I'd Give Anything(54)

Well, that was easy, I said to myself. And I almost believed it, until I noticed that my hands were trembling. I pressed my palms against the top of the dining room table until they were steady again. Then, suddenly, coming toward me was CJ, in a slightly too large suit, looking so exactly the same as I remembered—pale, little-boy face; corn silk hair, same slightly herky-jerky way of moving—that I blurted out, “CJ, you look exactly the same!”

And right away, a second after I’d said this, CJ showed me how wrong I was, how he was not the same. He didn’t give me a goofy grin or set loose a stream of talk riddled with facts. He didn’t even speak my name.

Stiffly, he said, “Thank you for hosting the party. I know Kirsten appreciates it. You have a lovely home.”

As if I were anyone. His proprietary mention of Kirsten the only sign that we’d ever known each other. Then he tipped forward in what I supposed was meant to be a formal—if disdainful—bow, turned on his heel, literally digging in the heel of his shiny brown shoe and pivoting, and walked out of the room.

I’d loved him, my geeky, hilarious, pure-souled CJ. And he’d loved me. I wanted to shout after him, “We loved each other!” Not so much to remind him but to imprint those words on the face of eternity: we’d loved each other; that happened; that mattered and will always matter.

The face of eternity? I thought. Ginny, honey, you need a glass of wine.

I drank the wine. I circulated. I cleared plates and filled glasses. I smiled and met new people. All the while aware of Gray, his proximity to me, the number of people between us. At the same time that I wanted desperately to have a conversation with him, I wanted, desperately, to avoid a conversation with him. The wave and smile had been good; perhaps it was best to leave it at that.

When I went downstairs to the basement to get more champagne out of our second refrigerator, Kirsten followed me and put her arms around me.

“How are you holding up?” she said.

“This is your party,” I said. “No worrying about me allowed.”

“If it helps,” she said, “they’re just as nervous as you are.”

“CJ thanked me for the party like he was eleven and his mother made him do it. He actually bowed.”

“CJ is dying to be friends with you again.”

“He said that?”

Kirsten shrugged. “Not exactly. He said he wouldn’t be friends with you again if I paid him a billion dollars.”

“Oh, good.”

“But I know he didn’t mean it. No one—and I mean no one in the history of the world—is as nostalgic as CJ. If he had his way, the four of us would still be in the furnace room at LM, shoulder to shoulder around his headlamp, telling stories forever and ever.”

“If you say so,” I said.

“Now, where the hell is Trevor? The big bum.”

“Iris texted to say they were running late. Their flight in to Philadelphia was a little delayed.”

“They’ll come, though, right?”

“They’ll come soon. Trevor would never miss your party.”

I handed Kirsten two bottles of champagne to carry upstairs.

“Listen,” she said, kindly. “Before the night ends, you should talk to Gray. Not a dramatic rehashing of the past or anything. But just a few real sentences, face-to-face.”

“Do you think Evan will let me? I keep thinking he’s shooting daggers at me with his eyes.”

“Evan’s not the dagger-shooting type. But it’s possible he’s a tad protective. I think he knows that you and Gray need to talk, though.”

“Talk sounds scary. A few sentences. That’s what you said.”

“Let’s shoot for six. Six sentences,” said Kirsten. “Or maybe six and a half.”

“Still bossy,” I grumbled. “But okay. For you.”

“For all of us.”

“You still think we’re an us? You, me, CJ, and Gray?” I asked. I kept my tone light, but I found that I really, really wanted her to say yes. How crazy, after two decades, to still need that yes.

“Don’t be crazy,” said Kirsten. “Yes. Of course. Usses like us don’t just go away. Yes.”

I caught that yes in my hand, then pressed it to my heart and carried it with me back to the party.



When Kirsten and I got upstairs, Trevor and Iris had arrived. Iris was as slender and elegant as her name. She was half-white, half-Filipina, and the sheen coming off her blue-black hair could guide ships to safety. When she saw me, she came straight over, gliding across the room in her emerald-green dress to hug me and say, “We’ve been here two minutes, and I’m already concocting a plan to kidnap Avery.”

“She’s probably concocting a plan to kidnap you,” I said, laughing.

Iris looked like a person who would be cool and distant, but she was exactly the opposite. She wrapped one of her iris-delicate hands around my wrist and squeezed.

“I’m sorry about Adela. I tried to make Trevor come here right after she passed, but you know how he is about your mom.”

“I do know. It’s okay. You know what I think every time I see you, though?”

“What?”

“How much she would’ve approved of you. I can’t say how much she would’ve liked you because it’s unclear that Adela ever actually liked anyone. She wasn’t a liker. But your brains. Your taste. My mother would’ve thought Trevor had married quite a catch.”