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She moves to a nearby park bench and starts unpacking the bag. When I sit next to her, she hands me a plastic fork. So I ask, “You’re feeding me a doggie bag from a dinner you just had with another man?”Gutsy, for sure.Not that I care. I’ll take anything she wants to share with me right now.
She’s mid bite and starts laughing, and then covers her mouth. When she finally finishes chewing and swallows, she clears her throat. “It’s a short story actually. It began when he ordered a salad for me and told me a woman of my age shouldn’t be eating pasta.”
“Does he want a fucking death wish?” I take a bite, remembering how she ate carbonara the first time we ate together.
“Right? That’s what I thought.”
“How did it end?”
“Well, when he ordered me a salad and told me I shouldn’t be eating pasta, it was pretty much over right then.”
“I’d say so.” I’m about to take another bite, but ask, “So where did this come from?”
“The server was incredible. He saw what went down and made my order anyway, packed it to go, and I was gone.”
“His loss.”
“Your gain,” she says, taking another bite.
It is my gain. She is. He’s a fool for fucking up, but I get it. We all do now and then, yet there’s no coming back from what he did and said. I wonder if I have a better chance.
We eat a few more bites before she says, “I wish I had brought some water.”
“I have some.” I get up and pop the trunk. Pushing the flannel blanket to the side, I open the flap to the basket and pull two bottles of water from it.
I’m about to close the trunk when she asks, “What’s this?” I watch as her gaze darts around the trunk, and I’m quickly found guilty right after. She runs her fingers over the hand of the basket. “You brought a picnic for us?”
Busted. I run my hand over my hair. “Well, yes.”
“Why are we eating cold pasta then?”
“Because you love that dish.”
She sets the bag in the trunk with the pasta dish tucked back inside. “It’s not Moretti’s.” She remembers. I don’t know why that gives me hope, but it does. Moving to the back rear of the car, she leans her hip against it. Her gaze lengthens toward the road as a car passes by.
When she turns back to me, she says, “I’m starting to realize that it wasn’t the pasta I loved back then. Maybe it was the company.”
That’s when I know in my heart that we aren’t too far gone. This is the chance I never thought I’d get.
She digs into the basket and pulls a bottle out. “You brought wine. Can I have a glass?”
Over the next hour, our conversation has started to flow like it used to, without any pain clouding it. I stick to water since I have a long drive back, but I pour her a second glass. She has her knees tucked to her chest after discarding the heels while drinking the first glass.
“Lark?” She turns to look. I say, “I’d like to tell you the rest of the story of my cousin’s death, if that’s all right.”
Her lips have parted, and she leans forward, rubbing my shoulder. “Are you sure?”
“I shouldn’t have kept it in.” I swallow harder. Despite being open with my family a few years back, it’s not something I often talk about. “It controlled my life for too long. I told my family everything, and releasing the lies changed my life. I wish I had been strong enough to tell you when we were together. To trust you instead of trying to protect you from it.”
“You never should have had to bear that burden.” She nods and takes another sip of the wine. “I’m here and listening. Whatever you say is safe with me.”
I know . . .I knewall along. “Back when Lucas and I were fifteen, we were smoking weed and drinking, dabbling in a few heavier things. While under the influence of probably all of those things, we made a blood pact. If I go, you go. It was dumb and had no real meaning behind it. Best friends making vows they had no intention of carrying out just to see if the other was that loyal. I mean, it was right after he said if I smoke, you smoke. If you drink, I drink. If I go, you go. Meaningless in the scheme of things, but especially when you’re high as a fucking kite.”
Lark’s body has stilled beside me. Her glass is now next to her on the bench, and she’s staring out like she can still see the Hudson. When her mouth opens, I think she’s going to ask a question. I wish she would, but she doesn’t. She takes my hand instead and holds it on her lap.
Needing to get this story off my chest, I say, “I told you we weren’t hanging out much those last couple of years. I wasn’t into the same scene, but I remember when he showed up at my house. He seemed sober enough. Dragged me from the pool to go check out the cliffs at Devil’s Edge.” I exhale as the memory comes back. “I was glad to see him. It had been too long. I’d been holing up in my room, so I went along. He drove us out there and ran so fast from the car that I thought he was about to jump. Fuck.” I scrape my nails over my scalp to redirect the pain threatening to overwhelm me.
Lark whispers, “It must have been terrifying.”
