“How’s it going, pumpkin?”
My face is still smashed against his chest when I answer with a simple “Can’t complain.”
“Well good,” he says. “We don’t like complainers in this house. Right, honey?”
My mom lifts a spatula in response with a faint “Mhmm.”
I get many questions during dinner, but most are standard operating procedure: When did you get in last night? Did you enjoy your flight? How was your day?
I tell them I walked through town with my notebook, stopping to jot down various ideas. In truth, I didn’t write down anything. I couldn’t. My mind feels blurry, like I’m working through fog to try to make sense of things.
What did I expect? I kind of hoped I would roll back home and then some magic carpet would carry me out to the magical land where writer’s block doesn’t exist.
No magic carpet. No weirdly attractive cartoon Aladdin. (Seriously, what is that?) No genie. Nothing.
The sound of rumbling gravel underneath wheels signals Asher’s arrival to pick me up for Kayla’s. The headlights from his black truck shine through the window as he crunches across the driveway and up the porch stairs.
“Bacon me,” he says when he opens the door. Mom already has a to-go plate made, making it easy for us to quickly pile into his truck with the smell of cured meat overwhelming the car.
Kayla lives on a cul-de-sac one neighborhood down. Asher tells me she bought her parents’ old house after they moved down to the beach for retirement. Before we were old enough to drive, it was only a fifteen-minute bike ride away, and I guess now that we’re nearing thirty, bikes have been replaced with cars.
It’s odd how it’s simply…unchanged. There’s a fresh coat of paint and a new garden, but other than that, it’s still the same place we visited every Friday night after football games. The house looks empty with how dark it is, but there’s a pool of light coming from the back yard. Asher and I head straight for the wooden fence. He opens it for me, and I walk through.
Although the face of the house is basically the same, Kayla’s back yard is very different from how I remember. She’s transformed it into a Pinterest girl’s dream. The patio is pristine, adorned by hanging Edison lights and papier-mâché balls. The white couch and wooden furniture look like they came straight out of an Ikea room display, and she even has that faux turf under a lone lawn chair as if the perfect grass around her raised patio wasn’t enough.
The yard is filled with at least twenty people. I know all of them, even if some take me a minute or two to remember. Asher helps me with those unfamiliar faces. I barely recognize my bible school first kiss, Joey, with his hair loss and beer gut. Turns out he’s married to Kayla, who practically tackles me on sight, tugging me close. She’s one of the few attendees who looks exactly the same as she did ten years ago. Apparently, her consistent workout schedule—just the same since high school—has paid off, because she tells me she’s still very tight, even after having the twins.
She grabs my arm and drags me around her back yard. After two cheap beers and deciphering a few more faces from the past, I’m almost—dare I say it—comfortable.
Hours pass with more beers, more fizzy drinks, more of Kayla telling me about her Kegel exercises, which I really, really, wish she would stop talking about please God right now. It grows later, and I wonder if Keaton will even show up. Then the fence creaks open once more and, through the exiting crowd, patting some people on shoulders and giving a good-natured “Sorry I’m late”, comes Keaton.
I grip my Solo cup tighter.
Let me be clear: It’s not like I’ve been pining over him for ten years. I’ve dated around, had one or two long-term relationships. When I moved away from Foxe Hill, most of the details and people were left behind. Occasionally, Asher would mention Keaton on phone calls, and that would inevitably send the familiar spark through me once more, like greeting an old friend.
Two, five, seven…it doesn’t matter how many years pass; the flipping in my stomach at the mention of Keaton’s name has never faltered.
Keaton got a girlfriend; We hate Keaton’s girlfriend; We love Keaton’s girlfriend; Keaton broke up with said girlfriend…it’s the same relationship story over and over (just like it might be with anyone floating through their twenties), and it always triggered the same dread within me. Now the source of that dread is standing right in front of me in a red flannel with a dimpled grin.
I’m still trying to look distracted by talking to Joey. He’s going on about his love of camping, and I am barely listening.
“It’s just not the same,” he groans. “May as well do a B&B and call it a day. These kids…”
“Glamping again?” Keaton’s voice calls from behind me. He appears on the other side of Asher with a Solo cup in hand, much faster than I anticipated he would. He doesn’t make eye contact with me.
“Listen, I haven’t been real camping in forever,” Joey says, pointing a finger in Keaton’s direction. “The twins will only do that fake, hotel-type thing.”
“How rude.” It comes from Lily, another girl from our graduating class—well, Asher and Keaton’s. She’s been lingering nearby all night. Considering she’s one of the last few remaining at this get-together, I assume she’s close with Joey and Kayla. I remember seeing her in the halls and at pep rallies. Lily fell into the cheerleading crowd, but she never was quite as popular. If I recall correctly, she was only around for their basket tosses. Like Kayla, she has also maintained her figure since high school, but unlike Kayla, she’s significantly quieter, only speaking in little quips here and there. I decide I like her.
“Oh my god, camping trip!” Kayla yells from the makeshift bar on the patio, her arms raised in the air with one hand holding a glass of white wine and the other her husband’s next beer. “Let’s go out to the woods. Just us adults!”
Kayla is just as I remember: loud, bubbly, and prone to yelling ideas out at random.
Joey points to his wife, moving the hand back and forth and biting his lower lip. “Yes, yes!”
“Violet! You’re in, right?” Kayla croons. “Ever the working woman, but even working women need some time off.”
I open my mouth to say Oh my god no I definitely do not want to be in the wild. When my brother and I were kids, Asher always told me bears would kill us if we went camping. Not sneaking around, not simply present—no, a sure-fire death right on sight. Let’s just say it ruined it for a lifetime. Sure, I may not be five anymore, but who knows what lions, tigers, and bears lurk out there? Unfortunately, Asher answers for me before I get the chance to say No thank you, I will not be having a bear maul me.
“Well, of course she is!” He throws an arm around me, followed by a grin.
You bastard.
“Speaking of working woman, any ideas for the next movie?” Joey asks, taking the pre-cracked beer from his wife and gulping it. “We loved your first, you know.”
The topic change does nothing to ease my worry. If I get one more question about the progress of my nonexistent movie, I think I might be sick.
“Still thinking on it,” I say, bringing my drink to my lips to end the conversation.