Claire and I had been best friends since high school. When we went to the University of Texas for undergrad together, we added Mac. Since we were eighteen, the farthest away Claire, Mac and I had ever lived was when Mac and I stayed at UT—me for my MA in environmental policy and Mac for her MBA—and Claire moved to Virginia for law school at UVA. When Claire finally moved back, with a husband and kid in tow—Simon and Mikey, now an apple-cheeked four-year-old—they’d gone straight to the burbs, a place teenage Claire had sworn she’d never live. She was still adjusting.
“Hate to break it to you, but betrayal is inevitable, even for the Claires and Simons of the world.” I settled into my chair and looked around the deck. We’d gathered here at least once a week, ever since I’d bought the house two years ago. I was very proud of it. My bungalow wasourplace, the epicenter of our friendship. A girlie nest filled with overstuffed pillows and candles and wine. Where the four of us watched movies, ate dinner, got ready for nights out, and escaped children (Claire), terrible first dates (Mac) and needy clients (Annie). It, and they, were my constant. The center of my world. They were the only people I knew for certain wouldn’t let me down.
“You can choose to deny it and live in ignorance,” I continued, “or you can scare someone into not cheating, but that only works for a little while.Oryou can do what I do, and avoid being in relationships in the first place. I learned that lesson from Ben, as a matter of fact.”
Ben Laderman: the guy who helped me realize, once and for all, that it was easier, and cleaner, to keep things casual. He was the reason I hadn’t had a boyfriend in five years.
“Ben was so distraught about Stoner cheating on him that he flunked his final exam,” Claire said. “His first-place class rank went to his rival, and he lost his clerkship. It was kind of a scandal among the other law students.” I stared at her. How did sherememberthese details? Especially since I’d confessed this to her five years ago, over the phone, while she was still living in Virginia. “He thought the clerkship would get his foot in the door for a career in politics. After he lost it, and everyone started whispering about him, he actually hightailed it out of the state.”
Okay,thatI felt bad about. “Yeah, well, eventually he landed at Google, so he ended up fine.”
Zoey brightened. “And now he gets his chance at politics again in the governor’s office! That’s really nice. I’m kinda rooting for him.”
I glared at her. “And, in the ultimate twist of fate, he now has the power to killmypoliticaldreams.”
In the candlelight, I could see Mac shake her head. “This is why you should get your tarot cards read with me. Then you could see this kind of karmic retribution coming.”
“There’s no way he’d hold a grudge after five years, right?” Zoey bit her lip, which was stained purple with wine. “That seems like a long time to hate someone.”
Sweet, sheltered Zoey. I wondered if her ability to believe the best in people was a younger-millennial thing. I met Annie’s eyes and she gave me a small smile.
Claire kicked her feet up, crossing her heels. “Hell,I’dhold a grudge. I’d be chomping at the bit for a shot at revenge.”
I settled back in my chair and groaned. “Me, too. So, what do I do?”
“I would approach with caution.” Annie was using her therapist voice. Ultrareasonable. Reasonable on steroids. “Figure out where he’s at emotionally before you do anything rash. Zoey’s right—there’s a big chance that after five years, he doesn’t resent you enough to go out of his way to hurt you. You’re probably not his favorite person, I’ll give you that, but it takes a lot of energy and passion to hate someone for five years. That sort of emotion tends to peter out over time.”
I tried to picture walking into the meeting at the governor’s office, all smiles and olive branches, but it was like toeing over the line into no-man’s-land—my mind immediately threw up Turn Back Now signs. “Are you saying I should just...act normal?”
“If I were you, I’d get him alone first thing and tell him if he does anything to ruin your career, you’ll have his balls in a vise.” Claire nodded satisfactorily, as if she’d just given me the ultimate gift of wisdom.
“I don’t know,” Mac said. “I like Annie’s idea. Play it safe.”
IfMac, who’d recently gone on a blind date with a children’s party clown, was telling me to play it safe, I should probably listen.
“Okay. I’ll use tomorrow to test the waters.” I’d wrestled with it in the days since Disney World: Ben had to have guessed I still lived in Austin, since I’d once told him I could never see myself living anywhere else, except maybe—just maybe—Washington, DC.Ifmy career went the way I used to dream it would.
So, what else could he know? Was he aware of the Green Machine bill—Governor Mane’s silly nickname for our electric vehicle legislation—and if so, did he know it involved Lise, the company where I worked?
What if he didn’t know any of it, and tomorrow he keeled over at the sight of me? What if I gave him a heart attack and ruined his life not once, but twice? But if hedidknow about me, then the Lee-Stone-of-it-all hadn’t stopped him from taking the job, which must mean he no longer harbored resentment, right? Or was it like Claire said, and he was doing all of this to exact some long-overdue revenge?
“Or,or...” Zoey’s voice was hushed, almost awestruck. “What if, despite everything, Ben’s been in love with Stoner all this time, and he’s here to win her back?”
There was a moment of contemplative silence in which distant crickets chirped and Zoey blinked hopefully at us. Then, all at once, like a dam bursting, Claire, Mac, Annie and I broke into sidesplitting laughter.
“Oh,God.” Claire wiped tears from her eyes. “Thank you, Zoey. I really needed that.”
When the house was empty and quiet, I flicked on my living room lamp, pulled the cork out of a new bottle of wine and flopped backward onto my couch. Immediately, Bill McKibben and Al Gore, my two gray cats, leaped onto the cushion and curled into my side, their small bodies warm and soft. I scratched Bill’s ears, then Al’s, and lifted the bottle straight to my mouth. It was too late for cups, and besides, there was no one here to impress. Bill and Al already knew I was feral.
I closed my eyes. Tonight, we’d basically taken a tour through the haunted house that was my love life.
Where did it all go wrong?
If I had to choose, the thing that really screwed me up was my parents, and how happy they were. Growing up, I never heard them fight, not once. Instead, they were always so romantic—touching hands when they passed in the hall, smiling at each other across the kitchen table, snuggling on the couch while we watched TV. They signed all of their notes and letters to each other with a phrase that, over time, became burned into my heart:
Forever and a day, Richard.
Forever and a day, Elise.
