“I cannot even believe...” She was still thin on air. “This is the worst stunt you’ve ever pulled. And that’s saying a lot.”
“That is actually saying a lot,” Maya admitted.
Blue glared at her.
“I’m sorry.”
“You’re not.”
“I honestly didn’t know you’d react this way.”
“Oh really? You didn’t know I’d react this way? Right. Then why didn’t you tell me up front? You knew. And you did it anyway.”
“Look. I knew you wouldn’t be thrilled but I didn’t realize... I invited her before we left—just for the day! But then when I told you about the call and you got so mad about it...well... I should’ve uninvited her then but I just...didn’t know how.”
“You say, ‘Hey, sorry, I screwed up. You’re not invited.’ It’s not hard. And why on earth would she think she would be invited here? It’s my nana’s house!”
Maya grimaced. “I may have possibly mentioned you were okay with it.”
Blue gaped at her. She rubbed her hands over her face.
“Please just come say hi. I know you hate me right now but please.”
“No.”
“She’s already seen you. Don’t make it weird.”
“Tell her it was a hologram. That I’m really back in New York.”
Maya looked at her helplessly.
“I cannot believe you did this to me.”
“I didn’t do it to you—I did it for you. I love and adore you and I would never want to hurt you. I wanted to make things better.”
“For you.”
“For all of us.”
“You can’t. And it isn’t your place to try.”
“Okay. I get that now. It was ill conceived. I may have a habit of things like that.”
“May?”
“But still, I would consider it a huge, humongous, gigantic, undeserved favor if you would just come say hi...”
“The favor was me agreeing to come on your spontaneous trip, paying for the rental car, supplying the house,” Blue said. “The other favor is me not kicking your ass.”
“I’ve seen you throw a punch. I’m not scared.”
“No, you haven’t. When?”
“Mark Tarrington. Eighth grade. He snapped your bra. You tried to punch him. He ducked. You lost your balance and fell into a pond.”
“Oh, right. He was an asshole,” Blue said. And then returning to the present moment, “And so are you.”
“It’s true. I am. Now come on. Ten minutes. Then I’ll ask her—gently—to leave.”
“No.”
Renee was calling from the driveway. “Maya?”
Maya turned back to Blue, whispered, “Please.”
Blue whispered back, “No.”
“I’ll give you twenty bucks.”
“You don’t have twenty bucks.”
“But if I did, I would give it to you.” Maya made a pleading puppy-dog face.
Blue sighed. It was so hard to stay mad at Maya—a fact that itself made her mad. And she knew it would make her look pathetic and petty not to go back out there. It would give Renee the impression that Blue actually cared. Which she absolutely did not. Not at all. “Go away. I need a cigarette.”
“Okay,” Maya said. “That’s not a no, so I’ll take it.”
Blue watched Maya walk back to the front. She could see Renee through the bushes that separated the yard from the driveway. That profile so familiar, so deeply imprinted on her. She took in the changes in her face, her hair, her clothes—a glaring display of all the lost years. Time, usually so insidious and creeping, announced itself loudly. How inexplicably grown-up they were, how they had done this growing apart. There was a sudden ache in her throat made of history. The recognition of a different version of this story where that night hadn’t happened. Where she would run out and tackle-hug Renee, both of them talking over each other in their excitement.
She looked at her cigarette pack, decided it wouldn’t do enough, pulled out her vape pen, pressed the button and inhaled. It was all she could do, all she knew how to do, to let the pot fuzz the edges of her brain, settle like soft foam over her nervous system.
She should just leave. Go back to Manhattan. Return the rental car. Spend the weekend catching up with work. Let them figure out their own transportation! In fact, to hell with it, why not? She had better things to do than screw around at the beach.
But then—Jack. And besides, Hannah was innocent. It wouldn’t be fair to her.
She leaned back against the house, followed the pot with an emergency cigarette. She was smoking too much but whatever, screw it. Everything was an emergency right now. Her life. This trip. She breathed deep, as if she could smother the slow rise of old things, that terrible susurrus of darkness rearing up. Wordless, imageless memory in her body, in her cells. The bottomless unanswered call of her eighteen-year-old self: Help me, someone help me!
She bit down on the memory, looked out at the blotchy sunlight through the canopy of trees, a kid on a bike in his driveway riding up and down, up and down, lonely as the moon’s rise and set.
HANNAH
Hannah wanted to run after Blue. But there was Renee, who she hadn’t seen in twelve years, standing alone in the driveway looking wide-eyed and uncertain, her arms drooping with the weight of the spurned wine and flowers.
She didn’t know what to do. Just when she was settling into the trip, Maya had to throw in a plot twist. She was already stressed after the night at the motel, turbulent weather brewing at the edges of her. She could sense it like the first ripples of chop on a pre-storm sea.
Hannah made a decision. Hoped Blue would forgive her.
“Renee!” she said, stepping onto the porch.
Renee’s face smoothed slightly. Hannah took in her stylish haircut, her effortful clothes in the latest fashion, her flawless makeup. There was something slightly different about her face. Older, of course, but something else that unsettled Hannah because she couldn’t put her finger on it. Botox? Plastic surgery? Still it was Renee. Renee! And though her eyes needed to catch up to this new version, her heart did not. Years could pass, the mind could forget, but the heart always remembered.
They hugged and Hannah said, “Hi, hi, hi!” trying to talk over the growing, obvious absence of Maya and Blue.