“Yeah,” I say, “I know. I still don’t think it’s going to happen. He really cares about her.” I think about Juliet in the auditorium, so small and almost helpless. I can’t help feeling bad for her. It’s not like she has any friends to talk to either. It’s been her and Rob against the world since she got here.
“Whatever,” Charlie says. “It could. What then?”
“So could a white Christmas,” I say, “but I don’t see anyone running out to buy a sled.”
Charlie pulls into my driveway and turns off the car. She slumps in her seat but keeps looking forward. “Maybe. I don’t know. It just feels like everything is changing.” She sighs and looks at me. “Do you ever feel that way? Like one minute you think you have it figured out, and it turns out you were completely wrong about everything?”
“Have we met?” I ask. “That’s the story of my life.”
Charlie shrugs. “I used to think I knew what I was doing.” Her lower lip starts to tremble, and she bites down on it to hold it in place.
“Is this about Jake?”
Charlie shakes her head, but the motion seems to force the tears up and out, and they start falling down her checks, dotting her T-shirt.
I unbuckle my seat belt and lean over, wrapping my arms around her.
“I just miss her,” she says into my shoulder, her words muffled.
“I know,” I say. I always take Charlie’s strength for granted. I forget sometimes that she can hurt too. Sometimes even more than the rest of us.
She pulls back and dabs the back of her hand over her cheeks. “It doesn’t get easier. Sometimes I feel like I’m just right back where I started.”
“You’re not, though. You’re so much stronger.”
Charlie rolls her eyes and hugs her arms to her chest. “Maybe,” she says. “Who remembers?”
“I do.” It surprises me how fiercely the words come out, but there they are, marching from my mouth. “I was there, and I remember how hard it was and how much of a mess you were. It’s nothing like that anymore. You stumble and you fall, sure. But now you pick yourself back up. You do that now. You’vebeendoing that. And sometimes you pick me up too.”
“Thanks.” She reaches behind us and pulls up the big CAK tote. There is a Kleenex floating around in the top of the bag, and she wipes her nose with it.
“I mean it,” I say. “I guess that’s my job as your best friend. To remind you that things are not the way they used to be.”
She looks at me and smiles. Even with her face red and blotchy, she’s still absurdly beautiful.
“You need a reminder, call me,” I say. “I’m always here.” Then I take her hand and squeeze it. Twice.
“You know who gave me the nickname Charlie?” she asks me.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “I’ve never thought about it.”
“She did.” Charlie’s smiling and staring off through the windshield into the distance, like she’s paying much more attention to what’s happening inside her head than out. “It’s what she wanted to name me to begin with. She said she thought that if I could pull it off, I’d be something spectacular.”
“Well, you do,” I say, “that’s for damn sure.”
“I know,” she says, that familiar ring coming back into her voice. She blinks a few times rapidly and focuses back on me. “ThankGod.”
We both crack up laughing, shoulders shaking, until we’re practically holding our sides.
“But it’s sort of my real name,” Charlie says through gasps, “if you think about it.”
“Like Rosaline.” I have a thought, briefly, but it leaves with a hiccupped laugh.
“I’ll call you whatever you want,” she says, “as long as you don’t make me call you Len’s girlfriend.”
“Hey,” I say, “I’m making progress here. Moving on.”
“I don’t think dating Len is progress,” Charlie says. And then she sighs, tossing the bag back over the seat. “But if you insist on doing it, at the very least you better make him cut that hair.”
