Keeping Secrets in Seattle

chapter Four


September 28, 2005

Even as I cleared out my locker and plucked Gabe’s photo from the door, I could still see the anger on his face when it occurred to him what had gone on. Or what he thought had gone on. And once I saw that S.O.B. Cameron Hakes, leering at me from the end of the hall, that was enough. I ran from Wallingford High School as fast as I could. Never looked back.

In a few short months, I was going to watch the man I loved marry Alicia Von Longorial, the model-slash-waitress. I would have to find a way to watch the ceremony without knocking the bride over and trying to pull her hair out. I knew it wouldn’t be difficult to beat her up. She really was very skinny.

I rubbed at my chest, which felt gutted like a jack-o’-lantern. Burying my face in my pillow, I groaned. I didn’t want to feel like this forever. This dull ache had to go away eventually. Maybe there was something to what Betsy and Kim were suggesting. Maybe moving on and—gulp—dating someone who wasn’t Gabe was just the thing.

Anything would beat lying around sniffling over a man who’d chosen someone else.

Kim pounded on the bathroom door. “Why won’t you come out and talk to us? We have ice cream.”

“And spiked eggnog!” Betsy shouted from the living room.

I sighed heavily and opened the bathroom door before plunking back down onto the toilet seat, a dozen wads of tear-soaked tissue gathered around my feet like snowballs. “Gabe proposed to Alicia this morning.”

“He what?” Kim’s voice was so shrill it practically made our windows rattle.

“Shhh, Mr. Landski is going to beat on the floor with a broom again,” Betsy said.

“Oh, let him.” Kim’s footsteps were heavy as she strode from the bathroom to the kitchen. “I thought they broke up!”

I forced myself up and followed her. “Well, they made up. And now he’s marrying her.”

Kim opened the freezer and presented me with a container of ice cream and a spoon. “The bastard really proposed to her?”

“She’s all wrong for him.” I peeled the lid off the fudge ice cream and climbed onto the stationary bike we had in the corner of our living room. “Good Lord, she’s a poster child for eating disorders. And she’s such a…snob. A snoot, too.”

“I think that’s the same thing.” Betsy never took her eyes off the television screen. She and Kim were watching a rerun of Little House on the Prairie when I’d barreled through the apartment door and made a beeline for the bathroom.

“Wait, wait. Didn’t you tell me she volunteers in a soup kitchen?” Kim asked.

Betsy pushed up her glasses. “And reads to blind people in an old folks’ home?”

I wiped my eyes on my sleeve. “Ugh. Who cares? She’s horrid. Nobody’s caught on to it yet, that’s all.”

When my roommates exchanged a raised-eyebrow glance riddled with doubt, I added, “Do you know what she had to drink at the dinner tonight? A cup of hot water with a lemon slice. She looked right at her future mother-in-law, who was standing there with a bottle of Taittinger, and asked for a cup of hot water with lemon. What, is she seventy-three years old? Is she saving her voice to sing the national anthem tomorrow? Is she freakin’ Aretha Franklin or something?”

Kim snorted. “Well, maybe she’s thin and frail because she’s actually an old lady in disguise, and one of your stepdad’s best Botox patients.”

I almost chuckled. My most recent stepdad, Curtis, was my mother’s fourth husband, and the one who’d stuck around the longest. I’d never be sure if my mom kept him around because he was the love of her life or because she got free face-lifts. It didn’t matter. Curtis was a good guy. So I tried not to complain.

I scoffed. “She’s thin and frail because she is a model.”

Kim peeled her eyes from the television screen. “Gabe’s marrying a model? He must be so proud.”

I shoved another bite of ice cream into my mouth and hit the tension button on the bike’s display. “She’s a model-slash-waitress. She’s apparently working the dinner shift at Mizithra’s between modeling gigs.”

“Oooh, good manicotti there.” Betsy rubbed her tummy. “Think she can get us in without reservations?”

“Not helping, babe.” Kim patted her girlfriend’s leg. “Violet always finds something wrong with all of Gabe’s girlfriends. You know…’cuz they’re not her.”

“That’s clearly an exaggeration.” I stopped pedaling long enough to pluck the lump of chocolate off the front of my dress and lick my fingers. “I guess I learned my lesson. I should have told him how I felt a long time ago.”

Betsy slapped her hand down on her knee. “You see? Haven’t I been telling you that for years?”

“Don’t gloat,” I grumbled. Kim and Betsy’s faces were turned back to Little House on the Prairie, the sound of the closing credits playing softly, both of them somber now that Laura and Pa had enjoyed their bonding moment.

I climbed off the stationary bike and sat next to where they were cuddling on our leopard-print couch. “Okay… You guys were right, and I was wrong. I should have told Gabe that he deserves to be with someone who would always treat him like gold.”

Kim looked at me pointedly. “What’s to say that Bulimia Betty won’t treat him like gold?”

“He should be with someone who knows him inside and out. He should be with…” My voice trembled, and I stopped speaking.

“You?” Betsy finished.

I nodded sadly. “Yes. But he doesn’t love me back anymore. Not that way.”

Kim’s spindly arm pulled me close. “Why didn’t he tell you before it happened? Don’t you two tell each other everything?”

Betsy snorted. “To a sickening degree.”

The relationship between Kim, Betsy, and Gabe had never exactly taken flight. They thought he was pompous and overconfident, and he thought they were loud, brash freaks.

Kim’s voice shook me out of my thoughts. “This really is happening fast. They’ve been dating for what? Two months?”

“Four.” My stomach clenched. “Four months, two weeks, and three days…not that I’m counting.”

“Maybe now’s the time to try getting to know her.” Betsy offered me a shrug. “Since he’s marrying her and all.”

I shook my head vehemently. “She already hates me.”

Kim started flipping through the television channels. “I thought she was nice to you.”

“She is. But I can tell that she doesn’t like me.” I plucked a stray pink feather off the pillow. “It’s there. Under the surface. Waiting to come out.”

I remembered the day Gabe introduced me to Alicia. Though no one else had noticed it, Alicia’s eyes narrowed to slits when his hand touched me, or when he laughed at one of my jokes. I recognized that glare. I’d been through it a time, or two, or seven. It was another case of Gabe’s hot girlfriend who secretly loathed the outcast he called his best friend.

Betsy sucked in a sharp breath. “Okay, so when is the blessed event?”

My eyes filled, but I swallowed the lump in my throat. “My mom already texted me. They announced the date over pie. May fifteenth.”

“The rat bastard is getting married on your birthday?” Kim hissed.

I nodded, my shoulders slumping. “It’s the only time her parents can get off work, or some stupid family crap like that. And don’t call Gabe a rat bastard.”

Betsy rubbed her temples tiredly. “Well, he’s getting married on his best friend’s birthday. Oh, and it happens to be the best friend who is also in love with him. Yes, he is a rat bastard.”

“What was he supposed to do?” I asked. “Tell his fiancée that he can’t get married on the date she picked because his best friend needs him available for her pizza party? I don’t think so.”

She cleared her throat and looked at me with a humorless expression. “All right, then. So he’s getting married on your birthday. Fine. When between now and your birthday do you plan on telling him that you love him?”

I gave her a one-shouldered shrug. “Well, obviously…never.”

Kim bolted upright. “You mean to tell me that you’re going to let the man of your dreams marry someone else, on your damn birthday, without ever letting him know that you’ve been in love with him for, like, a million years?”

I wiped my nose. “I’m not about to take away from Gabe’s happiness just because I have something to get off my chest. What if it was you two getting married and I decided to profess my love for you in the midst of your wedding plans?” I jumped up from the couch, not waiting for an answer. “He’s in love. He’s deliriously happy, and right now I need to be the best friend he’s ever had.”

“It’s different with you and Gabe. I’ve seen it in his eyes, too. I swear I have.”

I shook my head defiantly and headed for my bedroom. “I appreciate the fact that you guys want to help me so much with this, and I love you for it.”

“Does that mean you’re going to fight for him?” Betsy asked.

I pictured Gabe holding Alicia’s hand, grinning like the happiest man in the world, and my chest felt heavy. “I don’t know if I can.”

Kim raked a hand through her short hair. “But what about you? Who’s going to support you while you watch him marry someone else?”

I turned around and pointed my finger at them. “You guys are.”

“Ugh. Yes, you know that we’re going to support you,” Betsy replied. “And it’s going to suck.”

“I realize that.” I smiled at her weakly. “There will undoubtedly be gross amounts of ice cream consumed.”

She eyeballed the empty Häagen Dazs container across the room. “I don’t doubt that.”

“What you really need is to move on,” Kim said. “You need to get out there. Make out with someone new. Maybe go to bed with a few guys—”

“Good Lord!” I laughed despite my watery eyes. “Just because my heart is broken doesn’t mean I’m going to start bed hopping.”

Betsy elbowed her girlfriend. “What she means is…Violet, you need to give some thought to dating other people.”

I bit my lip. “I know.”

She nodded knowingly. “We’ll find someone for you. You can start slow, with a coffee date. Then work up to lunch.”

“Let the record show that I do not support your decision not to tell Gabe that you love him.” Kim growled. “I stand firmly against that decision.”

I ignored her and shut myself in my messy bedroom. Leaving the light off, I undressed and crawled underneath my covers, the sheets cool against my skin as I burrowed my way into the blankets. My life was turning into a sad romance novel. But at least Kim and Betsy had brought Christmas dinner leftovers home. I had that to look forward to…