“Thebestlistener?”
“I’ve honed my ears through years of audiobooks on my jogs through Central Park,” she replied seriously. “I was born for this.”
I laughed. It was a real one, light and fizzy. “I’ll keep that in mind. And I just want you to know—you’re not the problem. Your ex sounds like someone who never appreciated you. I’d rather spend the rest of my life alone than with someone like that.”
“I know you’re right. It just still hurts.”
“Good. That means you’re not a serial killer.”
She threw her head back with a laugh and then shook herself out. “No, I guess I’m not. But, like, you know what? Fuck men! I don’t want to waste any more breath on them tonight. How was your day? Anything exciting happen that hasnothingto do with the bicentennial?”
I began to vent about the vines again but realized thatwaspart of the bicentennial. So was the soggy Wildflower Garden, and weeding the beds around the old oak tree in the Central Garden, and the goose. God, what were we going to do about thegooseduring the party? Never mind my preoccupation with Rus, but I’d run away from Rus. I wanted to kick myself every time I thought about it. I should have just talked to him. I should have made him understand. Or I at least should have apologized for being such a coward.
But Juliette was just venting over her boy problems. She didn’t need to hear about mine.
“I’m trying to figure out why the Mingus dahlias in the Central Garden don’t want to”—I made a motion upward with my hands.
“To Mingus?” she suggested.
“To Mingus,” I agreed, and we laughed.
Juliette wiped the tears out of her eyes. “Oh, you’re the best. Thank you—oh no, is thatOliver?” she asked with a gasp, and I turned to the front door.
ItwasOliver, and he was about to drunk-strip right in the middle of the Wharf to Ned Wykofski and the Heat Wave’s immaculate rendition of “Best Song Ever.”
29
prozvonit
When drunk, Oliver Hale was like a parrot with no attention span. Every time either Juliette or I tried to keep his shirt on and tell him why, he’d echo back, “I need to keep my shirt on?”
“You need to keep your shirt on,” I confirmed.
“I need to keep my shirt on,” he said.
I nodded. “Yes, that’s what I’m saying.”
Then he’d pause and go, “But what about my shirt?”
And the scene would just repeat again. Somehow, Juliette managed to shove a bottle of water and a granola bar down his throat to sober him up just enough so that when he started winking at poor unsuspecting tourists, Juliette and I could walk him out of the bar instead of dragging him. The worst part was getting him out of the Jeep in the rain, which neither Juliette nor I did very gracefully, and by the time we slogged into the manor, we were all drenched and shivering. She had one of his arms slung around her shoulder, and I had the other, and together we somehow got the two-hundred-pound grown man up the stairs and into the spare bedroom.
“You’re pretty,” he slurred, rolling over in bed, as Juliette pried off his shoes. Not sure which one of us he was talking to,but we didn’t really care. “Andcompe—compet—how do you saygood at stuff?” he asked her, and she wilted a little.
“Competent?”
“Yes! That. You’re smart, too,” he added.
She rolled her eyes and placed his muddy shoes in the bathroom. “Like,thanks, I guess.”
“I can see why I get flittered.”
“Flustered?” Juliette suggested.
His attentions settled on her for a serious moment. Then he patted her cheek. “Don’t be.”
She pinned him with a thousand-yard stare.
Once we got the covers on him and he was snoring, I decided that whatever crush Ihadon Oliver had morphed into an endearingly agonizing sort of friendship—like a brother I didn’t want. I brushed his hair off his forehead as he snored.
