My Best Friend, Maybe Read online

  “No,” I say.

  “You think I’m so pathetic because my heart stayed broken for a whole year.”

  “I don’t think that!” I shout it, but not out of anger. Just to try to get her to hear me.

  “If you had only done what I wanted tonight, she would like me again. She would have kissed me again. You know how long it’s been since I’ve been kissed?”

  “Sadie,” I try again. She’s talking crazy.

  But then she says, “It’s our town, our school, full of people like you who make it impossible for me to get over Rose.”

  “People like me?” I ask.

  “Yeah,” she spits back. She takes a step closer to me. “People like you.”

  “Like me?” I say louder.

  She nods. “Crazy. Christian. Homophobes.”

  I cannot believe this. I take a step toward her now. “You think that’s me?”

  She nods.

  “You think I ran away tonight because you’re gay?”

  She freezes.

  “You think all of this is because you’re a lesbian?”

  Sadie considers for a second. Her face is a flash-card book of emotions: sad, pensive, frightened, angry. She settles on angry. “I think you’re a hateful, homophobic loser who hopes I never get kissed again.”

  I cannot say anything. I cannot swallow such undeserved hate. I cannot try to arrange the pieces of this girl in front of me back into my best friend.

  Instead, I prove her wrong. I step the final distance between us, I put my hand on the back of her head, I pull her toward my face, and then wham, my lips are against hers in a gooey, sloppy kiss and she’s bracing against my palm but I won’t let her go anywhere, not until I’ve proved my point, not until she realizes that there are many other reasons for me to be mad at her.

  “Coley!”

  But it’s not Sadie. My lips are still pressed to hers.

  I yank my head around and there’s Sam, only ten feet from us down the marble sidewalk. “Sam . . .” I whisper it.

  “Coley?” he says. “Sadie?” He shakes his head. “What the hell . . .”

  Sadie stands next to me and cries.

  “Sam?” I say.

  “I was following . . . I thought you were upset, and I thought . . .” He pauses for a second, shakes his head again. “You kissed my sister!” he yells.

  Since I don’t know what else to do, I continue the charade. “What’s wrong? I’m Sadie’s date, aren’t I?”

  “Sadie’s date?” he says. “I thought . . . holy shit . . .”

  He turns and walks back down the sidewalk. I start to run after him but Sadie reaches for my wrist. I spin to face her. “What are you doing?” she demands through her tears. “I thought you were helping me. You stole my second kiss. I’ve been waiting for a year to be kissed again and you just stole it for something . . . fake. What’s wrong with you?”

  I open my mouth. “What’s wrong with you?” I ask.

  She shakes her head, sucking in huge sobs that rock her body back and forth.

  “You tell me in one breath that you can’t help who you like but that I’m not allowed to like Sam. Well, guess what? I do. I like your brother. I’m a real person who has real feelings, too, and I was just trying . . .”

  She’s still crying, but she nods. “You’re messed up, Coley.” The words are like knives slashing the little-girl part of my heart.

  I’ve never been messed up. Not until I got here.

  “So are you,” I say.

  I turn back to find Sam but he’s gone, a shadow far down the sidewalk like he’s been running.

  I leave Sadie crying behind me, and I sprint after him. But when he veers to the right and descends back into the party, I keep going. He wouldn’t want to talk to me anyway. Not now. I’m guilty and stupid and vengeful and messed up. Tears stream down my face. Sweat stains my dress, and the mess I made messier writhes behind me. I run and I run and I run until I collapse on the sidewalk in a heap and sob.

  I messed everything up for everyone.

  I kissed a girl.

  I ran away from my mother.

  I tried to hurt Rose.

  I hurt Sam. I hurt Sadie. I hurt myself.

  I don’t know how long I sit in a red-minidress heap on that dark sidewalk, my legs kicked out in front of me, my heels thrown down at my feet, my hands constantly wiping my face. Santorini is still around me. The wind has stopped carrying the smells of feasts and the music of parties and the multilingual conversations. The heat has been sucked from the air so it rubs raw on my face and legs. The passersby have all gone to their hotels or their homes and it’s just me, a big mess on a pristine sidewalk on a cliffy island on the other side of the world from everything I understand.

  “I’ve been looking all over for you!”

  I don’t realize right away that the voice is talking to me. It comes from far away. It doesn’t penetrate my shell of depression.

  “All over!”

  It’s not Sadie and it’s not Sam. It’s not Mom or Dad.

  I bring my hands away from my face and I see big pale fleshy feet being tickled by the bottom of a flowing peach dress. I look up. Edie.

  I know she’s going to yell at me. The realization pumps through my blood like cool relief.

  “Sorry.” I sniffle.

  And then, even though she’s in a dress that probably cost as much as my college savings, even though she’s big, an adult, and so graceful she must be eons beyond this, she lowers herself to the ground and drops beside me, right on the dusty sidewalk.

  “What’s going on, Colette?” she asks. “What are you doing out here?”

  I wipe tears from my cheeks and turn. She looks more like the Edie I remember right now than she has the entire trip. Her face is open in a half smile, her blue eyes look like they want to hug me while she sits next to me, not touching.

  “This whole trip it has seemed like you’ve been having a grand old time with my kids,” she says.

  I nod. “I have,” I say. “Thank you.”

  My face flushes. I can’t believe I haven’t thanked her yet. I know better than that.

  I know better than a lot of things.

  “So, what happened tonight? Why are you crying?”

  She puts her thumb against my cheek and catches a tear and that only makes me cry harder because at once I’m wishing it was my own mother sitting next to me and knowing that my own mother would never catch a tear like that. She would tell me I’m being selfish by crying on this kind of a vacation.

  “You don’t know what happened?”

  She shakes her head. “I haven’t seen most of you kids for most of the night.”

  I take a shaky breath. “Then why were you looking for me?”

  “Because you weren’t there at the end of the reception and I—” She pauses and stares down into my face like I’m the most important thing in her existence at this moment. “I have to talk to you, Coley. I owe you an apology.”

  I blink, rearranging the salt across my pupils. She owes me an apology?

  “Sadie told me today that you never knew that she was—”

  “I didn’t!” I cut her off. “I swear.”

  Edie laughs, but it’s a sad kind of noise. “I know,” she says. She cups her hand against my cheek. “I know. I believe you. I never should have doubted you, Colette.”

  I hiccup, praying the tears won’t come back.

  “I was so angry when Sadie decided to bring you on this trip. She kept saying, ‘Mom, I have to bring Coley. She’s the only one who knows about me. It’s Coley or it’s no one.’

  “And I kept encouraging her to tell another one of her friends; I kept telling her that anyone would be better.”

  I gulp.

  “She kept saying, ‘Coley owes me this, Mom.’ Then she took my credit card and bought your ticket—and I grounded her for that, believe me—but it was basically out of my hands at that point.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” I ask.<
br />
  “Because I never should have held the way you were raised against you, Colette. I never even spoke to you about it. I’m disgusted with myself.”

  I raise my eyebrows. Is this the first time I’m receiving an apology from an adult?

  “And because for the Peppers, forgiveness is our religion. We don’t get too focused on all the details, but I always tell my kids that forgiveness is a divine act. So I should have forgiven you, a long time ago,” she says. “Instead I held it against you. I didn’t try to work it out with you; I didn’t reach out to teach you another way. I’ve been angry at you for hurting my little girl for years and years and now, finally, she takes the time to listen to you and it turns out you never hurt her at all. I’m sorry.”

  “I did,” I mumble.

  She puts her arm around me now, and I sink into her warmth even though I know she’ll pull it away as soon as I tell her. “You did what?”

  “I did hurt Sadie. Tonight.”

  Edie’s eyes go wide, and I see her trying to make them un-angry. “What do you mean? What did you do?”

  “I kissed her.”

  Now she smiles. “Come again?”

  “I kissed Sadie,” I say. “I don’t know why. I was mad and trying to prove something. I didn’t want to be her date, and it didn’t seem fair for her to tell me that I had to accept her but I wasn’t allowed to be myself, so . . . I kissed her.”

  Edie is laughing, belly-laughing out of the huge crescent of her smile. Her smile looks like Sam’s, I think, before I remember that he’s adopted so that wouldn’t make sense.

  “What?” I say, but I’m smiling now.

  “You mean to tell me that the worst thing you’ve done to Sadie in all these years is that you kissed her?”

  I nod.

  “Well, she probably deserved that,” Edie says, glee dancing on her words. “That girl of mine will never learn, will she?”

  Edie stands, and I stare up at her. What is she talking about?

  “I told her, ‘You can bring a friend for support, but you can’t try to use her to get back at Rose.’ I told her, ‘That won’t get you anywhere.’ ”

  She’s saying that stuff, but she’s still almost laughing.

  “You mean I wasn’t supposed to be her date?” I ask.

  “No!” Edie squeals. “No, you were not. You were supposed to be her friend.” She reaches down, and I put my hand in hers so she can pull me to my feet. “Don’t worry, I won’t laugh when I talk to her about it. I’ll use my most stern mom-voice,” Edie says, turning on a gruff impression of an old man. “I won’t tell her how much I laughed until years from now. But, boy, do I love watching my little girl learn from her mistakes.”

  She shakes her head at me, still smiling, then swoops down to gather my shoes.

  “Let’s go to bed now, shall we?” she says. “I’ll make sure to have a chat with Sadie in the morning, and then I’ll send her to you. We’ll have this all straightened out before Crete.”

  I know that’s impossible but my eyes are stinging from all the tears and my eyelids are heavy and at least if I’ve lost Sam and Sadie, I still have Edie. So I follow her.

  On the way back I say, “Hey, Edie?”

  “Hm?” She glances at me.

  I’m nervous to ask, but the me I want to be wouldn’t be nervous, so I do anyway. “How come I’ve never met Sadie’s dad?”

  Edie laughs. “I used to wonder why you weren’t more curious about that. You had such a great relationship with your father as a little girl and all.”

  She knew that?

  “But the answer is pretty simple. You haven’t met him because Sadie hasn’t met him because we have no idea who he is.”

  I flush pink. I’ve never thought of Edie like that, like sexual, like making babies and not knowing where they come from. I don’t want to be thinking it now.

  She laughs again. “Not like that, girl,” she says. “I had a husband once.”

  My eyebrows jump. I had no idea.

  “He was so . . . perfect. We were in love. And when he passed away, before we got a chance to make a family, I knew I’d never love again. But I inherited some money, enough for me and a few others to live on. He’d always wanted a son, so I thought I’d give him two, the only way I knew how. I went to Haiti, where I adopted the boys and I love them. Oh, do I love them.” She smiles. “And I know it’s only in my head that he’s their father, it’s not legal and it’s certainly not biological, but they remind me of him. Boy, do they.” She chuckles to herself then, shaking her head. “After a few years, though, I wanted a little girl. I wanted another child, one who wouldn’t constantly remind me of the life I’d lost. One who looked like me. So I went through the steps and I got my girl. Her father’s an anonymous donor.”

  Edie squeezes my shoulders.

  “I’ve three beautiful kids. I’m a lucky lady.”

  We start descending the stairs to our hotel. My eyelids are heavy but I’m curious. “How did I never know that?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” Edie says. “There’s something about our family. No one ever thinks to ask how we got to be the way we are.”

  I nod, but I know why. Because the Peppers are so clearly a family. No matter what my mother used to say.

  Ω

  The first thought that pops into my head the next morning: I kissed a girl. I stretch in my bed and rub the sleep out of my tired eyes. It’s our free day.

  No more pretending comes right after it. Today, I won’t try to be anyone, not Perfect Colette, certainly not Gay Colette. I’ll be myself. Today, I will go swimming.

  I wander into the Santorini sunshine in my boxers and my T-shirt. I watch the light glittering on the water. I want to be me in that water, pure, honest me. So there’s something I need to do first.

  It’s not necessarily the rightest thing to do, but I log onto the TV-computer and write Mark an e-mail. It’s the only way I can contact him, and I have to do it today. It’s not fair to me that he breaks up with me and then goes back on it while he’s unreachable and I can’t discuss it with him. I have to be honest with him, with me. And honestly, it’s over.

  Mark, I love you, but I think that you were right about us the first time. We’ve grown apart. We hid too much from each other. We tried to be too perfect and now we’re broken. I don’t want to hold you back when you go off to Princeton. I want you to be happy and have a great life and not worry about what your girlfriend would think all the time, and I want that for me, too. I’m sorry that I had to tell you this way, but it’s the only way to reach you. Love, Coley

  Then I delete “Coley” and put “Colette” because I don’t want to purposefully upset him. When I hit send, I’m feeling a little taller already.

  There’s an e-mail from Mom but I leave it unread. I’ll call her. There’s also one from Louisa.

  Colette, I’m so sorry I said that thing about being fun. I wasn’t trying to tell you how to be. I thought it was only advice. I don’t know if I’m overreacting but I haven’t heard from you since I said that so I’m afraid you’re mad at me.

  I laugh out loud and type a quick reply. At least this is one problem I know how to fix.

  I’m not mad! It was great advice. I’ve been trying to be as fun as possible, like you said, but this whole trip is full of drama. I can’t wait to tell you all about it when I get back. We’ll have to go get pedicures before you leave, okay? And by the way, I’m glad I came here, drama and all.

  Finally, I call Mom. Not to apologize exactly. Not to apologize for everything, anyway. But to try to be honest. To tell her that sometimes I disagree with her and I don’t know how to handle it. I check my watch as the phone rings. It’s three a.m. there; I can’t get used to this time difference. I hang up before I wake her.

  I take a shower and after determining that the little balcony-restaurant is empty, I sit for a quick breakfast all to myself.

  But I’m only sitting for a moment before Sadie is beside me. My head jerks up. I
thought for sure that this time she’d never talk to me again.

  “I’m still learning how to do this,” she says quietly.

  “How to do what?” I ask.

  “How to be a lesbian,” she says. “I’m still figuring it out. It feels like I’m always going to be figuring it out.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “My mom said I have to talk to you today. She said I had to forgive you. She’s suddenly all Team Coley.”

  I want to smile to myself, but I don’t.

  “And she’s right . . . That kiss . . . felt like a huge deal. I’ve been waiting so long for another girl to kiss me and I hate that it was fake. But she’s right. You couldn’t know that.”

  “I’m sorry I kissed you,” I say.

  She nods. “And I believe you that you never knew, so I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have called you all of those names. My mom says there’s a lot of space between being a homophobe and not wanting to be my date.” She chuckles but it’s not friendly.

  I nod. “I didn’t want to pretend to be someone I’m not. I have to do that too much already, for my parents.”

  Is this going to be it? Is all the fighting going to be over? Now that all of the cards are on the table, can we go swimming?

  But Sadie keeps talking. “I get it. So, I’ll forgive you. I won’t stay mad at you like I have been for so long. Because that was wrong of me. But . . . look, it was wrong to bring you here. I see that now . . .” She trails off and I’m shaking my head, back and forth, back and forth, because I know what she’s going to say and I don’t want to hear it today, I can’t hear it, it will hurt so badly. “I guess we were only meant to be little-girl friends.”

  My heart breaks so fast I’m sure she can hear it shatter.

  “No,” I say. It’s quiet, but it’s there.

  She looks at me.

  “I could have been there for you. I could have been the friend you needed on this vacation. But you should have told me. A long, long time ago.” I say it gently. We’re both in the wrong. We can admit that, forgive each other, and go swimming.

  “I couldn’t!” Sadie says loudly. “It wasn’t about you, don’t you get that? I tried to tell you, but after—”