“Carly, stop,” I mutter, voice quiet.
Nicole’s eyebrows are both up, and she stands with her feet apart, high heels beginning to sink into the turf beneath them, so that she sort of bends backwards, trying to maintain her balance.
“Look, this wasn’t the best day for me.
I had to clear my schedule when I had
no time
to do so, and my assistant Mikaylah is working double-time,” says Nicole, words just as sharp as Carly’s.
“I’m closing a new account that’s taken me
months
, and—”
“Well, this happens to be your
girlfriend’s
favorite day of the
year
.
Or it
was,
” Carly hisses, and I gulp down air and am about to interject (or possibly fling myself between them) when I see David walking down the row of cars toward us, waving his empty flagon in the air (I see he brought the one with the axe on the side.
David, in fact, has several flagons) with a very happy grin.
And, just like that, the spell is broken.
Carly’s not paying attention to Nicole anymore—she’s running toward David with an equally happy grin on her face.
Relief rushes through me.
God, things have been so tense lately.
Tense between Nicole and me…tense between Carly and Nicole.
I run a hand through my hair and swallow as we begin to walk after them.
“Half an hour,” Nicole mutters to me as David falls in line with Carly, and I fall in line with her as we make our way toward the brightly painted ticket turret.
I reach across the space between us to take Nicole’s hand, but she snatches it away as her pocket vibrates, and then she slides her hand into the pocket, and that damnable phone is in her grasp again.
She’s got her jaw set as she leans away from me, and it looks like she’s permanently glued that phone to her ear.
Carly’s wrong.
Nicole’s not an asshole.
I know I’m her girlfriend, I’m kind of biased—who really wants to think their partner is an asshole?
But I promise you:
she isn’t.
She’s just preoccupied and very, very busy, and that doesn’t make her an asshole.
But it makes me wish…
Well.
Wish for what exactly?
Nicole and I have been together four years.
In the beginning?
God, in the beginning, we were
great
together.
There was a point about three years ago that I really thought that Nicole was the woman I’d spend the rest of my life with.
So our relationship didn’t start out like this…hardly ever talking anymore, me being pushed to the back burner so that she could grow her business.
Over time, we sort of fell out of the new love romance.
You know the kind—the sappy, warm, sexy wonderfulness that people say never lasts when you get into a new relationship and that other person is literally all you can think about.
But I’d like to be thought of at least
sometimes.
Sometimes, I wish I could fix it—use some sort of magic potion that would make all of the responsibilities at her start-up company sort of dissolve into a pile of goo I could mop up and dispose of.
But I know I can’t.
In the beginning, our relationship was really important to both of us.
But then Nicole stopped remembering things like dates we were supposed to go on, showing up at my house when she said she would, skipping dinners that we were supposed to make for each other.
She kept blaming these absences and forgetfulness on her company, but all of the signs were there, staring me right in the face.
It was obvious that she wasn’t invested in us anymore.
And it’s been obvious for awhile.
I know we have to break up, and I think Nicole knows it, too.
We’re just putting off the inevitable.
Four years?
That’s a long time.
A long time and a pretty big relationship investment.
And, frankly, a great big percentage of your heart, after all.
Right now, we’re still together because it’s comfortable.
There’s so much of her stuff at my place, and so much of my stuff at her place, and it’s just so damn messy.
Everything’s
so
damn messy.
I shake myself out of my melancholy (or, at the very least, try to), as we approach the ticket turret.
I pay for both Nicole and I when it’s our turn in line, the “wench” behind the counter leaning forward and winking at me as she hands me my change, because she winks at
everyone
.
I
know
she’s paid to wink at everyone, but I still make a sidelong glance quickly to Nicole to see if she even noticed.
But nope.
Still chatting away on her cell phone as I slip her ticket into her hand.
She crumples it and slides it into her pocket, mouthing to me “five seconds” as she turns away and stalks quickly into the festival, moving apart from us.
Carly shoots daggers at Nicole, reaching back and looping her arm through mine as she tugs me forward.
“Okay,” she smiles encouragingly at me.
“What do we want to do first?” she asks, as we walk into the festival.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of horse (we’re close to the jousting “arena”), leather and frying turkey legs that permeates the air.
Incense is lingering in the air because we’re close to the lady who hand rolls incense and makes her own soap.
I let my thoughts settle, try to calm my heart, soften the little bolt of pain that keeps twisting when I hear Nicole’s voice rise above the “huzzahs!” behind us, talking about accounts and dollar figures and how sorry she is that it’s so difficult to hear her because she was “roped into this thing” she “couldn’t get out of.”
She actually says that.
The pain cuts me sharply.
I think she thinks she’s far enough back that I can’t hear her, or that there’s too much chaos for me to make out her words.
But I hear them anyway.
“Let’s just go to the first show,” I mutter to Carly, glancing down at the festival program the wench handed to me, blinking back a tear.
I clear my throat.
“It’s the Chivalry and Romance 101 show…” I begin, my voice catching.
Oh, God, no.
Actually, this is a
terrible
idea, but Carly’s already got her hands at the small of my back, and is pushing me through the crowd towards the closest stage.
The guy on the low, rough platform of boards is dressed up to look like Mr. Bean if Mr. Bean was dressed to look like Shakespeare, all ruffles at the cuffs and a starched and stiff Elizabethan collar that moves with him as he turns smartly on the stage, one hand raised, thick brows raised, too, as if he’s waving to the queen.
He grins grandly at us as we sit on the log bench closest to the stage, the only seat left free.
God, this is such a
terrible
idea.
“My fine ladies…and gentlemen…” he says, flinging his hands back in true Ren Faire dramatics fashion, the sleeves of his too-white shirt dancing in the evening breeze.
“Who doesn’t love
love?
I promise you—you are here to learn from the best of the best!”
He pauses for effect as he waggles his hips and chuckles a little, making the rest of the audience laugh with him.
It’s an obvious joke, but then you go for the obvious jokes at the Renaissance festival.
He continues:
“You, ladies, if you wish to woo your gentlemen, and you—fine gentlemen, if you wish to woo your ladies…it is time that you learn from a
master
of romance, the
sultan
of sexuality, the
lord
of laying!
I will teach you the art of romance like Casanova himself would teach it.
It!
Is!
Time!”
Nicole comes trotting over, smart phone in her hand and not against her ear (which is a good sign), but a grimace on her face and a slight shake of the head, which I already know means that I’m getting less than the aforementioned and
promised
half hour.
“I’m sorry,” she whispers in my ear quickly as she crouched down beside me, “I’ve got to go—”
“I would like a volunteer!” calls the man on stage.
And this is where it all begins to go very, very wrong.
Carly’s hand shoots up like it’s always been there, pointed straight to the sky, and—of course—since we’re in the front row, the actor dances over to our side of the stage with a wide grin.
“Do we have a volunteer?” he practically purrs, and Carly shakes her head, grinning too.
“She volunteers!” Carly all but sings out, pointing to Nicole.
Nicole opens and shuts her mouth ready to protest quickly, but it’s a pretty packed audience on these little log benches, and the actor is already down among us, with his hand at her elbow, steering her up and toward the stage before she has a chance to say a word.
I already know she’s not going to back out at this point (and they made it onto the stage pretty darn quickly) because she doesn’t want to make a fool of herself.
If you’ve never been to a Renaissance Festival before, “I would like a volunteer” is code for “I need a butt for my jokes and a good sport to do my comedy shtick on.”
I feel sick—or maybe it’s just because of the nerves that I feel sick.
Or maybe it’s the complete dread that instantly fills me that’s giving me this terrible sick feeling.
Carly, seated beside me and grinning like a cat, seems oblivious to the fact that things have just gone terribly, terribly wrong.
Or, maybe, she wants to see Nicole squirm.
“And you are, the fair lady…” says the actor, handing Nicole a small hand-held microphone.
Nicole sighs out, leaning back on her heels for a long minute before she mutters into it:
“Nicole.”
“And who here is your fair gentleman?” asks the actor, peering out into the crowd.
“I’m a lesbian,” says Nicole flatly into the microphone, her brow raised like she’s daring him to make an issue of it, and the actor—to his credit—falters for only half a second.
“Ah, wonderful!
Who here is your fair
lady
, then, my apologies?”
I’m angry at Carly.
I should be.
It was a dirty, rotten thing she did, but I know she’s miffed at Nicole for upsetting me.
But it’s
not really Nicole’s fault
.
We’re not right for each other, and we both know it.
But still, even after all that, there was a small part of my heart—really,
really
small, but still there—that hoped that when Nicole went up on that stage, and when the actor took her through the whole hokey act, that when she looked at me…I don’t know.
That there’d be at least
something
there.
Maybe one of her little grins.
Maybe a softening of her face.
Maybe even a smile.
Something to prove that there was still a connection between us.
That there was still something in our relationship that could be salvaged.
Yes, I wanted
something
, I realize, as she gazes at me with complete apathy, her mouth turning down at the corners into a frown as she points to me.
I wanted something.
And it wasn’t there.
I don’t remember what the actor says.
I don’t remember what Nicole says, mumbling into the microphone as quickly as she can to get out of this, and then trotting down off the stage steps amid the smattering of polite, chilly applause because, as the actor says, she was such a “good sport.”
She takes another call on her phone, slipping it out of her pocket and turning away from me, without even a single glance in my direction as she leaves the festival.
It was a beautiful day:
full sun, the perfect temperature (not too hot, but warm enough for t-shirts).
The weather guy predicted it to be one of the most beautiful sunsets we’ve seen in weeks tonight.
But as Nicole leaves the faire, the soft gray clouds that had seemed so non-threatening begin to build along the horizon, turning darker as the sun descends.
And it starts to rain.
Standing in the downpour as Carly waits for her gigantic turkey leg on a stick, I draw my shawl about me, feel the cold drops plink down on my neck as I stare at the mud.
It’s then that I know I have to end it.
Chapter 2:
It’s in a Book
“Please don’t be mad, Holly…” says Carly as she puts the car into park.
I sit back in my seat, stare out the front window at the wall of water on the windshield.
It’s a proper storm out now, complete with rolling thunder and jagged bolts of lightning and enough water to drown anyone who dares step outside.
The rush of rain on the top of the car sounds like Niagara Falls.
I stare out at the storm, and I let out a long sigh.
“Holly,” Carly begins again and shakes her head.
“C’mon, please, seriously.
I was just trying to help…”