“I sense that there’s abutcoming.”
Carter sighed, seemed to chew it over, then said, “But there was always someone else.”
“Someone else?” Elliot felt his breath catch in his chest.
“She wasn’t cheating. I don’t mean that. There was someone else,emotionally.” He paused. “I never had the full her. For a while, I thought it was, you know, that thing she does when she’s half-present—losing herself to her characters, that whole other made-up life. But it was someone real. And, you know what, that was fine. Not everything is meant to beeverything.”
Elliot nodded, trying to keep his cool.
“I can see that she didn’t mention this to you,” Carter said, rising from his chair as if maybe he’d just realized it was time to escort Elliot out.
“No,” he said, keeping his professional voice steady. “She did not.”
“Ah, well, I’m not in the business of divulging my friend’s secrets,” Carter said.
“Come on,” Elliot said. “You can’t just shoot me a blind item like that.”
Carter grinned, which turned into another bellow. “Welcome to the conundrum of Birdie Robinson. She tells you only what she wants, which only makes you want it more.” They were at his front door now, Lucy by Carter’s side, as if she, too, understood that Elliot was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.
Carter swung open the beautiful blue lacquered door and offered Elliot a firm shake of his hand.
“Give Birdie my love,” he said, and Elliot knew that he meant it. “I’m here for her in any way I can be supportive. I miss that girlin a way you miss your annoying little sister once you move out. Which is to say, my door is always open.”
Then he closed the actual door behind him, and Elliot heard the bolt latch. In other circumstances, with anyone else, Elliot would have bounded back up the steps and pounded on the door for more, but his mind was spinning, his heart close to exploding from the adrenaline rush. He’d barely heard Carter’s good tidings because all he could think was:me me me me me.
He stood there frozen. What if... Birdie had been out here pining for him all these years? Just like he had been for her. What did he do next, then, if it was him all along?
22
BIRDIE
Birdie was blastingthe radio to Gloria Gaynor and singing along when she thought she saw a woman walking a golden retriever do a double take. No, she definitely saw a woman walking a golden retriever do a double take. She didn’t know what was taking Elliot so long—how long did it take to ask Carter a simple question?—but she wasn’t about to wait around for the paparazzi in Los Angeles, who could find a vulnerable celebrity just about anywhere they didn’t want to be found, to hunt her down. She shoved the key into the ignition and spun it with righteous dramatic flair while Gloria belted, “I will survive!”
In high school, it was not hyperbole to say that Birdie and Monalivedfor this song. And so she turned it up louder and thought of her best friend, and how, of the two of them, everyone probably (and reasonably) thought that Mona would be the grand success. She wondered now if Mona was happy with Nelson Pratt, if she was happy living in her old house, if she was happy running Monads. Birdie had always aspired formore more more, which was what she probably found so seductive about datingKai Carol, and which was probably what tricked her into believing that once she was on top of the world, she’d never stumble downward. How easy it had been, though. To somersault to the bottom.
“You think I’d tumble, you think I’d lay down and cry?” she shouted, then remembered Mona correcting her.Crumble, Birdie.Die, not cry.Well, she wouldn’t do those things either.
The dog owner who had gaped was definitely filming her now while her golden ate a neighbor’s grass, so she peeled the RV away from the curb and figured Elliot would call her when he was done. She careened around a corner, narrowly missing a Mercedes SUV, then overcorrecting and nearly shaving the mirror off a minivan. A man out powerwalking shouted, “Slow down, kids live here!” and Birdie ducked lower in her seat, which was not conducive to better driving. She turned another corner and hit a dead end. She tried not to think that this was some sort of metaphor, some sort of sign. She backed up, moved forward, backed up, moved forward, like a painfully slow snail who was trying to U-turn its way out of a jam. The RV’s engine made an alarming clattering sound, as if it wanted to alert the entire neighborhood that Birdie Robinson was out here attempting a road maneuver that she should leave to her stuntwoman, but Birdie was undeterred.Nobody puts Birdie Robinson in a corner, she thought, as she often did when she needed to lose herself to someone else’s narrative.
Finally, she righted the camper, which was definitely unhappy with her—the clattering was more of a rumble, and if anyone nearby had been napping, they were surely awake now and wondering if a plane might land on their lawn—but she pressed her foot on the gas and tried to pretend that she was Thelma or Louise. Getting the hell out of Dodge either way. She lumbered the RV up to Carter’s house, where Elliot was on the sidewalk holdinghis phone aloft, likely trying to get a signal, then waving her down like she couldn’t see him plainly in front of her.
He flung open the door and huffed up the steps, looking frazzled, sighing with an exasperated flair. He reached for the volume just as Gloria was wrapping up her anthem and dialed it down to silent.
“Hey,” Birdie snapped. “That is the perfect song.”
Elliot rolled his eyes like he didn’t remember how cute she and Mona were in carpool.Well, la-di-da, Birdie thought, then said, “Sorry if you’re pissy because I kept your ass waiting.” Her tone implied she wasn’t at all sorry. He wasn’t the one out here being filmed; he wasn’t the one out here being judged.
“It’s fine,” Elliot said, like it wasn’t. Birdie was now well aware that something had shifted in the half hour that he’d been gone, and honestly, she didn’t think she had the energy to ask him what it was. If he wanted to tell her, then fine. But she wasn’t going to drag it out of him like she thought he wanted her to. She was the one with problems here. She was the one who needed counsel and open ears and shoulders on which to lean.
“It was like two minutes,” Birdie replied and turned the volume back up, but the station was now playing some croony seventies song that she didn’t recognize, so her entire rock diva vibe was now ruined. “Sorry that you had to wait, like, two minutes.”
“I thought you had ditched me,” he said, but it sounded like an accusation, not an explanation, which rankled Birdie even more.
“Why are you being such a jerk?” she asked. “LikeI apologizethat some lady was filming me, so I went around the block.”
“I’m not being a jerk.”
“Right there. That tone. That’s jerkish.”
