I made it through the show. I don’t know what’s gotten into me. I’ve been up and down the last few weeks and I’m sure it has everything to do with the anniversary of her death coming up. I want to tell Ambri all the things clouding my head, but I don’t even know where to start. Everything about her feels right and then suddenly everything plummets to shit because of her. Not Ambri. Rory.
We’ve been spending more and more time together lately because when she’s not around, my world dims. I don’t know how I never saw her how I’m seeing her now, but I don’t think I want to be only her best friend anymore. Just when I think I can tell her that, everything floods back too quickly for me to process and I end up losing it in the men’s room of a bar while my friends are in the next room.
Ben and Claire met us on the ground floor of the Crystal at Ringlers Pub after the concert for a celebratory drink for Ambri’s recent graduation and her upcoming birthday that she insisted she doesn’t want to celebrate this year. She hates when she’s the center of attention.
I left her at the bar with Ben as Claire secured us a table. I had to escape even if only for a minute to pull my head together. I lean against the sink in the bathroom staring at myself in the mirror.
‘What the hell just happened?’ I ask myself, wishing I knew how to answer it. My head is all over the place.
I can do this. If I can make it through the night things will settle down in the morning. I take a deep breath, blow it out and throw my arms out a few times as if I’m getting ready to head into the boxing ring. Which is what it kind of feels like I am.
They’re sitting at a booth outside the bathroom when I walk out.
‘Finally,’ Claire says as I slide into the booth next to Ambri.
‘Sorry, bathroom was full,’ I lie. I never lie to these people. And lately, I’ve been doing it a lot.
‘How was the show?’ Claire asks.
Awkward, because of me. For some reason, I’d never needed Ambri closer to me than that moment. The second I grabbed her hand I knew I wouldn’t be able to let her go without finally telling her everything I’m feeling. If we weren’t shoved that second time, I’m sure I’d have kissed her. And I’m almost positive she’d have kissed me back.
Ambri and I glance at each other awkwardly, almost as if trying to have a silent conversation discussing what we will say, before looking back to Ben and Claire. There is no way she doesn’t suspect something is going on with me. Claire’s phone makes a shutter sound. She’s taking pictures of this moment?
‘It was good?’ We say in unison, mine being a little more of a question than hers.
‘That’s it? Just good? Ambri didn’t try to climb onto the stage and maul him or toss her panties, flash her tits, nothing?’ Ben groans exaggeratedly. ‘Sounds lame to me.’
I clear my throat, finally starting to relax a little with Ben being Ben. ‘I do believe that the concert tit-flasher was your wife…’
‘That was one time, Henry, and come on… it was Dave Grohl. He’s swoon-worthy enough, who wouldn’t give him a peek? And… I do believe he gave me a thumbs up.’ Claire giggles. ‘I think that’s a pretty good story even if it does include me randomly flashing an entire room of people. If I must defend my actions yet again…’ she rolls her eyes dramatically ‘… it was dark enough that hardly anyone saw.’
‘Yeah, right up until they put the spotlight on her.’ Ben bursts into a laugh as he drapes an arm around Claire, kissing her on the cheek as if he’s never been prouder.
‘Speaking of swoon-worthy…’ Ambri nudges me with her shoulder ‘… Henry here put the moves on a little elderly woman at the shop this morning. It was pretty cute.’ She takes a sip of her drink with a grin.
‘Did you, now?’ Ben asks. ‘Finally ready to start dating again? Them older women could teach you some shit.’
‘How would you know?’ Claire asks him with a glare.
‘I’ve heard. Guys always talk about the cougars.’
‘It wasn’t exactly a cougar moment. I bought her coffee. There were definitely no moves,’ I say, feeling the heat of my face flushing. I’m not normally easily embarrassed but generally when I do random things like buy elderly women coffee, I don’t have an audience that will tell all our friends.
‘He was really sweet. She was smitten.’ Ambri glances over at me with a laugh. ‘Are you guys starving? ʼCause I am. Wanna split something?’ she asks me, looking through the menu that was lying in the middle of the table, looking over at me for my answer.
‘Have I ever said no?’
She smiles.
By split something, she means each get something different and split it down the middle. She hates being confined to only one option. And I hate ever letting her down by saying no.
‘Well, who isn’t smitten with him?’ Claire says. ‘I think if he wanted to, he could talk his way into any woman’s heart and probably her panties too.’ She laughs. Clearly she’s been married to Ben long enough that even her jokes are crude.
‘Come on now, girls…’ Ben lowers his voice. ‘You’re making him uncomfortable. He’s celibate, remember? He’ll be doing no panty-whispering any time soon.’
I casually flip him off. I never asked to be celibate. It was chosen for me. I’m not the guy who sleeps around with anyone who will let me. Neither is Ben, actually. He and Claire have been married nearly five years and they’ve been dating since high school. All his wild experience is hearsay from his crazy buddies at work. Despite his mouth he’s a really good guy and I wouldn’t wish him any other way.
Claire holds her drink in the air. ‘I think it’s about time to toast our college graduate and birthday girl.’
Ben and I both lift our beers. ‘To Ambri,’ I say, clinking my drink to hers.
Her cheeks flush as we all toast her. She is easily embarrassed. ‘It’s really not that big a deal. It’s just a degree.’
‘And another trip around the sun,’ Claire adds in.
‘Which is days away,’ she says.
‘First a degree, then your dream job, next thing you know you’re more successful than the rest of us.’ Ben grins. ‘You know I’m right. I’m always right.’
‘Doubtful but thank you. I appreciate your enthusiasm. I couldn’t have done it without you guys. Your insanity somehow keeps me sane.’
We all laugh because she’s exactly right. Hanging out with the four of us you could get anything. ‘You’re gonna do great,’ I say. ‘You got this.’
Ambri’s a smart woman. She’s quick-witted, humble, funny, she always seems to know the right thing to say and she’s beautiful, inside and out. I’ve no doubt she’ll go so much farther than the rest of us.
‘That’s right, girl, get it!’ Ben laughs, downing the rest of his beer within a moment of clinking Ambri’s glass. I don’t know how he always knows how to lighten the mood, but he does and I’m thankful.
‘I need to use the ladies’ room.’ Claire stands from the table.
‘I’ll join you!’ Ambri says, nudging me to let her out. ‘But first…’ she points to the menu now on the table in front of her ‘… this, and this.’ She grins.
‘Got it,’ I say with a nod, standing as she slides out, only sitting down again as soon as she’s out of sight. ‘I might have done something weird tonight…’
‘Just tonight?’ Ben asks with a grunt.
‘Ambri got shoved into me upstairs and I might have held onto her a tad longer than would be considered normal.’
‘What do you mean? Like you held her down against her will?’
‘No…’ I laugh nervously as I shake my head. ‘We were close, I had my arm around her, I think I—’ I hesitate, rubbing the back of my neck like I’m in pain. I’m not. Not physically, that is. ‘I almost kissed her.’
Ben almost drops his nearly empty beer onto the table, catching it just before it hits.
‘What?’ He lowers his voice, leaning across the table.
‘It’s that bad, huh?’
‘Not bad… but unexpected. Well – not totally unexpected.’
‘What’s that mean?’
‘That means you’ve been telling me for years you’ve never had a romantic feeling for Ambri, yet you practically spend every single second with her. You’re the only guy I know whose best friend is a woman. She’s the first person you talk to when you wake up and the last person you talk to before you go to sleep. It was bound to happen.’
A waiter comes over, taking my and Ambri’s order.
‘I don’t think it’s a good thing, though. Something inside me is telling me it’s wrong.’
‘Could that something be the ghost of your late wife?’ Ben lowers his chin my direction, giving me a concerned stare.
I nod, almost ashamed of myself. ‘Probably,’ I kind of groan out, dropping my head in my hands, trying to process the evening.
‘Why don’t you talk to her about it? Isn’t that what you guys do? Tell each other all your secrets. Like a couple of girlfriends?’
I sigh heavily, once again flipping him the bird, as I sip my beer. We normally do tell each other everything. Not like girls, like friends. I want to tell her but this might risk everything and I’m not sure I can take that chance.
‘I don’t kn—’ The sound of her voice shuts me up and Ben bursts out a faker than fake laugh.
‘Right? Good times!’ he says, as if we were in the middle of a completely different conversation.
‘Smooth,’ I say under my breath before the girls get back to the table.
‘I don’t know about you guys, but I am spent,’ Ben suddenly says right as Claire sits back down next to him.
‘God, you should be. You went to work at like four-thirty this morning and it’s almost midnight.’
‘I was short a guy. I had to load a truck.’
‘Did a case of beer magically fall into your truck again?’ I ask, knowing full well that they normally do when he’s there early.
‘It might be waiting for me at home as we speak.’ He grins.
Ben co-owns a small brewery with his brother, Paul, called Two Brothers Brew. The two of them have managed to get their label into dozens of bars in the pacific northwest. It’s become quite the operation. It’s not completely unusual for him to have to cover a guy who can’t make it to work.
‘Ready to head out?’ he asks Claire as he practically shoves her out of the booth. ‘I’m sure these two have loads to talk about.’
‘They always do.’ Claire laughs, having no idea what Ben and I just talked about that he’s referring to but clearly going along with his sudden need to leave.
‘You’re not gonna eat with us? It’s not even that late…’ Ambri taps her phone, checking the time.
‘It’s Saturday night, you two should stay, have fun!’ Claire insists, nodding my direction but looking directly at Ambri.
By the time I glance over at Ambri, Claire and Ben have hightailed it from the bar. Ben tossing a twenty on the table as he left for their drinks.
I drop my head momentarily and move to the bench across from Ambri. ‘You told Claire about upstairs?’ It’s the only explanation for the tension now filling the air around us.
She shakes her head slowly, eventually turning the motion into a nod. A half-smile on her face. “I’m sorry. It was…I don’t even know. What was that?”
‘I… uh…’ I blow out a breath as I glance down at my beer. ‘I don’t know what that was. I, I dunno.’
Our food arrives, distracting me for a moment while I watch Ambri move half of each sandwich to the other plate.
‘Are you doing OK?’ she asks quietly, trying not to set me off in case I’m not. She’s never been the quiet kind of girl. She says what she’s thinking. This last year she’s gotten a little softer around me. I keep worrying that, because of me, she’s not moving on with her life either. I’m worried I’m hurting her by needing her so much. She’s becoming someone she never was, mostly because she’s always worried about me. She’s always scared of my constantly changing emotions. I used to take care of her, and now it seems to be the other way around more often than not. I don’t like that.
I shake my head. ‘It’s coming up on one year soon. And the fifteenth is in a few days. I know we still do it every month, but I think this month will be the hardest.’
Before I asked out Rory I asked Ambri, first if it was OK with her, and second for advice on how to blow Rory away on our first date. I wanted to impress her as a man, not only as Ambri’s friend Henry. I’d been out of college for about a year and kept running into Rory when I’d least expect it.
*
‘The Rose Garden,’ Ambri says with a grin as we sit in the stands of a Rose City Rollers roller derby match. ‘At sunset. Emilio’s takeout, number four. She’ll fall before the sun even sets.’ She crunches on her second set of nachos of the evening. I swear the greasy no-good-for-you food is the only reason she comes to these with me.
‘Really? That’s pretty specific. Are you making shit up?’
Ambri laughs. ‘No.’ She rolls her eyes, finally looking away from the rink and over at me. ‘I’m serious. When we were kids our dad used to bring us to the Rose Garden and we would sit on this bench near the edge of the garden where it overlooks the city. He’d tell us stories about imaginary people and their lives. We always imagined they were watching the exact same sunset we were from another part of the world. We’d be so mesmerized that we’d have to sit and watch until the sun had completely set before we could leave. She says it’s the most romantic place on the earth that she knows of.’ She looks back to the skaters. ‘Perfect timing too because the roses are starting to bloom. It’s our favorite time of year up there.’
‘Our? Do you love this place too?’ I ask, wondering if this is something between them I should stay out of.
‘I love it there, but not as much as Rory does.’
‘Why didn’t I know this about you?’
She shrugs. ‘I dunno, I figured you did enough girly stuff with me as it is. The last thing you’d want is to trek through the Rose Garden and watch the sunset. It’s kind of… romantic, and we aren’t really like that.’
She’s right but I feel a little bad she felt like she couldn’t tell me about this.
‘And if this doesn’t go as easy as you make it seem, I can blame you?’
‘By all means. That’s what I’m here for.’ She grins, a shrug of her shoulders before she digs back into her nachos.
‘Flowers?’ I ask.
‘You’re going to the Rose Garden. The flowers are provided for free. I mean, I guess if you want to do your whole blow-it-out-of-the-water thing you and Ben are obsessed with you could, but I think she’d love it with or without.’
‘Right. I forgot you only date guys who specifically look for free things to do where flowers aren’t necessary. You really should change that. You deserve so much more,’ I say with a half-hearted laugh. I wish she would see herself as the amazing woman she is like the rest of us do.
She grunts. ‘That’s only almost true. And it’s not like I hunt these losers out. They find me. I’m always the last one to know. But, hey, if you can find me a guy better than the ones I find for myself, have at it. It’s not as easy as you think it is. Men don’t flock after me like women do to you.’
I shake my head. ‘That’s ridiculous and not even a little bit true. I bet you could easily get anyone in the stands today.’
She rolls her eyes, forcing a disbelieving smile that doesn’t look even a little bit convinced by what I’ve said.
‘To first dates.’ She changes the subject, tapping her soda cup against mine with a smile. ‘Your first date. I know you’ll do great.’
*
I did do great. It went exactly as she said it would. It was on the fifteenth of the month and because it went so well Rory insisted we visit that spot every month the evening of the fifteenth our entire relationship. Sometimes Ambri would tag along with Rory and I but once I finally convinced her that I’d go there with her willingly, even without Rory, she let me in to that side of her too.
‘We don’t have to go…’
‘I do,’ I say, finally looking up from my daydream. ‘To not go would feel like I was letting her down.’
‘I’ll meet you there, then. I’ll even grab dinner this time.’ She takes a bite of her sandwich, a half-smile on her face.
I nod, a smile that feels half-assed on my face. ‘It’s a date.’ I don’t want to go but since I feel like I have to, having Ambri with me will help me, her with me always does.
*
I left Ambri at her door, apologizing again for being weird earlier but still not telling her why. I had every chance and I didn’t take any of them. Why? As usual, she blew it off as if nothing had ever happened. She assumes that everything I tell her is completely the truth. And normally it is.
I walk slowly along the sidewalk, my hands in the pockets of my jacket. The calmness of the middle of the night is almost comforting. There are hardly any cars out now that it’s well after midnight and only the random person passes me on the sidewalk. I wish my head were this quiet.
‘Henry?’
I stop and turn towards the voice.
‘Graham?’ Graham and I went to college together. Last I knew he’d moved to Los Angeles and was running some big marketing agency.
‘Yeah! How’s things?’
I take his outstretched hand. ‘Things are… going great.’
Graham laughs. ‘You don’t sound so sure?’
I nod. ‘I’m good, just tired. How are you? Did you move back?’
‘No, I’m here on business. How’s work? You still working for yourself?’
‘Yeah, still on my own. It’s steady so I can’t complain. How about you? Last I heard you were running your own business too?’
Graham nods. ‘Yeah. It’s become quite the operation. We do everything from web and graphic design, to marketing. Our client list is pretty impressive, if I do say so myself. I’m proud of it.’ He pulls a business card from his coat pocket. ‘You know, if you ever need anything, you’re more than welcome to give me a call.’
I nod as I take the card from him, staring down at his info. ‘You’re braver than me. LA seems intimidating.’
‘I felt the same way at first, but you get used to it. One day you might want to get away from everything that happened here. I’m recently divorced, which isn’t the same as being widowed, but I know how the past can continue to haunt you.’
‘Yeah…’ I nod. He’s right. The past can be the scariest part of your life, over and done with but never truly leaving you alone. Like the widower thing. I hate being called a widower even though I know technically that’s what I am. It ran in her obituary that I was her husband so every once in a while, I’ll get someone who says it not even realizing that hearing it feels as though someone is tearing my heart right out of my chest. I know I was her husband for that last week, but the entire situation didn’t feel much like any kind of marriage I’d ever imagined. I didn’t feel like a husband. I always thought if I was to ever get married, and that’s a big if, that I’d be the guy who loved protecting my wife from anything that could hurt her. That’s just me. But I couldn’t protect Rory from cancer and that alone kills me.
‘I might do that.’ I nod, staring down at the card in my hands before looking back over at him.
‘Well, it’s late so I’ll let you get to wherever you were heading, but don’t hesitate to give me a call.’
‘Sure thing.’ I watch him turn to walk the opposite direction of where I’m headed.
I slowly make my way a few more blocks to my apartment, walking in and staring into the dark room from the kitchen. I can almost see her sitting on the couch like she used to. Her blonde hair frames her face; she smiles.
‘I missed you. Did you miss me?’
I nod. ‘So much.’ I know Rory’s not really sitting there on my couch. But in my head, she is.
‘Did you always love Ambri?’
I drop my head to the ground, my hand resting on the back of my neck. I can’t answer that question because I truthfully don’t know. I never even considered it until recently. Maybe she was too close to me for me to see it? I close my eyes tight, taking a breath before opening them again, hoping to God that when I do, she’ll be gone again. That’s what she does now, comes into my life fleetingly by way of memories around every corner and me seeing her when I know she’s not really there. Sometimes she’s silent and sometimes she’s asking me questions I don’t know the answers to. I open one eye, seeing an empty room and breathing a sigh of relief.
I pull Graham’s business card from my pocket, putting it on the fridge with a magnet that Ambri bought me that says, ‘You Can’t Sit With Us’, a line from Mean Girls. A movie that as a man I feel like I shouldn’t know well enough to use quotes from.
I stare at the photos on my fridge that I sometimes try to avoid but haven’t been able to find the heart to take down. Rory and I in black tie at a wedding of a friend of hers. That was the moment I knew she wanted to get married. I wasn’t ready. When I told her I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready for marriage we almost broke up that week, but she decided that I was, for some reason, worth the wait. A photo-booth strip of us on our first anniversary. Each photo goofier than the one before. She and I lying in her hospital bed together the week she was admitted. Her smile says she’s gonna kick cancer’s ass. The pit already growing in my stomach gets bigger the longer I stare at us.
I glance away from her and at my favorite photo. Ambri and I at a beer fest, working the booth for Two Brothers Brew with Ben and Claire. It’s only Ambri and me in the photo, each handing out drinks to the people in front of us. She was giving everyone who approached us a secret nickname like HotMessExpress, AssSquatch, and ThreeDrunkiteers. Anyone that hit on her she’d send over to me to serve because we were supposed to be professional and Ben didn’t want her letting some guy have it. That was a good day. She had me laughing the whole time. I don’t have a single memory of Ambri and me that makes me hurt the way I do right now.
I yank the photos of Rory and me off the fridge and shove them in a drawer, slamming it shut as I walk towards my room. She can’t haunt me if she’s not staring at me.