This Much Is True (35 page)

My eyes fill with tears.

Why do I always disappoint him?

Why do I choose to do that?

“You’ve been gone a year. A
year
, Tally. Please don’t stand there looking at me like that and then tell me you need more
time
. Please don’t fucking do that to me.”

I am over him—the other one, who neither one of us can name out loud anymore because in the past year by some unspoken agreement; we have stopped saying his name. And we can’t say it even now.

And the other one. My secret—the one Rob knows—
Cara
. I haven’t thought of her since yesterday, when I packed for home, until now. She is two. Talking. Walking. Tremblay’s postcards have kept me somewhat informed.

I forget nothing and no one even when I want to, even when all I want and need to do is
forget
.

Easy. Easy mistakes. Easy lies. These are the easy ones we can tell ourselves.

Rob stares at me hard, willing me to say something.

I do the same.

“Okay,” I finally utter. “Okkkkkaaaaay. Let’s do this thing. I’ve got a few months before I go back. You can’t hassle me about this next tour though. You get what you want. I get what I want. We make this place
ours
. Okay? Yes. Okay. Go ahead and ask me.” I sigh and take a jagged breath because I’m surprisingly a little giddy at using all these unfamiliar words like
okay
and
yes
and
go ahead
and
ask me
. Yet, acquiescence and this inner peace of some kind come right along with them.

“Really?” He looks unsure.

I roll my eyes. “Damn it, Rob. Please don’t ruin it for me anymore than I already have.”

“Tally, will you marry me?”

I start to use the word okay, but he looks disappointed with that one. He drives a Volvo. He did. He used to. Now he has a Porsche but has a driver and gets driven everywhere. Safe. He is safe. He is nice and wonderful.
An easy mistake.
I cover my ears, so I can say the word without hearing myself say it. “Yes.”

He looks surprised—an answer he wasn’t expecting or rather is ill-prepared for. Then he smiles the smirky smile, and that’s when I know for sure that’s why Holly loved him. Holly still loves him.
And me? I’m a good stand-in for Holly.

In this moment, I want to make him happy because one of us should be…happy. One of us should try to be happy.

I pull him to his feet. He folds me into his arms and kisses me as if I’m his sole source for oxygen. Thirty seconds later, he slips this brilliant diamond on my left ring finger. It feels weird and heavy and binding.

His smirky smile saves me again. I stare at him open-mouthed.

“I’ve always loved you, Tally Landon.” He gets this extraordinary look as if he can’t quite believe he’s said this much aloud. “It was always
you
.” He dips his head and kisses my ringed hand.

“A place. Us. Together. Okay.”

He looks up at me. “Get dressed, baby. I want to tell the world we’re getting married.”

“Married,” I grit the word out through clenched teeth and then force myself to smile. I even manage to avoid bitching at him about calling me
baby
. That particular discussion can wait for another day or two.

He kisses me again and leaves. “Before you change your mind,” he calls out from the hallway. I listen to his fancy dress shoes tap away along the marble floor until I can’t hear them anymore, and then I breathe.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. What the hell just happened?

* * *

Alone.
I make a three-hundred and sixty degree turn around the sumptuous master bedroom and try to not to examine too closely to what just unfolded in the past forty-five minutes between his parents and mine and his proposal. I’m exhausted all at once. I stare out at the dark twinkling view that sweeps across one whole side of windows that face Central Park and the bay and include the best parts of Manhattan’s skyline.

What’s left of my soul has been taken, sold, and repurchased. And I’ve just consented to it all.

He’s gone all out. There’s a dress laid out on the king-size bed. It’s a black velvet cocktail dress. It’s expensive couture that I recognize having just spent the past few months in Paris.

Kimberley Powers chooses that particular moment to saunter in. “He picked it out. I told him it was too conservative, but he insisted you’d love it,” she says with a tight smile.

“I do.”

“He’s great. Rob. Is. Great.” She rewards me with the all-powerful Kimberley Powers stare that must include a Star Trek mind meld of sorts for free.

I nod, not trusting myself to speak. “How do you two know each other?” I finally ask.

“We met up a few times. I told you I like to keep tabs on all my special clients.”

“So, you did.”

“If he’s what you want, I’m all for it.” She gets this uncertain smile. Her bravado apparently falters as much as mine.

“What did he tell you, exactly?”

“He wants to make you
happy
. I believe him.” She gets this defiant look.

This I can handle.
Kimberley Powers defiant. It practically fuels me.

I grab the dress, strip out of my travel clothes—designer Parisian jeans and a silk blouse—and slip the black velvet dress over my head. A perfect fit.

Kimberley tosses me some strappy black sandals, and I put them on one at time.

“Jesus, Tally what are you? A size zero?” Kimberley asks as she zips up the back of the dress for me.

“Don’t start.”

“Yeah, well, you need to eat a hamburger or something.” She laughs and so do I.

“I’ve missed those. They just can’t get it right in Europe no matter how you try to describe it when you order.”

“I
know
. American food is so hard to come by there,” Kimberley says. “So when do you go back?”

“May? A summer and fall tour. We’ll be in Moscow through the holidays.”

“God, it’s worse than baseball.”

I look over at her intently, take a deep breath but wait until my voice will sound steady and clear. “Hey, Kimberley, we don’t ever talk about baseball; okay? I just want to be clear, since I’m one of your special clients. We don’t talk about
him
. Not now. Not ever.”

She gets this sympathetic look.

She knows something
—something she probably wants to tell me, but I don’t want to hear it, and I tell her that now.

“I don’t want to know. I. Don’t. Want. To. Know.”

“Okay then,” she says evenly.

Together, we walk arm-in-arm down the hall toward the party. Kimberley makes small talk with me about the great artwork and the great location and how great the place is.

I reward her with a dirty look.

“One more
great
and I won’t believe you.”

“Ditto,” she says.

Then Rob introduces me as his future wife—the future Mrs. Robert Garrett Thorn—to all those suddenly gathered around us. Kimberley drifts off to one side, and Rob takes over.

Beholden to the task at hand, I spend the rest of the evening hugging people and smiling and nodding at them and showing them my left hand, until I feel as if I’ll never actually be able to do any of these things again in this lifetime.

I smile and nod just the way Allaire Tremblay taught me years ago because you must do what you have to do to survive. You dance on. That’s what you do.

* * * *

CHAPTER THIRTY

Tally ~ Far far away from here

M
y best friend Marla is projecting to be all kinds of things for this bridal audience, and my designated role is to sanctify it all. Marla says she’s going straight to grad school after teaching for a while, after Charlie finishes medical school. I’m impressed he’s still going and in the top twenty percent of his class. It’s all coming together according to my best friend. Oh, Marla. I think it. I don’t say, but I think it a lot. She’s marrying him on Valentine’s Day, three years to the day that Holly died. None of us are supposed to notice that, although it’s hard not to. Clearly, Holly would have been her maid of honor and not me because Marla would have been fair that way. She would have included Holly in this huge honor, and my sister would have been great at this kind of thing; whereas, I am so
not. I am the fish out of water here. I cannot breathe. I need air and water and a place far far away from here.

Rob decided to be a prick at the last minute and decided not to come with me. There was no real explanation for his last-minute change of plans. He just bailed on me when we got to the airport.

I boarded the plane alone, battled with myself a number of times on the five-hour flight about taking off this incendiary fucking rock on my left hand, but eventually decided I may need to be weaponized at this event. So, I left it on.

Marla announces she wants babies. Three babies in five years. She looks at me. I start to feel nauseous and must turn a little white. I look away from her and allow myself to think all these nasty thoughts.
Three babies in five years with Charlie? Are you fucking kidding me?
That doesn’t add up on any girl’s wish list. Charlie Masterson.
A father? Say it isn’t so
.

Yet she lays out this family plan the way you’d say, “After yoga, I’ll go to Lia’s for the mani-special and then wax on about hairstyles and hemlines until dinner.”

If I were gifted at making long-term plans, which by now we all know I’m not, and if I was at all hopeful, which we all know that I can never be, although it crosses my mind that it’s entirely possible these are all just huge, fucking, temporary setbacks and nothing more, even though it’s been going on for over three years now, since Holly died, and I met Lincoln Presley. Events that could be construed as somehow inevitably related. Yes, perhaps there’s an expiration date on the said pursuit of unhappiness. Perhaps, things will eventually go my way after I actually discover what that way is supposed to be.

I don’t get to finish this last thought completely because now everyone notices the rock on my left ring finger.

“Rob?” Marla asks, incredulous. She makes a weird shape with her mouth, not quite an O more of a Q. This streak of outright sorrow crosses her face like a flash of lightning, but then it’s gone. She’s hugging me and kissing both sides of my face. “Tally, you’re getting married.”

“When?” asks the bitch from Bel Air.

I don’t like her. I don’t bother to learn her name.
In forty-eight hours, this thing will be done. She and I will never see each other again, and we are both already thanking God for that little reprieve in our otherwise extraordinary lives.

“No date.”

That’s all I say.

I look at them all imploring them with a single scary glare that it is best for all to just move on to another topic of conversation. Marla sighs and gets this secret smirky smile, which reminds me of Rob. Envious and sad, I just watch her through these rising misted layers of hair spray that linger on the air and co-mingle with the flotilla of dust particles and the pungent scent of Beyonce’s
Heat
perfume. I’m not too sure of the bride-to-be’s appropriateness with that particular scent, but I inhale deeply, while she sways to the lyrics of
Bad Romance
and taps Gaga’s rhythm with her red stiletto-adorned feet in the cramped quarters of her one-bedroom, one-bath hotel suite.

She’s got this dreamy look going—her
everything’s-right-with-the-world-why-isn’t-it-right-with-you
-
Tally?
face. It’s such a carryover from high school that I almost laugh. Her golden locks wisp around her face every which way from her hair spray jag, minutes earlier. She manages to look absolutely stunning, and it comes together all so effortlessly. She’s lean and tan and vibrant and so sure of herself. Marla really can do all the moves in her yoga class, including the Crane pose
Bakasana,
which she shows her L.A. roommates slash bridesmaids-to-be and me—her lowly maid-of-honor—in one smooth, sultry move.

I close my eyes, remembering how good she used to be at ballet. All of me is filled with instant regret and endless remorse at what went down with Tremblay and what she gave up for
this
.

I open my eyes and look around the sumptuous suite. The Oceana Hotel & Spa at Half Moon Bay Harbor is not a bad consolation prize for a wedded bliss, but she could have done so much more on stage with me.

“Yes,” Marla confides to the vamps that surround her. “Yoga keeps me limber in all
situations.”
It’s the word she uses for all encounters of the sexual kind; now that she’s so down with all things strictly associated with UCLA. I roll my eyes at this one.
If they’d only see her perform.
But she obviously doesn’t talk to them about ballet. And, up until two years ago, she’d been incapable of a long-term relationship of more than six months at any given time; but then she’d re-connected with Charlie because of me, because of me and Linc, because her ballet dream disintegrated and her modeling one never materialized.
Because of love? Say it isn’t so.

I hang my head and twist the rock around so it doesn’t sparkle so much in the blasted sunlight here.

“Just don’t give up your dreams,” I say only to her during a decided lull in the girlish shrieks of conversation happening all around us. I must be experiencing equal parts of inebriation and panic to talk like this out loud.
Here.

Everyone politely laughs, except Tracey Rothfield, who judiciously files her nails and looks bored by it all and has informed the bachelorette party of five that she’s been ready to go for an hour. I am definitely the odd one out with this whirlwind wedding nuptials’ weekend. I’m designated the girl from New York, the bride’s best friend from high school, the ballerina, whatever that means to these three—Tracey, Fay and what’s-her-name—Marla’s college friends, who get to see her practically every single fucking day.

Yet, after only knowing her for just over two years, they are asked to be in her wedding. It’s true that it’s been too long since I’ve seen her.
But still. These are her friends?
This is UCLA’s best offering for
friends
?

And now, she’s marrying Charlie. Why? Because it’s what’s expected? Because she’s changed him? What do I know of Marla anymore? What do I know for sure of Marla anymore? What can she possibly know of me?

The bride-to-be takes a long swig of her margarita. She wipes the salt from her lips with the back of her hand and asks this Fay to get her a refill, who dutifully complies. I stifle a laugh in witnessing Marla’s complete domination of this wisp of a girl.

Marla smirks in my general direction. “I promise. I won’t give up on my dreams. You can’t either, Tally Landon, dancer extraordinaire.”

Does she mean to ridicule? Is she making fun of my life? Does she disapprove of me? She knows all my secrets. Does she still judge me for giving up Cara? Even now? Does she still hate that she has to keep that secret for me? Or, is it Rob? Rob and me? And, this ring that I should have taken off, but a part of me wanted to show her, show
him
if he shows up, that I have definitely moved on.

The Xanax is not working.
Mixing it with a margarita was probably not a wise choice.

Being worked up about these tag-alongs—these three Girl Scout cookie wanna-be’s—is not worth it. I didn’t come all the way back from New York to San Francisco’s Half Moon Bay to hang out with Tracey, Fay, and what’s-her-name. I came back home for Marla’s wedding, to be with her, to meet up with my family, to stomp on the old stomping grounds of my past, and to reveal to the world as much as to myself that I have moved on with my life. Yes. I’m the girl from New York now. I’m Rob’s fiancée. I’m a star. I’ve made it. This is me now. Of course, it’s true that I also came back to San Francisco to finally sort myself out because who knew I’d still be thinking about that decision I made two years ago that only Marla knows? I intend to see Cara and Tremblay, at some point, before I go back. Just to know. To ensure that everything is fine. That things are as right as rain. That she’s happy. Because if Cara’s happy, then I can finally be happy. And, if Elvis shows, I want him to know that I’m happy with what I have—which is everything, just minus him and Cara and Marla and Charlie.

I’m happy, aren’t I? I’m almost happy. Aren’t I?

My eyes begin to sting. I blink hard. I swig the margarita and allow it to burn all the way down because I’ve gulped too much of it.

I have everything.

Rob. Career. Fame.

Don’t I?

I do.

I’m almost happy. Almost.

Marla stares at me. Then, she grabs my hand and smiles.

We are the only two here. The other three just fade away and don’t matter anymore. Her look tells me all of this.

I decide
no
. Marla’s not being thoughtless. Marla isn’t that way. She’s a guardian angel.
Mine
. She’s the lit candle lighting the way in my life, even when she isn’t close by. During the darkest days of that angst-filled summer, fall, winter, Marla was there. She held my hand, told me everything was going to be okay. And it was okay, has been okay. But I just need to hear her say it—say it again to me now—everything is fine. Everything is okay. Things are as they should be. I just need to hear her say it. One more time.

* * *

It’s late, and we drank too much. No amount of food, late at night, is going to soak up the amount of alcohol that we’ve consumed over the last eight hours. It’s two in the morning, and the three bridesmaids went to their rooms over an hour ago. Marla and I sit out under the stars in comfy lounge chairs on the Oceana’s expansive back patio.

Ten minutes ago, we dragged our bed comforters outside and wrapped ourselves up in them. It is forty degrees out, but it feels good to breathe in the salty San Francisco Bay air even out here in the dark of night with the stars glowing at us from overhead. We can see our breath. Every time we open our mouths and breathe, we puff out steamy air. For some reason, we both think this is funny.

We’ve waited hours to be alone like this. I don’t waste it now.

“I hate them,” I say without preamble and true vehemence.
Such honesty.
“All three.” I hold up my hand and splay out three fingers.

“I know they’re awful, aren’t they?” Marla laughs. “I kind of panicked. I lived near them right by campus. We’ve hung out a bit. I guess I didn’t know them all that well because I had no idea they were this catty and this slutty and this boring. Charlie’s been busy. I’ve been working extra hours waiting tables so we would have enough money for all of this.”

She waves her arm around the hotel grounds like she’s holding a magic wand.

“I went to school with them, hung out with them for drinks and stuff and pool parties as part of the L.A. scene, but I didn’t really know them. Not like you. You know? I’ve tried to stay busy. Charlie’s got three more years of med school. Then, it’s on to a residency. It all costs money and he won’t ask his parents or Linc for anything.”

I turn and look at her in the semi-dark. “He’s really going to be a doctor.”

“I know.” She shakes her head and then stops. “I didn’t even know until I got here. He fesses up about getting into med school right after I moved in with him.” She sighs. “Charlie’s in med school. He’s going to be a doctor. Can you believe it?”

“No. That’s just weird.”

“You like that word a lot.

“I guess so.”

She hands me the bottle of champagne because we are swigging directly from it at this point. “So,” she says. “Don’t you want to know why he’s not coming?”

“Does it matter?
Will
it matter?”

“He wanted you to be able to be here for me, and he didn’t want you to be uncomfortable around him.”

“That’s stupid. That’s ridiculous. That’s weird. ”

“I know.”

I hand her the bottle back. We snuggle closer to each other in our blankets and rest for a little bit in the lounge chairs and don’t talk for a while.

“I’m going to see her while I’m here,” I finally say. “Tremblay sends these postcards and a few photographs; but I just want to check in for once. Make sure Cara’s happy and all of that.”

“I want to come.”

“You do?”

“Tally, I need to see her, too. I’m sure she’s great but I want to make sure she’s okay, too. I think about Cara all the time. We should have kept her.”

“It wasn’t that simple.”

“I know.” Marla looks over at me in the dark. Her face exhibits this intensity I’ve never seen before. “Do you think he even realizes how much you sacrificed for him? I mean
really
sacrificed it all for him.”

The mix of alcohol makes me tear up.
Too much alcohol. No food.
My throat gets tight, and I have trouble keeping my emotions under control. “I didn’t think you saw it quite that way,” I finally say.

“I
always
saw it that way. Always.” She sighs. “He makes me so mad. He’s being such a jerk these days. He’s got more money than God. You’d think he’d be willing to help Charlie out.
But no.
My fiancé just follows him around like a puppy dog and Linc just doesn’t even see that Charlie really needs his help.”

“I’ll talk to him. I’ll call him tomorrow and tell him to come to the wedding. I’ll tell him to quit being a jerk, too; and to help Charlie out.”

“You will?” Marla asks with this undeniable wistfulness.

“I have his number.”

“You do?”

“I’ve had his number for years.”

“Nobody has his number. When they found out he was Charlie’s first cousin, all three bridesmaids wanted his cell number, but even I don’t have it. Elvis gave you his number,” Marla says in awe and wonder.

“A long time ago.”