A Second Bite at the Apple (15 page)

“Long story. Nothing I can talk about. Not right now, anyway.”

“I'm a very good listener, so when you're ready to share . . .”

He laughs. “Thanks. I'll keep that in mind.”

I hesitate, hoping he will fill the silence with another juicy tidbit or two about the Green Grocers deal, but when he doesn't, I decide to let it go for now and lean back against my plush gray couch cushions. “So how is your brother doing? Having the time of his life?”

“I sure hope so. Jake has always been a little more reserved and uptight than the rest of us. We're trying to get him to let loose this weekend.”

“Any success so far?”

“Some. He's getting there.”

“Does it freak you out at all, having your younger brother settle down before you?”

“Nah, not really. Jake has always been an old soul. Dave, on the other hand . . .”

“Dave?”

“My youngest brother.”

“Wait, remind me—how many brothers do you have?”

He laughs. “Just two. And we couldn't be more different.”

He starts to tell me about Jake, the crazy genius of the family who is getting a PhD in mathematics at MIT and may or may not win the Fields Medal someday. The conversation eventually drifts to Dave, his youngest brother and the family clown, who is still trying to figure out his life while he parks cars for a restaurant in Boston and lives with their parents in Watertown. I tell him about Libby and her fiancé Matt, about my parents and their employment woes, about our family dog Boots, who died last year. We talk about what it's like to be the oldest sibling, our thoughts on growing up in the suburbs, our mutual fondness for the summer camps of our youth. We talk and talk and talk, until my throat is parched and my tongue feels thick and sticky. Somewhere in the middle of a discussion about drivers' tests, I glance at my clock and realize we've been chatting for an hour and a half.

“Wow—did you realize it's almost seven o'clock?” I say.

“Seriously? Crap. I'm supposed to meet the guys in the lobby in five minutes, and I haven't showered or shaved.”

“I'm guessing your brother won't care.”

“I kind of look like the Wolf Man right now, so I'm guessing the general public might.”

“Then I'd better let you go. I hear it's a full moon tonight.”

He howls into the phone. “Sorry. That was lame. Forget I just did that.”

“Did what?”

“Exactly.” He covers the phone and calls out to someone in the background. “Listen, I've got to run, but I'll call you in a few days about getting together next weekend, okay?”

“Sounds good.”

I hang on the line, feeling like a teenager again, not wanting to be the first to say good-bye or hang up. When Zach and I first started dating, we'd talk on the phone for hours, and at the end I'd say, “You hang up first,” and he'd say, “No, you hang up first,” and we'd go on like that for a nauseating period of time until his mom picked up the extension and made him hang up. There are a hundred ways my conversations with Jeremy are nothing like my conversations with Zach—in good ways and in bad—but talking to him like this makes me feel fifteen again.

“Well, off I go,” he says. “Later alligator.”

“Later.”

I hesitate for a moment. I can still hear Jeremy breathing.

“Hey, Sydney?”

“Yeah?”

“It was really great talking to you tonight. I'm glad I called.”

A smile grows on my face, and I let myself fall deeper into the couch cushions, and without a trace of snark or cynicism in my voice, I say, “Yeah. Me too.”

Well, now I'm really in trouble.

If Jeremy weren't so damn charming, I could cut him loose and never look back. But he is charming, and I like him, and despite his shady past and highly unflattering Wikipedia entry, I don't want to cut him loose. Which, given that I'm supposed to meet up with Drew tonight, is kind of a problem.

Given my penchant for lists and order, I sit down Saturday afternoon with a pen and paper and make a list of Jeremy's and Drew's pros and cons:

I try to come up with more cons for Drew, but I can't think of any. He hadn't heard of Elliott Smith, but lots of people haven't heard of Elliott Smith. And anyway, he downloaded
Either/Or
while I was shooting, so that's almost a pro. On the other hand, I don't really know enough about him to decide whether he is a good or bad person. To be fair, I don't really know enough about Jeremy either.

As I continue to obsess over whether or not I should bail on tonight's group date, my cell phone trills loudly on my kitchen counter with a text from my dad. Before reading it, I know it will be about Libby's wedding because that's all anyone in my family seems capable of discussing these days.

Last night, Libby e-mailed my dad and copied me and my mom, saying the women of the family all agreed the Chiavari chairs were a necessary expense for the wedding reception. I had to Google “Chiavari” to know what she was talking about, and I had no idea how expensive they were.

Instead of texting him back, I decide to give him a call to clarify my position on this chair-rental boondoggle.

“So you've gone to the dark side,” he says when he picks up the phone.

I laugh. “Hey, I had nothing to do with that e-mail.”

“More than two thousand dollars on
chairs?
Are you kidding me?”

“I had no idea chairs could be that expensive. I mean, I guess they're pretty. . . .”

“You know what else is pretty? The Hope Diamond. But your sister isn't getting that for her wedding either.”

“I hope you break the news to her gently.”

He lets out an exasperated sigh. “I'm trying my best here, Syd. I'm trying to give your sister what she wants. But she sure isn't making it easy.”

“Why don't you just tell her about the dealership closing?”

Silence. “How do you know about that?”

“Mom told me.”

He groans. “I didn't want you girls to know about any of that until the dust settled.”

“Libby doesn't know. I haven't told her, and neither has Mom.”

“Good,” he says. “Keep it that way.”

“Wouldn't it be a lot easier if you just told her what's going on with your job? Maybe then she wouldn't want two-thousand-dollar chairs.”

“I want to give Libby the wedding of her dreams. I want to do that for her. And anyway, there's a chance I might be able to move over to the Toyota dealership once we close in July. I'll find a way to make it work.”

“I'm sure you will. I just . . . I don't want you to bankrupt yourself over one night. And I don't want you to feel like you have to keep stuff like this a secret from me.”

“There are some things parents shouldn't discuss with their children,” he says.

“I'm not a child anymore,” I say, though sometimes I wonder if that's true.

“I know you're not. But your sister . . . She doesn't always understand the way things work in the real world.”

“That's putting it mildly,” I say, my voice tart.

“Yes, well . . .” He trails off.

And whose fault is that?
I want to say. Because anyone with a brain knows the blame lies with him and my mom. My parents always spoiled Libby more than they spoiled me. She was the one Mom would take on shopping excursions to the King of Prussia Mall and New York City to buy pretty clothes for all the parties and dances Libby planned to attend. I spent much of my adolescence watching my family obsess over Libby's every social engagement: Libby's bat mitzvah, Libby's sweet sixteen, Libby's graduation party. As the older sister, I reached all of those milestones first, and yet Libby always had the bigger party, mostly because she always had more friends. She was pretty and popular and athletic, and I was awkward and studious, and so when it came time to make up guest lists for our respective bat mitzvot, she had ninety friends on her list, whereas I'd only had twenty-five on mine. I didn't even have a sweet sixteen because I was too afraid no one but Zach would show up.

For some sisters, that would probably breed lifelong resentment. And, okay, I have always been a little jealous of how easily things fell into place for Libby—her instant popularity in every circumstance, her field hockey scholarship to Penn State, her engagement. But on some level, I always knew my parents' coddling would ultimately result in her inability to handle adult life, and so at some point all of this would come back to bite her in the ass, and then she'd need me. That hasn't happened yet, and maybe it never will, but given the direction this wedding is headed, my guess is it'll happen sooner rather than later.

“Anyway,” he says, “what are you up to tonight? Big plans?”

“I'm meeting up with Heidi and some friends.”

“I always liked Heidi. She's a motivated free spirit.”

I smile. “That is a perfect way of describing her.”

“And how is the job search going? Any luck?”

“Sort of. I don't know if Mom mentioned the newsletter I'm working on, but now I'm writing a freelance blog for the
Chronicle'
s food section, too.”

“She did mention that. Sounds like a great opportunity.” He clears his throat. “She did express some . . . concern about the pay, though. And I'm guessing none of these positions provides health insurance . . . ?”

“No. But don't worry. I've managed to cobble together enough money with my farmers' market gig to keep me afloat. It isn't a long-term solution, but it's fine for now.”

“Okay . . .”

“What about Mom? How's her job search going?”

He sighs. “Not well.”

“No? Why, what happened?”

“I'd better leave that for a conversation between you and your mother—who unfortunately is in the shower at the moment because we're going out with the Hansons tonight. But I'll have her give you a call. She's taking all of this very hard.”

“Sounds that way.”

He lets out another sigh. “Anyway, now I need to go explain to your sister why the chairs the Rittenhouse provides for free are just fine.”

“Good luck with that.”

“Something tells me I'll need more than luck.”

“Something tells me you're right.”

He laughs. “But hey, have fun tonight. Will there be any . . . you know, guys in the group?”

“Uh huh.”

“Anyone . . . special?”

I glance down at my list of pros and cons. I consider telling him about Jeremy and Drew and how I'm not really sure how I feel about either, but instead I fold up the list and stick it in my junk drawer.

“Nah,” I finally say. “Not really.”

Because my dad was right: There are some things parents shouldn't discuss with their children.

 

At three minutes to eight, I barrel down the front stairs and burst out of the house, slinging my purse over my shoulder as I lock the door behind me. The walk to Estadio only takes about eight minutes, so I've timed it perfectly: I'll be a fashionable five minutes late, increasing the likelihood that I won't be the first one there. As much as I don't like being late, I don't want to sit at the bar by myself or, worse, have to converse with Drew on my own. I still feel awkward about our kiss last night.

As I hustle down Fourteenth Street, I think back to the conversation with my dad and his interest in my date tonight. My parents always loved Zach and probably thought, as I did, that we would end up together. Early on, they worried we were too serious for a high school couple, but when they saw our relationship up close, I think they knew we had something special, and they must have appreciated that he prevented me from sitting home alone on Saturday nights.

Libby, on the other hand, never took to Zach. “He's kind of a dweeb,” she said during her freshman year, when I was a senior. Then she quickly added, “I mean, so are you, so it makes sense, but I really don't get what you see in him.”

That's probably because she was being hit on by my cooler classmates—the varsity soccer players and the captain of the swim team, the sort of guys Zach would have loved to befriend in high school but who barely spoke two words to him. What Libby never understood was that for every maternal instinct I felt toward my baby sister, Zach, by association, felt a paternal instinct. When she called me at Zach's house one Saturday night, slurring her words in a drunken stupor, Zach was the one who pulled the plug on our attempt to make mushroom risotto and drove to pick her up and take her home.

“You guysssarrr such goody goodiessss,” she said in the car, her words thick and sloppy as gravy. “But thasss okay. I should prolly be more like you.” Then, just before she puked all over the backseat, she said, “I misssyou, Syd.”

When Zach and I broke up, Libby seemed to take the nature of Zach's betrayal as confirmation he was never good enough for me. She ran out and bought me five pints of Ben & Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup—my favorite at the time—and amassed a stack of feelgood DVDs for me to watch and did all of the things a supportive sister would do. But beneath it all, there was an air of,
See? I told you so
.

My parents, on the other hand, were in a state of shock. I was light on details, but they got the drift: Zach had cheated on me, and it was over. At first they supported me as any parents would, striking a surprisingly perfect balance between providing consolation and space. But as one year passed, then another and another, without my having so much as a cup of coffee with another guy, they began to worry. On a few occasions, they attempted to set me up with some of their friends' sons, but when I blew up at them for meddling, they let it drop. Hence my dad's delicate mix of hope, interest, and trepidation in inquiring about tonight's date. I know deep down he is hoping I have finally met Zach 2.0. I guess I am, too.

As predicted, I reach Estadio five minutes after eight, but when I check in at the hostess desk, I discover I am the first to arrive—just the scenario I had hoped to avoid. I wander over to the bar, a rectangular concrete counter situated in the middle of the room, surrounded by thick iron and wood stools and flanked on either end by columns made of Spanish tile. Bartenders hurry back and forth within the bar's concrete confines, beneath huge legs of
Jamón Ibérico
that dangle from the bar's wrought-iron trellis. The entire room has a rustic feel, with stone walls, wrought-iron chandeliers, and heavy wooden chairs. I order a glass of Tempranillo, which I sip as I survey the crowd, mostly young people in their twenties and thirties. The wine is fruity and rich, and as I take another sip, I feel a tap on my shoulder.

“So sorry I'm late,” Heidi says as she unravels a cream linen scarf from around her neck. “Today has been a disaster.”

“Things seemed fine this morning at the market.”

“It's all been downhill since then. Trust me.” She stuffs her scarf into her oversize purse and sighs. “Oh, but this is Sam. I don't think you've met before.” She nods to the blond-haired man standing to her left.

“No—hi, I'm Sydney.” I shake his hand and glance over her shoulder. “Any word from Drew?”

Heidi throws her eyes to the ceiling. “Yes. That's part of why today has been such a disaster. Drew can't make it.”

My shoulders slump. I'm not sure whether I feel disappointed or relieved. “Oh.”

“His grandmother lives out in Leesburg, and she had a stroke this morning, so he had to go and see her. Apparently it's really bad. Like, this could be the end.”

“I'm so sorry—that's terrible.”

“I know. And he feels really bad about bailing at the last minute, but he's really close with his grandmother, so he kind of had to drive out there.” She gestures toward Sam. “Anyway, you're stuck with the two of us tonight. I hope that's okay.”

“Of course it is.”

“Good. We'll make the Drew thing happen another time. Promise.”

“I'm going to hold you to that,” I say, but as I grab my glass of wine and follow her and Sam to our table, I wonder if she already knows I won't.