Do I Know You?(81)

I finish my speech, dazed, sort of in disbelief I said everything I envisioned saying. I’m grateful Michelle didn’t interrupt me or hang up. I don’t know what will come next, but I know this step was important.

When Michelle speaks, her voice is soft, if grudging. “You’re right,” she concedes. “I shouldn’t have assumed.”

She doesn’t sound warm, but I hear real emotion in her voice, real feeling she wouldn’t let in during our last call. I wait for her to continue, curled up in the cool leather of the passenger seat with my heart pounding.

“It’s not that I think you’re selfish,” she goes on. “But . . . throughout our lives, I’ve sometimes felt like a giant spotlight follows you around. You’re an actress, and you’re older, and you’re married, and you’re . . . everything you are. And I’m not jealous of you, I’m not. I just felt like maybe my wedding could be the time where I’m the center of attention. God, I sound like a spoiled brat even saying that, don’t I?”

She says her final words with a flicker of self-effacing humor, and it’s enough for me to laugh with immeasurable relief. “Of course you don’t sound spoiled. It’s your wedding,” I reassure her. “You should be the center of attention.” I wipe my nose, exhaling, finding my reply. “I’m sorry that my missing your party stole even a fraction of your spotlight. And I’m sorry if, at any other times in our lives, I haven’t been as sensitive as I could be about that. You deserve your own spotlight—not just on your wedding day.”

Michelle is quiet for a moment. “Thank you, Eliza,” she finally says. “I . . . really want you to be at my wedding.”

I’m crying again now, but they’re good tears. Not just happy tears, though there is happiness in them. They’re good tears. The release of things needing freedom from my heart, new beginnings rolling down my cheeks.

“I’m going to take the whole week off work,” I tell her with hiccupping breaths. “Trust me. I’ll be there. There’s nothing more important to me.”

“Thanks.” I hear a sniffle on Michelle’s end. “You said you still have that toast?”

I smile. “I can send it to you right now, if you want.”

“How about you save it for the wedding?”

My heart swells. I nod like she can see me, even though of course she can’t. “You got it.”

I know this is when we say goodbye, but not a real goodbye, not the goodbye we’ve been living for months. Just a temporary break in our lifelong conversation. Still, though, I don’t want to hang up. Not yet.

“Eliza?” Her voice sounds scared. “Can I ask you something?”

I squeeze my eyes shut, afraid. No. I can face this. Whatever she wants to know, I can face it for her. I open my eyes and fix them on the sea ahead. “Anything.”

“Do you think Ben and I will be good together? The way you and Graham are, I mean.”

Even though I know her words should make me sad, I don’t just smile. I beam. “You two will be perfect, even when it feels like you’re not. Which—sometimes, you’ll really, really feel like you’re not.”

It’s a moment before she replies, and I just know my sister is smiling one of her small, dazzling smiles. “Thanks.”

When we hang up, I feel lighter. No, not lighter—stronger. The lightness isn’t the weight of emotions leaving me. It’s the understanding that I’m courageous enough, honest enough, to carry them.

I wipe my tears and get out of the car. Calmly, I go to the trunk, where I remove my suitcase. We won’t be checking out tonight.

With the evening drying my cheeks, everything feels clearer. I’m done hiding. I’m done concealing truths I don’t want to face. Whenever things get dark or frightening, I’m going to hold on to how I feel right now, walking toward the hotel with my suitcase in hand.

But performance doesn’t just mean hiding. It means growth, too. It means self-discovery.

Graham was right about certain things, but there are others he doesn’t understand. He doesn’t think our performances can stay with us. He doesn’t understand that the parts we played weren’t just a game. No performance ever really is. Ours helped us explore who we are and who we can be to each other. I know I’m going to carry parts of Vacation Planner Eliza with me even when we go home, and I hope we can hold on to parts of the relationship we started to rebuild together here. We can discover and rediscover new lives and new loves. We can do it without hiding.

I walk swiftly into the lobby, needing to make arrangements for the night.





50


    Graham


DAVID LEANS WITH his elbows on the bar, looking lost. I’m sitting next to him with our drinks in front of us, half empty.

Half full, some would say. Not us.

Truthfully, while I’m not happy David’s date got cut short and he’s heartbroken in this bar with me, I’m not ungrateful for the distraction or for the chance to have this last drink with him before we return to our respective normal lives. I know what’s waiting for me, but I have one hour left of vacation, and I’m going to take every glorious, mopey second of it.

“Do you want to talk about it?” I ask. I’ve let David nurse his drink in silence for fifteen minutes, but I don’t know when Eliza will show up. Besides, I do want David to know I’m here for him. I’ve never been the kind of guy who’s afraid of sharing his feelings. David obviously isn’t, either.