Page 22

THE TRIUMVIRATE REUNITED , or Planning a Party

Immediately after my disastrous lunch with Touch, I called Ros. Normally we texted, but this time, I called them.

“Hey,” I said. My voice wasn’t shaking, but it felt like it was. “Sorry to bother you.”

“What’s wrong?” Ros asked.

They knew. They always knew.

“I had a weird conversation with Touch,” I said. “Do you think you could come over?”

“Give me twenty minutes,” they said, and even though things were a little strange between us, they said twenty minutes, and we were together in sixteen.

“I feel awful,” I said to Ros.

“I don’t think you need to feel awful ,” Ros said.

“Okay, then I feel just plain bad,” I said.

“It sounds like you had a productive and necessary conversation. Like he talked to you about something that was bothering him, and you said you were sorry.”

We were sitting outside on the porch like we had that first night, when we both smelled like river and when the summer yawned out before us, fresh and easy, pre-everything: pre–Jess Orlando, pre–Oliver Teller. Pre–Dropped Acorn and pre–Friendship Disaster. Neither one of us had mentioned the marooning at Lovers’ Lagoon. We’d put aside our own friendship woes to talk about Touchstone and the way that I’d failed him as a friend.

“Yeah, but I don’t think I fixed anything,” I said. “And the fact still remains that I’m a shitty friend.”

“You’re not a shitty friend,” said Ros. “You were the best friend to me all year long.”

“Yeah, but I’m being a shitty friend to him now , is the thing. He’s right . I wasn’t even paying attention to what was going on with him. It’s supposed to be the summer of Very Serious Friendship, and I’ve been so caught up with…” Here I caught myself, because I almost said you . “Costuming.”

“You’re not the only one who’s been caught up,” said Ros, a little abashed. “I haven’t been very good to Touchstone, either. Or you.”

There was silence for a moment. It was the first time either one of us had broached the gap that had widened between us since the failed Fourth of July hang, which had precipitated the Ros-shaped absence in my life.

“The houseplants are definitely struggling without you,” I said.

“Celia, I’m sorry I haven’t been around,” said Ros.

“That’s okay,” I said.

“It’s not,” said Ros. “I never thought I would be the sort of person who ditches their friends. We’re not those people. We’re not those friends. You know what I mean?”

I agreed, except for the fact that we seemed to be gathering all evidence to the contrary.

We very much were those friends, and the longer we spent apart, the more I felt the Triumvirate splintering.

“Before we left, my mom warned me about this,” I said.

“About us being bad friends?”

“Just that things might get hard between us. That being here was going to be different than being at home.”

“I’m sorry,” Ros said again. “I know I’ve been spending all my time with Jess.”

“No,” I said. “It’s okay. I mean, I’m glad you’re having fun.”

“It’s more than fun,” said Ros. “She told me she loved me.”

“Wow,” I managed to say, in spite of the fact that I’d just been struck dead by a lightning bolt. “And did you… say it back?”

Ros nodded.

Well, that was the ball game.

Ros was in love, exotic, all-consuming, fern-spore love, and I was just me, Celia, sewing buttons on trousers and living my dinky little life.

“That’s fast ,” I said.

“It is fast, but Jess is really great, Celia. She’s got some rough edges, but so do I. She went through a really hard time a few years ago. Her dad died. Her mom drives trucks for a living just to make ends meet and is hardly ever home. Jess basically raised herself. She has a brother who is kind of an asshole. That’s pretty much why she learned to fight.”

“Like, to fight him ?”

“Yeah.”

“Jesus.”

“I know.”

We sat together in silence and let this sink in: In some homes, you learned how to throw punches; in others, you learned the Greek alphabet for fun and that nothing tasted as good as a bowl of ice cream after dinner. Not for the first time, I felt so lucky to have been born into my family.

“You’d really like Jess if you got to know her.”

The if you got to know her hung there between us. Suddenly everything that Ros and I weren’t talking about seemed to find its way into the room. I owed them an apology as much as I owed Touchstone.

“I’m so sorry I left you stranded at Lovers’ Lagoon on the Fourth of July,” I said. “I did want to spend time with Jess. I just…”

“It’s okay,” Ros said. “I’m sorry I haven’t been around more. We can try Lovers’ Lagoon again another time.”

The night itself seemed to feel lighter then, after our apologies. With the weirdness between us out of the way, I felt like confiding in Ros, as though it were old times.

“I do feel sorry for ditching Touch,” I started. “But he also said this weird thing that I can’t get out of my head. About how everyone in the workshop thinks he’s gay. He sounded upset about it. Like he took it as an insult.”

“That’s weird,” said Ros. They were quiet for a moment, considering. “Honestly, it kind of reminds me of my dad.”

It was the first time they’d mentioned their dad in I didn’t know how long. I wondered vaguely if this was Jess’s influence—if Ros had become more open, willing to talk about their situation now that they’d met someone who was dealing with something similar.

“How?” I asked, trying to prod them softly into saying more.

“Like… just, like, subtle things that hurt. It was, like, he said he was okay with my gender. But then sometimes these things would come out of his mouth that were like, whoa . Just little stuff. Like, how it was weird that this woman in his office didn’t shave her legs. Or, like, you and I would be texting, and he’d call it girl talk . You say you get it, but is that really what you think?” They paused. “It’s hard sometimes, not to think that it all had something do with him leaving. Like if I’d been a different way—a daughter, like, cookie-cutter, instead of a—” They gestured at themselves. “Maybe he’d still be here.”

“I don’t know,” I said. “I’m not the most cookie-cutter, but my dad still hasn’t forgiven me for quitting the tennis team.”

“Yeah, but he’s still around ,” Ros said.

There was silence. I didn’t know what to say. So I waited. And, a surprise: Ros spoke into this silence.

“This is so stupid,” they said. “You know how I used to pretend I was a wolf as a kid?”

“You barked at me,” I said.

“I did,” they said. “And you were so nice about it.”

“I treated you like anyone else would have,” I said.

“I don’t know if that’s true. I think you were especially nice to me,” Ros said. “Anyway—obviously, with the barking, I was being disruptive. And reasoning with me didn’t work. So what my parents did, finally, was my dad would give me a fake magic pill every morning that would turn me into a girl the second I left the house. It was a vitamin. But we’d go through this whole ritual. Swallow the pill; now you’re a girl. And, like, he’d have me twirl and call me Lady Rosalind, which was sort of fun, but also, I just wanted to be a wolf.

“And like—later—after the gender stuff—I’d see him in the morning and look at him, and I’d just know, like, he wants to give me that pill .” Ros paused. “But when we met—you were the first one I felt like really saw through that pill and liked me.”

“I still like you,” I said, and what I felt then, intensely, was the friendship we used to have, back when we were kids. I missed the way we would play. I missed the world we’d built together, boarded up in someone’s backyard. “I miss you.”

“I miss you, too,” Ros said. “I sometimes forget it’s good to talk.”

“Okay,” I said. “Well, good.” I paused. “What’s going to happen when we go home? With you and Jess, I mean.”

Our contract for the Lily Pad was for another whole month. Privately, I’d started hoping that somehow we could bow out of it sooner. Three months had seemed like nothing at all when we’d first gotten here, but now, given the way things turned out, I found myself dreaming of home. I missed my parents. I missed my dogs. I missed a house that didn’t smell like mildew; I missed watching Power Jam on the couch with my mom. I even missed my dad’s badgering me to play tennis. At least he wanted to do something with me.

“She and I are talking about it,” Ros said slowly.

There was a cryptic edge to their voice, and I wanted to press Ros on what they meant by this, but there was a hello from inside the house: Touchstone, returned home.

“We’re out here,” I called.

“The gang’s all here,” he said, stepping out onto the porch. “Did another bird die?”

“Not yet,” said Ros.

“Should we make dinner?” I asked hopefully.

“I ate on campus,” Touchstone said.

“I was supposed to go see Jess,” Ros said, but their voice trailed off, as though maybe they could be convinced to stay.

We all stayed still for an awkward moment. I thought of what my mom had said about triangles, and then, in a fit of pique, I threw up my hands.

“This is pathetic!” I said. “This is supposed to be a summer of Very Serious Friendship, not a summer of Very Serious Avoidance,” I said. “You know what we need to do?”

“Organize the spice cabinet?” said Ros.

“You know I’d be down for that, but no. We should have a party.”

“A party,” Ros said, looking skeptical. “This place is barely big enough for three people.”

“Okay, maybe not like, a party party. Lord knows I don’t want anyone getting punched out on my watch. I know, I know , cool your jets. What about a dinner party?”

“A dinner party,” Touch said. “With our oven?”

“The cake worked,” I said. “Enough that you two scarfed it down.”

“Right, but we’re animals,” Touchstone said.

“What would we even cook?” Ros said.

“And when would we even have it?” Touchstone said. “We’re all so busy.”

“We’d cook whatever you wanted, and we could have the party whenever you wanted, too. You two are such good cooks. You can just make veggie burgers again if you want. Or I’ll cook.”

“No one wants that,” said Ros.

“Look, it’ll be fun. We can come up with a menu together,” I said. “Ros, you can invite Jess… Touch, you can invite Audrey if you’re on okay terms.…”

“That does sound kind of fun,” said Touch, with a hint of trepidation in his voice. “Maybe we can do a risotto? Audrey can probably get us some wine.…”

“I like the risotto idea,” said Ros.

“We could get dressed up,” I said. “We could use those pink glasses.”

“You know I’m just going to break one,” Ros said.

“We’ll get you a sippy cup, then,” I said, and Ros laughed, and so did Touchstone, and the dinner began to take shape before us. There would be laughter and gaiety and frivolity. There would be wonderful smells: garlic and ginger and slow-cooked onions. There would be sparkling drinks. There would be abundance , and then calm—a long, lingering evening on the back porch, just like there’d been that first night. We would sit there until the sun went down, feel the loss of light and heat in our bodies, and the Triumvirate would be reunited.

It wasn’t until much later in the evening, after Touch had gone to bed, after Ros had retreated to Jess’s, that I had my epiphany. Maybe Ros would never love me, not the way I wanted. They seemed happy with Jess, even though there was no way that was going to last, not with our going back home at the end of the summer. But maybe, if I couldn’t get Ros to fall in love with me, I could at least get them to see what they were missing out on. I would have been a fantastic girlfriend, and I would prove it at the dinner party. All I had to do—besides cook the perfect meal and host the perfect evening—was slip into the Cinderella dress hanging in the back of my closet. By the end of the night, Ros would regret not falling in love with me.