In Twenty Years: A Novel (14 page)

Colin proposes revisiting Bea’s favorite places on campus, each of them sharing a memory at each one, something they loved best about her. They set aside their differences, the vast divide between them, the urge to simply leave and return to their safer havens at home, because each of the five of them is too embarrassed to admit they can’t do this for Bea. What sort of friend would they be if they couldn’t do this for her?

They walk to Wawa for coffee and convenience-store doughnuts because that’s what they ate back then, when no one had heard of organic food, and their bodies could handle a diet of minimal-to-zero nutrients. (Not Annie, though—she usually took a bite to be polite, then stuffed the rest in a wadded-up napkin.)

Owen orders a breakfast burrito at Taco Bell Express, just like he used to, and Catherine sighs because his digestive system at forty is not what it was at twenty. At twenty, it wasn’t even all that good.

“Hey.” He shrugs. “A college morning isn’t complete without a breakfast burrito.”

“This
isn’t
a college morning,” Catherine reminds him.

“You’re being technical.”

She
was
being technical, but Catherine is always technical. Her irritation runs through her, tangible, an electric shock. She massages the back of her neck.

“Just a decaf,” Lindy says, eyes down, though the manager recognizes her, and she agrees to a photo.

“OK, I’ll start,” Colin says. “What I remember about being at Wawa with Bea is how she was on a first-name basis with the cashier . . . what was it?” He squints, casting for the memory. “Hector? Maybe Hector. Anyway, she’d sweet-talked him one night when we came in drunk without our wallets, and Bea just
had
to have those yogurt pretzels. Remember those things? They had them in bulk?”

“Ew, those bins. Yes. You just reached your hands in and took them.” Catherine shudders. “If I knew then what I know now . . .”

“Well, anyway . . . Bea somehow convinced Hector that if she didn’t get those yogurt pretzels
right then
, she was gonna, like, die.” He stops himself.

“It’s OK,” Annie says. “You don’t mean it literally.”

“She asked him about his family and his kids and where he came from, and all of this mumbo-jumbo that who would have thought to ask? And then she promised if he gave her free reign over the yogurt-pretzel bin, she’d never forget any of his kids’ birthdays.” Colin shakes his head and laughs. “You know Bea. How could he say no?”

“So
that’s
why we always got free yogurt pretzels whenever we came in,” Catherine says. She resists the urge to check her phone. She’s e-mailed her whole team to find out just how the details slipped through on the shoot, and even though there’s nothing to be done now, and even though it’s a national holiday, she’d like some answers. She expects some answers. But she tells herself it can wait, at least until they’ve exited Wawa, finished honoring their memories of Bea.

“That is why.” Colin smiles. “And honestly, I don’t think she ever did forget a birthday. She brought back a Jets jersey from New York once for his son. And a snow globe another time.”

The clerk from Taco Bell calls out Owen’s order. Catherine sighs again as Owen licks grease off his fingers and exhales contentedly. They all shove their hands into their pockets and stare at the floor.

“Well, anyway,” Colin says, “that’s what I remember about her here, and I bet Hector remembers her too.”

“Bea was good about keeping her promises,” Annie says.

And no one has much else to say to that, because they’re all keenly aware of the promises of their own they failed to live up to, the promises to Bea they failed to keep.

They opt for their old dorm next; Annie’s the one who suggests it. They amble down crimson brick-paved Locust Walk, which cuts like a connective artery through the hub of the campus, on their way to the Quad, where fate and the fire threw them together and made them family. Catherine reaches for a memory of when she lived there with her roommate . . . Susan Ling, that was her name.
What ever happened to her?
They were never close, and besides, Catherine spent all her time with Owen, and then Owen introduced her to the others, and since Owen’s roommate had transferred to Villanova the second week, she practically moved in. She remembers that Owen never complained that he needed space, that he wanted to have some breathing room to go out with the guys, or didn’t want a girlfriend to drag him down when he pledged Sigma Chi because Sigma Chis were notorious for getting all the hot girls. He let her redecorate with tapestries from Urban Outfitters and a flimsy rug that smelled like hemp she found down on South Street. They were a team, a unit, and neither was ever particularly far from the other. They studied together in the library stacks, they ate breakfast and dinner together, and they fell asleep watching
90210
reruns together.

But that was all so long ago, Catherine reminds herself. Before real responsibilities. Before real problems.

Catherine swipes her phone. Nothing yet from her team. She sets her jaw and grimaces.
Where is everyone when I need them?

She tries to remember the last time she told Owen she needed him; the last time, really, she needed him period. Surely, if she told him about the trouble the company was in, of the dwindling revenue stream, he’d want to help. Actually, just a few months ago, he
did
want to help. But that was about
him
wanting to work—any sort of work, Catherine gathered, which is not exactly the kind of help she needed.

Anyway, it’s her, really. She lost track of relying on him—like she’d lost track of Susan Ling, she supposes—and she’s not so sure she wants to retrace those steps. She’s not even sure she
needs
to rely on him anymore, even though she recognizes the dangerous slippery slope this recognition can initiate in a marriage.

The Fourth of July Road to Freedom festival is in full swing on Locust Walk. Two men decked out in colonial garb march a few feet behind them, rattling off “Yankee Doodle Dandy” on a fiddle and a flute. Colin does a slightly off-rhythm jig with his feet, then links elbows with Annie and spins her around until she shrieks about dizziness. Lindy sings “Yankee Doodle Dandy” opera-style, and Leon and Colin give her a standing ovation (though they’re already standing). Catherine empties the clutter from her mind (though she checks her phone once more) and feels it too, the infectiousness of their old selves—free from the weights of adulthood—nipping at their heels. All of them laugh, a fleeting but perhaps sticky moment of joy, to be back
here
, their mirth traveling up through the towering oak trees that arch and crest above them, insulating them from the reality of the outside world. Or at least that’s what the oaks did back then; now they’re memories of a memory.

Annie pulls out her phone and snaps a photo for Instagram.

“When was the last time you guys were back here?” Leon asks. “All together?”

Catherine taps her phone against her hip, waiting for Lindy to answer. He’s here on her account, after all; she should be the one to explain their history. The rest of them have plenty of other baggage to handle; they shouldn’t have to babysit this interloper. But no one else seems particularly put out by his presence.

Instead, Annie looks up from her screen, from her hashtag frenzy, and responds to Leon. “Oh, gosh. All together? Not in a long time.”

“Not since the funeral,” Colin says.

“No,” Lindy snaps. “Not since the
wedding. All
of us. Together.”

Catherine steels her eyes at her phone, ignoring her, though she internally blanches at the mention of her wedding, of how she behaved.

Still nothing.

Where is her team? Why does no one care that the photo spread is a mess?
She clenches and unclenches her fists, and wishes she could stride on ahead without them, loop around campus or maybe the track down at the stadium, like she does at the office to clear her mind, regroup, realign her axis. Instead, she’s walking around as if there’s a pebble wedged in her sole, like something is bothering her that she just can’t pinpoint.

A row of tents, which teem with summer students, a few professorial types, and local families with cherubic but sweaty children, block their streamlined path to the Quad.

A sign hangs from each tent pole.

LIVE LIKE THE COLONIALS DID
!

“Come, come,” a revolutionary soldier beckons. “Come join us in the festivities celebrating our great liberation from our oppressor, her Royal Majesty!”

Oh, please, God, no,
Catherine thinks, and checks her phone again.
I do not have time for this.
What she really means is she does not have the patience for this.

“Madam, what is that thing you hold in your hand? Is it some sort of enchanting device?”

“What?” Catherine asks, just as Annie says, “Ooh, what are the festivities?”

Another soldier steps out and barks: “Butter-churning contest in two minutes! Who will step up and lead the nation?”

“The nation needs to be led in a butter-churning contest?” Catherine says to no one in particular.

“She’ll do it!” Annie claps and points her finger squarely at Catherine.

“I will not do it!”

“You’ll be perfect!”

“There are prizes,” chimes soldier #2.

“I don’t want prizes!”

“I’ll do it.” Owen steps forward.

You’ll do it?
Catherine thinks.
Is this your way of proving that you can out-domesticate your domestic-diva wife?

“Owen’s doing it!” Annie claps again, then steadies her phone for a video.

“Oh, fine, I’ll do it.” Catherine flanks her hands on her hips.

“COME ONE, COME ALL! WHO DARES TO TEST THEIR HANDS AND CHURN A BARREL OF BUTTER FOR THE VILLAGE?”

“I volunteer!” Leon places his hand over his heart, like churning butter is some sort of patriotic duty.

“You don’t volunteer!” Lindy replies, but he’s already stepped forward, already been anointed with a sash that both Owen and Catherine now tuck over their right shoulder as well, which reminds Catherine of that scene in
Star Wars
when Han Solo and Chewy get anointed for their bravery at saving the universe. She’s surprised at the memory: she hasn’t seen
Star Wars
since she was a kid, when her dad sneaked her into the theater even though she was too young and her mother forbade it.

Catherine peers at Owen, then Leon, then two kids who are about eleven who’ve also joined in, their parents hooting and hollering, like this is actually a
real thing.
But then she thinks of Penelope and Mason and that maybe they’d find this a little bit hilarious, and also that they’d have a chance to see what their mom is good at, why she misses their games and their recitals and isn’t home for bedtime nearly enough. So as each of the contestants stands behind an old wooden barrel, Catherine thinks,
I will win this for my children. I will win this because I can. I will win this because I sit atop the domestic-goddess world, and Target and HGTV and stupid Suzy Carpenter can bite me.

“It’s on.” She nudges her chin upward, like Rocky Balboa.

“Bring it.” Leon smiles but doesn’t look nearly as intimidated as she’d like him to.

Owen tries to reply, but he’s burping up what Catherine imagines is old beer from last night. Finally he whispers (mostly to Leon), “You have never met a more competitive woman than my wife in your life. Godspeed.”

Catherine scowls at him, even if it’s true. It
is
true. She won’t apologize for that! She
shouldn’t
have to apologize for that. Her competitive drive is what pays their mortgage. What sends their kids to private school. What allowed Owen to quit that job that made him so miserable. Catherine hates that she feels like she should apologize for wanting to be at the top of everything, the best at everything. Way back when, when she first rose through the ranks of other crafty bloggers, her newly hired publicist insisted she get media training. Her trainer always said, “Act like the CEO of your household, not an actual CEO. No one wants to be best friends with a CEO. No one wants to make pumpkin coffee cake with a CEO.”

Soldier #1 hands her a wooden plunger, and Catherine realizes,
No one does want to be friends with a CEO.
It’s not like she’s gallivanting out for girls’ nights—it’s not like she’s even invited out for girls’ nights. She doesn’t get e-mails from moms at school; she doesn’t make chitchat in the office kitchen about last night’s
Rock N Roll Dreammakers
.

The last time she had honest-to-God girlfriends was, well, here. Back then.

Catherine wipes the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand and glances at her competition. She makes a slit-your-throat/die gesture toward Owen, which she knows he’ll take lightly (he does the same to her over tennis, which they never play anymore, but he used to do it all the time). He smiles. She narrows her eyes. And then Soldier #1 is explaining how exactly to churn butter (“Plunge up and down and up and down”), and then Soldier #2 fires his rifle, and Annie jumps and screams when he does, mistaking it for an actual rifle, and leans on Colin, who rubs her shoulders until she’s steady.