Page 59 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
“Very basic. Starbucks everywhere. Nothing but indoor malls to go to.”
There, finally, was the laugh. Low and soft. Her laugh was acrescent moon, something I could fall into and be cradled in. Was I imagining the tenderness in the way she looked at me? I must be. Under the table, I pinched my leg, hard. I needed to shake myself out of whatever this was. I was here with Parker, my husband, damn it, and whatever the hell it was that I felt for Ellery, it was a long time ago and I couldn’t, wouldn’t allow it to take over my life the way it did before. I was no longer a teenager, for one. That version of me was gone, replaced over the years by a stronger, more weathered one.
“So, how did you get in touch with Iris?” I said.
“How does anyone get in touch with long-lost acquaintances these days? Facebook,” Ellery said. “When I moved back, I didn’t have that many friends in town—”
“Thank you for making it sound like you only started hanging out with me because you didn’t have other better options,” Iris piped up.
Ellery laughed. “Well, actually, yeah, that was exactly it.”
Iris rolled her eyes, smiling, and went back to chatting with Parker. I got the strange feeling that Iris was focusing so much on Parker to give me and Ellery a bit of space to talk with each other.
“Tell me what you’ve been up to, Tulip,” Ellery said.
I took a gulp of water, thinking the question over. Because when it came down to it, what had I been up to? A whole load of nothing. I had no career to speak of, no children whose pictures I could whip out. “Um, you know, this and that. I was helping out at the family clinic for a while, but Parker’s taken that over now.”
At the mention of his name, Parker looked over at us.
“Wow, so are you a doctor too?” Ellery said to him.
“No,” he and I said at the same time. I flushed. “Go ahead,” I said to Parker.
He shifted in his seat into a more comfortable position. “I’m there in a business capacity. Running the place, growing it, that sort of thing.”
“Oh, cool,” Ellery said. She looked at me, her expression thoughtful. I sank deeper into my chair, wishing I could disappear. She must be so disappointed in what I’d done for myself. A big fat nothing.
“What about you?” Parker said. “What do you do?”
“This and that. A lot of writing. I’m a freelance journalist.”
“That’s amazing,” I said. The idea of Ellery writing articles was a beautiful one.
“Who do you write for?” Parker said.
“Everyone, really. I’ve written forBuzzfeed,Forbes, theNew Yorker. And I’ve been dabbling in poetry. That’s pretty random, I know.”
“I don’t know that you could call a fellowship at Exeter ‘dabbling,’ ” Iris said.
“You got a poetry fellowship at Exeter?” I said.
Ellery shrugged, blushing slightly. “Yeah. It was a fluke, really. I spent half a year doing the fellowship. It was nice.”
The thought of Ellery writing poetry was doing things to me. Then it struck me that she probably wrote a lot of poems about the girls she must’ve dated in London, and jealousy stabbed through me, hot and sharp. I batted the thought away. I was married, for crying out loud. I looked at Parker’s handsome face. Married. To this guy. Someone who treated me well.
The rest of the meal went by in both a haze and startlinghigh-definition clarity. I remember nothing about the food, I didn’t even realize we’d ordered until the food arrived, and I couldn’t tell you what I had, whether it was pasta or meat or empty air. But I remember every detail about Ellery. The way she leaned forward ever so slightly as she spoke, a tiny gesture that somehow added so much intimacy to the conversation. I could see Iris and Parker and even Hazel falling under her spell. I remember the way her hands moved, as quickly as a bird, as she spoke, painting her words into the air. And the way her gaze became so intense as she got into the topic of conversation. That was the thing about Ellery, the thing that had made me fall in love with her in the first place. She was so passionate about everything, so interested in every new morsel of discussion. Parker would say something about the clinic, and Ellery would lean forward, her eyes wide, and she’d go, “Whaaat? Tell me more!” and give her undivided attention while he spoke. And it was genuine interest; she never faked anything, you could tell she really wanted to absorb everything you were saying. No wonder she was a journalist. I could just see people falling over themselves to share their stories with her, and Ellery loving every minute of it, plunging with her whole heart into their words and spinning them into something beautiful.
By the end of the night, I was buzzing. I carried Hazel out of the restaurant because I felt such a strong need to be holding a warm body. She was much heavier than I remembered, but she was still soft and sweet and every bit the Hazel I loved. Outside, Ellery stuffed her hands in her jeans’ pockets and said, “This was really nice.”
“Yeah, thanks for joining us,” Iris said. Her grin still held thatlittle hint of wickedness as her gaze ping-ponged between Ellery and me. I wish I could pinch her to death. Then she turned to Parker and said something else, leaving me to stare up at Ellery.
“So, I guess you’re here for the next two years,” Ellery said.
“Yeah.” There was so much I wanted to say. So much I didn’t know how to say, so much that couldn’t be turned into mere words.
“Well, I’m living in Glendale now, so I’m only a short drive away. We should hang out. I’ve missed you.”
It felt as though every bone inside me melted at those three words:I’ve missed you.She hadn’t forgotten me after all.
