“I think it’s you who’s taken the message of the song literally,” Rory said when I took off my respirator and aimed a resigned sigh in her direction. “You’re the one who’s afraid of love.”
“I’m not afraid of love. I’m retired from trying to find it. It’s not the same thing.”
“But what if love finds you? Have you thought about that? Because it seems like it has.”
“Ooh.” That had come from Maiv. I glared at her, but it had no effect. She just looked at me like,What?Damn it. I should have left her as a camp friend.
I turned back to Rory. “This is all fine for you to say, from the vantage point of your one-in-a-million happily ever after, but the songisn’twrong. That’s why it’s so lovely. It’s devastatingly true. The lemon flower is sweet, but the fruitissour. I mean, it’s a perfect metaphor for love.”
“Maybe the issue isn’t the lemon, or the flower,” Rory said. “Maybe it’s just that lemon trees aren’t meant to live in pots in New York.”
“Huh?”
“It’s about context.”
There was that word. It kept coming up this summer. “What do you mean?”
“Lemon trees don’t thrive in some conditions, but they might in others.”
What was she on about? “Are you saying I’m taking the wrong metaphor here?”
“Well, if you’re taking the song to mean love is hopeless, that any relationship is doomed, I’m gonna go with yes.”
This was all so confusing. “So what do I do with my metaphorical lemon tree, then?”
“Plant it somewhere properly?”
“It’s asong!”
“Do I need to remind you,” Rory said, annoyingly undeterred, “that I, too, once had an imaginary boyfriend who became real?”
“Oh my God, this isn’tThe Velveteen Rabbit! It’s OK to have standards for what you will and won’t accept. It’s OK to have boundaries. As I’ve told you a thousand times, I’m retired from men. From love. From all of it.” Maybe I needed to explain the pillar thing, if we were dealing in metaphors here.
“Yes,” Rory said, “but is it possible that the boundaries we put in place, often with the best of intentions, can end up getting stretched?”
“Only if we let them.”
“That’s my point. Sometimes we need to let them.”
I was about done here. I wasn’t mad or buzzing with demolition energy anymore; I was tired. “Can you just speak English?”
“I think you’re making a mistake sending Teddy away.”
I glanced at Maiv, who had remained silent, but I’d felt her attention on us. She gave me a shrug that seemed to signal agreement with Rory.
“All right,” I said looking between them. “Noted.”
“I also think it’s possible he might be right about this place,” Rory said quietly.
Wow. Wow. I felt like she’d stabbed me in the back. It was one thing for Teddy to swan in here and tell me I was making a mistake, but Rory? The person who’d been by my side on the professional front for years? Who had come with me to showings and helped me pick out a damn toilet?
I took a breath. Roryhadbeen by my side professionally. But also personally. For so many years.
Did I… need to consider the possibility that she was right? About all of it? Were my Midlife Crisis: Averted pillars about to come crumbling down? Or, worse, had they only been made of cardboard to begin with?
“I…” Didn’t know what to say. My mind was reeling, and I feared that if I tried to talk, the eye leaking would start again.
“Happy birthday to you!”
