Perhaps because Thor has called them friends, J feels he should give them a wedding gift beyond his song. He decides to stop by thelocal indie bookstore. Before he walks in, he checks to make sure that Glenda, one of V’s closest friends, isn’t behind the register. Coast clear, he heads to the fiction section...only to hear Glenda greet him from another aisle, where she’s been reshelving.
“Are you here for the new Jonathan Franzen?” she asks—a judgment-laden question if ever there was one.
“No, just looking for wedding gifts.”
“Oh, yes...the wedding.”
J and Glenda are not friends, but they are notnotfriends. They’ve coexisted in V’s orbit, but more as planets than moons. From the way she saysthe weddingso knowingly, he understands that she and V are still talking all the time. Glenda has escaped Pompeii.
“It’s going to be quite an event,” J says, as if he knows more than he really does.
“That’s one way of putting it.” Glenda stops then and looks J over. In a gentler voice, she asks, “How are you doing?”
“Oh, you know. Keeping busy.”
“I kept meaning to reach out, but I wasn’t sure if you’d want me to.”
“No, no—that makes sense.”
“She doesn’t want there to be sides. She made it very clear to all of us that you didn’t do anything wrong, that it wasn’t one ofthosesituations. It’s just her coming into her own, you know?”
“I am very aware of that—painfully aware of that,” J replies, perhaps with a little too much bite. “She is doing what’s best for her, which was ultimately not what was best for us. That sums it up, doesn’t it?” Then he feels compelled to add, “We’re meeting for coffee before the wedding.”
“I know. And I hopeyouknow that it isn’t going to change anything.”
J laughs. “Well, it could make it worse. But I appreciate you warning me not to expect her to bring me roses.”
Glenda shakes her head. “You’re a good guy, J—and I imagine that makes it harder to make sense of what’s happened. She’s never had thousands of people applauding her at the same time. She’s never heard something she wrote playing on the radio, or in a movie. She doesn’t have strangers from all over the world writing to her to ask to play at their weddings. I’m not saying she’s been jealous—she hasn’t been jealous. But she’s also been waiting for her turn, her chance to stop jumping from job to job, to create something herself.”
“And you’re saying she couldn’t have done that with me?”
“I’m just saying that’s not the way it played out. And when the time came...no, never mind.”
“Please. Go on. This is helpful,” J says, not specifying whether it’s helpful for his recovery or simply his masochism.
“I’m just saying...based on my own observation, not on what she’s said to me, per se...even before New York came along, the two of you were stuck. There wasn’t any talk of taking it to the next level. You were happy where you were. But relationships like to progress. And when the opportunity arose to take a next-level chance...neither of you went for it.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that when V got the call to go to New York, it didn’t occur to her to ask you along. And it didn’t occur to you to join her on the adventure. I’m not saying it would have worked out even if you’d gone. But it would have been an expression of commitment that neither of you had ever really expressed to each other. Again, I’m not saying you didn’t love each other. You absolutely did. But when the moment came for you to love each other more, life took you on different paths. And the path she’s landed on...it’s the right one for her.”
It hurts to hear this, particularly because J knows Glenda isn’t saying it to be mean. She genuinely thinks it is helpful. And maybe it will be, eventually. But right now, it stings.
“I’m sorry,” Glenda says. “Truly, I am.”
They make small talk for a little longer—Glenda’s four-year-old son is obsessed with a song of J’s that is hardly age-appropriate—and J purchases books for Thor and Meta. He maintains his composure until he leaves the shop, and only when he rounds the corner does it hit him again:It’s over, it’s over, it’s over. He doesn’t understand why this keeps happening, how many times it has to hit him before it finally carves itself into the stonework of his mind. Hope is a tenacious beast, but even beasts have limits.
The wedding planner—who, as it turns out, isnotV—gets in touch, walks him through the logistics. She also takes great pains to emphasize that he is a guest as well as a performer, and that the bride and groom are looking forward to his presence for the entire event.
Over the next few days, it’s not that the words for the wedding song come pouring out, or that they’ve run dry. J has to work to get to them, and then work to put them all in the right place, to the right tune.
Be suspicious of any writer who says it’s usually otherwise.
He has no idea when V is flying in. So the day before they’re supposed to meet, he wonders if she’s close, tries to sense her presence. Could he sense it before, or is this a fiction he’s telling himself after the fact? When she walked into a room, definitely. But a city? Was his affection’s radar ever that encompassing?
She’s cut her hair again.
Not radically. But it’s also not entirely familiar, so immediately his presumption of familiarity takes a hit.
