Page 10 of Fun at Parties
Bailey boos, and I join in.
“Okay, okay,” he relents. “I’d love to know why the universe decided I deserved this kind of torture.”
“Because you love acting like you’re being tortured,” I say. “We’re actually your gifts from the universe.” It feels good to talk to him like this. Lobbing casual, ambiguous, near-flirtatious remarks at him. It’s proof I don’t care for him in an intimate way anymore. I will speak my indifference into existence if I have to.
“Gifts,” Bailey repeats. “Open them!”
Nate sighs, but then rustles around in the tissue paper. “Okay. We have a…tube of something. The label is in Korean. That’s all I’ve got.”
“React like Quinn,” Bailey reminds him.
“Fine.” He shakes his head at us. And then: “The colors on the packaging are really fun!” I’ll give him credit, I hear the exclamation point in his voice. “And I love that it’s a surprise. I can’t wait to find out what’s in the tube.”
Bailey snorts. “It’s sunscreen. This one iscosmetically elegant and highly effective. Since you’ll be outside so much.”
“Thanks, Bail,” I say. “That was really thoughtful.”
“There’s more! Two more things.”
More tissue paper rustling. “It’s a—Bailey, why did you buy her a plant? Is she supposed to carry it across the country?”
I peek over. He’s holding a tiny ceramic pot with a succulent in it.
“You put a plant in the mail?” I ask.
“You’re going to be away for a long time!” Bailey says. “It’ll make all the places you stay feel homier.”
I’m about to sayaww,but I hold my tongue. “Go on,” I prompt Nate. “Be me.”
He clears his throat. “Aww.” It should not be possible togruntthat word, but he does it. “That’s super sweet.”
“A for effort,” Bailey says.
Nate pulls the last item out of the bag. “It’s a car fragrance diffuser. Is this a fancy version of a gas station air freshener?”
“Yes,” Bailey confirms. “And it’s awesome. See, I got one thing for the car, one thing for the places you stay, and one thing for the places you’re going to explore! That’s a perfectly crafted trifecta of presents. Now be Quinn.”
Nate sighs. “Quinn would say that it’s pretty and that it’s nice that it’s refillable and that she can’t wait to use it.”
“Why does that sound like an incomplete sentence?” Bailey asks.
“Because it would be a lie. Shouldn’t you know that? Quinn hates scents,” he says. “Perfume, laundry detergent,candles. Definitely air freshener. Things that smell on purpose.”
It might strike me as a ridiculous description, except those are the exact words I use in the rare instance I explain this quirk to people. It wallops me in the worst way, fierce and unexpected.You have no right to talk about me like you’re an expert,I want to snap. It’s worse, somehow, that he remembers something that Bailey has apparently forgotten.
Tears turn the Civic in front of me into a black blur. I blink them away quickly, so my ridiculous overreaction doesn’t kill us both. How can one innocuous statement set me adrift in a sea of overwhelming feelings?
I thought I was an expert on him at one time too. Such an expert that when I told him I had feelings for him, I didn’t consider the possibility that he felt differently. When it turned out I was wrong, I thought I handled his reaction graciously, and I believed him when he promised we’d still be friends.
That was a lie, so I guess I never knew him as well as I thought. And he chose to distance himself, like it was nothing, like it was easy for him. The last thing I want to think about is how he knows me better than anyone and walked away anyway.
“Shit, Quinn. Of course I knew that. How did I forget?” Bailey asks.
Because we’re growing apart,I don’t say. “It’s fine! Maybe I’ll like this one.”
She’s making an effort, and that’s all that matters. Effort. Like how after I moved to California, she’d call me a few times a week on her lunch break. I’ll admit I pickedup less frequently as the months went on. It’s just—the flaws in my life are never as abundantly clear as when I’m catching up with my best friend. It’s hard to put on a chipper veneer for her. She dismantles it in three seconds. Whenever something was getting to me—work stress, Caleb being annoying, my mother—it was easier to let it go to voicemail. It’s selfish, I know, because what ifsheneededme?
I shake my head to try to clear away the traces of moisture in my eyes, but Nate misreads the gesture as a denial.
