New Beginnings
Emily and I never did get married in Dublin, but we did have our European vacation. And in a way it was like a honeymoon, as we reveled in our rediscovery of the fact that nothing could break us apart. I guess that makes our union stronger than a lot of marriages. At least half of them, anyway, since heaven knows that Emily and I will never get a divorce.
Three months have passed since her 4:00 a.m. phone call sent me to the airport in a flood of fear and sadness, three months since my life fell apart, came together, and the world stopped and started fresh, all in the matter of a weekend. Now, it’s spring. But only according to the calendar—it’s still pretty chilly in Scottsboro. John misses the California weather, but says that’s what plane tickets are for. We’re flying out to visit his friend, Mike, in San Diego next week.
We did try the long-distance thing, but only in the interests of “taking it slow,” which only lasted for a few weeks before we got honest. The honest truth was that we felt lucky to have found each other again and didn’t want to live apart. So, John moved in with me. He knows how attached I am to the little town I once termed “the symbol of my stagnation.” And like he said, one of the best things about his job is being able to work from anywhere. We can always visit San Diego.
Alison jumped at the chance to move in with Anthony sooner. Although she’d been spending every night at his place, anyway, she hadn’t planned on making the transition permanent until they were married. But I think she was only doing that for my sake, to give me more time to put off looking for a roommate. John turned her bedroom into an office. He’s in there writing every day until dinner.
At least once a week, we eat at my mom’s. About a month ago, she set an extra place at the table. It was for my father. They’d been in touch ever since that letter he sent her, but that was the first they’d seen of each other—that morning, actually, at my Grandmom Betty’s funeral. She was laid to rest next to my Grandpop Eddie in the same cemetery where Blanche is buried. I was sorry to hear she’d passed away, though I have to admit, it didn’t break me—I could barely remember what she looked like. I hadn’t seen her since I was little. But that’s not why I didn’t attend the funeral. I was speaking at a teacher’s conference in Harrisburg that morning. Though that’s not why, either. I could’ve gotten out of it. I just didn’t think a funeral was the best place to reunite with my estranged father after twelve years apart. But I had to see him while he was in town. Experience had taught me that there was a big difference between evil and illness. Kevin was evil. My father had been sick. He deserved the chance to overcome that. And I owed it to my mother—and Blanche—to give it to him.
Of course, our reunion was not without its awkward moments, but I expected that. What I didn’t expect was for him to look so old. He was forty-three the last time I’d seen him, and now he was fifty-five and almost bald. But he was still my father, and as the night wore on, I began to see hints of the man whose memory I’d buried beneath a gross exaggeration of what he eventually became. This was not the wolfman, but the guy I had known for the first fifteen years of my life—before my sister’s death ripped our family in half. I hugged him goodbye before John and I left.
“I’m sorry about Grandmom,” I said. “Goodbye, Dad.” My mom says the look on his face when I called him “Dad” almost made her cry.
He’s still living in Florida and hasn’t been back since then, but we’ve spoken a couple of times. And we e-mail about once a week. It’s not ideal—it can be downright embarrassing when I mention something he should know about and he has absolutely no idea what I mean. That’s when it hits me that he missed out on a dozen years of my life. But he’s trying and I’m trying. And we’re getting more comfortable. The most important thing is that after all this time, I actually have a father again. I may have said I didn’t need one, but I must admit that having one feels unexpectedly nice.
As for my parents, I have no idea whether or not they’ll ever get back together. They talk every day—about what, I don’t know. Though, I will say that their friendship has given me an odd sense of security. With my father’s return from the virtual dead, it seems my mother has realized that good things can actually happen to her and she’s finally stopped living in fear of lightning. I haven’t seen her this relaxed in years, and that’s what gives me security—to see her enjoying life again. If those daily phone calls from Florida are the reason, then I guess I have my dad to thank.
Alison and Anthony are in Florida now. Walt Disney World—“a heavenly spot for honeymooners,” or at least that’s what Alison wrote on the postcard that arrived in the mail yesterday. The wedding was beautiful. Marcus was Anthony’s best man, and I was a bridesmaid. It was John’s and my first big event as a couple. Warren and Emily’s, too. I wasn’t surprised when they started seeing each other. I already knew how each of them felt. Emily, on the other hand, was shocked. She couldn’t believe Warren had kept his love a secret for so long, and she really couldn’t believe I’d withheld such valuable information at her critical hour of need in Dublin.
“I gave you as many hints as I could!” I said. “But I promised Warren I wouldn’t say anything. Don’t you think after all those years, he deserved to be the one to tell you how he felt?”
“You’re loyal to a fault, you know that?” It was the same accusation I’d gotten from Warren when I told him I couldn’t speak for Emily. I guess they really are two of a kind.
Warren and John have been getting along surprisingly well for two people who hardly knew each other, but spent years feeling as if they were in some sort of competition. But it’s not really all that odd, considering they’re both smart and giant-hearted with wonderful senses of humor, not to mention that they’ve got to be at least a little alike to be so remarkably understanding of me. It only stood to reason that they’d get each other’s jokes and have things to talk about when the four of us got together. But it wasn’t until the wedding, when Emily and I heard them teaming up to make fun of us to complete strangers that I realized they were actually becoming friends in their own right. We thought it was absolutely adorable.
Warren and John. Who would’ve ever guessed? But then again, that’s the way things happen sometimes. We find friends in the least likely of people, love in the least likely of places, and every once in a while, we look up and there’s a miracle. Katherine gave birth to a seven-pound baby girl two days after the wedding. With my mother’s consent and blessing, they named her Blanche.
That just about brings me to yesterday. John was out shopping when I walked in with Alison and Anthony’s postcard. I put it on the fridge next to the note he’d left me saying he was out buying some things for dinner. He cooked for me—because he felt like it, he said—and after we ate, he reached under his chair and handed me a copy of Bloodlines.
“You finally signed it for me?” It had been a running joke between us since he’d moved in that he could write two bestselling novels but couldn’t figure out how to sign a copy of his book for his girlfriend. He kept saying he wanted to come up with something special.
John smiled. “Open it.”
I gladly complied and looked down at the page. And staring straight up into my eyes, unmistakably, were the words, Will you marry me?
“John!” I was so taken aback, his name emerged as a whisper.
He got up from his chair and knelt down on one knee. “Stella,” he said, removing a small velvet box from his pocket. “I knew it when I was seventeen. And in all that time we were apart, I never stopped knowing it. You were always the one. And now that we’ve found each other again, I want it to be forever. I want you to be my wife. So, Stella…” He opened the box. “Will you marry me?”
Staring into his eyes, I started to cry, oceans and rivers of happy tears, and at the same time, I laughed, like a demented hyena. I was overwhelmed.
“Are you kidding?” I asked him.
“Apparently not,” John said, smiling as he glanced down at the ring—the beautiful square-cut diamond ring that mysteriously transformed me into a babbling idiot.
“No, I didn’t mean are you kidding about the proposal…I meant are you kidding to think I wouldn’t… Yes, okay? Yes! I mean, yes! And I’m not just saying that because of the ring. Well, you know that, obviously. I mean, you do know that, right? Wait, what am I saying? Can I start over?”
I was completely killing the romance of the moment, but it didn’t matter. John’s eyes were glowing—he loved me, anyway. And that was the best part of all. To be with someone who loved you, anyway. And to know the rest of your lives were starting right at that very table.
John slid the ring onto my finger and stood up to kiss me. “I love you very much,” he said, drying my tears. “And you don’t have to analyze your reaction later, okay? It was perfect.”
To be with someone who really knows you and loves you, just when your lives are starting, is the greatest feeling in the entire world. Especially when his eyes are blue and his hair never did stop smelling like apples. I think I’ll be riding this cloud for a while.
Emily’s already talking about designs for my dress. We haven’t even set a date yet. But we’re thinking early fall—before it gets too cold. Of course, Emily will be my maid of honor and Warren will be one of the groomsmen, and there will be oceans and rivers of happy tears, just like last night, only more. And my father will be there to walk me down the aisle. Aside from actually marrying John, I see that as my proudest moment—having my dad there to give me away. Just how I imagined my wedding would be when I was a little girl. It’s hard to feel anything but lucky when things actually work out like you dreamed.
Engaged. A second-grade school teacher. Still living in Scottsboro. Happy. That is me now. At twenty-eight. And that’s how people will see me this summer at Summit Valley’s ten-year reunion for the Class of 1995. Warren and Emily will be there. Emily. Live-in boyfriend. Internationally known fashion designer living in New York City. Centered. People will pigeonhole us like that, pasting us into neat little categories, not at all caring what we’ve gone through to get there. And we will do the same thing to them. Fortunately, John will be there to hold my hand. I’m not sure if he’ll receive an invitation since he spent his senior year out in L.A. and didn’t actually graduate with us, but he’ll be there because I’ll be there. And together, John, Warren, Emily and I will brave the barrage of stares and questions that are part of the territory of reunions.
I can’t believe it’s been ten years since high school. Or fifteen years since Emily and I shared that moment after gym class. The moment that neither of us could exactly describe, but would always remember. Because it changed our lives and spawned other moments, memories and times that would stay in our hearts long after Milli Vanilli T-shirts went out of fashion. Long after tampons were anything new. But Emily and I would never change, not where it really counted. We’d never forget those thirteen-year-old girls bonding over thighs, talking about their mothers, knowing they’d found a friend. And she will always be Tinkerbell. And I, her raven goddess. And no one will know what we’re talking about half the time, with our gay brothers, straight brothers, and that thing about bitch mistresses, but that’s okay. Because we are bella donnas. A pair of pretty young things whispering in the dark. Whatever we need to be, we are. Sad, bad and sometimes crazy. We’re prom queens without their crowns invoking Laura Nyro. We’re babies crying in the tub. Sisters of the moon. Best friends on a crazy train, sharing a seat through shifting scenery and the test of time. Together forever since the moment our lives changed. Always and no matter what.