We Were Never Here, page 11
“I’m glad you’re doing well. But you must be exhausted.” I glanced at the clock on the microwave—Aaron and I were meeting for brunch in less than an hour. “I can’t wait to catch up, but I also don’t want to keep you from sleeping.”
We were good at this—navigating each other’s bodily needs while in foreign lands, deprived of our usual routines. But she shook her head: “Seeing you is giving me a second wind. Are you up to anything right now?”
“Well, I actually have brunch plans. But we can hang out after?” So much brightness in my voice, sparkly and citrus.
“With who, Aaron?”
“Actually, yeah. I think things are going…really well.” For once, I knew what I wanted: to end this awkward reunion, to smile and feel good with Aaron, and then to try again with Kristen later, when she’d caught up on sleep, when things between us weren’t so…off. But then I made a stupid gamble, because I figured there was no way, no way she’d want to go out in public after a sixteen-hour flight and a four-hour flight and a bus ride and an Uber: “Want to join us for brunch?”
“I’m going to take a ninety-second shower,” she replied, already rising from her seat, “and then I’m yours.”
* * *
—
On the drive to the restaurant, Kristen was relaxed and chatty, jabbering about the flight, her creepy Uber driver, how her grandparents had been weird about her impromptu visit since they were trying to turn her bedroom into a workout studio and had already shunted all her things to their cabin Up North. I tried to listen, but my mind raced: Sure, Kristen had always been energetic, eager to hang out, and quick to get over things, but…but wasn’t this behavior bordering on sociopathic?
Or was it all an act and she was doing even worse than I’d let myself imagine? I should’ve felt relieved that she seemed so unperturbed, but instead I felt trapped. Her joviality baffled me—like we hadn’t buried a body a week ago, like it was all in my head. I felt weak, broken in comparison. Why was she so goddamn cavalier?
“If you’re tired, I’m still happy to take you to your grandparents’,” I said. “We can get together after you’ve gotten some sleep.”
“Ugh, no—I’m putting that reunion off as long as possible.” She turned and grinned at me. “What, you trying to get rid of me?”
Well, yes. “God, no! Just wanted to give you an out. That’s a lot of travel.”
“Don’t worry, I’m not too sleep-deprived to get a read on this new boyfriend of yours.”
She’s going to meet Aaron. What will she think of Aaron? The thought was so loud I almost zoomed through an intersection, slamming on the brakes when I registered Kristen chanting, “Red light, red light, red light!”
I’d texted Aaron while Kristen was in the shower, so when he spotted us from the restaurant’s front window his face registered delight, not surprise. He waved and I forced a grin.
“Is that him?” Kristen clutched my arm and I flinched.
Surely she recognized him. Surely she’d found him on social media—she’d found Priya, after all. “Yep, that’s the guy!” With every ounce of energy inside me, I managed to make my voice cheery.
There were handshakes and hugs, and when Aaron kissed me, heat plumed across my cheeks. A hostess led us to a spot inside a bay window. The café, a farm-to-table joint in a refurbished home, was noisy and bustling, diners speaking louder and louder to be heard over one another.
“So Emily didn’t tell me why you’re here!” Aaron scraped his seat toward the table. I leaned forward—I hadn’t gotten an answer yet either.
“Yeah, so, I got made redundant. So now everything’s up in the air. My former boss, the one here in Milwaukee from before I transferred—she’s fighting hard for them to find me another role in the company, so who knows what’ll happen. But for now, I had all these airline miles and I realized I wanted to be here. Near the people who matter to me.” She beamed a radiant smile my way.
“Woof, I’m sorry,” Aaron said.
“That’s awful! Kristen, I’m so sorry.” I felt my eyebrows stretching toward my hairline, eased them back down. “So you might be home for good?”
“I don’t know yet. It all depends. I can’t live in Australia without a work visa, obviously.”
Wow. My insides did something complicated. On the one hand, this was exactly what I’d been hoping for: I could Have It All, the new relationship and the best friend I could confide in and cry with and hug as I worked through the horror of Chile. Someone to whom I could voice my fears of being caught—speaking without censorship and basking in her confidence, her care, the way she made me feel like my most badass self.
And yet—something was off. She’d only been here an hour, but I felt it, like we were broadcasting on different wavelengths.
But it was probably just her jet lag bumping up against my insecurities. “I’m really sorry you got laid off.” I reached out and grabbed her hand. “That sucks, even though you hated that job.”
She shrugged. “Thanks. But you’re right, I did hate it. Maybe this is the best possible outcome.”
“When did it happen?” I asked. A child shrieked behind me. A pulse of paranoia: Did her boss find out what we did? Did something give us away? “You were just talking about taking a sabbatical at work.”
“I know! It just happened. So now that whole plan is up in the air.” She turned to Aaron and said brightly, “Although I don’t know why she’d even think about leaving you! Aaron, Emily only told me a tiny bit about you. You met at the coffee shop where you work, right?”
The waitress appeared, a red-cheeked teenager with her hair in a pretty French braid. She took our orders and sloshed coffee into our mugs—mismatched china on patterned saucers.
Aaron poured cream into his and two fat white dots splattered onto the table. He told Kristen the story, smiling and relaxed, and then she asked him what else kept him busy, and he good-naturedly told her about his freelance graphic-design projects, and I smiled and looked proud but internally I cringed. I felt foolish for keeping him secret for so long—how could I not see that would hurt him?
Kristen sat up straight. “So I’m sure Emily told you all about our trip to Chile.”
My fingers jolted—just enough for the glass inside them to slip through and crash to the table. Rivulets of orange juice streamed toward the table’s edges and dropped directly in Aaron’s lap. The glass rolled away and shattered on the floor, a jangly crash. We jumped up and pressed our napkins on the puddle, and a waiter rushed over with a dishrag, and the entire restaurant turned to stare at us, silent, judging.
“So sorry,” I murmured as we scraped our seats back up to the table.
“I was just talking about Chile,” Kristen prompted. “I assume Emily told you about our adventures?”
Someone came by with a dustpan, and I apologized again as he crouched and swept.
Denial was one thing—denial was one way of dealing with trauma. But to actively bring it up?
“Oh yeah.” Aaron’s eyes flicked to me. “Seemed like you guys had a little too much fun. She was out cold for, like, five days after.”
“I imagine she would be,” Kristen said.
“Yeah, we did a lot of running around and hiking,” I cut in, my voice high.
Kristen smirked. “Exactly. So much hiking. Have you been to South America?”
Aaron shook his head. “I’m a cold-weather kinda guy. I turn bright pink after two minutes in the heat.”
Kristen chuckled. “We went through about ten gallons of sunscreen.”
“Doesn’t even help. I’m like…a shrimp. Pasty when they’re raw, but toss ’em in a hot pan and suddenly they’re the color of flamingos.”
“Y’know, I’ve always liked cooking things that change color when they’re done.” She set her mug down with a clink. “It’s like a magic trick. Like those purple beans that turn green when you cook them.”
“What’s wild is that shrimp turns pink to tell you it’s done,” he replied, “very handy. But chicken, right? It starts out pink…and turns white.”
“Somebody get this man a nature show,” Kristen cracked, and they locked eyes and laughed. My best friend and boyfriend hitting it off—this was supposed to be the dream. Instead I felt my insides tighten and crackle.
* * *
—
When Kristen went to the bathroom, Aaron placed his hand on mine and stroked my knuckles.
“Can I ask you something?” he said.
“Of course.”
“Did something…happen in Chile?”
The room fell silent and I felt a tunnel, hot and tender, starting at my throat and rushing downward, widening like a shotgun shell.
My voice a caw: “What makes you say that?”
“You seem so tense.”
I stared at his smile, his thin lips in a kind U, and forced myself to breathe. My chest had tightened, as if my asthma were acting up. In. Then out. The dreamy yoga instructor from Pisco Elqui murmured in my mind: Your smile powers your corazón.
“It’s totally nothing.”
He shook his head. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to. But I’m sure you guys’ll figure it out. She clearly has a lot of love for you.” He leaned in. “I’m sure it’ll all be okay.”
How lucky he was to be able to say that. To trust that nothing bad could ever happen. To never know the weight of a body in his arms, the way the flesh slid over the tendons and bones.
I played with the sticky maple-syrup container. “Kristen and I are fine,” I said. “She’s just—”
“Kristen, hey!” He cut me off as she reached the table.
“Hey there! Did they bring the bill?” She sat and lifted her Bloody Mary, a pint glass filled with viscous red liquid. She sipped until the straw gurgled and then plunked it on the table, and my stomach turned.
I couldn’t help thinking it looked like Paolo’s blood pooled on the hotel floor.
CHAPTER 15
“Sorry I, um, freaked out and spilled OJ all over everyone.”
Kristen buckled her seatbelt. “Oh, it’s fine. Most of it ended up on Aaron.”
I backed out of the parking spot. “Right. But I guess I was…caught off guard? By your bringing up Chile.”
Her eyebrows squeezed. “Why wouldn’t I bring up Chile?”
I sputtered, unable to answer.
“You’re talking like I’m the one acting weird. But you’re being weird.” She dug a water bottle from her bag and unscrewed the cap. “Hey, so Aaron is great. Not the kinda guy you normally go for. I’m surprised.”
She hadn’t eased up on this campaign, not for a second: Everything Is Fine, I’m as Upbeat as Ever. How was she so good at this?
“Yeah, he’s kind of a hipster,” I said. “But he’s a great guy.”
“I’m glad. Maybe different is a good thing. Since you seem to pick bad apples.” She chugged some water as the assessment thudded into me. “I mean, no judgment. I do the same.”
I glanced her way. She wasn’t wrong: Ben the Abusive. Colin the Jealous. “Well, I know I can count on you to give me your honest appraisal.”
“You know it!”
We paused at a red light and time stood still. “Hey, I don’t want you to think I’m abandoning you or anything,” I said carefully. “You’ll always be way more important to me than any dude.”
“Oh, I know that. Take a left at the next light. God, I hate coming here.”
I hadn’t driven to Nana and Bill’s house in years, but my hands on the steering wheel remembered the way. Left at King of Kings, the big brick church and grade school with a marquee on the front lawn: Men’s Fellowship & Bible Study 7 pm. Right onto Beaumont, a fat Dead End sign staked into the corner, and then straight through to the cul-de-sac bulging out of the road: Nana and Bill’s elegant home on the left, a gaudy turreted mansion on the right, and a California-style ranch between them, its driveway flanked by stone-pineapple-topped pillars. The castle-like monstrosity on the right had been built over Kristen’s childhood home—the one she shared with her parents before they were killed in a house fire. I’d always found it odd and a little sadistic that her grandparents stayed put: Living with them meant she was always two doors down from the site of that tragedy.
Nana and Bill’s house was enormous, bigger than I’d remembered, with brownish brick and a peaked roof, windows gazing down at me like watchful eyes. Two massive maple trees framed the driveway and a row of bushes fringed the front door, and all of them had that about-to-burst spring look: crimson kernels clustered on the maples’ boughs and lime-green puffs poking out from the bushes. Normally I loved spring, that period of rebirth, but against the tawny lawn and imposing house, the flora looked defenseless, preemie.
“Do you want me to help you carry your stuff in?”
“My grandparents are going to insist you come in and say hi. They’re probably waiting by the door. Consider yourself warned.”
“We’re gonna go be social?” I raised my eyebrows. “Aren’t you exhausted?”
“I’m hanging in there. C’mon.”
We headed for the front door. Kristen had spent her teen years here, at a high-performing public high school that went to state for bougie sports: golf, tennis, soccer. Kristen had been on the poms squad, a postgrad discovery that delighted me to no end. (It was a dance team that used pom-poms, she informed me, and nothing like cheerleading.) In college we’d rolled our eyes at the girls who rushed sororities, eager to fit in. Picturing teenage Kristen high-kicking to Justin Timberlake was strange at best.
Kristen rang the doorbell, and for the umpteenth time that day, I steeled myself. Nana and Bill always put me on edge. Sure, they were friendly in that folksy, generic way. But I couldn’t quite square my impressions of the nice, slightly snobby senior citizens I’d met with the remarks Kristen had made about them. How Bill had told her, smiling, that she’d never last in advertising. How he’d read her honors thesis (“Female Political Representation and Labor Force Participation in Thailand”) and handed it back to her with nothing but a few passages underlined in the Limitations section, as if demonstrating his agreement with everything her dissertation didn’t do. It was hard to imagine these publicly pleasant people acting so dismissive in private.
The door swung open and there they stood: Bill tall and round, Nana small and birdlike. They gave Kristen and me curt hugs.
“We picked out a bottle of Merlot,” Nana announced, and I thanked her. Apparently we were doing some day drinking. “I’ll grab us glasses.”
Bill gestured me into a living room (family room? They looked identical and sat directly across from each other), and I sat. There was that awkward group exhale as we all smiled and looked at one another and wondered whose turn it was to speak. Aren’t you going to ask Kristen how her flights were? Aren’t you excited to see your granddaughter for the first time in over a year?
Bill broke the silence: “How was brunch?” I got the feeling he didn’t really care.
“It was great!” I nodded eagerly. “We went to Evie’s, near the casino? Solid French toast.” I cleared my throat. “And how are you doing? It’s been at least two years since I’ve seen you, right?”
“That long?” Bill made a puffing sound.
“We heard you had a nice time in Chile,” Nana broke in, expertly clutching our topped-off glasses in a four-leaf clover pattern. “You girls are so brave, traveling around in a foreign country like that.” She leaned over to hand me one and I avoided her eyes, my heart suddenly racing. Would I ever be able to speak casually about our trip?
“Careful—Emily has butterfingers today!” Kristen called out. She winked, actually winked, and I felt myself blush.
Bill ignored her as he disentangled a drink from the others. “Yeah, we heard all about the little mountain towns you found in Chile. And all the—what’s it called?”
“What?” Kristen asked, plucking a glass of her own. She looked unperturbed.
“The liquor you gals were drinking—pico?”
“Pisco!” I nodded. “Delicious stuff.” I tried to catch Kristen’s eye, but she was sipping her wine calmly.
“I get so nervous about you girls doing all that traveling on your own,” Nana said. “I didn’t even have a passport until I was in my forties—and I certainly wasn’t going anywhere without Bill here.”
“Yeah, we both caught the travel bug,” I replied. Could they see it on my face, the panic, the blood I could swear was visible as it drummed against my temples? “But, um—what about you? What’s new?”
“You didn’t travel until your forties because you had Dad when you were twenty-one,” Kristen said to Nana, ignoring me. “If Emily and I had eight-year-olds, I doubt we’d be cavorting around the Elqui Valley either.”
“That’s true, I was busy being a mother.” Nana pursed her lips, as if she’d tasted something sour.
“Well, thank God we’re busy visiting pisco distilleries instead of changing diapers.” Kristen raised her glass high and I cringed again—why couldn’t she set aside her resentment long enough to move the subject away from Chile, where we’d left a body in the ground?
“Nana and Bill, have you been traveling—enjoying your retirement?” I glanced from one to the other.
“Oh, they haven’t gotten rid of me yet.” Bill shrugged a shoulder. “How would they run Czarnecki Chemists without the Czarnecki?”
“You haven’t retired!” I brightened, glad for the new topic. “I thought Kristen mentioned a retirement party at some point.” Czarnecki Chemists was a local chain of pharmacies—doing well, improbably, in a sea of Walgreens.
“Right, ’cause he said he’d quit the minute he turned seventy-five,” Kristen said. “But apparently, quote, ‘retirement is for the lazy.’ ”
