I do love him. And I don’t want him floating in the things he said that went unreturned, so I say it back.
“Paris is all ham and cheese sandwiches,” Arizona says with a nose wrinkle and a mini-glare in my direction. Her real problem with Paris is that Natasha was the wife who was there with us. No one could hate a Parisian ham and cheese sandwich. Melty cheese. Salty ham. All from some cheap place where you order at the window with your best impression of a French accent on the word fromage.
In the distance, I see Karissa. I see her long-legged gait and her wavy-messy hair and the distinct, almost symmetrical but not quite, unmistakable shape of her face. Her red linen sundress. Her knows-what’s-coming smile.
I reach for Arizona instead of Bernardo. She reaches back.
“What is this?” Karissa says, her voice rising high above the crowd. It sounds a little like a song.
There’s that wave of anger and nausea and compassion that I have for Karissa, and I wonder what exact combination of feelings is running through Arizona right now. Something very different, I’m sure. Another recipe. I settle into my own sick feeling. I can’t breathe.
“I know you love the park,” my father says to Karissa. “And I know you love candles. And dusk. And I know I love you.” He gets down on one knee. It’s always the right knee and it’s always a blue box. And it’s always a woman in a low-cut dress, and it’s always his best suit and a warm night.
My father is a man who gets engaged in the summer to beautiful women who I feel bad for.
“Oh my God,” Karissa says. They always say oh my God. I catch Arizona’s eye, and she is squinty and pissed. She has her cardigan pulled over her boobs.
That Karissa is falling into the stepmom script makes me even sicker. Like she’s passed over to the other side, and she’s a Mrs. Varren already. I wanted her to respond differently. I wanted her to do everything differently.
It’s funny to be able to pinpoint the exact moment you start losing someone.
“I want to give you everything you love,” Dad says. “Your life will be filled with candles and dusk and the walk from the Washington Square arch to our apartment and my devotion.” The light from the candle is hitting my face. It doesn’t burn or anything, but there’s a heat, a small, pointed intensity at my chin. “Will you share that life with me? Will you marry me, Karissa?”
Dude’s romantic. Can’t deny that.
I’m fighting the urge to scream. Violent feelings keep popping up, then simmering down. Little impulses that don’t stick around but don’t totally fade either. I wish I could be anywhere but here. I wish I could be at the top of the Eiffel Tower. At least up there nothing feels real or permanent. Down here, in my park, it’s too real.
“Of course,” Karissa says. She pulls my dad to his feet and people clap and Dad and Karissa kiss and then do more than kiss. Make out. Pet. Rub against each other in a completely non-park-appropriate way.
Arizona looks like she’s going to knock the candles out of everyone’s hands and start a fire. She failed at something vital. We both did, I guess, but it was the first time she took an actual stand. I think she thought she could stop this from happening.
Turns out it’s always been far, far out of our control.
Roxanne’s candle flickers out with a few others as a light breeze hits it. I lean into Bernardo. He is practically holding me up.
“She looks . . .” Roxanne doesn’t finish her sentence. She puts an arm around my waist, which is awkward with Bernardo holding me close to him. She pulls me tighter, squeezes my hip bone, and he pulls me in harder, too. I’m crashing against each of their bodies.
“Yeah,” I say. I blow out my candle. It was starting to hurt my hands, the wax bubbling a little.
“There’s dinner at my place,” my dad says, breaking apart from their embrace. She doesn’t stop kissing his neck, his ear. “A celebratory dinner with everyone we love.”
They’re mostly colleagues, but a few of them helped when my mom first left, and I guess we love them, in a way.
I don’t see anyone who looks like they belong to Karissa aside from the one friend who brought her here, and that girl’s checking her phone and looking like she’s going to make an exit. I don’t see all her cool friends who we hung out with that day at her apartment, which was actually only a few weeks ago but might as well have happened in a different century to entirely different people.
Karissa hugs me before anyone else. She smells like raspberries still, at least. I have that flicker of happiness for her again, like my heart has a tiny space in it for truly selfless feelings. It’s a very small space.
Her heart is beating so hard and loud in her chest that I get confused and think it’s mine that I’m hearing and feeling.
twenty-six
Roxanne and Arizona sit knee to knee on the couch. I take over the floor, my legs long in front of me and my elbows behind me. Bernardo stands. He is not a floor sitter.