“It looked good,” I respond, not sure why I’m immediately on defense.
“No onethinks it ‘looks good.’ It’s ice cream that hates itself.”
She’s right. I saw it in the freezer section yesterday while Iwas wandering around Target in search of objects to fill the void: a faux-driftwood shelf I already hate; a wearable blanket; individually wrapped mozzarella pearls; yet another water tumbler; and, yes, slightly off-tasting dessert that can be reasonably consumed by the pintful.
“Did you break my window to come in here and criticize me?”
“I was worried that whenyougot around to reaching out, it’d be with baskets of expensive pears and apology flowers.Thank godyou were too busy eating bed salads, because that degree of earnest contrition would’ve beensomortifying. The food waste alone…” She trails off, eyes still fixed to the Halo Top label. No one has examined the calorie content of diet ice cream with more drama than Laurel Beekman.
“Look,” I start, because, right now, I’m willing to talk about anything—even this!—so long as it’s not Ethan. “I didn’t…I didn’t want you to…notget married if youwantedto get married.”
She shakes her head so hard, it becomes a full-body earthquake. “That sentence doesn’t make any sense, Charley!”
“I didn’t get in the kayak knowing I’d take out your officiant, okay? I only wanted to talk to you to see if marrying Petey was honestly what you wanted.”
“Because you thought it was a bad idea, and only Charley knows whatgoodideas are.”
“No,” I argue. “That’s not—”
“Why can’t you acknowledge me for the person I am? You never miss an opportunity to remind me of the person Iwas, who was actually pretty great, by the way. Just with a lot of self-loathing and a tiny self-sabotaging streak.”
“Self-loathing?” That stops me in my tracks. “What’re you talking about?”
“You’ll have to read my therapy journal for the answer to that one,” she responds, moving from the fridge to the bar cart, and I’ve almost given up on the conversation when she says, “I didn’t think I was a good person, Char. Like for alongtime. I thought there was something rotten in me that would spread to anyone who got too close. Where people would love me and I’d hurt them—like Dad does.”
“That’s not…” I trail off, because it’s so untrue I hardly know how to refute it.
Laurel’s not rotting. She’s almost too alive. She’s bold and expressive, existing in vibrant Technicolor that makes everyone shine a little more by being near her. But how do you out-logic the illogical?
So I start with something simple and unequivocally true. “You’re nothing like Dad.”
“I know thatnow,” she says, flashing her eyes to me before retreating to the protection of a mostly full bottle of St-Germain. “Not likeknowknow. It’s one of those destructive thoughts that’ll probably lurk in the back of my head for the rest of my life, but I know that’s what it is now. Whenever I was about to explode out of my skin and had to run away, I used to think,This is that selfish and harmful part of you. I wanted to protect everyone from it. I know you hate how I am sometimes, but—”
“I don’t hate how you are ever,” I argue, but her face is incredulous. “It’s true. There’s never a second when I feel only one feeling about you. In every moment, I love you and I’m exasperated with you and I want to be more like you. It’salways all of it. All the sister stuff. That’s why you and Peter scare me so much. You love him in a way that’s so enormous and consuming. I think I’m going to lose you to it. Like you might drown in it the way Mom and Dad did. I can’t lose you too.”
She groans, but it’s the lighthearted kind you do when you love someone so much it’s infuriating. “Oh my god.” She flops onto the bed next to me. “What our parents have isn’t ‘love.’ Loving someone,reallyloving them, it could never be like that. And in what universe do you think you’re going to lose me? You can’t lose me. We’re in this. We’re stuck with each other forever, okay?” She pulls me tight against her side like we’re kids again, waiting out a thunderstorm together. “There’s more than enough of my love to go around for you and Peter because love isn’t finite. It isn’t a thing you have. It’s something you do. Love is a verb, babe.”
“Gross.” My laugh is wet and snotty but no less relieved. “Is that something Petey says?”
“It’s something my therapist says.”
“I get it. You’re in therapy. You’re, like, self-actualized and shit and not walled off from loving everyone.”
She pushes her feet under the blanket and snuggles up beside me. “Oh, you love harder than anyone I know. You’re like one of those gorillas that doesn’t know its own strength. What do you think that disastrous weekend was?”
“Fear? Delusion? Petty selfishness?”
“Shut up,” she grumbles, dragging out the second word. “You could break a rib with the way you love. You’ve loved Ethan that way your whole life, and he loves you too. When was the last time you listened to his first album? It’s…not subtle.”
My fingers rub my temples. “Laur,” I grumble. “It’s notthatobvious. You talk like every song is titled ‘Dear Charley.’ ”
“Might as well be. They’re all real confessional and yearny.” Her nose scrunches at her own description. Laurel’s musical tastes run toward explicit dance pop in which the word “sweat” is hypnotically repeated over a pulsating beat. “Face it. His songs are about years of pining, and, other than me, you’re the only woman he’s known for more than two minutes.”
“Maybe they’re about you,” I deflect. Whether she’s right or not, I don’t think I can handle obsessing over Ethan’s back catalog any more than I already am.
“I don’t think he’s in love with me. On Sunday, I asked him if I looked hot and he told me I looked ‘healthy.’ Like I was a great-aunt he had aggressively nonsexual feelings for. That album is all ‘Chuck.’ ”
“It doesn’t matter anyway. It could never be me.”
