My friends felt a little neglected as I steadied my footing in a real relationship for the first time in a long time, but I eventually figured out the balance. This is the first time since Dylan—the marriage that crashed and burned in ways no one should ever have to bear witness to—that I’m committed to a man. Thinking about Dylan brings forth a searing guilt. Leif doesn’t know much more than that Dylan was a failed relationship. Do I owe him more than that? The deeper in love I fall, the more I think I do. I’d want to know if the roles were reversed and Leif had a botched marriage, founded on a family that he couldn’t create. Now I’m in a serious relationship founded on the exact opposite. I’m afraid of what it will label me if I admit to the gruesome failure. It failed for legitimate reasons that were out of both of our control, but that’s an excuse.
Leif doesn’t like excuses. Or lies. A fact made blatantly clear anytime I try to give reasons why I haven’t accomplished something. Be it a daily task or other loftier life goals. He is a cheerleader for every aspect of my future, and I feel like I’m cheapening it by not telling him about my past. I like to keep my secrets in the vacuum of my mind—where no one can use them against me. Where no one will label me. It’s already a freaking miracle no one has mentioned my divorce to Leif in passing. I think enough time has passed that it’s considered old gossip and not worth sharing. There are far more scandalous things to talk about these days. Things such as the war raging in our country.
Shirley shifts in her seat in front of me at the diner. She’s taking a break, guzzling coffee like it is her oxygen. Our friend Caroline’s mother owns this diner. When Caroline married Leif’sfriend, Tahoe, she began spending more time running their bed and breakfast on the water instead of waitressing here at the family restaurant. Shirley picked up the slack, and now she’s so busy she doesn’t have time to annoy her friends. “What time are you going to The Spot tonight?” she asks, pausing her coffee assault.
“Oh, I don’t know if I’m going. I have a ton of work to do,” I reply, tapping the keys on my laptop, responding to an email. “It’s always the same thing. Everyone gets drunk. At least one couple gets into a public fight, another gets caught having sex, and someone ends up in the ER. I’d rather hang out at home and read,” I say, knowing full well she won’t accept it and also knowing I’d rather be naked with Leif.
She cracks her neck, and the sound jolts my attention from my screen to her. “You’re going. We don’t hang out anymore. I don’t get days off anymore. You start your fancy business and spend the other remaining hours humping your mastodon boyfriend. Friend time. You’re going.” Shirley runs her hand through her hair. “And we need to swing by the store. I need a box of hair dye, and you’re going to help me turn my black roots white. You understand?” Shirley clicks her tongue and sighs. “Caroline is all wifed up, and my boyfriend never leaves the kitchen back there.” Turning, she looks back toward the counter where Caleb, her on-again boyfriend, is wiping the counter. “What do you say?” She closes my laptop slowly until it clicks all the way.
“I was emailing someone back, Shirley. If that didn’t save, I’m going to be pissed,” I deadpan. “Aren’t we too old for parties at The Spot?”
“It’syourspot, Malena. We will never be too old for parties at The Spot. Keg beer. Canoes. Toes in the sand. Bonfires. It gives me life.” This debate was over before it really got started. I can tell.
“Let’s go then. You’re finished for the day?” I slide my cell phone from my purse and send a quick message to Leif. He was planning on stopping by my house after work. He’s been at work more lately. He told me he likes to be in the office when updates come in. I get it, even if it means he’s spending less time with me. The commitment he shows to his job is a turn-on. Basically, at this point, I haven’t found anything about him that isn’t a turn-on. Even as I hit send on the message, I hope he’ll still swing by if Shirley is there. I send another message letting him know I’ll be at The Spot and what time in case he’d rather meet me there instead.
The Spot is a place down by the water that’s secluded by wild forest on each side. No one remembers, but my dad bought it when we first moved here. He was going to build my parents’ dream home on the land. He left without selling it, which, in a way, does make it mine. Most people think it is a distant relative that owns it, and I don’t correct them. It has picnic benches, and over the years it’s turned into something awesome and civilized. When we were teens, it was a patch of prickly grass where we came to get drunk. Everyone left with sand spurs in their ass and ankles covered in fire ant bites. Now there’s poured concrete and a lit path guiding us down to the water and dark-stained docks. A few of the guys who own the construction company in town made it what it is today. Mostly because they wanted to have somewhere to drink on the weekends other than Bobby’s. I have enough positive memories of The Spot that I sometimes forget it is mine. My father wasn’t able to taint this spot with his abandonment.
Leif doesn’t text me back right away, and my mood falls even though I know he keeps his phone in a bag at work. It’s unreasonably morose, but I sigh anyway. That’s what he does to me. Shirley confirms she’s ready to leave after talking to Caleb,who offered to cover for her so she could have a break, and we set off for the general store.
“Is it weird coming in here after you quit?” Shirley says, eyeing the shelves filled with hair dye trying to find the proper platinum shade. “Like, do those bitches scowl at you? I would, if I were them.”
Laughing, I shake my head. “It’s not even…anything. I never felt a part of this family. That’s what it is, you know? They’ve all been here so long they know the passers-through right away. I only worked here to help pay the nurses,” I say, swallowing hard.
I miss my mom. I lie awake some nights trying to remember the last time she remembered. It makes my chest hurt and my eyes leak, and it never gets any easier.Time, I tell myself.It will get better with time.
Shirley notices and lays a hand on my shoulder. “You got the world by the tits, Malena. A hot guy is paying for her to be in a safe place. He cares about you so much. You’re like the royal princess of Bronze Bay.”
I shake off the memories. “Caleb cares for you, too. You’re here because he’s waiting your tables,” I remind her.
She smiles. “He’s good people. I know that. You know Leif is good people, too, right?”
I nod. “I mean, I would still be having sex with him even if he wasn’t paying for Mom to be in Garden Breeze,” I explain, grinning. “I hope it lasts. That’s what I’m worried about. I’m so in love with him I can’t imagine being without him.” A lump forms in my throat. Shirley picks up a box of dye and flips it over to see the photos. “Can I ask you a question? Between you and me?”
“Oh, fuck. What did you do?” Shirley replies, focusing her gaze on mine.
I roll my eyes. “Stop it. I didn’t do anything. Well, it’s something I didn’t do, I guess you could say.”
“Go on,” she says, looking down the aisle to make sure we’re out of earshot of anyone. She sets the box back on the shelf without looking. “I’m waiting.”
“Dylan,” I choke out. “He doesn’t know about the divorce. He knows about my infertility, which was my biggest concern. He didn’t bat an eye at that. Leif even knows I was in a long-term relationship with a man named Dylan, but he has no clue I was married. Do you think that’s a big deal? How do I bring that up?”
Shirley blows out a long breath through pursed lips. “Is he the jealous type?” she asks, like it’s the only logical question.
“Aren’t all men jealous?”
She lifts one shoulder. “Some more so than others. If I was a betting woman, I’d guess Leif is a very jealous man. Beats on his chest, marks his territory with piss and all that. If he knows you were with Dylan, I’d just leave it at that. It’s not like you were married for a decade and made a billion sweet memories together. It was mostly awful. And he took off when you didn’t deliver on your promise to repopulate Bronze Bay and give him his football team.”
Folding my arms, I say, “You put my medical condition so eloquently.”
“Did I get something wrong in there? Just gave you the facts,” she states, grabbing the box she’s already picked up twice. “Got what I came for, you need anything?”
There’s a blueberry lip gloss hanging on a display, and I snatch it up. My mouth waters. “You got it all right, but you’re so blunt about it. I shouldn’t expect anything else,” I growl.
“No. You shouldn’t. Real friends give real facts. Always.”
I tamp down on my annoyance about my friend dredging up old memories and realize she’s given sound advice. I don’t have any feelings for Dylan. I realize that what I felt at the height for Dylan is not even a drop in the bucket of the overflowing cascade of love I have for Leif. Telling him would do nothing.If it comes up, or he hears about it from someone else, I’ll tell him Dylan was so inconsequential that he wasn’t worth talking about. That’s it. This is the last time I’m going to worry about it. Shirley checks out, and I follow, trying to make small talk with the checkout employee, but it comes out all wrong, and I’m sure she thinks I’m insulting her job. Floundering, I try to say something nice and fail again. “Have a good day,” I mutter, and grab my lip gloss off the counter.
“You’re a real mess today, Malena,” Shirley says, laughing under her breath as we exit. “You need a night out more than I do if that little exchange has anything to say about your mental state.”
