“So was I,” Rob says, loudly clapping my back three times. My shoulders curl in each time his hand comes down. “I mean, yeah, Best is a catch, but I know better. So do you, obviously, because you won’t move beyond the friend-zone.”
Rob is right that I know better and wrong that Natalie is cute. She’s notcute. She’s beautiful. Her lower lip is bigger than her top, and in the center of her upper lip is a ‘V’ shape so pronounced it looks like the top of a heart. Her nose is slightly upturned, and her eyes are wide and round so that she always looks like she’s interested in what’s happening. Her eyes are the opposite of mine. According to Natalie, my squinty eyes make me appear to be perpetually brooding. I certainly am right now. Listening to Rob talk about Natalie, serious or not, doesn’t help my mood.
“I told you what the deal was the first day you met Natalie. We’re best friends, and that’s it.” I stare at the screen as I talk, and watch the Dodgers hit the ball deep into the outfield. My breath sticks in my throat until the ball lands safely in the glove of the outfielder.
“She’s divorced now. I think the rules you’ve always abided by have changed.”
“I’m her best friend, not some asshole who wants to jump her bones because she no longer wears a ring on her finger.”
“Who said anything about jumping her bones? I was talking about you getting yourself a real girlfriend.”
“You know I don’t date.”
Rob gulps his beer and sets it back down. “I guess I was holding out hope that you were waiting for Natalie to be free from that dickhead.”
Despite my irritation at Rob, I laugh. Rob never liked Henry. It didn’t help that the first time they met, Henry took one sip of his beer and sent it back, complaining it was too ‘hoppy.’ Henry was at a disadvantage after that, and every time he talked over Natalie or interrupted her, his stock fell lower and lower.
Rob wanted me to talk to Natalie about Henry, but I refused. The fastest way to hurt our friendship would’ve been to tell Natalie her husband was an ass. I learned my lesson the hard way almost a year after she began dating Henry when I told her she needed to look past the good boy side-parted hair, perfect teeth, and hero-like, big man on campus status. She’d stalked away from me, refused to answer my call for three weeks, and that was when I learned that Natalie wanted to recreate what her parents should’ve had.The perfect marriage. When all you can see are external characteristics, you can begin to match them up like puzzle pieces.
You’re single. Me too. We fit.
You want kids? Me too. We fit.
One day you want to leave the city and settle down in a nice suburb? Me too. We fit.
On and on and on it goes, until soon you’re thinking the wordsmatch made in heaven.
But what happens when the external dries out, then turns to dust and blows away? What’s underneath isn’t so shiny. Like the veins that run beneath our skin, the hopes, dreams, embarrassments, and shames of our life ebb and flow. This is where the ugly resides, and if you based your selection on pieces that fit together too easily, the ugly will be rejected. The second layer needs love, and love is not what it will get. All the love was used up on the luminous outer layer, the external. The perfect. Natalie loved Henry because he was good on paper. A handsome, loyal man who would one day be a good provider. Henry loved Natalie because she was beautiful, kind, and would one day become the stay-at-home mother of his dreams.
Henry didn’t know that Natalie hums songs on repeat until a person could drown in their own irritation, or that she keeps a dresser drawer full of dirty laundry she doesn’t want to wash. I watched Natalie fall in love with the relationship she had carefully constructed to ensure a better ending than her parents’. Maybe I should’ve opened my mouth again, let the warning spill out and damn the consequences. It’s too late now, though, and Natalie learned the lesson the hard way.
“Are you seeing this?” Rob bumps me with an elbow.
I nod and drain my beer. I’m staring at the giant TV in front of us, watching as the Yankee’s ringer steps up to the plate. There’s a guy on first and one on third. The one on third edges away from the bag, only to creep back when the pitcher turns and pretends to throw it to his third baseman. Finally, he winds up and throws it to home plate. My heart stops at the crack of the bat, and my breath stays near the top of my throat as the ball sails high, and it goes, goes, goes, until it’s somewhere in the stands.
Pushing off my bar stool, I stand and yell, my cheer lost in the sea of celebration. High-fives from strangers feels normal for a minute, and then the excitement dies down until it’s only a buzzing in my chest. I pick up my phone to text Natalie, wanting to share the excitement even though I know she doesn’t care, but our most recent text conversation distracts me.
When I told her about not taking Allison home that night, I’d wanted Natalie to be happy. I’d wanted her to tell me that, yes, she was disappointed when she saw me.
I’d certainly confused Allison, especially after working so hard to get her to understand why I’d left in the middle of our previous date. After we’d run into Natalie, I couldn’t bring Allison’s back to my place and do what we’d both thought we’d do that night. I’d faked a migraine, and walked Allison to her building. On my walk home, instead of seeing Allison’s confused expression, all I could see was Natalie’s shocked face, the emotion swimming in her eyes.
Why not us, Aidan?
Her question is never far from my thoughts, bouncing from brain cell to brain cell. A question like that must’ve come from somewhere, but the indifferent tone of her messages says otherwise.
My thumb hovers over the screen, in limbo, when three little dots appear.What? She’s writing me?
The dots disappear and return. Disappear and return. Her message pops up.
Congrats! Your football team won.
Her message is followed by an upside down smiley face.
Smiling at her football reference, I write back and hit send.
Football is my favorite sport.
Natalie: Mine too. So about Thanksgiving…
