Flying Solo(54)

Laurie went around the table in her head. Married, used to be married, married, and me. “I don’t think you mean that at all,” she said. “I don’t think any married people mean that. I’ve never met a married person who would tell anybody as a general principle not to get married, except, like, Andy Capp. Or Tim Allen.”

“Andy Capp from the cheese fries?” Ryan asked.

“Well, yes, but not because of the cheese fries,” Laurie said. “He had a comic strip before he was a mascot.”

“A comic strip about what?”

“About how he didn’t like his wife,” she said. “I think the only person who’s really happy I decided not to get married is Erin, my friend back home who’s engaged. Her wedding is in a month, and her cat destroyed her dress.”

“I don’t understand what this has to do with you not getting married,” Nick said.

“Remember I told you I had no choice but to keep the dress I had paid for? Well, Erin and I have very similar taste and wear basically the same size, plus or minus some alterations, so as we speak, she’s retrieving it from my house, and she’s going to wear it. It is hers to have and to hold, to give to her descendants, forever after.”

“You gave away your dress?” Nick said.

“Yes. She needed it, and I don’t.”

“I guess not,” he said, almost defensive, almost as if she’d insulted him to his face.

“You were happier when I said I was going to be buried in it,” she said.

“I absolutely wasn’t,” Nick answered.

“Well, nevertheless. I decided not to marry Chris, and so now I don’t have to be a supporting character in any dude’s sitcom or comic strip.”

“Or a brand of cheese fries,” Nick offered.

“Precisely. Single lady house, single lady rules.”

“You really brought the ‘when I live by myself’ ethos with you right up to now, didn’t you?” A little smile brightened Ryan’s eyes.

“What do you mean?”

He laughed. “You were designing your dream house when I was fantasizing about making the NBA. I didn’t think I was even going to be allowed to visit you. When you left for college, I thought, you know, I hope she comes back home sometimes, because I don’t think I’m going to be invited over.”

“You thought you were going to play in the NBA?” June asked.

“Hey, we all had dreams,” he said. “I wanted to be taller, and Laurie wanted a private villa made to her specifications where nobody would bug her.”

“Well,” Laurie said, “when Nick and I were locked in the office closet at the antiques shop, we heard Matt tell his buddy I was lonely and neglected and I would probably die alone in Dot’s house, so if I cross my fingers, I might just get that ending after all.”

When they debriefed about the meeting in the office and about hiding in the closet, they had not included this. Nick had yet to acknowledge out loud that he’d even heard it. One night, Laurie had lain on her back in one of the deck chairs and looked up at the stars and thought and thought and thought about it, writing comebacks in her head. She wrote stinging rejoinders about how Matt didn’t know her and he didn’t know what she wanted and it wasn’t a matter of a lack of attention, because she could be married right now if she’d wanted to. She thought about how she could have thrown the closet door open and told him all about it. She had sat with the sensation of that moment, of what it was like being stuffed into a closet with Nick’s sympathy—or maybe pity—until the memory stopped feeling like it was covered with thorns. Now his little jab at her meant much less; it was just a piece of a story, a story about Bad Matt, about a cheap con. But they all got pretty quiet when she mentioned it, and how quiet it got made it feel thornier again.

“Well, to hell with that guy,” Ryan finally said. “We’re getting back our duck.”

They all stayed at the table for about another half hour. It was so late, but this mix of laughs was like a song she hadn’t heard in years, and Laurie just wanted to keep hearing and hearing it. Still, eventually, June put her water glass in the sink, and Nick stretched his arms, and Ryan said he should probably get to bed. “Fortunately,” Laurie said, “Dot’s got five bedrooms, and two of them are cleaned out with almost no boxes left in them, so you should be able to get a good night’s sleep without worrying that you’re going to trip on something if you have to get up in the middle of the night.” She gestured toward the stairs. “You’re in the blue room where the rocking chair is.”

Ryan nodded and yawned. “All right, I’m off to sleep, friends. I’ll see you all very soon, I’m sure.” And with a wave, he vanished down the hall, a duffel bouncing on his shoulder that read Clone of Kong 2: Aped Again. Straight to video, that one.

June left too, and then it was just Nick, standing in the kitchen doorway in his jacket, hesitating like he had when they were kids, when he wasn’t ready to go, when he wanted to kiss her good night or kiss her good night again. It was on one of those occasions, two months before high school graduation, when he had eventually squared his shoulders and said, “I love you, Laurie,” to which she had said, “I love you, too,” and then he had slipped out the door and into his 1992 Honda Accord, the chosen transportation of so many great lovers through the ages.