These Are the Moments (4 page)

Chapter 9

Now

Simon Guidry was one of the last things she thought about these days. He wasn’t completely erased from her
list of things to think about,
but when she did think about him, it was usually involuntary. Every now and again, she’d have a random, leftover thought about Simon, but there weren’t any feelings attached. Not anymore.

But now that Wendy’s best friend was engaged to his, the thoughts were becoming more frequent, with tiny specks of emotion tacked onto them.

Thank God for painting
.

Wendy spent most of her evenings hovered over her watercolors outside on the front porch. Living in an office all day, she loved being outside in the evening, curled up on the porch swing, creating something out of nothing.

“Need anything?” Dad would ask, as she made her way out the door.

“I’m good,” she’d reply.

About an hour in, Mom would stick her head out and say, “Dinner’s almost ready.”

Wendy could finish a painting in a week, the most she’d ever painted in her life. The thing about watercolor was that it became easier with practice. In the beginning, every move she made could be a mistake. Mixing the wrong colors. Too much water, not enough pigment. But then, she realized, these weren’t mistakes at all. They were happy accidents. Flaws that found their way into something that was even better than she’d set out to make.

Her favorite part of the process was the first stroke, when the water pulled the paint down the page, swelling and pooling, waiting for a purpose.

Today, she would paint the pond. Again. A few weeks ago, she’d tried to paint the water, the surrounding grass, the crisp blue sky, but it hadn’t turned out the way she’d hoped. She tried again the next week. No use. Five failed paintings later, here she was again, trying.

She dipped her brush in the green, then carefully brushed it over the bottom of the page. Too green. She added some water, making a note to mix in some brown.

“What’s the deal with the pond?”

Wendy jolted upright. In the chair beside her, Claudia seemed to materialize out of nowhere, watching over Wendy’s shoulder.

“Geez,” Wendy said. “I didn’t see you.”

“Clearly,” Claudia said. “So why the pond? You’ve got like six others in your room.”

“What were you doing—” She decided to let it go. “I’m painting it until I get it right.”

Claudia slipped a pair of pink earbuds into her ears and said, “Okay.”

Wendy just looked at her. “Are you . . . staying?”

“Yeah,” Claudia nodded, as if this were normal.

Wendy would typically ask her to leave, but considering the week Claudia was having, she didn’t. She picked up the brush and dabbed it in the watery paint mix. The page absorbed the shades of blue, the sky a light, breezy blue-and-white haze.

“How do you keep the colors from blending?” Claudia asked.

Wendy held the brush in mid-air. “I don’t really. I just kind of let them go where they want to go. Sorry. I’m not really good at explaining it.”

“It’s cool,” Claudia said.

Wendy added layer over layer, dabbing the paper with tissue to pull the color, making it fade down the page. She couldn’t really concentrate on what she was doing with Claudia hovering over her, but she didn’t say anything. She worked on the boat that bobbed over the water, more like a shadow than anything concrete.

“We should go there sometime,” Claudia said.

Wendy lost control of the brush, smudging the brown of the boat into the glassy water. “Shit.”

“You can fix that,” Claudia said.

Wendy dabbed at the paper. “What were you saying?”

“Oh, that we should go to the pond. Go in the boat. Go for a hike.”

No,
Wendy thought
,
Hell no.

“Maybe,” Wendy said.

The truth was that it had been years since Wendy had visited the pond. She knew exactly how to get there, knew every step by heart, but she couldn’t bring herself to actually go. In some ways, she didn’t think she would ever go back. In other ways, she felt like she’d never really left.

When Wendy finished, Claudia asked, “So, did you get it right this time?”

Wendy shook her head. “No. I’m not sure if I ever will.”

Claudia lifted it out of Wendy’s lap, mulling over it. “Well, I like it.”

“I’m glad.”

“Do you mind if I keep this one?”

Wendy didn’t expect that. Why was Claudia being so out-of-her-way nice? Not that Claudia wasn’t nice. She just hadn’t ever been
this
nice. Wendy said, “Sure.”

As Wendy dragged her supplies inside, she promised herself that would be the last pond painting. She could paint anything she wanted to, any and all memories, but she would not repeat another painting. She wouldn’t repeat anything at all.

Chapter 10

Then

The youth group met in a small, donated house just a block away from church. Out front, there was a large sculpture in the shape of a cross, placed in a patch of overgrown weeds. The bedrooms were now prayer rooms, the living room a meeting space filled with bean bags. And in this house, there was music, laughing and pizza. Always pizza.

It was Wendy’s third meeting, and they all went something like this: prayer time followed by a speaker followed by discussion followed by music. The same kind of music she’d heard the night of the retreat. But it felt different now. A little less, somehow. Like she was here and God was there, and she was beginning to understand the term “retreat high.”

Simon was her ride. It began by accident, one night when Mom got stuck at a parents’ night for Claudia.

“I can take you,” he’d said, from across the basketball court.

Her reaction had been something along the lines of, “Oh, uhh, sure, yeah, cool.”

That first night, when she climbed into his leather passenger seat, she felt her face go red as they drove away. Blondie, otherwise known as Sarah, pointedly waved them goodbye, big and brazen, like she was dragging a sparkler over her head.

“Cold?” Simon had asked, his hand on the dial.

“No, I’m fine,” she’d said. “Turn left.”

He drove recklessly, laid back but keeping control, like he was daring the world to wreck him. “Serious question time.”

“Okay, you first,” she’d said, clutching her hand to the sides of the seat.

“Biggest fears?” he’d asked.

“Besides your driving?”

“Hilarious.”

“Okay, fine,” she said. “Scary movies. Knives. Dolls. Roller coasters.”

“Roller coasters? That’s not a fear.”

“Umm, haven’t you ever watched the news? They malfunction or the attendant doesn’t check the lap bar and people fall out. That’s a legitimate fear.”

“Have you ever been on one?”

She shrugged. “This one at the fair….”

“That doesn’t count. The one they put up in the kids’ section?”

“It’s called the Blaze. I feel like that counts.”

“That’s it. I’m bringing you on a roller coaster. A real one.”

They pulled into the driveway. “Good luck with that.”

The next meeting, Mom dropped her off out front. “Let me know when it’s wrapping up, and I’ll come get you.”

Slightly disappointed, Wendy said, “Okay.”

But Simon was waiting at the front door, his keys twirling in his fingers. “That’s your mom?”

“Yeah,” Wendy said. “Thank you again, for last week.”

“You know,” he said, slowly opening the front door. “I don’t mind dropping you off. It’s not out of my way or anything. Tell your mom to save herself the trip.”

“Oh you don’t have to—”

“Wendy,” Simon stopped her. “This is what friends do. Now, text your mother.”

And so, Simon became her permanent ride. Whenever he was ready to leave, he’d step into whatever conversation she was having and say, “Ready when you are.” She’d nod and say goodbye to her friends, walking out to his car with a little zest to her step.

It was the first time she’d ever ridden in a car with a boy. She felt grown up sitting beside him, as he made his way over the roads. And they talked. They talked more than any two people should ever talk. About life and God and meaningful truths. And she found that she loved talking to Simon, just being around him, even. They were friends. Good friends.
Best
friends.

“What’s your plan?” she asked him. “For your life?”

“Oh, I’ve got a whole outline of goals. It’s much too expansive for one car ride.”

She laughed. “Okay, what’s your main plan?”

“I want to start my own company one day,” he said. “I’ll have to work my way up to that point, of course, so I’ll study business and engineering, possibly. I want to get married and have a family. I want to travel. I don’t like staying still, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

She had. Simon was as ADD as they came, constantly tapping his foot or drumming with his fingers.

“What about you? What’s your plan?”

“I don’t know, exactly. I’ve never been a big planner. I like to live moment by moment, and see where that takes me.”

Simon laughed. “What’s that like?”

“Too complicated for mere mortals such as yourself to comprehend,” she said, reclining into the seat. “Seriously, though? I know I want to be someone who makes a difference. Even to just one person. And for me, that’s the dream. It’s a simple dream, but it’s my dream.”

Simon smiled at the road, at the curve just before her house and the lights that guided them there. “That’s far from simple.”

When he pulled in the driveway, he slid the shift into park and waited there. Something told her not to move. Not just yet.

“Do you think people can change?” he asked. “Fundamentally, to their core?”

She didn’t even have to think about it. “Yes. Absolutely. That’s what faith is for, isn’t it? Believing that God changes us?”

“So you think there’s hope for everyone? You think we can evolve into this attainable, best version of ourselves?”

“I do,” she said. “Don’t you?”

His face hardened, his eyes fixing forward. “I don’t know. I’ve seen too many people incapable of change to fully believe it’s actually possible. I’d like to believe. I just have my doubts.”

She didn’t know where this was coming from, and she didn’t know the right words to say to make him believe her. Of course people could change. They shifted and grew and sank every single day.
Of course
, she thought,
of course we change.

“Maybe you should pray about it. I think . . . people can change, if they really, truly want to.”

“I reject that,” he said, his voice cutting across the dead air. “People can work their entire lives to be something, and never get it. Take dreams, for example. I may work years to own my own business, but that doesn’t guarantee it’s going to happen. I want to be a better person; I do. But that doesn’t mean I will.”

“That’s a sad way of thinking.”

“Prove me wrong, then.”

He turned in his seat toward her, almost like a challenge. He really did want her to prove him wrong. He wanted her to give him the words that would make sense to him, but all she could offer was the feeling of what she knew so certainly within her.

“It’s not about proof,” she said. “It’s about mindset. I can’t change your mind. I could list dozens of examples, but even that wouldn’t be enough. You’ll still believe what you want to believe.”

He relaxed, just faintly. His eyes opening wider. “Interesting.”

“What’s that?”

“I think you know me much better than I realized.”

“You underestimate me,” she said, without the faintest hint of a playfulness.

“I certainly have,” he said.

When she waved goodbye from her front porch, she had the distinct feeling that tonight, she’d made an impression, and that it was a good one.

Chapter 11

Now

In the end, it was the painting that made her want to leave home that weekend. Claudia liked it even more than Wendy expected, immediately hanging it up on the wall beside her bed, so it just propped itself up against the eggshell walls, taunting her. Wendy would see it every night before bed, when she’d pass by Claudia’s room. Claudia would sit in her bed, earphones plugged into her computer, beneath the scene straight out of her sister’s own life.

Sure, it made Wendy a little proud. But ultimately, it made her sick to her stomach.

She decided it would be best for everyone if she spent the weekend with Vivian. It had been weeks since she’d been out around people her own age, people who had more to talk about than taxes and whose turn it was to take the car for a tune-up.

“Are you depressed?” Reese asked her the week before. “I did some research. I think you’re suffering from some sort of post-collegiate pardum.”

“You just made that up.”

“It sounds pretty real though, doesn’t it?” When Wendy didn’t text back, she added, “P.S. That was my way of inviting you to visit this weekend.”

Wendy wasn’t depressed, exactly. But then again, maybe she was. Did depressed people realize they were depressed? In any case, she was more focused than depressed. She would be a painter. She would set up an online shop one day, and hopefully, own a gallery. That was the dream. For now, there wasn’t room for anything else.

Vivian opened the door wearing an apron.
An apron
.
With white ruffles and a cherry print.

“Dear God,” Wendy said, dumping her bags at the door of the Pinterest-perfect apartment.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” Viv said. “I’ve got so many plans.”

Plans were things that adults made. In college, you never caught anyone making plans about anything.
What are you doing this weekend?
Whatever the hell everybody else is doing.

“Thanks for letting me stay,” Wendy said, slipping off her jacket. “Peer interaction is long overdue.”

“Oh, what’s that?” Viv said, pointing to Wendy’s face.

“What?” Hands to cheeks.

Vivian laughed. “Thought I saw a wrinkle.”

“Ha. Ha. You’re hilarious. Where’s the wine?”

“Chilling,” Viv said, taking her bags and neatly placing them in the hall closet. “Reese and Ben should be here in about twenty minutes. Make yourself comfortable.”

Wendy went to sit on the couch. Around Vivian’s apartment, there were DIY canvases in gold and peach paint. There was a bookshelf with color-coded shelves. Every cord was masked from sight and the whole space smelled like freshly cut flowers. This was how interior designers lived, no detail unturned.

“Vivian Kate Delano,” Wendy said, pointing at the coffee table. “Is that
a cheese plate?
”

Vivian floated to the seat beside her. “Yes, I’m trying to be domestic.”

“Domestic. Wifely. Adultish.”

“Exactly. Am I pulling it off?”

“Hmm, let’s see,” Wendy said. “Do you own salad forks?”

“Yes,” Vivian nodded.

“Those doily things?”

“Yes!”

“How’s your knitting?”

“Oh, I can do that, I think,” Vivian said, biting at the edge of her lip.

“Yeah, you’re not a wife,” Wendy said. “You’re a grandmother.”

Vivian sank into the cushion and sighed. “Hilarious.”

“So, what are these great plans of yours?” Wendy asked, smearing brie onto a cracker.

“Dinner at Oak Room. Free drinks at Rucker’s. Then cab it back here to pass out.”

“Well look at you,” Wendy said. “Not so grandma after all.”

After half a cheese plate, Wendy kicked off her shoes and tucked her feet between the couch cushions. They swapped war stories of work: Vivian with her snobby, power-tripping coworkers and Wendy with her scatter-brained superior.

Things had shifted since they all started working. Reese spent her days wearing suits at the accounting firm; Vivian was always nose-deep in paint samples. All of Wendy’s best friends’ stories involved people she didn’t even know, and it seemed that their lives were heading in three separate directions.

And Vivian was getting married.

“Where are they?” Wendy asked, after two chatty hours.

“I’m not sure. They were supposed to be here by now.”

“Text them.”

Vivian checked her phone. “Shoot. It wasn’t on vibrate.”

She read the message, eyes skimming back and forth over the screen.

“What’s up?” Wendy asked.

“Reese isn’t feeling good. Says she’s got a cold or something.”

Wendy sat up. “Tell her to take a pill and get her ass over here.”

Vivian raised her eyebrows. “You
really
think that’s going to work?”

“God, Reese,” Wendy huffed, grabbing a perfectly fluffed pillow and grunting into it. “Why tonight? WHY?”

“I’m sorry,” Viv said. “I know you needed a night out. How about I text Owen?”

Wendy lowered the pillow. “Oh yeah. Tell him to bring a friend for me.”

“Point taken,” Vivian said, stepping into the kitchen and bringing back the bottle of wine and two glasses.

Another hour later, half a bottle down and an entire cheese plate massacred, the girls sank into the couch with half-open eyes.

“Everything changed so fast,” Wendy said. “It’s like whiplash. Every day. Over and over.”

“You’re just adjusting,” Vivian said, taking a slow, careful sip.

“Yeah, and when does that end?”

“When you give up and realize that this is life. And it’s rarely ever fun.”

“This coming from the starry-eyed bride-to-be. Don’t you have some dandelions to wish on?”

“You’re lonely,” Vivian said, point-blank.

Wendy sniffled. “Yeah. I’m lonely.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“I’d say yes, but I feel like I shouldn’t.”

“I’m asking anyway,” Vivian said, her head resting in her palm. “Are you happy? Because I know Happy Wendy, and you just don’t seem to be quite there anymore.”

Wendy knew she had good friends. That’s why she missed them so much when they were apart. It was equally wonderful and embarrassing to have someone know her so well, to see to the very core of her.

“Yes,” Wendy answered. “I’m moderately happy.”

“You’re sure?”

“The surest.”

“Okay then,” Vivian said, her eyes fogging as she thought, “And this wedding…”

Wendy closed her eyes, feeling tipsy. “Will go off with no drama from me.”

“Wendy?”

“Mhmm.”

“Want to be my maid of honor or something?”