Courage, maybe.
Or a reason.
Rosie and I had always talked about leaving Amber together. In that sort of someday vibe where you considered such a thing as something to be done when you’re grown up. When your life got itself together.
Just at what point of adulthood were we considered “grown-ups?” ’Cause I sure as shit wasn’t one at almost twenty-seven. Sometimes I thought the reason I was so obsessed with clothes and shoes and bags was because I was playing pretend with them, playing the grown-up, because I was still that scared little girl.
I put my attention back on the e-mail.
You’re moving to Hollywood? To do security? Well I guess there’s enough boy bands with rabid fans who need protecting.
I would think a humble country boy such as yourself might want to head back to the Land of the Long White Cloud (I Googled that) and away from all the Americans.
Also, we will not be talking about my boobs. Don’t you know e-mail etiquette with a woman you are low-key stalking? Talk of such things is considered uncouth.
And I think that telling you my favorite food might foster some vain hope that you will find yourself with a date when you return.
You won’t. Well, not with me anyway.
I think it would be much better if you found another pen pal to send your endearing New Zealand slang to.
L
I shouldn’t have sent it. I should have deleted his e-mail after I’d read it. Problem was, even if I deleted it from the computer, it wouldn’t do much since I’d already committed it to memory. Then my fingers had worked without my brain’s consent and typed not only the reply, but hit the Send button too. That was on the first one. Then the second one came, and I found sense. Or lost it, I guessed, depending on who you spoke to. Some people would say telling an infuriating, handsome man who kissed like Channing Tatum danced and spoke in an accent was insane.
Then again, nobody who really knew me ever classed me as sane.
But it didn’t mean sending that e-mail was easy.
And then I’d spent the next week obsessively checking my e-mail. Such obsessions did not go unnoticed.
“Why are you checking your phone so much?” Rosie asked, sucking down a cocktail.
I jerked my head up from the stupid spinning circle that produced no results.
“I’m not,” I said, my voice smooth but not as icy as usual.
Of course, my best friend picked up on it right away.
She slammed her drink down on the table with much more force than necessary, clear liquid spilling from the rim and onto the polished wood of the table.
She was so focused on me she didn’t even notice. “Okay, something’s up. You are constantly checking your phone. It has become surgically attached to your hand this week. What gives? And I will remind you that lying to your best friend is a crime punishable by death, or at the very least, a ban on borrowing my shoes for a month.”
I sipped my own cocktail. “I’m a journalist. I need my phone for stories.”
She rolled her eyes. “Stories? Like the new mascot for the high school is a rhino instead of a panther and there is going to be a mutiny among the panther-loving students?” she asked sarcastically.
I scowled at her. “No. If you must know, I’m waiting on a response from the editor of Covet. They wanted me to do a column. Apparently, she liked my blog.” It was only a half lie. Well, it was the entire truth. The editor had liked my blog and did want me to do a column. It just wasn’t her e-mail I was waiting on.
Rosie gaped at me. “No shit? Oh my gosh, Lucy, that’s freaking epic. I’m so proud of you. Does this mean I get free shoes? Not that it’s the only reason I want you to succeed in your chosen field, although it is a frontrunner. That and makeup.”
I grinned at her. “Glad to see you want to see me succeed for the right reasons,” I replied, sipping my martini. The brush of the bullet I’d just dodged was rather uncomfortable.
As was being less than honest with the only person who knew everything about me.
Who I never lied to.
She frowned down at the mess she made before shrugging it off. “What can I say? I’m an excellent friend.”
“I can’t say it’s exactly my chosen career,” I said, trying not to stare at my phone as I changed the subject, more to distract my errant mind than anything else. “I want to write about something more than clothes, shoes and makeup.”
Rosie’s eyes bulged. “What’s more than that?”
“Only social inequalities, people in power taking advantage of those not, the prices of healthcare?” I rattled off.
She waved her hand. “That would all be so….”
“Real?” I finished for her.
“Dull,” she said with narrowed eyes. “Haven’t we had enough of real in our lives, Luce?” Her eyes lost the teasing glint that was ever present, except in rare moments when she lowered her shields. “I don’t think you need to go looking for examples of how cruel life can be, letting that sink into that heart of yours that you like to think is so hard. We’ve done our quota. We’ve seen the ugly. We’ve survived it.” Her eyes watered. “Though not all of us.”
I reached across the table and squeezed her hand. “Three years tomorrow,” I said quietly.
It was the whole reason we were here at Laura’s Maye’s bar at sunset, at her favorite table, overlooking the ocean. We didn’t do anything on the day. We weren’t ready to face that. Instead we got shitfaced and did our best to get ourselves so hungover that the next day our hearts didn’t hurt so much remembering that our gentle-hearted friend was taken from us in the most brutal way possible.
It didn’t work.
But we tried.
We endured.
What else could we do?
She squeezed back. “Sometimes it feels like two seconds,” she whispered. “Like she was sitting in that chair”—she nodded to the one closest to the open window—“not five minutes ago, and Bull’s just dragged her away because he doesn’t want us dragging her along to the latest crazy scheme we’ve dreamed up.” Her voice was small, so different than the strong woman wearing the thick eyeliner and a Ramones tee used as a dress. Those black-rimmed eyes were focused on the waves. “Sometimes it feels like the pain is so raw that I swear I have to look down to my middle to make sure no one has shot me without noticing. Then other times it feels like it’s been twenty years. Like I can’t even remember what she used to look like. Like maybe I dreamed her up and it was only ever you, me and Ash.”
Ashley couldn’t face this. Sitting here drinking, pretending the elephant wasn’t really in the corner.
We had coffee this morning. And then we pretended the elephant wasn’t sitting amongst the booths in the coffee shops.
“She was real,” I whispered. “And she’s looking down, smiling. I’m sure.”
Rosie blinked away her tears. “I hope she’s not looking down too often, or she might get more than she bargained for.” She gave me a jaunty wink. That was it. “Blink and you miss it” kind of moment.
Rosie losing it. Giving in to the weakness of loss that brought even the strongest to their knees. She was stronger than all of the men she grew up with combined. She carried the same demons they did, but she did it with heels on and a mischievous smile. She was the glue that kept that place together. Sometimes I reasoned that was why she embodied a different persona on the outside every day. Like maybe if she didn’t resemble the same person any given day, the demons wouldn’t find her.