Happy Place, page 31
“She must’ve let her phone die,” Cleo says.
“That’s not like her,” I say.
“You think she was lying about hotels being booked up?” Cleo says. “Could she have checked in somewhere?”
I pull up a search for available rooms in the area. Nary a hotel, motel, bed-and-breakfast, or hostel available in sight.
The group text chimes with a text, and we both jump.
It’s only Wyn, whose number I’d unblocked again. Any luck? he writes.
None. You? I ask.
Parth’s really worried, Wyn replies. He’s going to call hospitals. Just to be sure.
My stomach flips. Keep us posted.
You too, he says.
Cleo’s nose wrinkles as she scans our list. “That’s all the usual spots. She wouldn’t . . . be reckless enough to sail off by herself, would she?”
The blood rushes out of my stomach. “She’s a pretty confident sailor,” I say. “And I think sailing is sort of her happy place. It makes her think of her mom and when . . .”
“Harry?” Cleo says. “What is it?”
“Her mom,” I say.
“What about her?” Cleo asks.
“It might be nothing,” I say. “But I’ve got one more place for us to check.”
* * *
• • •
“Stop the car!” I shriek, with such conviction that Cleo instantly obeys, right in the middle of the road.
Although road is a fairly aspirational title for the wooded lane the GPS has directed us onto. One has to assume that there’s a parking lot somewhere ahead, but parking no longer matters because (1) the little open-air chapel is visible through the trees on our right, and (2) a cherry-red Jaguar sits parked on the dirt shoulder.
Cleo hits the gas again and pulls over. We check the car first—empty—then scramble over the short stone retaining wall to hike up the hillside toward the chapel.
The damp green woods give way to a manicured garden. In its center, a pavilion of gray stone stands, ivy crawling up its left side. Butterflies move in dizzy spirals through the flowering bushes hugging the steps, the distant crash of waves the only sound.
No wonder Sabrina’s parents’ wedding made such an impression on her. This place is beautiful. It feels like nothing could go wrong here, nothing bad could happen.
When I start forward, Cleo hangs back. Her mouth opens and closes a couple of times. “What if she wants to be alone?”
She has a point. It’s possible.
But people don’t run or hide only when they want to be alone.
“What if,” I say, “she needs to know she isn’t?”
Cleo takes my hand. We climb the steps to the back of the pavilion.
There are a handful of timeworn pews, a flagstone floor, and a few wooden arcades on either side. Straight ahead, a stone arch frames a slice of pure Maine blue water in the distance.
Sabrina sits cross-legged before it, staring out. The whole scene is serene, down to the faint chirp of birds overhead. Then she looks over her shoulder at the sound of our approach.
I’d braced myself for some measure of awkwardness after everything, but the second we see her drawn face, puffy and red-rimmed eyes, last night’s fight stops mattering.
Both Cleo and I run to her, kneel on the ground, sling our arms around her.
“You scared us,” Cleo says.
“I didn’t mean to,” Sabrina whispers.
We peel apart, sitting in a triangle, the same way we did so many nights in our musty freshman dorm room.
“My phone died a couple hours ago,” Sabrina says finally. “And . . . I guess I wanted to put off the inevitable.”
“The inevitable?” Cleo says.
Sabrina draws her knees into her chest, wrapping her willowy arms around them. “The end of the trip? Goodbye? Everything’s changing, and I’m not ready.”
It’s like someone has taken an ice cream scoop to my chest, hollowed me out.
“I wanted to put it off, but Cleo’s right,” she says. “We’ve been growing apart for years.”
“Sabrina,” I say. “You have no idea how sorry I am I didn’t tell you what was going on.”
“It’s not just that.” Sabrina lifts her chin. “When I found out about the breakup, I was hurt, and then after a while, I was mad, but then—I don’t know. I realized it’s been the six of us for so long. And the five of us for even longer, and the three of us before that. And it’s not only that you kept this huge thing from us. It’s that . . . it felt like if you and Wyn weren’t together, then you didn’t want us either. Like you’ve been phasing us out.”
“Sabrina, no,” I say. “I promise I wasn’t. I’m not.”
“Maybe not consciously,” she says. “But that’s why you didn’t tell us, right? Because we’re friends with Wyn. Because our whole friendship is tangled up with your relationship, and if you two grew apart . . .”
“Wyn and I didn’t grow apart.” I can’t get it out any louder than a whisper. “I pushed him away the same way I did to the rest of you. And it was always about me, not you or anyone else.”
“But it’s not just you, Harriet,” Sabrina says.
Cleo touches her hand. “Things have been . . . complicated for me, Sabrina. That’s all.”
“You know,” Sabrina says, watching a butterfly pirouette past, “I was really, really happy when I was a kid. My parents were happy. And then they weren’t. And when they separated and moved on . . . it took a while, but they both found happiness again. Or, you know, their semi-twisted versions of that.
“With new partners and new kids. Everyone got this fresh start. But I wasn’t a part of either one. I was part of their relationship. And once that was over, I bounced back and forth like—like a memento or something. The only thing that ever felt permanent to me, like it belonged to me, was this place.” Her voice pitches higher. “Until I met you two.”
She’s always been so tough, and it breaks something in me to hear the vulnerability in her voice.
“I met you,” she says, “and I finally belonged somewhere again.”
“I felt that way too, Sab.” I scoot closer.
“Me too,” Cleo says. “High school was hell for me. I mean, I chose Mattingly because I didn’t know anyone going there, and the best social situation I could dream up for myself was total anonymity. Those first few weeks of hanging out were, like, this weird out-of-body experience. I’d never had friends like that, the kind you do everything with and talk to about everything. Honestly, I kept waiting for you both to find new people and move on.
“And then one day—it was right before fall break, and we were hugging goodbye, and I realized I’d stopped waiting. Without even realizing it. I knew you were my for-lifes then. That’s what my parents call each other. Because no matter what, they’re always going to be family. And that’s you both. The relationship can change shape a thousand times, but you’re always going to be in my life. Or at least, that’s what I want.”
“Same,” I say. “No matter what happens with Wyn, I’m always going to belong with you. I’m not going anywhere. I love you, Sabrina, and I’m so sorry I made you feel like you were just a part of my relationship with Wyn. You’re a part of me. You’re so deep in my heart that I couldn’t get you out if I tried, and I don’t want to. I know how lucky I am to have you. To have people who love me enough to hold on even when I’m scared to let them close.”
Cleo and Sabrina each grab one of my hands, their fingers lacing into mine.
“God, I’ve been crying a lot this week,” Sabrina manages tearily.
“Me too,” I say. “The magic of the cottage, I guess.”
“Same,” Cleo says. “Except in my case, I think it’s pregnancy hormones or—”
“WHAT!” Sabrina whirls on her, her hands jerking clear of ours to clamp onto the sides of her face in a perfect imitation of Macaulay Culkin’s big Home Alone moment.
“Shit!” Cleo says. “I was going to tell you in a speech!”
“You’re fucking serious?” Sabrina shouts.
“We’re in a chapel,” Cleo says.
“Oh, please. God’s heard it all. But me! I’ve only once ever heard one of my best friends say she’s motherfucking pregnant!”
“Well,” Cleo says, “I’m motherfucking pregnant. Surprise.”
Sabrina cackles, her feet kicking against the floor.
“And before you ask,” Cleo says, “yes, I told Harry first, but not on purpose. She ambushed me this morning, and it happened a lot like this.”
“Well, as long as Harry ambushed you,” Sabrina says through more breathless, shrieking laughter. “Honestly, anything else you both want to get off your chests, now’s the time! I’m incapable of anger right now, I think.”
“I broke your straightener in college,” I tell her.
“Once I had a girl stay over who used your toothbrush, thinking it was mine,” Cleo says.
“Okay, gross,” Sabrina says. “I could’ve gone to my grave without that second one.”
“I’m the one who lost those vintage Ray-Bans we used to share,” I admit. “God, that’s actually a huge load off.”
“Oh!” Cleo chirps. “I told that one shitty poet you dated that I was a witch, and that if he ever contacted you again, I’d hex him so his dick fell off.”
Sabrina touches her chest, evidently moved. “See, this is why you’re going to be a great mother.”
“I didn’t know you did that,” I tell Cleo. “If I had, I probably wouldn’t have told the same guy that my dad was in the mob.”
A laugh cracks out of Sabrina. “I have the best friends.”
“Best family,” Cleo says.
The ache in my heart is almost pleasant. It spreads through my limbs into my hands and feet, a heaviness, like love has its own mass and weight. “You know,” I say, “Parth’s not going anywhere either.”
Her gaze averts. “If you and Wyn couldn’t even make it work . . .”
I grab her face in my hands. “You’re not us,” I say. “You are so, so, so much braver than me, Sabrina.”
She rolls her eyes.
“I’m serious,” I say. “You can do this, if you want to.”
Her voice is a wisp. “I do want to. He’s the love of my life. I want to marry him.”
“Then let’s get you home,” Cleo says.
Sabrina swipes the tears out from under her eyes. “Let’s go home,” she says with an air of relief. As if, now that she’s made the decision, she’s unafraid.
On our way to the cars, Sabrina throws one last look back at the chapel, the trees below, the water out ahead.
She smiles. Like when she looks back at it, all she sees is the happiness of that day she spent here with her parents, rather than the pain of what came after.
Like even when something beautiful breaks, the making of it still matters.
36
Happy Place
Knott’s Harbor, Maine
A Saturday afternoon. A wedding, only in the most technical of terms. There are sunflower bouquets for all of us, delivered right to the front door, and a cake that says Happy birthday, wicked pissah on it, surrounded in real, edible flowers. At Sabrina and Parth’s expressions, I shrug. “A lot of businesses won’t do wedding stuff.”
“Yes, but who allowed you to use wicked pissah in this way?” she says.
“This,” Parth says, “is the best birthday I’ve ever had.”
He wears a suit that makes him look like James Bond On Vacation. Sabrina dons her sailing-chic look. The rest of us sport our Lobster Hut outfits, all rumpled from hard wear and tight from eating well.
The photographer arrives at three thirty to photograph us doing nothing much at all aside from sitting around the pool in semiformal wear, tossing out increasingly ridiculous names for Cleo and Kimmy’s baby.
When they’d told Parth and Wyn about the pregnancy, Parth had blinked, stunned to speechlessness, and Wyn had leapt to his feet and started laughing, eyes moving between all of us like he was waiting for a gotcha.
“Seriously?” Parth said. “There’s a baby in your body? Right now?”
Cleo laughed. “Yes, it’s in my body.”
“This is . . . oh my god,” Wyn cried. “You’re having a baby!”
“Someone get the fainting couch,” Kimmy said. “Wynnie’s going down.”
He walked around the kitchen to hug each of them in turn, then looked at me, his eyes sparkling and clear, no fog. Like his first instinct when he felt joy was to check whether it had hit me too, to share it.
It made my heart soar and throb and burn with hope.
Now we’re all drinking champagne and sparkling cider in the sun and pressuring our friends to name their baby Kardashian Kimberly Cleopatra Carmichael-James while a paid professional snaps photographs of us.
The wedding officiant arrives at four.
By five, Parth and Sabrina stand at the edge of the dock, light glinting off their hair, eyes sparkling with tears, and promise to love each other always. Cleo and I wrap our arms around each other, our sunflower bouquets caught between us, and try not to sob.
By five thirty, we’re flinging ourselves off the end of the dock, shrieking with laughter, failing badly at DON’T FUCKING SCREAM, then pulling ourselves out of the icy water and running up to the warm comfort of the pool.
We order pizza—no one wants to leave the house, and Knott’s Harbor isn’t big on delivery—and eat it with Veuve Clicquot. We don’t talk about tomorrow, when we’ll say goodbye. To one another, to this house, to an era of life we wish could have lasted forever.
Right now we’re here.
When the sun starts falling down the sky, we bundle up and climb back down to the rocks to watch night settle. We build a fire, roast marshmallows. Sabrina burns hers to a charred crisp, and Parth patiently toasts his to golden brown.
When Wyn catches me shivering, he takes off his worn-out Mattingly sweatshirt—he’s always run warm—and yanks it over my head, smiling as he ties a bow beneath my chin. It smells like smoke and seawater and him. I never want to take it off.
We light the sparklers Parth found in the garage, and we write our names in the dark, impermanent but all the brighter and more blazing for it.
This is how I used to think of love. As something so delicate it couldn’t be caught without being snuffed out. Now I know better. I know the flame may gutter and flare with the wind, but it will always be there.
We talk about the night sky. We talk about the ghost of our old dorm building. The bright purple flowers that always erupted alongside the long road to Mattingly, and the broken eave over our New York apartment that let icicles grow into three-foot daggers. We talk about the things we remember, the things we’ll miss.
“We’ll come back,” Kimmy says. “Baby needs to know about the magic of Maine.”
“I don’t know,” Sabrina says. “Maybe next year, we go somewhere new.”
Wyn’s hand tightens on mine, like even the mention of next year might turn us to smoke.
And even that pain is a kind of pleasure, to feel so loved, to love so deeply.
We stay up until Cleo is nodding off against Kimmy’s shoulder and Sabrina can’t stop yawning, and then we say good night, like it’s any other night. Like tomorrow we might wake and start the whole week over.
When we close ourselves into our bedroom for the night, Wyn and I stand locked together in the dark, my hands against the back of his neck, his head bowed into my shoulder, breathing into each other.
My body has always loved him without reservation or caution. It knew so long before my brain did, and it still knows.
His neck, his shoulders, his waist, the soft hair that leads to his waistband, the jut of his hip bones. The smooth curves of his back and the tightening muscles of his stomach. Every piece of him I’ve thought about, dreamed of, longed for.
“Your fingers are cold,” he whispers, bringing my hand to his lips.
“Your skin’s so warm,” I whisper back.
Slowly we undress, find our way to each other. We don’t pretend tomorrow won’t come but give ourselves over fully to tonight.
A tangle of limbs and blankets. Skin sliding against skin. Fingers gripping the backs of necks, the soft parts of hips, the hard muscle of thighs.
“I love you,” he says into my mouth, and I wish I could swallow it, like that would let me keep that sound forever, this moment forever.
My nose burns. My voice crackles. “Don’t say that.”
“Why not?” he whispers.
“Because,” I say, “those words don’t belong to me anymore.”
“Of course they do,” he says. “They belonged to you before I ever saw you. They belong to you in every universe we’re in, Harriet.”
I close my eyes. Try to hold on to the words. They burn into my palms.
Before I knew Wyn, I could have been okay without him. Now I’ll always feel the place he isn’t.
Want is a kind of thief. It’s a door in your heart, and once you know it’s there, you’ll spend your life longing for whatever’s behind it.
He knots his hands with mine, telling me he loves me in every way he can.
Only once I’m half asleep, drifting off with my temple pressed to his chest, do I hear him whisper it one last time: “I love you.”
Through the gauzy layers of sleep, I hear myself murmur, “You.”
37
Real Life
Sunday
I wake before my alarm and turn it off before it makes a peep. Wyn is fast asleep, naked and beautiful in the deep blue of early morning.
He would want me to wake him.
But I can’t stand for our last moment together to be a goodbye. I want to remember him like this, while he’s still mine and I’m his.
