Page 10 of She Used to Be Nice
After successfully securing her bagel, she crossed over the shops and skyrises of York Avenue back to her building. The gray, stark lobby wasn’t very inviting, resembling a jail cell more than a cozy room welcoming tenants, but still she found comfort in the fact that she was almost back in her bed, where she could rot for the rest of the morning. She dragged her feet up the five flights of stairs to her apartment, unlocked the front door, and tiptoed to her bedroom, doing her best not to jostle the creaky floorboards in the hallway too much as she passed her roommate Celeste’s room. Avery’s overprotective parents had panicked when she told them she’d be moving in with an executive assistant she’d never met who she found on Craigslist. They had probably envisioned Avery and Ryan living together after graduation, then pulling a Morgan and Charlie and getting married not even a year later. They would’ve seen no reason to wait. They got married young, at twenty-one, and had somehow managed thirty-five years of a perfect marriage. They were always in sync and hardly fought—a rarity for an Italian-American couple from New Jersey, for whom it was essential to navigate the difference between yelling as speaking, which happened often, and yelling as anger. If they everdidget angry at each other, they seemed to make up swiftly and easily, remembering above all else that they were on the same team.
Growing up, Avery couldn’t help but admire her parents and wanted to manifest the same love and commitment for herself. She thought she’d found it in Ryan, the handsome, charming lacrosse player she met through Morgan and Charlie in the dining hallduring their freshman year. They were together after that for almost three years, and had even begun thinking about their future after college: where they’d live (in a suburb outside New York City), when they’d get engaged (around their fifth anniversary), how many kids they wanted to have (two, maybe three). Until Avery ruined everything, thinking she could safely dance and drink and get some fresh air with a guy who seemed nice and everything would be fine. But now she knew.
Avery’s phone buzzed with a Snapchat from Morgan as she crawled back under the covers. It was a picture of a tres leches latte from 787, Morgan’s favorite coffee shop, with a caption that saidWhen your amazing future husband buys you a coffee that supports your fellow Boricuas♥
Avery stared at her bagel, haphazardly gnawed on like it had been attacked by pigeons. She held it up next to her face and took a selfie, then with greasy fingers typedSame!! Love a breakfast surprise from my thoughtful fiancé!!and hit send.
Then she paused, wondering if that joke was too bitter. Avery was ecstatic for Morgan, she really was. She was thrilled to support her best friend’s happily ever after, even while hers was put on hold indefinitely. For now she could live vicariously through Morgan’s romantic success, getting the fun and satisfaction of a wedding out of her system by being with Morgan as she went through hers. Plus Morgan had been dreaming about marrying Charlie practically since they met, when she told Avery in their dorm room freshman year that she knew he was “the one” after only a month of dating. By junior year, Morgan had their kids’ names picked out: Riley for a girl, Brooks for a boy. And when their girlfriends started applying to corporate jobs and dreaming about breaking glass ceilings, Morgan pranced around monologuing about marriage and women’s rights. “The point is that women don’thaveto get married and do the whole white picket fence thing if we don’t want to,” she’d say. “But if Iwantto get married and do the whole white picket fence thing, then that’s my choice.”
Avery’s phone buzzed with a reply from Morgan.LOL what a nice guy.
Avery breathed a sigh of relief that her message wasn’t interpreted as bitchy. Morgan always saw the best in people, Avery included, which was probably why she trusted Avery to be her maid of honor in the first place. It was also probably why she didn’t turn her back on Avery senior year like all their other friends did, instead attributing Avery’s perceived infidelity to a moment of bad judgment. Avery would have understood if she’d felt differently, considering the story everyone believed that Avery would never correct. But Avery was more scared of confronting the reality of what Noah did to her than she was of losing her boyfriend and her friends. And so here she was, facing the consequences of her own actions. Single and alone.
Morgan texted again.Let’s meet at 7 tn at The Spaniard? I booked a res
sounds good!Avery replied.
The Spaniard was a gastropub in the West Village and a schlep from Avery’s apartment, which was tucked away in the easternmost corner of the Upper East Side on Eighty-Eighth Street. But she figured she could use the long subway ride to prepare herself for the evening. She absolutely needed to be on her best behavior tonight, because the last thing she wanted was to disappoint Morgan. At least she wouldn’t have to be around any of her old friends yet. That she wouldn’t have to white-knuckle through an evening of painful conversation with her most judgmental critics already made for a good time by default.
Still, she laid down some ground rules for herself: no bitchy jokes, no self-pitying about being single, no excessive drinking, and definitely no hospitals. The thought of alcohol made Avery nauseous right now anyway. She couldn’t imagine being ready to drink again in a few hours, though she could use some weed to help this hangover. She smoked some from her purple glass pipe and let her eyelids flutter closed, just for a second. She awoke several hours later and stretched, drawing the last of her hangover out of her limbs, and checked the time.
It was 6:30. She needed to leave ten minutes ago.
She leapt out of bed and jumped into her small, cramped shower, then threw on last night’s jeans and a fresh tank top, grabbed her leather jacket and crossbody bag, and sprinted to the subway. Once she arrived at The Spaniard, sweat beading on her temple, she pushed open the heavy glass front door and locked eyes with Morgan waving from the back. Her pulse returned to normal when she realized Morgan’s booth was empty.
She navigated through the restaurant, passing the other emerald green half-moon-shaped booths until she approached Morgan’s.
“You made it!” Morgan said as Avery slid in beside her. She gave Avery a hard stare and sniffed her. “And you showered.”
Avery winked. “Only for you.”
“The cut on your forehead looks better, too.”
Avery touched her injury, which she’d hastily covered with foundation. “Yeah, I’ll be fine.”
The Spaniard was just beginning to fill up, with people surrounding occupied stools near the bar in the hopes that one would soon be free. Waiters holding trays of food weaved through the crowd as the smell of whiskey and kitchen grease swirled in the air. A few minutes later, Charlie appeared at their table, looking handsome in a chambray button-down and beige chinos. He kissed Morgan on the cheek with a wetpopand she giggled in response. It reminded Avery of the adorable candid she’d snuck of the two of them junior year, when they were giggling by themselves in the corner at a tailgate.
“Hey, beautiful,” Charlie said, nuzzling into Morgan’s face.
When was the last time anyone called Avery beautiful?
“Babe! You scared me,” Morgan said breathlessly. “And your stubble itches. You gotta shave.”
“I know, I know.” Charlie rubbed his chin, then turned to Avery to offer her a fist bump, which she accepted. “What’s up, Avery?”
Avery and Charlie were close the way you were close with your best friend’s boyfriend, in that the friendship went deeper than surface level small talk but rarely developed further outside ofa group setting. Plus he hadn’t turned his back on Avery senior year. Probably because of Morgan.
“Not much,” Avery said, smiling. “Congrats again on the engagement! Super exciting. And great job on the ring.”
Charlie beamed. Avery knew how much he adored Morgan, purely and uncomplicatedly. He probably loved her slightly more than she loved him, but in the way those old wives’ tales say it’s supposed to be, in that women always give more in a relationship and need to be with men who appreciate it. If given the choice, Morgan would quit her job tomorrow to stay home and take care of Charlie, dedicating her whole life to nurturing their future family. Not all men were deserving of that.
“Thanks, yeah, I’m really happy,” he said. Then he moved to the side, revealing a man drenched in shadow, the warm glow from the round lamps perched above the tables just out of reach of his face. “Avery, you remember Noah, right?”
Avery stiffened. Noah?
Her heart stopped when he came into the light.
It was, unmistakably, him. The man who’d led her upstairs to Ronald’s bedroom. The reason her relationship with Ryan came to a screeching halt.
