They offer congratulations and Hazel curtsies. “Do third graders get music?” she asks Yuri.
He nods. “Kindergarten through second is vocal only. In third they begin a string instrument. Violin, viola, or cello.”
“Can I learn, too?” Her eyebrows slowly rise. “Like, sit in on the class?”
John and Yuri smile at Hazel in the bemused way that says, Is she fucking serious? I imagine most elementary school teachers nap, eat, or cry when they have a free period.
Hazel does a little dance and mimes playing a cello. “I’ve always wanted to be the next Yo-Yo Ma.”
“I . . . guess so?” Yuri says, disarmed by the power of Hazel Bradford’s cartoon giggle and bewitching honesty. I turn and look at her, worrying about what Yuri has just gotten himself into. But when he checks out her chest, he doesn’t seem worried at all.
“Yo-Yo Ma began performing when he was four and a half,” I tell her.
“I’d better get cracking, then. Don’t let me down, Yuri.”
He laughs and asks her where she’s from. Half listening to her answer—only child, born in Eugene, raised by an artist mother and engineer father, Lewis & Clark for college—I pull out my phone and check the latest texts from Tabby, each of them sent about five minutes apart. I hate that I get a tiny bit of pleasure knowing that she kept checking her phone.
Don’t be mad at me.
I told Trish this was the last Friday I could work so late.
Do you want me to try to come up tomorrow, or would it be a waste?
Josh, Josh, don’t be mad at me, I’m so sorry.
I blow out a controlled breath, and type,
At Em’s party, so only seeing these now. I’m not mad. Come home tomorrow if you want, but it’s totally up to you. You know I always want to see you.
··········
“She said you were going to be best friends?” My sister frowns at a shirt and drops it back on the pile at Nordstrom Rack. “I’m her best friend.”
“It’s what she said.” A laugh rises in my chest but doesn’t make its way out when I remember Hazel accepting her fourth margarita from Dave and asking me to staple her shirt to her waistband. “She’s a trip.”
“She’s made me weird,” Em says. “It’ll happen to you, too.”
I think I know exactly what Em means, but seeing the effect Hazel has had on my sister—making her more fun-loving, giving her social confidence that only now, in hindsight, can I really attribute to Hazel—I don’t consider this oddness a bad thing. And Hazel is so unlike Tabby and Zach—so unlike everyone, really, but maybe the polar opposite of my girlfriend and best friend, who both tend to be quiet and observant—that I think it might be fun to have her around. Like keeping interesting beer in the fridge that you’re always surprised and pleased to find there.
Is that a terrible metaphor? I glance at my sister and mentally calculate the amount of physical damage she could inflict with the hanger she’s holding.
“She’s half ‘hot exasperating mess’ and half ‘color in a monotone landscape.’ ” Em pulls the shirt from the hanger and hands it to me. I fold it over my arm, letting her—as usual—pick my clothes. “I can’t believe Tabby isn’t here, again.”
I don’t bite. It’s the third time she’s tried to bait me into a conversation about my girlfriend.
“Doesn’t she know that relationships take work?”
Sliding my gaze over to her, I remind her, “She has a deadline, Em.”
“Does she really, though?” Her voice is high and tight and she takes out her frustration on a pair of shorts she throws back down on the stack in front of her. “Doesn’t this evasion of hers feel like . . . like . . .”
I prepare for this with a deep breath, hoping my sister doesn’t go there.
“Like she’s cheating?” she asks.
And she went there.
“Emily,” I begin calmly, “when Dave is working crazy hours at the school, and you come over and eat dinner at my place and vent about how you haven’t seen him in days, do I tell you, ‘Well, maybe he’s got someone on the side’?”
“No, but Dave is also not a flaky asshole.”
This trips my fuse. “What is your deal with Tabby? She’s only ever been nice to you.”
She flinches at my volume, because it’s pretty high, which I know is rare. “It’s not even that you’re too good for her, or she’s too good for you,” she says, “it’s like you guys are in different circles. You have different values.”
It’s true that our parents—who moved here from Seoul when they were newly married and nineteen—aren’t huge fans of Tabitha, but I also think they might not be huge fans of any non-Korean girl I date. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s what Emily means. I give her a bewildered look.
She turns to face me fully, ticking reasons off on her fingers. “Tabby is the only person I know who has silk sheets. She spends hours getting ready to end up looking like she’s just rolled out of bed. You, on the other hand, love camping and still occasionally wear the sweatpants I got you for Christmas nine years ago.”
I shake my head, still not following.
“She thinks of Heathers as a pretty good guide to social etiquette.” Emily stares at me. “She laughs at Romy and Michele’s High School Reunion completely without irony but has sat through four Christopher Guest films with us without cracking a single smile. Even when she does come home to visit you, she spends half her time battling out Who Wore It Better debates in the comments on Instagram.”
I blink, trying to connect the dots. “So your issue with her is . . . you think she’s shallow?”
“No, I’m not saying that. If those things make her happy, then fine. What I’m saying is I think you don’t have a lot in common. I watch you guys interact and it’s, like, silence, or ‘Can you hand me the carrots over there on the counter?’ She is very, very enmeshed in the world of fashion, and Hollywood, and appearances.” Emily stares up at me, and I get the silent communication as I shuffle the load of clothes she’s selected for me from one arm to the other.
“Well, then it’s convenient for both her and me that I don’t care what I wear. Obviously, I let the women in my life choose.”
My sister’s eyes narrow and I watch as she shrewdly takes a different tack. “What do you guys do when she’s here?”
I file through the images of Tabby’s last few visits. Sex. Walking to the corner for groceries. Tabby didn’t want to go canoeing or hiking and I didn’t feel like hitting the bars, so we stayed in for more sex. Dinner out nearby, followed by sex.
I’m pretty sure my sister doesn’t want that level of specificity, but she doesn’t need me to answer, apparently, because she rolls on. “And what do you do when you visit her?”
Sex, clubs, crowded restaurants, everyone on their phones texting people across the room, more clubs, me complaining about the clubs, me hiking Runyon Canyon alone, coming back to her place and having more sex.
Emily looks away. “Anyway, I’m meddling.”