“Okay,” I say. Her concern is making me concerned.
“It’s okay,” she says and grabs my hand. “We’ll figure it out.” The way she says “we,” that she doesn’t say “You will figure it out,” makes me feel like I’m not alone. It makes me feel like if I can’t get myself out of this, she will get me out of this. It makes me feel like I’m high on a tightrope, losing my balance, but seeing the net underneath me. “We” will figure this out. Ana has made similar sentiments to me, but all those times I knew that she couldn’t help me. She could hold my hand, but she couldn’t hold me up. For the first time, I feel like it’s not up to only me. Nothing is up to only me.
“So you’ll call on Monday?” she says. “Call the county and find out?”
I nod. It’s clear she’s assuming we got married in Los Angeles County and I don’t have it in me to correct her. Part of me wants to. Part of me wants to revel in the truth with her. Tell her everything. But I know it’s not that simple. I know that our newfound connection is still too tenuous for the whole truth.
“Should I ask for the check?” she asks me.
I laugh. “I think I need to wait out that last margarita,” I say, and she smiles.
“Dessert then!”
She orders us fried ice cream and “dessert” nachos. We sit there, spoons in the ice cream, licking the chocolate around the bowls. It’s what I imagined sisters did with their mothers when their fathers were away on business. When I get in the car, I think of a few things I forgot to say and I find myself looking forward to seeing Susan again to tell her.
Ana has been patient with my recovery, expecting nothing, supporting everything, but I can tell that I am starting to wear on her. Being my friend means she is pulled into this even though it has nothing to do with her. I can only assume that, after a while, even the most understanding and empathetic of people would start to wonder just how long it will be before we can have honest to God fun again. Fun that doesn’t end in a sorrowful look from me, fun that isn’t laced with what I have lost. She knew me before Ben, she knew me during Ben, and now she knows me after Ben. She’s never said it, but I would imagine the me she knew before Ben was probably her favorite.
Ana said she’d be at my place at eight to pick me up, but she calls at seven asking if I mind if she brings this guy she has been seeing.
“Who have you been seeing?” I say. I didn’t know she was seeing anyone.
“Just this guy, Kevin.” She laughs, and I suspect he’s right there next to her.
“I’m just some guy?” I hear in the background, confirming my suspicion. I can hear her shush him.
“Anyway, is that okay? I want him to meet you,” she says.
“Uh, sure,” I say, taken aback. You can’t say no in a situation like this. It’s rude and weird, but I wonder, if the rules of propriety allowed it, what I would have said.
“Cool,” she says. “Be there at eight to pick you up. You still want to go to that ramen house?”
“Sure!” I overcompensate for my apprehension by being outwardly perky and excited. It feels obvious to me, but she doesn’t seem to notice. Maybe I’ve been getting really good at hiding my emotions, or maybe she’s not paying attention.
APRIL
Ben and I were waiting in the front of the movie theater for Ana. She was twenty minutes late and the tickets were on her credit card. The movie was starting in seven minutes. Ben was one of the only people I knew that looked forward to the previews more than the actual movie.
“Can you call her again?” he asked me.
“I just called her! And texted. She’s probably just parking.”
“Ten bucks she hasn’t left the house yet.”
I slapped him lightly across the chest. “She’s left the house! C’mon. We won’t be late for the movie.”
“We’re already late for the movie.”
He said this would happen. I said it wouldn’t happen, but here we were, just like he said we would be. He was right.