“People suck,” she replies.
“That banner sucks.”
“You didn’t even get a first name, let alone a last name.”
“My husband’s name is all I need now,” I say. “Unlike people like you, who are crowned Most Athletic.”
“True,” Megan says.
“Are you ready?”
“I am,” Megan says. “You’re not. I saw the thrift-store wedding dress Rachel and the Spirit Week Committee got for you.”
“Oh God.”
“That’s right. You’d better pray. By the way, what the hell is that sound?”
“I think it’s the carburetor.”
“What’s a carburetor?”
“It’s a thing inside a car that sometimes makes that noise when you’re about to commit your life to the wrong person in the back of a pickup truck.”
“Ooooh, gotcha,” she says. Then, “He still loves you, you know.”
“I love him. But not like that, I don’t think.”
Megan nods. That’s how it should be. Two people who are right for each other should get one another, trust one another. I should’ve known I could tell Matt about Grandmother and he’d actually listen, but I never genuinely felt that, so I never did. We spent every minute together, but still I kept so much of myself from him—everything he wouldn’t understand. It only made it harder for me that he always seemed so perfect, so unshakably sane and normal. When we broke up he must’ve felt totally blindsided, though to me, looking back on it now, it had been coming for ages.
Megan and I get out of the car and jog through the rain toward the floats.
“Nice of y’all to show,” Rachel shouts across the parking lot. “It’s not like the rest of us are just standing here in the rain.” She only joined the Spirit Week Committee as an alternative to summer school (which was an alternative to all her detentions), but you’d think we just interrupted her wedding. She plants one hand on her hip then points her other hand sharply, first toward my float, then Megan’s.
I make my way along the long line of trucks and convertibles toward Derek’s cherry-red pickup. The whole senior class is invited to participate in the parade, but those of us who “won” a superlative lead the way. It’s just a few laps around the school, the underclassmen watching through the classroom windows, followed by a pancake breakfast in the cafeteria. Pretty unremarkable, but it’s a tradition I’ve always looked forward to. We all have, I guess.
“If it’s not my beautiful bride,” Matt proclaims from the truck bed.
“Hi,” I say stiffly. I don’t want to be cold, but frigidity seems like the best course of action when you’re standing with your ex whose heart you’d rather not keep shredding, on a float devoted to your relationship, just like all the “Matt &Nat” carvings in all the trees and bathroom stalls around the middle school. Even his letterman jacket proclaims our “undying” love: Matt Kincaid, QB1, has been #4 since age twelve, when he chose his jersey number in honor of my birthday, April fourth.
As he offers me a hand and helps pull me up, my eyes land on a hideous monstrosity of white taffeta and lace draped over one side of the truck bed. “My gown,” I say. “It’s just how I imagined it.”
Matt laughs, swipes the dress up, and lifts the immense amounts of fabric over my head for me to put on.
“Don’t you have to wear a tux or something?” I grumble, forcing my head and arms through the respective holes.
“Rachel gave me a suit jacket,” he says. “It’s under my coat.”
“Oh, how convenient,” I say, then a whiff of something sweet hits me. “Is that whiskey on your breath?”
He glances down at his feet, scratches the back of his head, and then eyes me. “Maybe.”
“Since when do you drink whiskey at eight in the morning?”
“Well, I guess you wouldn’t know, would you, Nat? You’re not exactly blowing up my phone these days.”
“Fair enough,” I say. By the time we broke up, I already found Matt’s burgeoning party boy persona a little annoying. At first, I’d just assumed that he was being absorbed into the many-headed monstrosity that the football team can be, while forsaking his true self. But when his drinking became more and more regular, I knew that wasn’t it.
“You want some?” Matt says, patting a flask-shaped lump in his pocket.
“A flask?” He nods. “What is this, Atlantic City in the 1920s?”
“Do you want any or not?”
“Hold on, I’m about to make a joke about the little teetotaling town from Footloose.”
“Nat,” he says. “Yes or no.”
“No thanks,” I say. “I don’t want to fall off the stage onto the mob bosses while I’m doing the Charleston.”
He laughs again and shakes my shoulders. “So, what do you think? Are you ready?”
“To debut my flapper dress to a bunch of bootleggers?”