All You Need Is Love (17 page)

The street stops. The cars go by, beeping and noisy as before, but I don’t hear them. I know why she’s calling. Dad didn’t want to call because he knew I’d hear it in his voice. “This is it, isn’t it?” I ask.

“I think you should just come here,” Louisa says.

Surprisingly, I don’t cry, I’m just kind of numb and on automatic, walking past the stationary store, past the liquor store with its dusty bottles of expensive champagne in the window, under the overpass and across the busy street to the hospital area.

I watch a mom carrying her newborn outside. Next to her, a dad has a car seat, waiting for the mom to put the baby in it. The mom is holding so tightly and seems to wrapped up in the moment the dad doesn’t talk. They both just stand there looking at the baby. Did my mother look at me in my crib before she left? Did she ask my dad to get the bottle ready for me so she had time to change or did she steal that last couple of minutes alone with me?

I head inside the revolving doors and take the very familiar route to Mable’s room. I get there, prepared to see my dad kneeling by her bedside or talking with doctors but instead, the room is empty. Trying not to think the worst, I rush to the nurses’ station and ask.

“Your father took her to the sitting area.”

In the muted beige and maroon tones of the waiting I see my father’s back and head, Mable’s small frame wrapped in her terry cloth robe, and…rather than bad news and tears, I see Louisa grinning at me as I find:

“Arabella,” I say and the what the fuck almost slips out but I catch it at, “What the…”

“I know! That’s what I meant to get across to you on the phone — that this was a local call.”

She and I hug and I say into her ear, “You have no idea how glad I am to see you — seriously. I am losing my mind.”

She hugs me tightly then says, “Someone thought it might be good for me to come over early — and what was I doing, really, anyway except packing and repacking.”

I look at Mable. “Was this your idea? Thank you.”

Mable shakes her head. “It wasn’t me — thank him. And Louisa.” She thumbs to my dad.

“I might be overbearing at times but I still have a little spontaneity left in me.” He waits for me to object and say he’s full of ideas and a real free spirit, but I don’t. I might have before — when I was younger and thought he was — but not now. Dad looks at me, knowing neither of us believes he’s Mr. Spontaneous. “You can thank Louisa.”

“Thanks, Dad,” I say and give him a real smigh — a smile/sigh combo that means he did a good thing, even if it wasn’t his idea. “And thanks to you, Louisa.” She nods at me and doesn’t make me hug her for which I’m grateful. She and I have an unspoken understanding — it’s actually kind of nice. I sit on the coffee table in front of my dad, Louisa, and Mable and Arabella is cross-legged on the couch next to us.

“Why don’t you take Arabella back to the house — I’m sure she’s exhausted,” Dad says and it’s not so much an ask but a tell.

“I thought we were hanging out here,” I say and watch Mable’s face to see if she wants me to stay or to leave.

“I have some things to talk to your dad about,” Mable says, “And then I need to rest. It took the better part of an hour to get from my bed to here.” She tries to make a joke of it but the truth is obvious to everyone — she is weak and frail and thin.

“Shall we?” Arabella asks.

I nod and help her get her bags. “This is it?” I heft a canvas shoulder bag. Arabella carries a small duffle. “You only have this and that?”

“Are you mad, woman? I couldn’t possibly fit three months worth of clothing into these bags. The rest is arriving directly at the Vineyard.”

“And here I was so impressed with your newfound simplicity,” I say as we wait for the elevator.

“You can take the girl away from Monti’s enormous closet, but you can’t take the closet out of the girl…”

“My car is all the way at the other end of Charles Street — do you mind walking the whole way?” I ask as we go out the revolving doors. The couple with the newborn baby is gone, but other moms and dads and families stand with their kids, and I watch the cycle of it, the leaving the going, the pausing for air, the way families and friends overlap.

“Dear girl, I’m English — we walk for miles without complaining,” Arabella gives a haughty toss of her unbrushed hair and then adds, “But I need to change my shoes first. I didn’t realize it would be so warm here.”

Cut to later that evening when Arabella is deciding whether to dye her hair from a box or eat another goat yogurt (the fridge is filled with little pots of goat-gurt, courtesy of Louisa).

“Aren’t they fairly divergent activities? One involves altering your physical self — and it’s not a wash out, I have to remind you — it says on the box. Plus, wouldn’t you just go to a hair dresser? Don’t you have access to basically every hair guru in London?”

“As you know, I am a Daniel Galvin devotee. However, being away is like having an affair or something, it’s so tempting to mess around.” She paws at her locks and then reconsiders. “But — if I messed up, it’s not like I can fly him in to fix it.” I raise my eyebrows at her. “Well, he might fly in as a favor, but it wouldn’t be cost-effective. Bring on the goat-gurt.”

When I come back up with a goat-gurt in one hand (for her) and an orange creamsicle in the other (for me), she’s not in my room and not in the bathroom.

“I’m out here,” she yells and I walk to the open window above my desk. “Bring out the gurt.”

“Hang on,” I say and make an attempt at getting out onto the roof without killing myself, dropping my icepop, or slopping yogurt down onto the ground. Once I’m outside with her, I wonder why it is I’ve never ventured out here.

“Because you always do what you’re meant to do,” she says and spoons her dairy product into her mouth.

“Not always,” I say. “It’s habit. Or it’s instinctual. Some people have that trait where they don’t care or they don’t worry, but even if I try to be nonchalant I can’t help it. I’m the opposite.”

“You’re chalant?”

“Exactly. Now give me a break and let me enjoy my popsicle before it melts.”

We lie back onto the sheet Arabella brought out to cover the hot roof shingles. Distant noise from campus doesn’t distract us from our key place up above the fields, the chairs that have been brought out from storage in preparation for graduation in a couple of weeks, the shorts and tank top clad masses.

Arabella finishes her snack and stretches out in full beach goddess mode, despite the sinking sun, and removes her tee-shirt to reveal a patterned bra. “I figured if it’s floral it could pass as a bikini,” she says.

“Well, don’t wear it on campus — you can’t wear bikini or tankinis…”

“Or drink martinis…”

“Basically, no inis anywhere near campus.”

“Got it,” Arabella says. “What about you, are you beach-ready?”

“Café-ready you mean? I guess. I don’t really know when to go, though.”

“Well, I’ve been instructed to head down for Memorial Day to set up. I guess we’ll have limited service from then until sometime in early June?”

I can feel the skin on my arms pinking up and sit up so I can either get sunblock or go inside. “Right — after graduation.”

“Why, are you sticking around for graduation?”

“I assumed I would but I guess I don’t really have to…”

“What about those parties you told me about — like the one of the beach when you and Jacob had that misunderstanding?”

“Ah, ballistic at Crescent Beach. Good times.”

Arabella shields her eyes from the sun and turns her face toward me. “Maybe you should go — you’re always saying you should get out more, have more fun…”

“Yeah but who’s to say senior parties are where the fun is?”

“Who’s to say it’s not?” Arabella says and then goes back to sunning herself “You have to join me — I’m in full summer mode here. What’s stopping you?”

“I put my chin in my hands and study the wisps of hair that fall into my eyes. “I don’t really know what I’m waiting for,” I say and head inside before I get royally spf-ed at my own fair skin and muddled brain.

In the middle of the night I awake to a nearly full moon and a completely full head. Not full of myself in the conceited aren’t I so great way and not in the head cold fuzzy need some decongestant way but in the oh my god I just came to a stunning realization about my life way that you think will result in a huge epiphany but instead just leads to more confusion.

Arabella sleeps in her traditional head under the covers unaware of anything else except her dormant delirium so I don’t feel guilty when I turn on the light and start sketching out my full plans in my journal. It’s time for me to make a plan. I always feel better when I know what I’m doing next.

I spend the next hour on the roof, looking at the stars and looking at my mini map of America’s colleges to see if any of the color-coded by region states and their places of higher learning suddenly call out to me. I even close my eyes, turn the map all around and point to see if by tempting fate I am handed answers. But to no avail.

“Forget it,” I say to no one but the clear night sky. I’ll go on my college visits later in the summer, there’s no way I could focus on it now. So basically I’m up on the roof with no better sense of what I’m doing, literally half inside my room and half in the window with my journal tucked under my arm. I look at my clock — it’s the middle of the night here but eight o’clock in the morning in England so I throw caution and magazine-style advice to the wind and decide to call Asher.

“Hi, darling,” he says when he picks up the phone.

“Hi,” I say and then it hits me that he doesn’t have caller ID or anything and why would he pick up the phone with such an overt greeting. “It’s Love.”

“Right! I know that — of course. I can still recognize your voice you know, it hasn’t been that long…”

It hasn’t I want to say but it feels like it. But I go for the benign, “I was just calling to say hi.” Um, which I already did.

“Oh, hi.”

Silence. Bad idea #1. “So,” I say, “Did I wake you?”

“Ah, no. I’ve been up for a bit…just sorting out some festival formalities, registering and — well, I won’t bother you with the details.”

The thing is, I like being bothered with the details. Details are what make life exciting and make you really know someone. But I guess after you break up you don’t know those details anymore, those specifics that mean that you’re the one he calls or she’s the one you think about telling that funny conversation to. “You can always bother me with details,” I say.

“Thanks, I’ll remember that. Isn’t it the middle of the night where you are?”

Where I am sounds so vague — like he can’t even remember my town or the fact that he was going to visit me. “It is — your sister’s asleep in my room but I woke up for some reason and can’t get back to sleep.”

“Did you try warm milk?”

“What?”

“Warm milk — it’s meant to be soothing or something. That or a couple shots of hard liquor.”

“I think I’ll pass on both, thanks.” I can hear a doorbell chime in the background and suddenly it feels like I’m wasting his time. “I should let you go.” Or rather, we have let each other go.

“Love — before you hang up…it’s. I’m. I’m really sorry I hurt you.”

I hate that he feels some sort of power there, even if it’s a little true — that he hurt me but I did nothing but sit there passively being dumped. “It wasn’t you really, Asher. It was us — the situation.”

“Right and if you’d been here or stayed or if you were somehow English, the whole trouble wouldn’t even have been an issue.”

I watch my brows furrow automatically in the mirror. “Trouble? I don’t see why you’d call it trouble?”

“Fine,” Asher’s tone changes a little and I can imagine his cheeks flushing like he’s gone running or is about to defend himself. “I’ll call it what it was — not trouble — the exact term is cheating. Is that better?”

Cheating? Were we playing poker? What the hell is he talking about? I’m tempted to shove Arabella so she can wake up and listen and decipher for me but 1) she’s way too heavy a sleeper and 2) she wants to be left out of all things Asher-related. “Define cheating,” I say and feel my pulse pick up speed.

“I really don’t want to get into all of this — I’m sure my sister’s done a number on my bad behavior as it stands.”

“Leave Arabella out of it, Asher. Just tell me in your own words what the real reason is that you aren’t visiting here, that you broke up with me…” I think of Arabella telling me that Asher came by her flat and told he’d “made a mistake”. I thought then that he meant he’d been wrong to break up with me but now I think he meant he screwed up by cheating on me.

“Let me guess — that wacky and wonderful Valentine?” I spit out.

“I have to get the door,” he says and his footsteps echo. “Listen I wasn’t up for long distance anyway, okay? And with you not here and a couple of drinks and…Valentine’s not the issue here.”

“No, you’re right. She’s not. Your asinine behavior, your totally shoddy decision-making skills are. At the time, all your impulsivity was so charming. So endearing. But now I see it was just a rouse — what was I, just some cute American conquest you failed to have?”

“It wasn’t like that and you know it, Love. If you want to belittle our relationship, that’s your choice. I can’t stop you.”

“And I can’t stop you from doing whatever it is you’re doing. It makes me wish I’d spent more time with Nick Cooper.”

“Nick Cooper? What does he have to do with anything?”

“Nothing. Nothing — never mind. Just forget it. Forget me.”

“Don’t end it like this, Love — please…” Asher says quietly, the words slightly muffled like when you don’t want the other person who’s in the room to hear you.

I humph loudly, “Don’t tell me she’s there? She’s actually in the room with you? Gross. I have to go.” I shake my head, angry at him, at myself, at my continual naiveté or selective viewage of the opposite gender. Maybe I should major in gender studies like Chris wants to so I can anthropologize my own stupid behavior. Robinson Hall cheated on me, now Asher Piece. Will this be one of those patterns you see on tv and fifteen years from now I’ll be either lecturing on my poor picking of dates or have a successful turnaround and can motivationally speak about it…