Friends from Home Read online

  Well, not literally Ashton Kutcher. An Ashton Kutcher cardboard cutout.

  Up through the early 2000s, the local movie theater sold life-size cutouts of teen heartthrob actors. They were overpriced and essentially useless, and so of course Michelle had to have one. On this, the first weekend of our friendship, she decided that she would “marry” her Ashton cutout in a backyard ceremony officiated by me and attended by all her closest friends.

  I helped her get dressed in a white ensemble from her antique dress-up chest, which was filled with vintage items cast off by her mother. The long-sleeved lace composition she wore must have been oppressively heavy in the sticky heat of a true southern Indian summer, but Michelle insisted, in spite of a delicate sheen of sweat forming on her forehead. I remember my hands shaking as I quietly did up her buttons, looking around her room at her canopy bed and her bay window seat and wondering in awe how someone like me had been chosen to be a part of her world. I didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize the chance I had been given. I wasn’t sure how I had won it in the first place. I wondered what I could offer her in exchange for all this, for the gift she didn’t even seem to notice she had given. I looked down at my hands and saw my jade beaded bracelet, the only piece of jewelry I possessed. It wasn’t expensive, but it had been given to me by my father, who brought it home for me after one of his many business trips back when my parents still lived together. Before I could change my mind, I slipped it off and handed it to Michelle.

  “Here,” I said. “I want you to have this.”

  “Thanks,” she said. I didn’t tell her what it meant to me, but as she slid it onto her wrist, I hoped with everything in me that somehow, some way, she knew. The smile she gave me in return told me she did.

  After we finished getting dressed, Michelle assembled all her friends on the back side of the antebellum home’s wraparound porch, overlooking the sloping hill of her backyard and the river below. She started in on assigning roles to everyone: Ellen Moreland, the smallest and the slightest of the neighborhood girls, would be the flower girl. Rebecca Cassle was tasked with holding Ashton up during the ceremony so that he didn’t blow over in the breeze. I was to walk down the aisle as the maid of honor, and then also to perform the ceremony.

  “Make sure you say the prayer,” Michelle told me, flicking her makeshift veil down over her face. “And then marry us.”

  “The prayer?” The O’Briens from Cleveland were severely lapsed Catholics. Michelle’s family, I soon learned, were every-Sunday Methodists.

  “Never mind.” She sniffed. “Just say, ‘We are gathered here today to witness this marriage,’ blah blah blah.”

  “All right, y’all.” Rebecca clapped her hands. “Let’s have a wedding.”

  After the five-minute ceremony (and a gratuitous smooch between Michelle and Ashton’s cardboard proxy), we all plopped down in the grass with plastic cups of the Davis family’s famous sweet tea. I still didn’t know what to say around big groups of girls. My only friends in Cleveland had been Kyle, my next-door neighbor, and his little brother. Most of the afternoon passed in a blur, but I did remember one thing all these years later. As the other girls bickered about whom they might marry, from boys in class to Orlando Bloom, Michelle spoke up.

  “I know where my real wedding will be. In France, in a castle,” she said confidently. “But Ashton might have to wait for me. First I’m going to go to college, and then I’m going to start my own jewelry business. Then we can get married.”

  I already sensed that this grandiose plan would have been laughed off if any of the other girls had said it, but because it was Michelle, it was taken as gospel. The other girls started to name places they would visit, extravagant things they wanted to do. Then, in a move that surprised me, Michelle threw her arm around my shoulders and pulled me close. Maybe it was a display of genuine friendship; maybe it was a posture to show off that she had become best friends with the “new girl” first. “Julie and I are going to have lots of adventures, aren’t we?” she asked.

  “Yes,” I said softly. “We are.”

  I thought about that day as I got dressed to meet Michelle for our reunion dinner that Friday night. After the Ashton ceremony, Michelle and I never talked about weddings again—not until she got serious with Jake, anyway. Now she wanted to get married close to our hometown, near where she and Jake planned to settle down. So much for a castle in France.

  I checked the time on my phone: 5:09, and another message from Michelle confirming that she had gotten a cab at the airport and would meet me at the restaurant in an hour. “But good Lord, this traffic,” her text continued. “I don’t know how you do it.”

  “I don’t know,” I typed back. “I guess you just stop noticing after a while.”

  CHAPTER 3

  An hour later I was walking through the doors at ABC Kitchen, an upscale contemporary restaurant I knew Michelle would like because the food was chic but still “safe”—nothing ethnic or that she would deem too spicy.

  I spotted her next to the hostess stand right away, monogrammed suitcase in tow. As I turned the corner, I took in her blond waves, her high cheekbones, the tiny scar on her forehead. She had gotten it falling off the jungle gym in fourth grade and hated it—until I told her I was jealous because it made her just like Harry Potter. Looking at it gave me a weird feeling of being home.

  “Julie!” she shrieked as soon as she saw me. I went by Jules now, and had since college, but old habits die hard. “Gosh I missed you!”

  “You, too,” I told her as she pulled me in for a hug, my face buried in her hair. She smelled like the same floral shampoo she had used since seventh grade, and I realized with relief that I meant it: I had missed her. I was a person who seldom felt absence in a tangible way; it was an afterthought realized only upon reuniting. I handed her the card I had gotten her—the o in Congratulations on Your Engagement replaced by a diamond ring—and for a moment I felt confident that I meant every gushing word I had written in it.

  She tucked the card into her purse to save “for later,” and then she grabbed my hands and stepped back to look me up and down. I liked my lived-in New York wardrobe of slouchy T-shirts and dark jeans. It suited me far better than the pastels and cardigans of my Alabama youth, which made me feel like I was perpetually playing dress-up. The contrast against Michelle’s sleek pink dress paired with Jack Rogers sandals served as a visual reminder of how different our styles had become. I noticed that we both still had the same habit of tucking our hair behind only one ear—it still worked better with Michelle’s smooth waves than with my rapidly frizzing blowout—but that was the only similarity in our outward appearance. I flashed back to years of matching T-shirts and carefully coordinated outfits and felt another wave of nostalgia. When I looked up from her outfit, though, I saw her beaming at me approvingly. “You look gorgeous. And you’re almost on time!”

  I looked at the clock: 6:05. In retrospect, that explained my ability to get what was usually a coveted reservation at a very “in” restaurant, considering that the only people in New York who eat dinner at six on a Friday are tourists seeing shows on Broadway.

  I smiled, though, because that was just Michelle all over. She always had to eat dinner at six, or by seven at the very latest. I once tried to tell her that this was incredibly southern—like her habit of calling it “supper”—but she promptly shut me up with “it’s not because I’m southern; it’s because I get hungry.” I had actually started to find it endearing. It was sort of a relief to have at least one friend who refused to go hungry for the sake of trendiness.

  Michelle led the way to our table and I followed, unable to shake the thought of how strange it was to see her there, right in the middle of my ordinary life. I passed ABC Kitchen every day on my way to the office after getting off the L train, and I seldom thought about the fact that I lived and grocery shopped and took the subway in a city that everyone I had gro
wn up with considered a vacation destination. Plus, I hadn’t seen Michelle in person in eight months, since my last visit to Alabama to see my mom over Christmas, which was strained, per tradition.

  I watched her as she surveyed the wine list, flipping directly to the champagne and then indicating several bottles with a price tag that made me physically recoil. As she waved our waiter over to the table, I found myself oddly nervous about what to say to her, as if she were a blind date rather than my oldest friend. I didn’t know why. Conversation had always flowed easily between us even after time apart—and I had seen Michelle around enough shy strangers to know that she could fill up silences like wineglasses, just vessels waiting to contain all her exuberance. Maybe it was that I still needed to learn what to say in the presence of such grand life events. What was there to offer other than platitudes of congratulations? After much more deliberation than should have been necessary, I asked her to tell me the proposal story.

  “Oh, Julie.” She sighed. “It was so perfect.”

  She detailed every moment for me, from their arrival at one of Birmingham’s best restaurants (he told her it was a client dinner), to the lilies waiting on the table (“Such a surprise!”), to the postmeal engagement party in her parents’ spacious backyard, the very one where her first wedding, to Cardboard Ashton, took place.

  As she held out her hand for me to examine the ring, which looked even bigger in person than in the photo she had posted, she told me, “Julie, it was exactly like I imagined it. You know, no scavenger hunt or fireworks. Just Jake telling me he loved me and he wanted to spend his life with me. He said he’s known it since graduation, and of course I did, too, but now that we’re here I guess I am glad that he waited. We’re both completely ready for it now.”

  I couldn’t help but remember the three years since Michelle’s graduation from the University of Alabama, filled with frantic flip-flopping between proclamations of her happiness with Jake and panic about when, if ever, he would propose. While I had always privately wondered what the rush was about, being the person Michelle discussed all these worries with, however absurd I found them, was evidence that we were still close. Maybe part of my awkwardness in the face of her engagement stemmed not just from my own feelings about marriage, or from confusion about how seriously Michelle took it, but also from the worry that Jake was about to become her true confidant. I would not be replaced, exactly, but relegated to some other space. A break from the drama of all things Michelle could be welcome for a bit—I certainly wasn’t eager to weigh in on any more monogram aesthetic choices—but what would it mean for our friendship in months? Or years? I had known Michelle wanted to marry Jake for a while, basically since they had first gone out, but somehow it felt like we were suddenly on the precipice of very real change.

  But that all felt ridiculous and, frankly, impossible to voice, so I reached for a supportive engagement cliché: “He’s a lucky guy, Miche. As I’m sure he knows.”

  “Oh, he knows.” She laughed her sparkling laugh. If she picked up on any hesitation on my part, she said nothing. “But I’m lucky, too. For having the perfect guy, but also for having the best best friend in the world.” She beamed at me, green eyes glittering.

  Best best friend. That’s just the way we had described ourselves when we were kids, introducing fellow classmates to the other on the playground by saying, “This is my best best friend.” An extra label, a brand-new hierarchy. Just so everyone knew without a doubt where we stood.

  “But what about you, babe? How’s the job? My book editor in the big city,” she cooed.

  “Hardly an editor. I’m still an assistant.” I paused. “But I love it, I swear. I complain too much.”

  “Oh, you work so hard, Julie, they’ll promote you soon. They just have to.”

  Not exactly the way it seemed to work in publishing these days, but I hoped she might be right. I remembered a time when anything Michelle said seemed ordained. If she believed it, it happened, and I never once thought to doubt her. I thought about my editor, Imani, who both impressed and intimidated me with her stern but confident demeanor. She seemed to like me, but liking me wasn’t the same as entrusting me with a promotion. I wanted to ask Michelle about that, to see if she had ever felt that same uncertainty at work, but then:

  “So, is it too soon to start talking wedding details?” she asked.

  “I see the appetizers are here, so no. Actually, I’m impressed you made it this long. I’m shocked I even got the proposal story before you broke out centerpiece diagrams or something.”

  She swatted at me playfully. “So, I’m between something local, like the country club, or going farther and doing something in Atlanta, near his family. Jake is fine with either, though I’m sure his top choice would be to just elope in Vegas or something. Men.” She shook her head.

  “Men,” I agreed, forcing a small conspiratorial chuckle, but I felt like the proverbial kid at the grown-up table, knowing nothing about men and maybe not much more about myself.

  “But we have to decide soon.” She grinned. “I used to think I’d want a summer wedding, but now I’m thinking March or April. I want it warm enough to be outside; I just don’t want to wait so long to tie the knot.”

  I couldn’t believe it would be so soon. I did the mental calculations. March was only seven months away. If anyone could pull together a Pinterest-ready wedding on short notice, it would be Michelle and her mother. But that fast? It occurred to me that she might be rushing to have the wedding before her birthday, in May, when she would turn twenty-six. I took a big sip of champagne. “A spring wedding! Perfect,” I remembered to say.

  “And now the news I really wanted to talk to you about. You’ll be maid of honor, of course!” Seeing my shocked expression, she quickly added, “Oh! I mean. I didn’t ask. We’ve talked about it, but I should ask. Julie,” she said grandly, “I know we don’t get to see each other nearly as often as I’d like, but you’re still my oldest friend. My best best friend,” she added with a wink. “Will you do me the honor of being my maid of honor?”

  “I— Yes!” I blurted quickly, not really thinking about it. “I guess we kind of decided when we were eight, didn’t we?” She grinned at me, and I grinned back, her enthusiasm rubbing off on me.

  Then I realized that I didn’t have a clue what I had just agreed to do. I had never been a maid of anything before. Actually, I had only ever attended two weddings, and one barely counted. I had been to only my friend Dana’s older sister’s ceremony in the Hamptons and a “dinner party” reception for an older cousin’s elopement.

  Michelle reached across the table to hold my hand, even though she had to wedge her arm in between our champagne glasses and around the bread plates. “And Mark will be able to get time to fly out, too, I hope,” she added, referencing my boyfriend. “How are things with you two?”

  “Good. Mark is good,” I said, suddenly monosyllabic. For the past year, Mark and I had been happily involved in what seemed to be a very New York sort of relationship. We usually spent the week separately, as Mark traveled three or four days at a time for his consulting job at McKinsey. From Monday to Thursday I met Dana and Ritchie for happy hour, or explored my neighborhood, or buried myself in bed alone under piles of manuscripts. And then Friday would come around and Mark and I would see a movie or go out to a bar with friends. In any case, it seemed to be going well. He made me laugh, and he didn’t seem to want me to overhaul my life to fit his.

  Michelle had recently asked if Mark and I might move in together—though she herself “preferred to save that for marriage, of course.” But it made sense why she would feel that way. Her parents had purchased her a two-bedroom “temporary” condo in Birmingham, and when I visited her I stayed in the sprawling guest bedroom and had my own set of floral towels in my own bathroom. I enjoyed time away from my roommates when I stayed with Mark on weekends, and his apartment was much nicer than mine, certai
nly, but any move of that magnitude seemed like a vague notion of the distant future, the relationship equivalent to the advent of flying cars. None of my friends in New York were in truly serious relationships. We were “seeing someone” or else were “thinking about getting back on Hinge,” but at twenty-five, “the one” was more likely to refer to a rent-stabilized apartment, not a husband. Even those of us who were certain they wanted to get married eventually, like Ritchie, were taking their time.

  “Well, y’all are such a great couple,” Michelle crowed. “I bet you’ll be calling me one of these days to say you’re engaged, too. It can happen when you least expect it. Even to you.” She winked, while I downed several sips of champagne without taking a breath.

  I finally came up for air. “Maybe.” Absolutely not. “Anyway,” I made up for the brief silence, “Mark is actually gone on business until Monday, so it’s just the two of us this weekend. Like old times.”

  “A sleepover at my hotel? Does it feel like 2005 in here, or is it just me? Sounds good, and you can show me around tomorrow.”

  My enthusiasm for playing tour guide had died down somewhere around the end of my first year in New York, but I decided we could do a little shopping and go to some restaurants in the neighborhood. And Michelle would be gone again in only a couple of days. I felt a mixed sense of sadness and relief thinking about her departure, the way I often felt seeing her since we had graduated from college. It always seemed to bring about the same paradox: I missed her, and I missed the world we had once lived in together, but these sporadic reunions also required a certain degree of reminiscing that felt more like playing at friendship than the thing itself.

  “To old times.” I raised my glass.

  “And to all the new ones, too,” she said as we clinked champagne flutes, her voice bright and hopeful above the din.