I think about his curious questions, his teacup-turning, his very disappointing opinions about dessert. I think of all that, and I want to say,He does.
Instead I shake my head.
“It can’t be good that he gets me worked up that way. I mean, Iyelled. In Prospect Park.”
Lachelle snorts. “Believe me. You’re not the first person to yell there.”
She’s not even finished speaking before I start again, propelled by my buzz or by my block or by my utter exhaustion at having thought about this all week.
“I said things to him I regret. I hurt him.” I swallow, curl my hands back around my glass again, if only to have something to hold on to.
“Meg, take it easy on yourself. Everyone loses their temper sometimes.” I look up at her, her soft, nonjudgmental smile paired with a gently furrowed brow of concern.
“You know what you said before about never seeing me get irritated?”
“Sure, but—”
“No, you’re right. It’s on purpose that I’m this way.” I clear my throat. “When I was growing up, my parents—they fought a lot. Loud fights, quiet fights, whatever. Nothing physical, and they were good to me, but they were awful to each other a lot of the time. They couldn’t wait to leave each other. My whole life, I tried to stay above the fray.”
“That sounds terrible.”
I shrug. “Lots of people have parents who don’t get along. But when I got older—” I break off, reaching a limit, something I don’t want to say. It’s astounding how much I’ve told her already. Maybe my cocktail has truth serum in it.
“When I had my own fight with them,” I say, adjusting for my limit, “I guess . . . I felt so out of control. We all said things we can’t take back, and nothing’s ever been the same. So I really try to—I keep the peace with people. I don’t like the way it makes me feel, to fight.”
Lachelle leans back, looking at me with some blend of sympathy and surprise, the latter probably because I’ve spent most of the years I’ve known her talking to her about pens and window displays, new shops in the neighborhood, sales at stores we both frequent. And that old chestnut, the weather.
“Of course you don’t. No one’s ever taught you how to do it.”
I make what I hope is a sarcasm snort, though I suspect it sounds pretty unpracticed. “I told you. I learned from the masters.”
“No, you didn’t. I haven’t been married for as long as the happy couple over there, but I’ve been with Sean for fifteen years, and I had to learn to fight with him the same way I had to learn how to fight with my sister, and with my roommate in college. Even a few times with Cecy.”
Surprise must show on my face at that last one, and she shrugs.
“She could’ve won that window competition, you know. The point is . . . sometimes fighting isn’t about leaving, it’s about staying. It takes practice to get it right, and it’s painful, but if you want to stay with people, you do it.”
Something sparks in my circuit board then, some wire livening with its new connection. I haven’t fought with anyone in years and years, have shoved down even the smallest inclination. Boyfriends I drifted away from for one thing or another—one who lied to me about smoking cigarettes at night, one who never let me finish a sentence before trying to complete it for me, one who I always suspected was seeing someone else, too. No great losses, but it wasn’t as though I tried to press the point. Worse is the thought of friends I have scattered throughout Manhattan and here—including Lachelle, including Cecelia—who I’ve kept at a distance. I had Sibby, after all. Sibby who already knew all the hard things about me, and I’d never have to fight with her.
Except I do, I think, straightening up in my chair, suddenly feeling starkly, shockingly sober. I have to start a fight with Sibby, if I want us to stay friends after she leaves. I have to continue a fight with Lark, if I want us to become friends.
And I have to finish a fight with Reid—I have to do itrightthis time—if I want us to . . .
If I want us to be more than friends.
It’s a revelation, but it’s not an easy one. Even at the thought of it—more confrontation, more moments of getting it wrong—my palms feel clammy, my fingers weak. I think fleetingly about my desk at home, the wasteland of attempts and failures from the last week. Holding a pencil has felt like holding a thousand pounds of weight.
“Practice,” I repeat, and I can hear the way it sounds disbelieving, suspicious.
“Listen, Meg,” she says, reading my tone. “You didn’t come to this city and teach yourself your craft and start your own business because you’re weak. And you don’t make nice with your clients and get them to trust you the way they do because you’re weak, either. You practiced getting along with people. You can certainly practice not getting along with them, too.”
It’s part compliment, part assignment, and Lachelle delivers it with the unbothered confidence of a person who has had a ton of practice being right about everything from your back pain to your window display to your deep-seated emotional damage. She looks quickly down at her watch and her eyes widen. “Shit,” she says. “I better go.”
I’m grateful for the small distractions of wrapping up the evening—both of us settling our bills, waving quick goodbyes to Cecelia and Shuhei. It gives me a few minutes to process what Lachelle has said, to consider what I have to do, to let myself feel a fragile hope.
When we get outside, Lachelle taps out a quick text message to Sean to let him know she’s on her way. Then she looks up at me again and says, “I think you should call him.”
That fragile hope dissipates. I may not have spent the last seven days planning to practice my confrontation skills with Reid, but Ihavemade an effort to apologize.
