Page 10 of A Lot Like Lavender
“What’s hard?” Jack jumps to my defense. “What happened? What do you need?”
“James’ and Em’s best friend showed up yesterday out of nowhere,” Dinah explains. “He hasn’t been around for years and… it’s just a stinky situation.”
If by stinky she means a giant, steaming pile of alpaca beans, then yes, it is stinky. It’s impossible—unfathomable, actually—to dive into how I feel about Jordan’s sudden reappearance in my yard. So I stuff my mouth with pretzel bites and wait for what I’m sure will be sage wisdom from my younger, but oh-so eloquent, sister.
“So, Jordan…” she says, curling up on the couch beside me. “Is he still hot?”
Jack rolls his eyes, snapping a spare pretzel from the counter and snarling through the single bite. “Polly, I’m right here!”
“And you’re very pretty, too, J. Jones.” She smiles, withall the adorable condescension that makes her my second favorite person in the world, then hand feeds a bite to Lola. Thank goodness our daughters will learn their sweet, sardonic delivery from the very best.
“So,” she repeats.“Is he?”
I want to lie and say I didn’t get a good look at him. That I barely recognized the man who played almost as much a role in my young adulthood as my iPod Shuffle, UGG boots,The Officereruns and… James did.
But the truth is, as soon as I heard the sound of that motorcycle rumbling down the driveway, my stomach was in knots. I had the eeriest feeling I’d know who’d greet me before I ever opened that door. I’d only just barely managed to gather myself after firing Tommy when another flood of emotions hit me with zero warning.
Anger. Sadness. Homesickness. And the overwhelming need to smack something.
Rather than confess all of that to Dinah and show her how very off kilter I am, and have been, for the last twenty-four hours, I tap my fingers together and simply state, “He has a neck tattoo.”
She sighs wistfully. “So, that’s a yes.”
“Dinah Belle!” Jack groans in the background. “Are you serious?”
“I’m sorry, honey, but when you see this guy, you’ll understand what I’m talking about. He’s just… pretty.”
“If our daughter ever brings home a guy with a neck tattoo, it won’t matter what his face looks like, Polly.”
Dinah ignores her husband and excitedly claps her hands. Lola follows suit. So Jack and I also clap, because that’s what sensible adults do when a toddler does anything deemed adorable that you want her to continue. It’s one big, weird celebration over here.
“Oh my gosh…” Dinah says. “Does that mean Jordan'sDr. Lovenow? Wasn’t he starting med school when James…”
The room goes silent as Dinah realizes her mistake. We don’t talk about James. About the ten years that have passed since an unknown heart condition stole his life, Molly’s father, and our future. A few years ago, Dinah all but begged me to talk about our parents more. Something I’ve tried to do regularly, wanting desperately to help her grieve their deaths and heal in whatever way she needs. But with James it feels different. For me, talking about James only emphasizes his loss. The things I can’t change, that could have been, and more poignantly, all that is not.
Unfortunately, because of our friendship, where there are memories of James, Jordan is almost always present. I’m not sure where Jordan has been for the last ten years, and though I’ve been more deeply hurt by his absence than I’d like to admit, I have wondered about him from time to time. Wondering whether he finished his degree. If he’s a cardiologist like he always planned to be. If he’s had pets and multiple homes. Did he upgrade the old motorcycle he’d meticulously worked on in his spare time or traded it in for something new? Does he have debts, relationships… regrets? Questions with no answers for ten years.
Though I can now confirm the motorcycle is a newer model, Jordan is, and has been, as lost to me as James.
“He was starting med school then, but now… I don’t know and don’t care.” I pop my last pretzel nub into my mouth then lick the last of the salt from my fingertips. There’s little that can’t be solved with these buttered bites. Eating my feelings seems like the best decision I’ve made in a few days. I probably should have come here sooner.
“Wait, Jordan Love?” Jack snags the finalbite from Dinah’s plate. She immediately whines until he rests his hand on the back of her neck, and my sister curls into his touch like their giant Maine coon curls into Jack every chance he gets. “That’s who you’re talkin’ about?”
“Yeah.” Dinah nods. “You know him?”
“Yup. He was a couple years ahead of me in school. That guy was so cool, he had a motorcycle and a?—”
Dinah’s eyebrows raise.
“Sorry,” Jack backpedals and scoffs theatrically. “I mean,thatguy? Yuck. What a loser. Hate him.”
When he glances back at my sister, she gives him an approving nod. “That’s right. We hate him.”
“We don’t hate him,” I correct.
Lola waddles over to Dinah, crawling into her lap, and smiles wide, babbling between actual words and her own language, when my sister says in her most animated baby voice, “We just want him to have explosive diarrhea in a public setting. Right, Lola?”
I’d settle for back acne or male pattern baldness, but it’s nice to know where their loyalty lies.
