house. It was less than a mile but, if I was lucky, maybe someone would drive by and take pity on me.
With each step, my anxiety grew. I’d already dumped money into new tires and an alternator in the last month. My savings could only stretch so far. I had bills to pay. Oh, and I had to figure out what I was doing with my life.
I’d graduated last month with a degree in psychology.
Why psychology? It seemed like a good idea at the time.
Don’t get me wrong, it had been interesting.
The things we’d learned about in Abnormal Psychology would keep me primed for making small talk for years.
(For example, did you know you could bang your head and suddenly develop a foreign accent?)
When I’d started school, I had big plans for getting my master’s in counseling. Then I took that Intro to Counseling class my last year and that sealed the deal. The idea of sitting across from someone and listening to them talk about their problems week after week? I couldn’t see myself doing it.
Except, if I didn’t follow the plan, then what? As a rule, I didn’t second guess myself. Decisions always came quickly to me. But now, my entire foundation seemed to be on shaky ground. Who was I? What was I going to be? Where was I going to go?
So, I applied for grad school in Austin because I had to do something.
Mae had been encouraging me (read: nagging) to do it.
And… I got in. It came with a nice financial aid package and a partial scholarship.
Mae had been excited enough for both of us.
After all, this had always been my plan… right?
At nine years older, Mae had always been more like a second mom. My relationship with her had never been sisterly. With a single mom working two jobs to make ends meet and a dad who was more ghost than human, Mae had always had a lot of responsibilities.
When Mom had her stroke when I was in high school, Mae had had to step up and take care of everything—the bills, Mom, me.
She put off opportunities like that scholarship she got for grad school that would have required moving three states away.
She didn’t know I knew about that, but I’d found the acceptance letter in the trash.
Sometimes I felt more like a burden than a sister.
Holding my acceptance letter in my hands had made it all so real and made me admit to myself that I couldn’t do it.
So I’d turned down the scholarship and the grad program.
No one, especially my sister, knew about that though.
I was going to tell them, honest. But I wanted to have a new plan in place, something better, something I was excited about.
I just didn’t know what that was.
And there was the state of my life—no plans for the future, Aidan was getting married and I wasn’t the bride, a dwindling savings account, a broken car, a jar of pickles as my confidante, and the strangest part of them all, a fake date with Abe Ramos.
I yanked my t-shirt from where it had suctioned to my skin. Despite the setting sun, the air was sticky and heavy. It was like walking through a bowl of soup. Sweat pooled in all the uncomfortable places.
Even with the sauna-like weather, I loved living here on the outskirts of our small Texas town.
The quiet peacefulness of it. The feeling of safety, even walking along a country road at dusk.
I even liked that everyone knew everyone’s business…
as long as I wasn’t the subject of that business.
I’d never lived anywhere else, and I wouldn’t, if I could help it.
My phone vibrated with an incoming text.
Aidan: It was good to see you tonight.
ME: Thanks for the surprise.
I cringed at the lie. But Aidan had never been good at seeing through me.
Aidan: You looked beautiful.
I glanced down at my outfit. My jeans and black t-shirt were nothing special.
I wore an iteration of it every day. My blonde hair was cut in a chin-length bob with fresh turquoise streaks—not too many.
Aidan had always hated the streaks in my hair.
He’d never said that, though. That’s not how Aidan worked.
No, he’d say everything he meant through little off-handed comments and gentle suggestions.
But the real problem was that a guy a month out from his wedding shouldn’t be saying that to anyone but his bride-to-be. I knew it was wrong and yet I couldn’t stop my heart from racing with unfettered hope. He thinks I’m beautiful.
Clearly, I was a horrible person.
“We’ll think about this tomorrow. Today is my birthday,” I said aloud. “Say nothing if you think I’m right.”
The jar remained silent like the excellent friend it was.
Off in the not-too-far distance, I could see the turn-off to our house. There lay salvation. A shower, a bowl of chocolate ripple ice cream, and The Philadelphia Story were calling me.
“Almost there.”
With a sigh, I turned down our gravel driveway and almost sobbed in relief. The sight of our modest forty-year-old double-wide trailer and the air conditioning that awaited had never looked more beautiful.
“Welcome home,” I said.
To the pickles.