London Is the Best City in America (16 page)

“No one,” I said.

“No one,” she repeated, fiddling with her bow. “So what part of tomorrow are you looking forward to the most?”

That was it. I stood up. “Bess,” I said. “Would you excuse me for just a second? I’m going to help myself to a sundae. Can I get you one?”

“Sugar is the devil, dear,” she said. “But enjoy yourself.”

I started to walk toward the sundae bar, a specific plan for the rest of the evening in sight. First, I was going to get two scoops of vanilla and a scoop of chocolate and two homemade cookies. I was going to find a corner to sit in, and eat the whole sundae as slowly as was humanly possible. Then, as soon as a departure wouldn’t be worthy of any attention, I was going to go inside, take off this uncomfortable dress, and go to sleep.

Only my well-thought-out plan had a way of falling apart mid-stride when I saw him standing there—right by the sundae bar—older, yes, but looking pretty much the same: same curly red hair, soft chin, still a good two inches shorter than me. Justin Silverman. Recent Northwestern Law School graduate. Junior high boyfriend. Future husband.

I didn’t know what to do. The thought of small talk now—the thought of any talk at all—was just too much to handle. Especially with him. Especially with my mother, out there in the distance, pretending not to watch us, and being so terrible at the pretending. I turned back around, way too quickly, and ran headfirst into Berringer’s chest.

“Easy,” he said, catching me by the elbow, trying to steady me. “Running away from someone?”

I looked up at him, the strange angle of his chin. He was wearing a blue tie and dark sports jacket, jeans.

In his right hand, he was holding a large plastic cup.

“You look so nice,” I said.

He smiled. “You look so nice.”

I followed his eyes down to my own dress: a long red halter, tied tight in the back, right at the top of my neck. My mom had picked it out while I’d been gone. Even on sale, which I knew it was, it had undoubtedly cost more than I had made at the tackle shop all last month.

Berringer held the cup out in my direction. “Cookie Crisps?”

I peeked inside, and there they were: a cupful of them brimming up to the top, a plastic spoon stuffed into the cup also.

“Dude, if my mom sees you eating those, she’s going to have a nervous breakdown.”

“Did you just call me dude?” he said.

“Maybe.”

“Well, rest assured, I have a whole game plan to make her think they’re part of the sundae bar. If it even comes to that.”

I watched him take a too-large bite, catching some milk with the back of his hand.

“It’s going to be fine,” he said.

From the sundae bar, I could feel eyes on me, bearing down right into the back of my head, the top of my shoulders. Before I thought better of it—before I remembered why I needed not to—I met them. Justin Silverman, balancing against the sundae bar’s pointy corner. He smiled in my direction, giving me a nod. I gave him one back before turning back toward Berringer.

I knew it. I was trapped. I couldn’t very well go back to the table. Bess was still sitting there, Meryl standing over her, her camera around her neck. She unhooked the camera and took the seat next to her mom. And I couldn’t really make a beeline for the house either—the patio full of people, my mom blocking the main back door.

“You know, Josh is looking for you,” Berringer said. “He’s out front unloading a van.”

Josh. A whole other story. I kept my eyes down. I didn’t want to be with Berringer anymore either. I didn’t want to start telling him about the day, about Elizabeth and Grace and the farm. I didn’t want to
not
tell him. But before I could excuse myself graciously, a girl from across the way waved. She was tall and dark-skinned and gorgeous—the kind of girl who could tie a silk scarf around her neck and not have it be ironic. She could wear polo pants or capris or a long thick braid. Tonight she was wearing a short beige dress, toeless stiletto heels. She matched the party. And she was coming right our way.

“Is that your girlfriend?” I said.

“Celia?” he said, waving back at her with his free hand. “Yeah, that is most definitely Celia.”

I felt a little sick. I maybe even felt more than a little sick, which could have been why I was only picking up pieces of what Berringer was saying next—something about how he didn’t even know if Celia was his girlfriend, per se: she did live three thousand miles away from him, after all. When she was even in the country. She’d been in Manchester for the last four months. She was going back there next week. It was relaxed between them, really. It was a relaxed situation.

“I want you to talk to her, though,” he said. “She’s really into film, and I was talking about you earlier. And she was actually saying that an old buddy of hers is an independent film producer, and he might be able to help you out with your documentary. When the time comes. You know, with distribution or putting you in touch with the right people at least.”

I nodded as if to say, Great, even though it was anything but. Even though the only help he could give me at this point was to help me figure out a way to finish it. And I didn’t want it from him anyway. And I really didn’t want it from her.

I started backing up, trying to be casual about it, straightening out my dress while I went, straightening out the bow on my wrist. “You know what? I’m actually trying to get Bess a sundae,” I said. “I need to get Bess a caramel sundae, I promised her. And she wants a big one. And there are things. There are other things . . .”

He pointed toward the sundae bar, which was in the other direction. “You’re heading the wrong way, then,” he said.

I followed his finger with my eyes, just in time to see Justin making his way toward me. “Well, would you do it then, Berringer? Make her one? She’s over there.” I pointed at the table, where I’d just left. “Lots of extra caramel sauce. And get one for Meryl too, okay?”

He took hold of my arm. “Give me a sec, first. Josh is looking for you.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. I didn’t really want to see Josh right then, let alone listen to him talk more about how he didn’t know what to do. I wanted to know what he was going to do, which apparently was the one thing he wasn’t able to tell me.

But when I didn’t say anything, Berringer gave me a dirty look. “Emmy,” he said. “What are you doing? You need to try to be supportive.” He started whispering. “There’s other things on the line here besides your opinion of the situation.”

“Oh, there are other things on the line? Wow. How could I forget that?” I gave him the dirtiest look I could conjure up. Berringer and his horse-riding girlfriend. Cereal-eating bastard. “Well, last time I checked, in fact, I was being pretty damn over-the-top supportive. But you know what? If you think you can do a better job, Berringer, then the next time he wants to go to Rhode Island to meet his other girlfriend and her teenage daughter on the day before his wedding, have him give you a call. Bring Celia along. She can ride shotgun.”

And with that, I prepared to storm off. But instead I backed myself up right into Justin.

“Emmy,” he said.

I just stared at him. He was wearing a red silk tie, white lines running diagonally through it. It looked like a life preserver. I didn’t even give him a chance to say hello. “Did you drive your car over here by any chance?” I asked. “Is it out on the street?”

He nodded. “It’s on the street,” he said.

“So let’s get going then,” I said.

I took his hand and led the way, not turning to see behind me what I knew I’d see: Berringer looking after me, annoyed and confused, the same way I would be looking at him if I’d had the courage to stay there and finish what he’d started.

“You okay?” Justin said, as we made it to the front, him a few paces behind, struggling to keep up.

“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” I said.

He gave me a weird look instead of answering. But he was done pushing it. He was done doing anything, apparently, but getting me to his car—getting me there as fast as possible—because I was starting to show it in my eyes. That I was going with or without him.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the party, Josh had finished carrying back yet another case of wine from the bartender’s van to the bar. From over by the table, where she was still sitting with Bess, Meryl took a photograph of him placing the case down. Like many good photographers, she was already starting to see, in the dark, what she had captured with her wide lens. She couldn’t quite make out that desperate look on his face, but she knew something was there, something off, that was bound to become more clear—more certain—when she developed it. It was, after all, becoming a little impossible to miss.

I didn’t really want to be in the car with Justin Silverman, obviously, but those of us in need of rescuing can’t always be particular as to who our rescuer will be. And what I was starting to understand, driving away from my house, was how very much I was in need of it.

I was trying to avoid looking at Justin, who was confused and a little giddy, talking too fast about midwestern winters and first-year exams and a story about how he owned a bar for a little while or worked at a bar for a little while and had thought about taking it over. He was talking a lot about the Illinois border to Wisconsin. I wasn’t blaming Justin, though. It was my fault, if it was anyone’s, that we were in his car now, that he was feeling the need to entertain me, to keep this strange momentum going.

This wasn’t because he liked me, I was sure. It had more to do with him banking on what we of wedding age had all become witnesses to—how during these wedding weekends, single women, feeling a little lonely, maybe, or just feeling a little too far from being the bride, found themselves loosening their own rules, opting to be more
flexible,
more quickly. Considering my own blundered bridal history and the desperate frenzy with which I’d greeted him, Justin probably thought he was going to get lucky sometime in the next thirty seconds.

“I should tell you,” I said as he made a left into Scarsdale Village, “that I really haven’t been feeling very well. I think I could be contagious.”

He turned toward me, like he was about to say something really important, something like he didn’t care anyway, that it didn’t bother him. He wanted to kiss me. I knew it. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. It was going to be awkward and weird. And what was I going to do then?

“I’m sure you can’t catch anything from sitting over there,” I continued. “I mean maybe you can, but I just wanted to tell you. I just wanted to be honest with you.”

He got quiet for the first time since we had been alone together—neither of us saying anything else until the main stretch of town came into view. It was mostly closed down: the Häagen-Dazs ice cream shop and DeCicco supermarket, the only two stores still lit up.

“Emmy, you know I’m gay, right?”

“What? You’re
gay?
”

He nodded. “I prefer the term Gay-American.”

I shook my head, confused. I wanted to tell him to slow down, but I guess there was no slowing down now. I guess there was no time to do anything, now, but hurry along. Josh’s wedding was coming, and the Berringer-Celia nuptials were probably soon to follow, and Matt was in New York City somewhere, and Meryl was waiting eagerly to tell me what she knew about him, and I was in a car with a friend I hadn’t seen since right around the time we learned to drive in the first place. And, of the two of us, he was the only one brave enough to be honest so far.

“I was trying to figure out how to tell you,” he said. “Not that I had to tell you, but I don’t know . . . it was making me nervous that you didn’t know. Not that that’s the only thing there is to know, but that’s why I was talking so much. Do you do that too?”

“Talk a lot when I’m nervous? Yes, and I also tend to make up illnesses.”

“It’s just weird coming back here because no one knows. It’s strange how that works, you know? We can live a totally different life away from here, and come back and pretend that it doesn’t count. Pretend that we’re still the same person we were when we left here.”

I nodded, because if there were anything I understood, it was that. It was pretending. Justin seemed to understand who he used to be, who he was now. And while I could kind of see who I used to be too. I couldn’t say with much certainty who I currently was. Someone’s ex-fiancé, a noncommittal filmmaker? It was all still too defined by what I no longer had. Did Justin want to hear that?

I turned and looked at him. “So I’m taking it your mom doesn’t know, huh? Because I think my mom was under the impression that the two of them were hooking us up.”

“Yeah, well, my mother and I tend to have a don’t-ask, don’t-tell policy,” he said.

I shook my head. “I’ve got to get myself one of those.”

He circled around the supermarket parking lot, pulling into a spot right near the ice cream shop.

“The problem is, now there’s a guy in Chicago. A great guy. Who is about to be a great guy in New York. At least that’s looking like the plan. But not until I tell them. He doesn’t want to come until I tell everyone what’s what.”

“You better get on that, Skippy.”

“Right. Tell them.
Tell them.
I knew I was forgetting to do something.”

I laughed, thinking about my to-do list: finish my documentary (was that even possible?), make it through this weekend unscathed, help Josh fix his life.

He turned off the ignition. “So now that you don’t think I’m trying to jump your bones. Banana split? Unless you have to get back sometime in the next five minutes.”

“I definitely don’t have to get back any time in the next five minutes,” I said, smiling at him.

He smiled back. Then he opened the car door, starting to laugh. “Gay-American. I’m pretty funny sometimes, you know?”

“Wait.” I reached for his arm, stopping him. “I think I’ve got a better idea.”

He closed the door, turned the ignition back on. “Excellent. Just tell me where to go.”

“That way,” I said, pointing in the only direction I wanted.

Of the 24,000 some-odd 7-Eleven stores in the United States, the top ten are named in order each year on a list compiled at headquarters and, then, apparently, made public. And every year, hovering right around number five, is the 7-Eleven located on the corner of Popham and Garth just outside of Scarsdale Village. Part of the reason for this particular Sevies success was that Scarsdale High students long ago adopted this place as their local hangout. Any weekend night—and most weeknights—you’d find the parking lot full of cars you’d recognize: other students picking up cigarettes or listening to music in their cars, sitting on their hoods. I missed so much of that, in the end, missed so much of my high school ending, because I was with Matt.