But someone who I can only describe as Me-But-Better-Than-Me called out, “James.”
He turned around. I could see a list of all the things I had done to him, said to him, and kept from him hanging between us, written in red on the air.
“I just wanted you to know that I didn’t do the stuff I did because you deserved it. I know that’s what I said, but it’s not true.” I stated this part more emphatically than I meant to. “I did what I did because I never deserved you. You’re a good guy, and I hope you have a great life.”
“Um . . . thanks.”
He looked somewhat taken aback by my fierce tone, but for once I wasn’t flooded with embarrassment. It had been the right thing to say. I knew that. For the first time in my life I had said exactly the right thing. Out loud.
And as I watched him turn back around and walk away with Erica, I realized that they were a good couple. They were the same kind of attractive, they liked to do the same things, and they occupied the same universe. They belonged together.
My stomach clenched, but for the first time since we had broken up, I didn’t feel the driving need to go to him, be with him. From the beginning, when I had fallen in love with him at the age of fifteen, I had always been consumed with what I had wanted. He had just been a player in the story. I had never really cared about what James wanted, what he needed.
But now I could see him clearly. And I knew what he needed.
He needed for me to let him go.
And so I did.
This was my last atonement. He would move on with his life, and I would move on with mine. I would start dating again and eventually marry and start a family of my own. And in time he would become a bittersweet memory. Like my mother. Tucked away with all the other lessons that life had taught me.
The sadness that had been dogging me for the last year lifted, and I was finally warm again. In fact, I had never felt so clean.
I took the Metrolink back to Vine, and I stopped by the Borders near my place to purchase my very own DVD copy of Sixteen Candles. I hadn’t been able to bring myself to watch it or any other Molly Ringwald movie since I had run away from Mississippi. But I could feel new strength running through me as I got back in my car and returned to Nicky’s house in Baldwin Hills.
When Veronica opened the door to Nicky’s house, I held up the movie and said, “This is my favorite movie of all time, and I haven’t seen it in many, many years. Can we watch it while we finish up your invitations?”
Veronica took the movie out of my hand. “Sixteen Candles. Sure, I like that movie, too. We can move the invitations into the front room and watch it.” Then she regarded me with actual concern. “Are you okay?”
“I’m better than okay,” I answered as I stepped past her into the house. “I’m happy.”
Veronica arched her eyebrow. “Then why does it look like you’re about to cry?”
“Because I’m happy,” I said. “And I always cry at happy endings.”
“Me too,” said Tammy, coming into the front room. Her eyes widened when she saw the DVD in my hands. “Ooh, is that Sixteen Candles? I love that movie.”
THIRTY-TWO
On Christmas morning, I woke up in the guest room of a condo owned by a former black child star who had gotten out of rehab for the third time last July and was ready to get her career back.
It was raining outside. Hard with thunder and everything. That would have been okay, except it was also the day of Nicky and Veronica’s wedding. So I called Veronica, because I knew she would be freaking out.
“It’s raining,” she said in a clipped voice when she answered the phone.
“Yes, I know. But it’s going to be okay.”
“Yesterday the weather report claimed that it was going to be sunny. But now they’re saying that it’s actually going to be raining off and on all day. Idiots.”