chapter nine

JOSIE

“Well, that went swimmingly,” Gabe deadpans the second the door closes behind Mom and Dad, the two of them giving new meaning to the expression eat and run.

“It’s all Meredith’s fault,” I say. There was no way the rest of us could recover from her outburst and exit, the conversation vacillating between awkward, tense, and downright contentious.

“Yeah,” Gabe says as we make our way back to the table and begin to clear the dishes. “But no surprise there. We both knew that was going to happen.”

“I guess so,” I say. “But I always think she’ll be different.”

“You know that’s the definition of insanity according to Einstein?” Gabe says, raising one eyebrow. “Doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results?”

I sigh and say, “Yeah. Well, I knew she wouldn’t embrace the idea, but I thought she’d at least stay for dinner.”

“I didn’t,” Gabe says. “Although it is pretty hard to resist my cooking.”

“True,” I say, cursorily acknowledging his culinary prowess. “But she wouldn’t even listen….Her mind is so made up about everything.”

“She really is closed-minded,” he says. “I’ll give you that.”

“Mom is, too,” I say, thinking about some of her remarks during dinner—how many different ways she suggested that I just go on a few more dates.

“Yeah, but it’s kind of different. Your mom’s just…traditional. Conservative. She wants you to follow that set boy-meets-girl path because she thinks that’s the only path to happiness….Meredith’s not really traditional—she’s just judgmental toward you. If another friend came to her with this same half-baked idea, she’d be all over it. Praising her independence.”

“Exactly!” I say, so excited by how well Gabe always captures and articulates what I’m feeling that I choose to overlook his slightly offensive choice of adjectives. After all, he is correct—the idea hasn’t fully baked yet. But it has been slid into the preheated oven.

“Meredith has no faith in me whatsoever,” I continue. “Did you see how she acted about Harper? It was as if she thought I was going to start discussing orgies or heroin in front of a four-year-old.”

“You do like a good heroin orgy,” Gabe says with a little grin.

I don’t crack a smile; I’m too worked up now. “And can you believe she brought up Will like that? As if that is at all relevant at this point…”

I return to the table for another armful of dishes as Gabe trails behind me. “Were you at all tempted to set the record straight?” he asks. “She really thinks you cheated on him—”

“No. Not one bit,” I say, cutting him off. Because I know what he’s thinking, and he knows what I’m thinking, and I see no reason to rehash all of it.

“Okay, okay. Just asking,” he says, palms up, facing out. His gesture would suggest that he’s offended, but I know it takes a lot more than a few terse words to offend Gabe.

For the next several minutes, neither of us speaks as I rinse our dishes, glasses, and utensils, handing them to Gabe to load in the dishwasher.

“There’s no point in discussing ancient history,” I finally say, trying to soften my retort. “Especially with Meredith.”

“I hear you,” Gabe mutters, glancing at me.

“I mean…what’s done is done,” I say, handing him the final few steak knives.

“Right,” Gabe says. “What’s done is most definitely done.”

We are speaking in code, of course, the way best friends do, talking about several layers of things at once. The night Daniel died. And also the night, years later, on which we discovered that there was more to the story than we once thought.

IT HAPPENED ABOUT halfway between then and now, seven years after Daniel died. Gabe picked me up for dinner, no destination in mind, and we landed at Tin Lizzy’s, a Mexican dive. It was just the two of us, which had become something of a rarity, as Will and I were approaching engagement, and one of his terms of marriage seemed to be curtailing my time with Gabe. He insisted that he wasn’t jealous; he just thought my friendship with Gabe was “odd” (which of course meant that he was jealous). Trying to accommodate him, I mostly obliged his request.

But on that particular Friday night, Gabe and I had Will’s blessing, likely because he was going to a bachelor party and figured this was a way to keep me from whining about the strip club antics that were sure to come.

“So ol’ Willy gave you a hall pass tonight?” Gabe asked over fish tacos, guacamole, and a couple of ice-cold Coronas.

“Ha-ha. Very funny,” I said, feeling defensive. “I don’t need his permission to hang with you.”

“Oh, yeah, ya do,” Gabe said, raising his eyebrows. At that point, he had never directly told me what he thought of Will, nor would he ever tell me he missed me, but I knew the truth, on both fronts. “So what’s he got tonight? A bachelor party or something?”

I reluctantly nodded, marveling at his uncanny ability to read a situation.

“Where is it?” he asked, nonchalantly making conversation, though he’d unwittingly stumbled onto very sensitive terrain.

“They started out at Five Paces,” I said, feeling myself tense as I looked away. Then I blurted out that I hadn’t been back there since the night Daniel died.

“Yeah,” Gabe mumbled. “Me neither, come to think of it.”

“What?” I asked, looking up at him with a jolt, thinking I must have heard him wrong—or simply misunderstood what he was saying.

But then he clarified. “I haven’t been back there since the night your brother died, either,” he said, taking a sip of his beer.

“Wait. You were there that night?”

“Yeah,” Gabe said. “You don’t remember?” He let out a nervous laugh, which I would overanalyze later, and added, “Thanks a lot.”

As I stared back at him, my heart began to race, and the haziest recollection of Gabe sitting at the bar, wearing a gray hoodie and nursing a pint of beer, returned to me. I wondered if it was a real memory—or just the power of suggestion. “Were you wearing a hoodie?” I asked, squinting into space.

“Hell if I know—” he started to say, then stopped. “Well, actually, I think I was. Maybe…”

“Why haven’t you mentioned this before?” I asked him, incredulous.

“Because you were there, that’s why,” Gabe said, softening the sarcastic edge I’d usually get with such an answer, given the emotional territory we were in.

“Did we speak?” I asked.

“No. Not really,” Gabe said with a little shrug. “We just said hello…in passing. That was pretty much it. But I was kind of sitting near you—at the end of the bar. Right at the corner. For some reason I do remember that.” He points at the corner of the napkin and says, “You were like this, facing the street…and I was right here, facing the back of the bar.”

Suddenly I had no appetite. I pushed my plate away and asked who he was with. I wanted, needed, to know every detail.

“Nobody, really,” he said, which was par for the course. “I knew a lot of people there. But I didn’t go there with anyone.”

My hands turned clammy, the way they always did when I thought about the nauseating minute-to-minute time line of that night. “What time did you get there? What time did you leave?”

Gabe used a chip to scrape the last bit of guacamole from the little bowl between us. “I don’t know, exactly,” he said, the chip halfway to his mouth before he changed his mind and dropped it onto his plate.

“Well, then, approximately?” I pressed.

He insisted that he truly didn’t know—that he couldn’t even ballpark it. “My guess would be as good as yours.”

“No,” I said with a sad little laugh. “Actually that’s not true. Your guess would still be better than mine.”

“Why does it matter?”

“Because it does,” I said.

This answer must have been good enough for him, because he said, “Okay…well, if I had to guess…I’d say I got there around ten…and then left around…midnight. Maybe twelve-thirty.”

I closed my eyes, wondering if we could have been saying hello at the precise minute that Daniel was killed. What was I doing at exactly ten-fifty-four that evening? I had asked myself that question many times, though never with Gabe in the frame. And of course, that was before your cellphone could pretty much give you an answer, providing a near-perfect time-stamped record.

“What else do you remember?” I said. “About me on that night?”

Gabe bit his lip, then said, “Well…you were pretty lit. I remember that.”

I nodded, feeling a rush of thick shame, not for the first or last time. Shame that I was at a bar at the moment my brother was killed. Having fun. Laughing. Flirting with boys—probably lots of them. Getting blackout, stupid drunk.

“What else?”

“To be honest, Jo…that’s it. I don’t remember anything else.”

I could tell he was lying or at least covering something up because Gabe almost always told the truth, hence eliminating the need to add the “to be honest” qualifier.

“Yes, you do,” I said. “Tell me. What was I doing? Who was I talking to?”

“I don’t remember. A lot of people.”

“ ‘A lot of people’ or you ‘don’t remember’? Which is it?”

He took a deep breath, then an even longer exhale. “I honestly don’t remember…exactly. A ton of people were there that night….It was near the holidays so everyone was home….”

“I know that,” I said, frustrated. Of course I knew it was near the holidays. It was December freaking twenty-second. I told him to please tell me something I didn’t know.

“As we’ve established,” Gabe said, sounding weary but patient, “I don’t know what you remember, and what you don’t remember. So please don’t get mad at me here. I’m trying the best I can to answer your questions.”

“I’m not getting mad at you,” I said, still sounding mad, but feeling something closer to desperation. “Just please tell me everything!”

“Okay, okay,” he said, holding up his hand. “Shawna was there. You were talking to Shawna for a while…and a lot of the other usual Lovett girls from your class….”

He looked into my eyes as I waited, then waited some more. “I think you were also talking to Nolan Brady at one point,” he finally said.

“You think?” I quickly replied. Nolan’s was the name I’d been waiting for.

“You were…but I honestly wasn’t paying that close attention. I just knew you were really, really drunk…and Nolan looked…concerned. That’s it. I swear.”

I felt as if I might pass out and realized that I’d been holding my breath. I sucked in a few gulps of air as Gabe asked a logical follow-up. “What does Nolan say about it? Surely he remembers what you talked about….”

I shook my head, unable to speak.

“He doesn’t remember, either?” Gabe asked.

“I never asked him,” I finally said.

“Oh.” Gabe nodded.

“I’ve never talked about it with anyone,” I said. “Not him or Shawna or Meredith or Mom. Not even that annoying therapist that my parents made me see. No one until now.”

“But we’ve talked about the accident before….” Gabe said.

I shook my head. “I don’t mean the accident. Or Daniel’s death. Or any of that. I mean what I did that night….”

Gabe held my gaze and said, “And? What did you do that night, Josie? What do you remember?” His expression was so classically Gabe-like, focused and intelligent and compassionate (though he never wanted you to know just how much he cared), that I started to talk. I told him how I had my first drink in my bedroom as I dressed, sipping from my sorority flask. I told him I was in a fight with Meredith because she wouldn’t let me wear her pendant that went with my outfit, and Mom had taken her side, and I left the house pissed off.

“How’d you get there?” he asked.

“Kendra picked me up,” I said. “But she had a date…and left early, so I was hanging with other people. Shawna kind of blew me off, so I was upset. And I just kept drinking. A lot. Mixing stuff. Vodka and beer…Things got fuzzy, then fuzzier, then black.”

Gabe nodded.

“I don’t remember leaving the bar. And I don’t know how I got home….Somebody must have brought me back. Or maybe they called me a cab. I don’t know….I just remember waking up in my bed. The room was spinning and there was a trashcan next to the bed. Someone put it there….Or maybe I did. I really don’t remember….”

I blinked back tears for as long as I could, but at some point, I just couldn’t stop myself from crying. I wasn’t sure why, exactly, and I could tell Gabe wasn’t, either. But he sprung into action, quickly paying the bill, then whisking me to the crowded parking lot. It was still daylight, and I hid my face in the crook of my arm as he opened my door, something he never did—chivalry wasn’t really his style.

To my relief, he didn’t ask more questions on that ride home. In fact, we didn’t talk at all, in that way you can be silent only with a close friend. When we got back to my apartment, he came inside with me. I headed straight to my room to get ready for bed, changing into a long Georgia T-shirt I wore as a nightgown, brushing my teeth, washing my face. At some point, when I didn’t come out, he knocked on my bedroom door and asked if I was okay.

“Yes,” I lied, quickly turning off my lights so he couldn’t see my face.

“Can I come in?”

“Yes,” I said again, as I dove under the covers.

He sat on the edge of the bed, stared at me, and said, “What’s going on, Josie? Why are you so upset?”

“I don’t know,” I said. Because I really didn’t. It was more of a feeling than anything I could put into words. A feeling that I somehow had something to do with Daniel’s accident.

“Yes, you do,” he gently pressed. “Talk to me.”

“I just feel like…it might be my fault….” I finally said.

“How would it be your fault?” he asked. “That’s crazy.”

“It’s not crazy,” I said. “Maybe Daniel was coming to get me.”

Gabe shook his head, adamant. “I don’t think so, Josie. You’re being paranoid. He was going to get a burger. Isn’t that what he told your mother?”

“Yes,” I said. “But…”

“But nothing, Josie. You’re just experiencing…survivor’s guilt or something. Your brother had an accident. It had nothing to do with you.”

I took a deep breath, my whole body shuddering. Then I told him I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. Ever again, in fact.

“Okay,” he said, staring at me, his face a mask of concern. “Do you want me to go?”

“No,” I said, peering up at him. “Please stay with me.”

He nodded, then kicked off his shoes, walked around the bed, and sat beside me, on top of the covers. He leaned against my headboard, his legs straight out in front of him, then reached over to awkwardly pat my back. Once, then twice.

“Thank you,” I said, my eyelids feeling heavy.

At some point after I had drifted off, I heard him get up to go. I rolled over and asked him please not to leave.

“Shhhh,” he said, rubbing my back through my duvet, blanket, and sheet. “Go back to sleep.”

“Don’t leave,” I said again.

“I won’t. I’ll stay,” he said, and at that point, he took off his jeans and shirt and got under the covers beside me. It would be the only time we ever shared a bed, but nothing about it felt awkward, not even when he rolled over in the middle of the night and put his arm around me. It only felt warm, comforting, safe.

Until just before dawn, when my bedroom door opened and Will walked in. He took one look at us and announced, in no uncertain terms, that he and I were done.