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Chapter Three
After our field trip to the Empire State building, I dropped Janet off at the New York Public Library where she wanted to research more statistics for her life-appreciating passion project. I returned to my room at the Park Château Hotel near Central Park. Lindsay would find me, of course, but maybe I’d enjoy recovering for a few moments before she figured out that I was here and gave me another assignment.
Flopping onto the bed, I switched on the TV and flipped channels. I leaned my head back and luxuriated in the indulgence of having my room completely to myself. My job as an ER nurse was beyond stressful—almost nightmarish these last few years—and the break from worrying about other people was heavenly.
My parents had tried to talk Lindsay into sharing a room with me. I didn’t even have to open my mouth before Lindsay had shut down that idea. She pointed out that the wedding dress alone would take up half the room once the underskirts were added, and didn’t she deserve a suite to herself since she’d need all that space? She won. She always won. Which was one of the reasons it was hard to be her sister. We were nowhere near friends.
For our entire lives, my mother has clung to the idea that sisters should be friends. My mom had two brothers and had always wanted a sister who’d be her best friend. Practically the only thing that Lindsay and I agreed on was how mystifying it was that Mom still had hope. We were just too different.
I stopped flipping channels, momentarily landing onJeopardy. Shaking my head, I quickly moved past it. I used to loveJeopardy. I even put in my application for the teen tournament years ago, though I’d never gotten called for it. Josh and I used to watch it together every day after school. He always bet me he could answer more clues than me—and, of course, the answer wouldn’t count unless it was in the form of a question.
I hatedJeopardynow. It reminded me too much of Josh. And Josh was not worth thinking about. HisJeopardyclue would be, “This longtime neighbor and post-college crush became the biggest jerk in the entire world.” Oh, I knew the right question. “Who is Joshua Whittaker?”
Jeopardyhad become collateral damage. I hadn’t watched it in years. Its association with Josh had ruined it for me.
I settled on an episode ofLaw and Order. It was free of painful memories and the kind of show you never had to watch all of to know what was going on. I’d probably only seen five or six episodes in my life—all of them in hotel rooms. I pulled the covers over me and considered ordering room service.
Until there was a loud banging on my door.
“Open up, Margot! I know you’re in there!”
With incredible strength and fortitude in the face of unspeakable adversity, I pulled myself out of bed. At least, that’s how I narrated my movements in my head. What I really did was drag my feet to the door with some extra grunting and make myself open it, all while knowing that my sister would explode once I got there.
“How did you know I was in here?” I blinked at her.
Lindsay barged past me into the room. “I could hear the ‘dah-dum!’ of your show through the wall.”
Curse thatLaw and Order. I silently added it to my do-not-watch list underJeopardy. I sat back down on the bed. “So what’s up?”
Her eyes widened, the thick mascara clumps on her lashes trembling with barely leashed rage. She folded her arms, her finger tapping on her femininely sculpted bicep. “What’s up? Really?What’s up?What’s up is that you’ve been missing all morning, neglectingyour joband leaving me to do everything myself when it’s my freaking wedding, and I shouldn’t have to be worrying about anything.”
I didn’t know where my sister had gotten the idea that a bride didn’t have worries at her wedding, but I let the comment pass. “I’ve been taking Janet sightseeing like you wanted me to. And myrealjob is nine hundred miles away in Atlanta, and I’d be there doing it happily now except that I took off time for your wedding to be here for you. A week away from work is hard to come by.”
Lindsay collapsed into the chair by the desk. “Well, blame Mom. She’s the one who dragged you up here for the whole wedding-week amp-up.”
“Not to worry. I do blame her.” But really, when I thought about it, Lindsay was the reason for everything else, including the NYC destination wedding that was inconvenient for everyone, as Janet pointed out, the lavish price tag, which would set our parents back financially for years—good thing I didn’t have a wedding on the horizon in this century—and the expectation we were all here to make her dreams come true yet somehow we were always falling short. But maybe that was just me.
“Look, Troy’s going to be here any minute. I’ve got to go. Just try to get yourself together, okay, Margot? I need help. And you’re what I’ve got.”
A trembling started in my belly. I wasn’t sure I could take more sightseeing with Janet. Much more, and I might be researching life and death statistics to make myself feel better. But I didn’t think Lindsay would accept any excuses. “Sure. I’ll be more help.” And I’d try to be much harder to find. “See you later.”
She shot me a skeptical look but didn’t argue about my reluctant assurance. I was calling it a win. I’d already suffered through most of today—I just had tomorrow and Wednesday to worry about. The rest of the bridesmaids were coming in on Thursday, and they could take over Lindsay’s wedding duties. They were her real friends, after all.
Lindsay left with a final glare of warning, shutting the door behind her. I lay back on the bed. Dealing with Janet and then my sister had left me feeling ego-bruised and lonely. Less appreciative of life’s fragility and more depressed by it. Desperate for a pick-me-up, I decided I could use some time with a true friend.
∞∞∞
After three trains and a bus, I managed to reach Isla’s house.
Isla was my best friend from home. We’d been close since the second grade when Zach Masterson put gum in my hair, and she punched him in the nose. Our elementary school had a zero-tolerance policy on violence. Isla got away with it. Because she was so tiny, no one could actually picture her doing it. And since the proof of the gum in my hair was all too real—my mother had to cut off half my hair to get it out—all talk of suspension sort of just petered out, and Isla escaped unpunished. We’d been best friends ever since.
We’d planned to move to NYC together. Isla wanted to attend The New School for art, and I was applying to NYU to study drama. But after I’d stayed in Atlanta and helped Dad through cancer, I decided I was being selfish, and nursing would be something I could do to help people like my dad. Now Isla was a talented visual artist with a budding career, living in a house in New Jersey that was considered close to the city—if you considered a bus and three trains to be close. When I’d asked why she didn’t live in Brooklyn, where I thought starving artists were supposed to live, she told me Brooklyn was so expensive the artists who used to live there had actually starved. Besides, her friend Tina’s parents owned the NJ house, and they were practically letting Isla and Tina and another friend live there for free, though they had to pay utilities. Isla complained that utilities almost cost more than rent in Atlanta.
Isla answered the door and immediately launched herself at me, squeezing me tight. “You’re here!” She rocked me back and forth, and I had to scoot left so I didn’t fall off the top step. “I can’t believe you’re here!”
She released me, and I stood there a sec, taking inventory of my friend. “It’s been too long!” I said. “You look different. You’re letting your hair grow out.”
She fingered the wispy blonde locks on the right side of her head. She’d had that side shaved all through high school and college. It was part of her rebellious motif, just as ever present as her black fishnet stockings and combat boots. She shrugged. “Yeah. I decided it was time to grow up and be as fierce in business negotiations as I try to be in my art. And for business, you have to look less fierce and more…ordinary.”
