Another Piece of My Heart (29 page)

Their relationship became far more solid than it had been prior to Cal’s arrival. Emily was the knife that had always threatened to splinter their relationship, to drive it apart. Once she had gone, Cal became the glue that bonded them together, a bond that was more secure than Andi would ever have thought possible.

So secure she never gave her brief attraction to Pete another thought, assuming she must have imagined a chemistry between them the night of the salsa dancing, and thanking God she hadn’t done anything stupid, hadn’t embarrassed herself in any way.

How easy it would have been, back then, when she was so unhappy, to let herself be pulled into an affair, if not with Pete, then with someone else, someone who offered her a glimpse of the greener grass elsewhere.

Thank God for Ethan.

Standing in Deanna’s kitchen, Andi pours herself a seltzer, putting the can in the recycling bin, and smiling when she thinks of Drew coming in to check she is okay with Pete and Deanna getting engaged.

She is better than okay. She is thrilled. And it is genuine.

Walking back in, she perches on the arm of the chair next to Ethan, runs a hand through the dark curls at the nape of his neck.

“What?” He turns to her with a grin, interrupting his conversation with Topher. “You look all loving and mushy. What’s going on?”

“Just wedding talk. It makes me very glad I married you.” She smiles, leaning forward and kissing him softly on the lips. “I love you, mister.” She leans back, looking deep into his eyes.

“I love you, missus,” he says as Topher sighs and shakes his head.

“You two.” There is mock disdain in his voice. “Could you just get a room?”

Thirty-five

Finally!

Two people at the bar stand up, getting ready to leave; I grab Sally’s hand and shove through the crowds, dragging her behind me to get those barstools before one of the other million students here gets them first.

“Got it!” I plant my butt firmly down on the seat, a triumphant grin on my face as I pull the other stool closer for Sally. “Quick,” I warn, seeing another girl approach. I shake my head at her, and she scowls and walks away.

“Nice work.” The barman grins approvingly, having watched my handy little maneuver. “You ladies deserve a free drink, I think.”

Sally grins. “Thanks, Chad, but we would have been even happier if you’d reserved seats for us an hour ago.”

“Sally!” He recognizes her and reaches over the bar to give her a warm hug. “No one told me you were coming in, although your wayward brother’s here every night. Where the hell is he, anyway?”

Sally looks at her watch. “Twenty minutes late. Less about the wayward, please. I’m fixing him up.”

Chad gives me a sympathetic grin as I roll my eyes. “I hate blind dates. Not to mention jocks. I pretty much hate jocks, too, although wayward might be interesting.”

“So what do you like?” Chad says with a hint of flirtatious smile.

I’m about to say “barmen,” just to fuck with Sally a bit and, okay, to lead Chad on a bit because even though he is totally not my type, it seems I might be his, but Sally intervenes.

“She only thinks she doesn’t like jocks because she hasn’t met Craig. I mean, really, isn’t he the unjockiest jock you’ve ever met?”

I shake my head. “Even if he’s totally unjocky, you know I like artists. And sometimes musicians.”

“How about bartenders?” Chad chimes in.

“It has been known.” I give him a sly grin.

“Hello? Chad? She’s out of bounds.” Sally turns back to me. “And by the way, you’re twenty-one now,” she says, like I’m an old lady. “It’s time to grow up. You don’t have to date hopeless men anymore.” She shoots a look at Chad. “Including bartenders.”

I tap her on the arm to get her attention. “They aren’t hopeless.”

Sally plants a hand on her hip and stares hard at me.

“Okay, okay,” I mutter. “Maybe a bit. But it’s not like I’m looking for a relationship. Anyway, I’m not moving here for another month.”

“Love can conquer any distance,” Sally says in a stupid voice, flinging her arms out dramatically, and I burst out laughing.

“You look beautiful, you know,” she says seriously when the laughter subsides.

“I do?” I am blown away at this unexpected compliment. I look past Sally, to the mirror behind the bar, and I barely recognize the girl staring back at me. I don’t think it’s a push to say I look better than I have in years.

My hair is now a natural brown, just past my shoulders. The last vestiges of the blue-black dye was cut off a few months ago, so finally, thank God, I don’t like a raccoon anymore.

My skin is lightly tanned thanks to the farmwork I do every year on a small fruit farm just outside Portland. It’s freaky how much I love doing the physical work, and more, how much my body has changed as a result. It helps that I’m vegetarian now, too, but every now and then I stroke my arms because I can’t believe how lean and sinewy they are.

My whole body is completely different. I’m thin, without ever trying, or even thinking about it. I think back to how I was, what I looked like as a teenager, how I never stopped eating, trying to eat away the pain, and I cannot believe that that girl has grown into this.

That overweight goth girl, filled with shame and anger, desperate to hide her body in layers of drapey black clothes, was someone else. Many lifetimes ago.

Sometimes I think that I cannot believe this is who I have grown up to be, that a miracle must have happened, not just for me to feel beautiful, but, at times like this, to catch glimpses of myself in the mirror and know that I
look
beautiful, too.

When I think back to who I used to be, I want to go back and tell her, the overweight girl who never felt good enough, the child who was always screamed at by her mother, that it’s all going to be okay. I want to put my arms around her and whisper that she will find her place in the world, she will be beautiful, and she will be happy.

But you know what? She wouldn’t believe me. A lot of the time I still can’t believe it myself.

Working on the farm has changed me most of all. I cannot believe how much I love the hard, physical work. I love that at the end of the day I crawl into bed totally exhausted, every muscle aching, but I have achieved something tangible. That huge pile of vegetables now sorted into boxes? I did that! Me!

My body is doing exactly what it was designed to do. I love that my muscles ache, and love that I have become naturally thin. I eat huge amounts, but not of the sugary shit I used to sneak when I was living at home. Vegetables. Fruit. Salads. Nuts and grains. I am healthy and strong, and never in a million years would I have thought that I, the teenage loser, would turn out like this.

*   *   *

“So?” Chad the barman is still waiting while I lose myself temporarily in my head. “A drink?”

In the old days, I would have ordered a double vodka with lots of lime and a splash of soda without even thinking about it, but the farmwork has changed my drinking habits, and waking up with a hangover at five in the morning is really not so fun. Even though I’m not working tomorrow, I’ve gotten used to waking up feeling good, and I’ve slowly weaned myself out of the habit of drinking on a regular basis.

And I do not want to end up like my mom. Even though we have grown so much closer since she got sober, even though I’m now seeing the best parts of her, and only the best parts of her when she comes up to see me, I never want to go through what she went through; I never want to treat people the way she did when she was drunk, and let’s just say I’m aware that I’m not exactly my best self, as Oprah would say, when I’ve had a few drinks.

“Can I just have a seltzer with lime?” I say. I await the inevitable comment about why aren’t I drinking, and go on, you can’t possibly have just seltzer, but Chad just nods.

“Nice drink,” he says, as Sally orders a Budweiser.

“Cheers.” We toast each other, settling in to wait for Sally’s brother and his friends to arrive.

*   *   *

We hear them before we see them. A whoop goes up around the bar, and we turn to see a group of young men stopping every few feet to give those dumbass “man hugs” to pretty much everyone in there. The guy in front is clearly the ringleader, and my heart sinks as Sally jumps up from her stool and flings her arms around him.

He is so not my type it’s not even funny.

“You must be Emily.” He turns to me with a pleased-with-himself smile, and I can tell from the slight slur in his voice that they have probably spent the last few hours drinking.

My heart sinks.

I know this is Sally’s brother, and I know I have to be nice, but there is no way in hell anything is ever going to happen between us.

“You must be Craig.” I plaster a smile on my face and extend a hand to formally shake hands when I pause, convinced I hear someone call my name. I frown, and turn to Sally. “What?”

“What?”

“Did you call me?”

She looks at me as if I’m nuts. “No.”

I hear it again.

And I look past the big bulk that is Craig standing in front of me, and behind him, totally freaking me out, with a disbelieving expression on his face, is none other than Michael Flanagan.

Thirty-six

My mouth has dropped open in shock.

“Michael?”

Craig looks from Michael back to me, bemused and disappointed. “You two know each other?”

“Michael!”
The shock disappears as a feeling of pure euphoria fills my body. I jump down from the stool, feeling like I’m going to just burst with excitement, and without planning this, I swear, without even consciously thinking about what I’m doing, I jump into Michael’s arms, wrapping my arms and legs tightly around him as I laugh maniacally, which threatens to turn into tears of joy and relief.

And Michael, God love him, does not freak out but holds me, squeezing me tight, and when he finally, finally, puts me down, the grin on his face is so huge, it looks as if his face might crack, and the two of us just stare at each other with delight before we start totally cracking up.

“I guess the answer’s yes.” Craig looks at Sally, sounding not exactly pissed but disappointed, I guess.

“Who is he anyway?” I hear Sally ask Craig with a frown. Her voice drops to an almost whisper but I still hear. “He’s cute.”

“A friend of Jed’s,” Craig says. “He’s just in town for the weekend. Good guy, though. Even if he does seem to have stolen my date.”

*   *   *

So here’s the thing. For the last three years I have fantasized about seeing Michael in a situation almost exactly like this. I have wanted so badly for Michael to see who I have become, but I wanted it to be a surprise. I wanted to run into him somewhere, and have him not recognize me, and …

Okay. I’ll admit it. So I wanted Michael to see me without knowing that it’s me, and he would fall madly in love with me, or at least think I was the hottest girl he’d ever seen, and I had pictured his face as it slowly dawned on him that this amazing girl is me, and honestly? I never actually thought it would happen in real life!

My fantasies do not come true.

Really. Never ever.

Michael and I keep in touch on Facebook and stuff, but I deliberately had an anonymous profile picture and never put photos up. If other people put up pictures of me, I untagged myself, and that was all because I wanted this moment to happen; I wanted Michael to be shocked. And thrilled at what I now look like.

Okay, so it didn’t go quite like it did in my head. Michael was the one who spotted me first, and I can’t have changed that much because he recognized me instantly, but that hug! The way he’s looking at me now! The way neither of us can stop laughing!

It is almost … almost … better than I could have imagined it. Michael’s here!

I know what you’re thinking:
Is that it? Your fantasy is just about Michael seeing you looking amazing and falling in love?

Well … no. I do take it further, of course. I still have a picture in my head, as clear as day, of his taut, tanned stomach, the line of hair stretching down from his navel, and I still shiver when I think about it. I picture him kissing me, and stroking my hair, and holding me. I tend not to take it much further, though. It’s not about the sex, but the feeling of being loved. That’s what I think about. I never get as far as sex.

Sometimes they freak me out. I start thinking I must be in love with Michael … but no. I can’t go there. I
won’t
go there. My fantasies are just my fantasies, and admitting to myself that I feel more for him only opens myself up to a whole world of hurt I am just not ready for. No way.

It is enough that we are friends, for now. It is enough that we stay in touch via computer and e-mail even though we haven’t seen each other for three years. Three years! I can’t believe I haven’t been home for three years. Michael often asks if I’m going back to Mill Valley for Christmas, or Thanksgiving, or in the summer, but I haven’t been ready.

I needed to stay away because I have this huge fear that the Emily I’ve become isn’t the real Emily, that the old Emily, the unhappy, angry Emily, will take over again if I go back home. I’m terrified that going home means I’ll be unhappy again, and I don’t want to be that person ever again, so I’ve had to let the past go and keep looking forward, keep moving ahead.

Michael has turned into this awesome letter-writer. Which I tease him about, frequently, given his one-liners from sleepaway camp all those years ago. His e-mails are long, descriptive, and funny. The laptop my mom gave me when I left died a few months after I left—that’s what happens when you’re drunk and trying to send e-mails in the bath, and the damn thing falls in—but I’ve never been able to afford a new one.

I go to the public library to use the computers there. I tend to write short ones home, saving the long ones, the ones filled with all my thoughts, and plans, and all the stuff I’m going through, for Michael.

My parents e-mail me regularly. My dad sends pictures of Cal from time to time, or pictures of the family, and Cal is in them. It’s weird to look at him because I still don’t feel anything. I mean, he’s cute and all that, but I don’t feel like he’s mine, don’t feel any urge to rush back and be his mother.