The Simple Wild: A Novel(12)
I suck back a mouthful of my drink as we weave through the throbbing crowd, shrugging off the male hands that graze my arm and pinch my sides in brazen attempts to gain my attention, hoping I don’t spill anything with all the bumping and jostling.
Finally, we squeeze into a small vacant space near a pillar.
“So, where’s Corey tonight?” Diana asks.
“Working.”
“Hmm . . .” Her nose crinkles subtly, as if a mild but unpleasant odor lingers and she’s trying her best to pretend she doesn’t smell it.
I think Diana might be the only person on earth who doesn’t like Corey. It took five months and six margaritas apiece in the back of a Mexican restaurant for my best friend to finally admit that to me. He tries too hard to be liked, she said. And he’s handsy. And the way he stares at her when she’s talking feels flirtatious; it makes her uncomfortable. She simply doesn’t trust him not to break my heart.
To say I didn’t like hearing that is an understatement. I told her she was jealous that I had someone and she didn’t. We parted ways under a dark cloud that night, and I woke up the next day with a throbbing head from the alcohol and an aching heart from fear that our friendship had been irreparably damaged.
Simon swiftly talked me down from that ledge, though, as only he can do, by pointing out all the times Diana had been there for me over the years, through all the boyfriends, even when she didn’t have one, and that if she was jealous, it was more than likely because she felt her importance in my life was being threatened, a normal affliction for best friends at our age.
Diana and I made up that same afternoon, over plenty of tears and apologies, and she promised she’d give Corey another shot. Thankfully, Aaron came into the picture a few months later and I’ve firmly fallen to second rung. I’m not complaining, though—I’ve never seen her this happy, or serious about a guy. Just two weeks ago, she mentioned buying a condo with Aaron next year, which means she’ll finally stop pestering me to move in with her. I love my best friend, but she drains hot water tanks with her long showers, she cleans everything with a skin-melting dose of bleach, and she likes to clip her toenails while watching TV. And if she can’t sleep? No one is sleeping.
Have fun living with that, Aaron.
“So, when would you go?” Diana asks, her gaze flitting this way and that, searching the crowd even as she talks to me.
The sooner the better, if my dad is going to start chemo or radiation, or whatever the doctors are recommending. The only other person I’ve ever known with lung cancer was Mrs. Hagler, the old lady who lived in the house behind us. She was a longtime friend of Simon’s parents and didn’t have any family of her own left, so Simon sometimes took her to the hospital for her chemo. That went on for years before she succumbed. Near the end, she spent a lot of time sitting in her backyard wearing a knit hat that covered her sparse fuzz, puffing away on a cigarette while her oxygen tank sat two feet away. She’d made peace with what was coming by that point.
“My dad’s friend said there was a flight available for Sunday, so . . . I guess maybe then? If it’s not taken by tomorrow. She said she’d buy the ticket, but I don’t want to fly there on her dime. I mean, what if this ends up being a horrible idea and I want to leave as soon as I get there?”
“You’d feel like you owe it to her to stick around,” Diana agrees. She takes a sip of her drink and makes a face. The bartender mixed this round extra strong. “Get Daddy Warbucks to buy your ticket from his secret stash, then. We all know the shrink is good for it.” Diana is convinced that Simon has a secret vault beneath our century-old house and spends his nights inventorying his mountain of gold coins.
While he does make a lot of money on fragile psyches, it’s highly unlikely that he could ever amass such riches, given my mother’s taste for the finer things. She’s even worse than me in that regard.
“But seriously, Calla, Simon’s right. If you don’t go and your dad doesn’t pull through, you will regret it. I know you.”
And she does, better than anyone else. Diana and I have been best friends since I started at the private school a few blocks away from our house. I was eleven and didn’t know another soul. She painted my fingernails robin’s-egg blue during recess. It’s still my favorite color. She knows all about my father and the heartache that he’s caused me over the years. She also knows all the unasked questions that I still long for answers to.
Mainly, why is Alaska Wild more important to Wren Fletcher than his own flesh and blood?
Still, this feels like a huge risk. One I’m not sure I have the guts to take. “What if he’s nothing more than a deadbeat dad?”
“Then you’ll know once and for all that he’s a deadbeat dad.” She pauses. “Or maybe he’s actually a decent guy and there’s this whole other side of him that you’ll get to know and love.”
“Yeah, I guess,” I say doubtfully. Another, darker worry strikes me. “But then what if he doesn’t get better?” It would be like losing him all over again, only this time it wouldn’t be just the idea of him.
“Then you’ll have something real to hold on to. Look, we can play this ‘what if’ game all summer long, or you can get answers. Oh hey!” Diana waves to someone behind me. A moment later, surprise, surprise, Aaron swoops in.