“Yes, that,” Mark says from behind me.
Both us girls ignore him. Rigby trots over to Sheila, ramming his bone against her knee in farewell.
She gives his head a tentative pat. Sheila’s not really a dog person, but I give her credit for trying, for Mark’s benefit. “No, I really was leaving,” she says. “I’ve got to get to the airport anyway.”
“Oh, that’s right. Mark said you were going back to visit your dad’s side of the family for the holidays. Atlanta?”
“Yup. Good memory.” She gently eases Rigby’s paw off her coat.
“Oh, how fun! You need a ride to the airport?” I ask.
Okay, yeah. Yeah, it’s overkill, considering Sheila and I don’t know each other that well. It’s just that I know from experience that the dating world can be tricky when your best friend’s a member of the opposite sex, so I try really hard not to make any of Mark’s girlfriends feel threatened.
And I like Sheila. I mean, I have doubts about her and Mark making it for the long haul, but only because she’s a Scorpio, and it’s just not an ideal love match for Mark’s Virgo. I mean, she’s not his worst possible match—that would be my own Gemini. It’s just . . . well, whatever, that’s for them to figure out. Or so Mark tells me.
“I’m good. Thanks, though,” she says with an amused smile. “Have a good Christmas.”
“You too!” I say. Sheila heads back to Mark, probably for a last goodbye kiss, and I bend down again, partially to give Rigby more attention, partially to give them a bit of privacy.
A minute later I hear Mark’s front door close, and I stand up, braced for my best friend’s irritation because I totally deserve it.
He pulls a beer out of the fridge, holding it up over his broad shoulder in silent offering.
“No thanks.” I plop onto a barstool at his kitchen island.
He pops the top off, tosses it in the trash, and turns to face me.
I give him a wide smile. “I should have knocked.”
Mark shrugs and takes a sip of beer. “Probably.”
“In my defense, it’s Friday afternoon. I thought you’d be at the restaurant.”
“In my defense . . . my house.”
I purse my lips. “A solid point.”
“I thought so.” He takes another sip of beer. “What are you doing here so early?”
Usually I don’t get back to Haven until late on Friday night, and Mark and I have fallen into a routine of catching up over grilled cheese at midnight after he’s turned over the restaurant to the closing staff and headed home to feed himself instead of the entire town.
“Last day of school before break. Kids went home at noon.”
“Ah. Right. No wonder you’re in such a good mood.”
I am in a good mood, and his comment’s just reminded me why.
“You’ll never guess what happened to me at the train station,” I say, leaning forward excitedly.
“Hmm?” he asks, less excitedly.
“Okay, if I tell you, you have to not roll your eyes and tell me I’m a crackpot. Promise?”
“No.”
That’s about what I was expecting.
Let me paint a picture for you. Mark Blakely: six foot two, age twenty-eight, dark hair, dark eyes, buff, Levi’s-and flannel-wearing, sarcastic and no-nonsense, a Virgo, and happens to be a really good cook. Does not believe in fate, fortune, or luck.
Me: Kelly Byrne, age twenty-seven. Five foot four, more padding than I’d like, especially around the middle. Thick blond hair, medium length. Outgoing Gemini with keen interest in Tarot cards, Magic 8 balls, astrology . . .
From the outside, it’d seem crazy for us to have been best friends since we were seniors in high school. His parents moved here from Vermont the summer before our senior year. As class president, I’d been nominated to show the new kid around school. He’d been quiet and a little caustic. I’d been bubbly and persistent.
That’s the outside story that most everyone else knows, and it’s totally true.
There’s a bit more to it, though.
Physics was the only class Mark and I had together senior year, and we were partners. Alone, we were both pretty mediocre at science; together, we were managing to hover in the B+/A-range. Usually we studied at my house, but one mid-November Sunday my parents decided they wanted to get their ancient hardwood floors refurnished before Thanksgiving. We’d had to be out of the house for a day or two. Mark and I had procrastinated a bit on our work due the next day, the library was closed, so . . . his house.
He’d always been reluctant to let me anywhere near his house, but I hadn’t let it bug me. Instinct told me it was more about shielding me from his home than about shielding his home from me.
My instinct was right. Mark had never talked about his sister, so I assumed she was either much older or much younger and they simply weren’t close.
That rainy Sunday I’d learned that they were close. Emily was two years younger than us, and . . . sick. My aunt Ida was a breast cancer survivor, so I thought I’d understood cancer. I’d been horribly wrong.
Watching it ravage a sixteen-year-old was much different.
I didn’t spend much time with Emily. She was home-schooled, since her chemotherapy treatment appointments made any regular schedule impossible. The thought had been almost unbearable to me—dying and lonely.
Mark had said it wasn’t like that so much. She was dying, yes. But not lonely. Emily had apparently always been a quiet, loner type even before the diagnosis. She hadn’t been unfriendly to me that first day, or any of the few days after, just . . . aloof. Like she didn’t really care one way or the other whether Mark’s friend was in the house. Heck, for that matter, she hadn’t seemed to care whether Mark was around.
It bothered him. He never said it, and he tried hard not to show it. He’d shrug when she failed to say thank you for the bracelet he’d (well, we’d) picked out for her at the mall. He never flinched when she snapped at him for asking how she was feeling. It was an awful situation. I’d hurt for Emily, obviously. Fate had dealt her a nasty hand, and not everyone handles that with the sunny Zen you see in the movies.
But I’d hurt for Mark and his parents, too. Not only did they have the helplessness of watching someone they love fade, they also had been kept at arm’s length.
Anyway, the point is . . . my knowledge of Emily, I think more than any other reason, is why Mark and I became friends—good, lasting friends, not just casual, last-year-of-high-school friends. Not just because I’d known that secret part of him, but because I hadn’t told anyone—not even my own parents, although Mark had eventually told them himself as they’d become pseudo-parents for him while his own parents became consumed with caring for Emily.