Chapter Sixteen
Evan
“Small cheer and great welcome makes a merry feast.”
The Comedy of Errors
The way Bas and Chelsea shot each other congratulatory smirks made it clear this was no coincidental encounter. Just like the night we met, Chelsea had planned this ambush without my knowledge and thought it was funny. And now she’d corrupted my best friend.
“I am going to straight up murder you,” I ground out.
“What? why?” Bas said, not even hiding his laughter.
I stepped toward the door. I didn’t have to stay for this. “I can’t believe you tricked me. Again.”
Chelsea had the gall to say, “Aw, come on. Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not mad,” I said. “I just don’t like being lied to.”
Lied to and misled, manipulated and fooled into spending time with Elizabeth when I’d already explained to Bas exactly why I needed time to sort through my conflicting emotions regarding the stunt she’d pulled.
If I’d wanted to ask her out, I could have done that myself.
I didn’t need to be handled like a child.
I wheeled on Elizabeth to say as much, but she frowned and said, “I think they were just having fun. No harm done.”
That took some of the wind out of my sails. At least she’d been a victim of this farce as well.
Chelsea elbowed Elizabeth. “You wouldn’t have hesitated to do the same to me.”
Elizabeth yawned. “Can I at least get some coffee? I’m barely awake.”
“We’re not getting coffee at this soulless corporation,” Chelsea said. “We just needed a place to meet.”
“Picnic.” Bas held up a cooler he’d packed this morning when he was outright lying to me about the purpose of our outing. “Evan, wouldn’t you like to try those mini pumpkin muffins you were hoping to pinch this morning?”
I shot daggers at Bas as I followed, fully intending on taking a sharp left once I got on the sidewalk.
As Elizabeth slipped out the door, I couldn’t help stare at her. How did she keep getting cuter? I gave myself a mental slap. It didn’t matter how she affected me physically. I couldn’t trust her.
Before I could bail, Elizabeth hooked my elbow, like no time had passed since that first Friday night, and a wave of memories hit me, muddled with the certainty that I’d been with someone else entirely, someone who never existed.
I started to pull my arm free, but she latched on and said through clenched teeth, “Listen. I know you don’t want to be here, and I don’t want to be here, but would you stop for a minute and take a gander at that. ”
She tilted her head at our friends, walking up the path toward the Rotunda, thick as thieves, probably laughing at their little coup.
“More reason to split. We should let them have their date.”
Elizabeth scoffed. “Chelsea doesn’t date.”
“Then what is that?”
“It’s a pretext. We’re a loophole. You see that, right?”
“She’s using us to get to Bas?” I pulled free of her grasp and stopped. “That makes no sense. Bas has been trying to ask her out for weeks.”
She held out a finger. “First of all, Chelsea never says yes to dates. This right here is precarious. I’ve never seen Chelsea give any guy this much attention, and however Bas is doing it, I don’t intend to break the spell he’s casting.
If you want your friend to have his romantic picnic, I’m afraid you’re going to have to play wingman.
And second, why are you such a stick in the mud? Don’t you like fun?”
“I like fun.” Everything else she’d said percolated in the back of my mind.
I’d been so caught up in my own world, I hadn’t thought about the mating dance Bas was performing.
For reasons beyond my understanding, he seemed smitten with the devil incarnate, and I didn’t want to cock block him. “What do you propose we do?”
“Stay. Hang out with our friends on a gorgeous fall day, eat what I assume will be delicious food, and pretend we’re getting along. I know you’re capable of pretense, Clark Kent.”
My hackles rose. I hated deceit, but she was right that I was being hypocritical with my fake glasses. Besides, she was only asking for civility. “I can play nice.”
“Good. Then can we try to be friends?”
“You”—I stared into her crystal blue eyes—“want to be friends with me?”
She gave me a long, appraising look. “Maybe. I don’t know. You were a real jerk to me.”
“Me?” I breathed in. From her perspective, maybe I was. I moderated my tone, hoping I sounded reasonable, not angry. “I didn’t mean to be a jerk. I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”
She gave a half-hearted little shrug. “Whatever. We only have to do this for an hour.”
Right. Everything was some kind of theater, including her friendship. “I can do that.”
“Then come on. We need to catch up.”
As we stepped through the arched doorway under the Rotunda, I breathed in the smell of something specific to this location, earthy and a little sharp, like petrichor, but tangy.
Juniper? Whatever it was caused my eyes to close as a million memories rushed in, and I was hit in the chest with nostalgia and pride for my alma mater.
Small white columns flanked the rolling Lawn stretching to Old Cabell Hall, creating one of the most iconic and picturesque views in America.
Little moments like this reminded me why I’d taken the job here. This was home.
Elizabeth said, “It’s like Proust’s madeleine,” dreamily.
I glanced over at her, taking in the wisps of golden hair blowing into her face and resisting the urge to tame them. “Proust?”
She adjusted the strap on her messenger bag. “Sorry. I step onto grounds and forget myself.”
“Grounds” was the UVA word for campus, and I grinned as another little piece of my history slid into place. “Tell me what you were thinking.”
“Proust was a French novelist. Early twentieth century. He famously wrote about biting into a cookie, called a madeleine, and being transported to his childhood. Tastes and smells can work like a time machine.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking.”
She beamed. “I didn’t mean to nerd out on you. I just finished editing a book on Proust so he’s super on my mind right now.”
“Wow. I’m impressed.”
“Oh, don’t be. I didn’t write it. I just cleaned it up.”
“Still. The fact you know all that.” I had this weird thought that I liked her better. But better than what? Better than I liked her before now, or better than I liked the person I’d thought she’d been?
She absently caught one of the loose strands of hair and tucked it behind her ear.
“I did go to school to study literature. I hope I retained something. But yeah, you’d think this would all get old, but every time I set foot on the Lawn, I’m nineteen again, with no real worries except whether or not I’ve convincingly analyzed Faulkner’s ‘A Rose for Emily.’”
I winced. That sounded awful. “I was just trying to survive statistics.”
Bas waved us over to a flannel blanket, and I knelt beside Elizabeth, still pondering our conversation. Memory could be so powerful, but I was beginning to discover just how unreliable mine was. How much of my view of the past were just stories I told myself?
Bas took out his phone. “This needs to be documented.”
Chelsea scooted in beside Elizabeth, and I channeled my college spirit into an authentic smile. Bas called, “Say Velveeta!” and Chelsea groaned.
Then we were rewarded as Bas unloaded the ridiculous amount of food he’d brought.
While he’d packed it earlier, I hadn’t paid attention or I would have wondered how he expected the two of us to polish off a tray of mini quiches, four muffins, and thermoses of both coffee and cider.
If the goal had been to impress a certain woman, mission accomplished.
Chelsea looked ready to eat everything and then lick the chef.
Elizabeth poured herself a cup of coffee immediately. “How do you guys know each other, anyway?” she asked, with a cheery curiosity, like she actually gave a shit.
“We were roommates in college,” Bas answered. “Here, actually.”
Elizabeth’s eyes widened. “We were roommates here, too. Now we’re neighbors and heterosexual life partners.”
I’d just taken a sip of cider and sputtered at her comment. “You’re what?”
“She means we’re best friends,” Chelsea said, picking over the quiches before taking two. “We spend way too much time together.”
That sounded nice. Bas and I had remained friends, but we weren’t long-lost brothers or anything like that. We were so different. Case in point, his interest in a woman who’d straight up admitted she only wanted a physical relationship with him.
Still, if Elizabeth was right and Bas had a chance to be the exception to the rule, maybe I ought to help him out. “So what do you do, Chelsea?”
She shrugged. “Little of this, little of that. Like Elizabeth, I cobble together jobs to make rent, but my passion is graphic arts.”
I hadn’t realized Elizabeth was working multiple jobs. The assistant production job had to be taxing as hell. She’d seemed frazzled the few times I’d seen her, but right now, she was animated, relaxed. And so unfairly pretty.
Bas said, “When I first saw you, I thought you might be a physicist.”
Chelsea sniffed a laugh. “That’s kind of random. Why did you think that?”
By the way he grinned, I knew he was about to pull out one of his corny jokes, but before I could intervene, he said, “Because of your gravitational pull.”
Chelsea punched him. “Groan. That’s so bad.”
He was really his own worst enemy. I shook my head. “You did not just say that, bro.”
Maybe Elizabeth was right, and these two needed some help. As if she was reading from my same playbook, she turned to Bas. “What did you study, Basil?”
If I was going to play wingman, I’d need to spin his many stops and starts in a more positive light. “Bas was a bit of a universal scholar.”
That did the trick. Chelsea leaned in. “What does that mean?”
Bas spoke about studying art, moving to Paris, becoming a chef, and I winked at Elizabeth, as if to say, That’s how it’s done.