I don’t think he’s said a thing to anyone.
I imagine he told Taylor that I was his friend. His wingman. His best friend.
If Taylor even asked.
Katie says my name gently, draws me back. She’s looking at me carefully, while Violet watches my phone with a mix of surprise and horror at its inactivity. Maybe when she puts texts out into the universe, they come back to her quickly. Maybe she really thought her plan was going to work.
The waiter has probably been hovering for an hour, waiting for the teary gay boy with the phone problems to compose himself long enough to order more raw fish.
“Do you need anything else?” he asks.
I feel enough time has passed for my tea to get cold. But it hasn’t.
I shake my head. I’m out of words until some more appear on my phone.
“Ryan could be busy,” Katie says once the waiter’s gone. “His phone could be off.”
But my words will still be waiting for him.
And if he’s half as into Taylor as he seemed to be, his phone is going to be within reaching distance and the ringer will be set loud enough to wake the dead.
Unless he’s with Taylor right now.
Katie is reaching for my hand, but it’s Violet’s hand she should be reaching for. Here they are, together for the first time, and I’ve turned them into minor characters in my own soap opera.
“I always wonder what it would be like to meet him now, as a stranger,” I find myself saying. “This is my game within our game—to try to come up with the scenario in which it would work out better. Maybe if I met him now. Maybe if I met him in college. After college. Once he’s comfortable with who he is. But every time I do this, I feel awful. Because I’m sacrificing our history. I don’t love him for who he is now. I wouldn’t love him for who he is two years from now. I love him for all the hims he’s already been with me. I guess that’s the contradiction. I want a fresh start. I would fight for that fresh start. But I also want it to be a continuation.”
Violet smiles. Not a happy smile—a melancholy smile.
“It’s actually not a contradiction at all,” she says. “You want the continuation that feels like a start.”
At that moment, my phone vibrates on the table.
I’m afraid to look.
It’s Katie who picks it up. Who reads the screen. Who says, “Oh.”
“Is that a good ‘oh’ or a bad ‘oh’?” I ask.
She holds up the phone so I can see it.
I’m glad you have my back.
I check the time he sent his message against the time I sent mine.
There’s a six minute, forty second difference.
It took him six minutes and forty seconds to type: I’m glad you have my back.
I start to compose my next line. I’m glad you’re glad. No. Any time. No. Don’t you know what I mean when I say I’ll fight for you?
No.
“Put down the phone,” Violet insists.
“I wasn’t going to—”
“I’m serious—put down the phone. Now. I know about these things. He’s not done. He just needs to realize he’s not done. And if you respond, you will prevent him from realizing that.”
“How do you ‘know about these things’?” Katie asks.
“Songs of innocence, songs of experience,” Violet replies.
I can tell Katie is not entirely satisfied with this answer. She’s about to say something, but she’s interrupted by the phone vibrating again.
I need you, it says.
More typing. And then:
Come over?
I look at Katie and Violet. They look at me.
We all know what I’m going to do.
10
Kate
Now there are two of us at a table set for three.
And I guess the reality that Violet is here is finally settling in, after the humiliation of Brad and Audra and my paintings. After the giddy high of Violet’s purchase, and the bravery of Mark’s text, and the dreadful anticipation of Ryan’s response.
Now it’s just Violet and me, and I’m searching for something to say.
“So tell me about the trapeze. Is it scary?”
“It must be terrifying. I’ve only been on one a couple times, though, and only when it was very close to the ground.”
“Your scar, though. I thought…”
“This?” She touches her eye. “I got this by falling off a skateboard when I was eight.”
“Fucking Lehna,” I mutter.
“What?”
“Nothing. So you weren’t actually studying the trapeze, then?”
She laughs. “No. I did a lot of watching. It’s so captivating. But it takes years to learn. Mostly, I was doing homework packets. Homeschool curriculum is … not the most stimulating unless you have parents who make it fun by, like, doing art projects and going on field trips and dissecting artichokes to discover they’re flowers—”
“Artichokes are not flowers.”
“Oh yes,” she says, pointing her chopsticks at me. “They are.” She pops an edamame bean into her mouth and grins. “I learned it from a packet.”
I grin back at her. She’s so confident, so effortlessly funny and smart.
“What about you, though? UCLA, right? So you must be into school.”
I shrug. “I guess so. Mostly, I just really like art.”
“It’s crazy, isn’t it?” she asks.