Chapter Ten: One Door Closes
A simple life is what most people want. When drama or tragedy strikes, as it always does, the first thing to be longed for is a 'simple life'. Whether battling personal tragedy, existential crisis or even just bills, the downtrodden and irate soul will moan about the potential and extol the virtues of the fabled 'simple life'.
For years, Lizzie knew she'd been buried so deep within that camp she could've become their leader, made protest signs and moaned until everyone around her died or wandered off to find more interesting things to listen to. She had been the down-trodden, lived the life of the un-bleed average Joe and generally bummed about grumbling that everything sucked to anyone who'd listen. And it had.
It had.
Fast-forward a few months, a lot of coffee, some booze and one particularly grouchy grandma who hated her, and suddenly the fable was becoming her reality. She had, for the most part, started to see why people got up in the morning. She wasn't listlessly wandering around the city trying to find work or listening to her parents tell her how great Alice was doing, like hearing about her sister's amazing life was the salve to her own shitty existence.
The trouble with life, she knew, was there was always something ready to kick her off her axis and dump her right back where she'd started.
"You're moving out?"
"You don't need me anymore."
"Like shit I don't," Lizzie moaned. Sarah's bombshell had been dropped just as she'd collected the pizza box from the delivery man and so not only was her life being turned upside down in front of her eyes but her food was also rapidly cooling. A perfect evening.
"You said wait 'til you're on your feet, you are. You're great."
So this was Lizzie's fault. "Yeah, so why ruin it?"
"I'm not ruining it."
"Mike's ruining it?"
"You know that's not what I'm saying. Liz, please, just be happy for me?"
Lizzie had hoped she could be, had known that Sarah would one day move out and go and pump out babies or whatever other gross stuff she and Mike enjoyed doing. She wanted to be, she really, really wanted to be.
Sarah's phone rang. The look on her face made it obvious it was something to do with the house.
"You should get that."
"No, I want to -"
"It's fine. Honestly. Get it."
Sarah's eyes flicked to the phone again, losing her own internal struggle. "It's just - it's the mortgage and we're uptown so - you sure?"
"Yes. Go."
Sarah gave her a panicked smile and then ran to her room, putting on what Lizzie thought of as her curator voice as she went. Uptown. God, they were ridiculous. Next thing they'd be a ferry boat away or up in the hills, looking over the city as if it were a playground full of chumps too stupid to earn their way out.
Food wasn't an option and when Sarah returned Lizzie tried to listen, tried to be excited, but all she could think about was the evenings that the apartment had been their home. Cheap take-outs, crappy food, shitty one-night stands and stand-up shouting matches with Lizzie's exes. Sarah had been the one to kick Joe out, it'd been Sarah who'd held her when she cried her eyes out, Sarah who'd phoned Mike and got him to bring them way too much Vodka. It was always Sarah, what was life meant to be like without her there?
A few months ago, she'd have had to move. The bombshell would've wiped her out, sent her back to her parents'. At least Harry paid her enough to live there. Just. Kinda.
Normally, when some life changing disaster happened, she went to Sarah. Normally. But Sarah was, if not the problem, then at least the reason that Lizzie couldn't sleep. Harvey was great, but not really an option. She had some other people who dropped her birthday messages or the odd call from other jobs, but really? They didn't even know Sarah.
That left one person.
The shop was empty, the predictable bubble of calm before the post-work rush that usually beset them on a Tuesday. Harry was sipping a coffee she'd made for him, volunteered even to make sure he couldn't walk away while she talked his ear off.
"So, what's up?" Harry asked, putting a bookmark in The Time Traveller's Wife, which he'd never even heard of despite it being literally everywhere the previous year. It was always odd how he seemed to know some things but not others and had it been a normal day she might've pressed him on it, but it really wasn't a normal day.
"Does something need to be up?"
"You made me coffee and have been hovering for the last few minutes. Also, you've checked your phone six times in the last hour. Something's up, you want to talk to me but also don't, so you're hoping for a phone call." Ex-cop. Right.
"Fine. It's stupid though."
"I flew across the world to get away from my problems," Harry reminded her. "Nothing's stupid."
"Promise?"
He patted the seat in front of him, an invitation she seized even if her leg immediately started bouncing without her permission. "Promise."
"Sar's moving out. It's great, you know, she's happy, she is and she's excited and it's cute and gross and ugh, good? It's good, right? And Mike's fine, he's okay, I give him shit but he's a good guy. I guess, if you like boring white dudes. I dunno, it's always been us, you know? Always. She helped me so much, with so much dumb shit, so so much, like you wouldn't believe and it's crazy. I can't imagine going back to that place and she's not there, but she's gonna be and I want to be happy, like, I really do, okay? But I can't, I can't be happy 'cause if I'm happy she's going to go and if she goes what am I gonna do?"
"I know, I know, I sound like a crazy person. But Sar's Sar, she's always been there and life's good, it's finally good and things are working out and what if she leaves and it fucks up again?" And that was it, wasn't it? How could she deal with the crappy hand life always wanted to deal her without the very person who'd helped her get through so much already?"
The word vomit stopped as suddenly as it had come, as though a tap in her brain had turned off the stream. "I told you it was stupid."
"It's not, you're not." She grimaced and let her head collapse into her hands, unable to look at him. His voice was gentle and understanding because of course it fucking was. "Do you think it's going to?"
"Fuck up?"
"Yeah."
"No, I guess, but you don't know. That's the thing. I could be in a plane crash or a bus could run me over or you could burn this place down or fly back to England and I'm back to throwing drinks at morons." She couldn't go back there, not for anyone.
"Well, I'm not going anywhere," Harry tried to reassure her. "And even if I was, this is your shop as much as it is mine. I'd give it to you before I sold it."
She blinked and finally dragged her face free, staring at him. A better word was gaping. He'd always treated her as a partner of sorts, but she hadn't really thought he wanted her to be one. "You're shitting me, right?"
"I told you we were in this together."
"Yeah, but I didn't think you were serious."
"Well, I am." He volunteered an awkward sort of smile and then continued. "That's not going to change. And Sarah's a good friend. She'll be there, if you need her. It'll be different, but different doesn't have to be bad."
"When did you get so cheery?"
He considered that for a moment, clasping his coffee as though it were some kind of fountain of truth. "My friends started writing to me again. Just a bit, but it's a start."
"You mean they weren't?" The idea floored her. He talked about them with the kind of fondness and warmth she typically reserved for food, it was weird to think of him fostering all of those feelings without an email or a call.
"They didn't even know I'd left," Harry told her. His laugh was enough to tell her the shock had registered on her face. "I know, but if they can forgive me, Sarah's not going to abandon you."
"I know," Lizzie admitted, sagging in her chair. "I do know, I'm just…"
"Scared?" She nodded. "Don't you think she is too? I mean, you'll have to get a flatmate, right?"
"Roommate."
"Sure, that too."
"Maybe, I mean, I'm making enough here."
Harry considered this and then pressed on. "But if you did, wouldn't she be worried about being replaced as well?"
"I guess."
"Life changes," he said gently, the very same kindness that always showed on his face somehow making his voice warmer. "Sometimes it's good, other times…"
He knew, right? People seemed to drop dead all around him, godfather, parents, girlfriend's brother. It dawned on her how petulant she must sound to him. He'd actually lost people, really lost people, the irreversible kind that left nothing but a hole where they should be.
"My point is, you never know what's coming next. But it's better to be open to it than cling to what you can't have. Trust me."
It would've been easier to lash out, easier to say he didn't know what he was talking about, but easy wasn't always the answer, was it? "Yeah, you're right."
"It happens."
"Rarely," Lizzie teased, hiding as she always did behind jokes and a quick smile. He had the decency to at least try a grin. "She's just been there for so much, you know? We went to college together. She's family, more than my actual living breathing fucking family. I just don't want to lose that."
"You won't," Harry told her, his eyes flicking to her hand and she wondered if he wanted to take it. He didn't. He wasn't really a touchy-feely person, which was hilarious because that's exactly what she was. It wasn't like he stiffened when she reached out and patted his arm or anything, but he never really instigated it either. He was different to most people she knew.
"Before this, before you, I didn't think she'd ever leave."
"So this is my fault?"
"Kinda." She grinned when he looked genuinely concerned. "'Course not, dummy. It's just, I couldn't even buy a job. This creep I used to work with, for, he spread shit to everyone in town."
It had been the crappiest time of her life and even when she'd tried going to bars and people he wouldn't talk to, they weren't the right fit either. Nothing had been. Museums wouldn't have her, too many years since college and bars looked down on her for being a barista most of her twenties. The ones that had come back had either offered nickels and dimes for a day's work or were run by weirdos who looked at her chest more than they did her face.
"You don't have to tell me."
Lizzie teetered on the edge of speech. He'd trusted her with so much, it was only fair she did the same. "No, it's okay. He didn't like me breaking up with him 'cause he was actually married."
The spectre of Joe hung over the table, she could see his smug smile, smell his expensive aftershave and almost hear his cocksure voice, the promises that he'd end it, that it wasn't what she'd thought. The most disgusting part wasn't that he'd done it, it was that she'd wanted, just for a second, to believe him.
"I'm sorry."
"Don't be," Lizzie said quickly. Pity wasn't what she wanted, not from him. "Honestly. He was a jerk. Is a jerk, I guess, it's not like he's dead or anything. Sar just wouldn't move out, not while I was a useless bum. Now everything's actually working out, she can."
"Would you want her to be mad at you? If you were moving out with… I don't know, what's his name? The History guy."
"You think I'm moving in with floppy-bangs Frank?" A regular customer who was far too interested in battlefield tactics for Lizzie's liking. History was a broad spectrum and she was not in the swords, murder and generalised stabbing section of it.
"Just imagine."
"Do I have to?"
"Yes."
"Ugh. You're so weird." But he was right. If for some ungodly reason, she ended up with a sword-obsessed weirdo, she'd want Sarah to be there, sure, but to be happy as life finally gave her a break. And deep down, she knew that Sarah would be. "And right."
"I'll try not to make it a habit."
The ever-expanding ball in her chest seemed to shrink, if only slightly, punctured by a needle and deflating with every second. "We need cake."
"Funny you should say that. One sec."
He hurried behind the counter and a few moments later reappeared with wrapped parcels and a teetering tower of Tupperware. "I was going to save it for closing, but here. Samples from interested bakers."
They spent the rest of the afternoon munching their way through cakes, Lizzie assembling a makeshift tier list and Harry deliberately trying to make her laugh - or at least that's what she suspected - with his over-the-top reactions to some of the more revolting cakes. By the time they'd finished and the beginnings of their evening customers rolled in, Lizzie had almost entirely forgotten her own personal crisis. Harry, to his credit, didn't say another word about it and even let her leave early to make sure she got back before Sarah's shift finished.
"You sure you're not gonna blow up my coffee machine?"
"I think I can handle an hour without you," he'd smirked, towel over his shoulder and right hand gently scratching Oscar's head. He looked so much more relaxed than when she'd first met him, as if the spring inside him was somehow uncoiling.
She'd fought the urge to hug him and promptly left without another word. The trip back across town was busy, as it always was, but Lizzie didn't even notice the people bumping into her or the barked cell phone conversations. She was too busy playing back what he'd said in her mind and figuring out what the hell to do next.
The apartment was empty and rather than stew in her own proverbial cocktail of crappy emotions, she set about cleaning. It helped. Kept her hands busy, her mind occupied. Floors were mopped, dishes put away, empty wrappers shoved into bin bags along with over-stuffed bins and anything else she found lying around that shouldn't be. She even took an old 'cleaning' toothbrush to the gunk behind the taps.
It was just as she was wondering how best to clean whatever had collected on her showerhead that she heard the door open and promptly close.
"Hey! You're back!"
"I do still live here," Sarah joked from the hall, or at least Lizzie hoped it was a joke. She needed it to be one. Her best friend sighed as she stepped out of her ridiculous heels, relief spreading across her face. "Hey, this is nice. You been busy?"
"I'm sorry." The words blurted out before Sarah had even reached for the bottle of wine that Lizzie had very purposefully left on the side. "Fuck. Yeah. I mean, Harry let me off early."
"Nice of him. And since when did you say sorry?"
"Since I was a giant dick. Fuck. I'm not - I wanted to… I had a whole thing. Look I'm sorry, okay? Sorry, I reacted like a moron, I - I thought we'd have more time."
Sarah's smile was far more understanding than she deserved. "It's been six years."
"Why not make it a nice seven?" Lizzie tried, she held her best friend's stare for a second before collapsing like a cheap lawn chair. She tossed the toothbrush she realised she was holding onto the couch, the couch they'd bought together, the only nice thing they'd owned for years. God, looking around the apartment it suddenly felt like they'd been collecting artefacts of a life they didn't know they'd be saying goodbye to.
"Because it's right. You're good, you know you are. This wasn't forever."
"I know." She hated how childish she sounded. Classic second child, right? She was a shrink's field day.
"And it's not goodbye. You're not getting rid of me that easily."
"Damn straight," Lizzie tried to smile, failed, and so instead did the only thing she could. She wrapped Sarah in a hug so tight that it threatened to crush her bones. "You don't call, I'll kill you."
"Love you, too," Sarah laughed. They stayed that way for a long while
So instead of talking about the new house, with its multiple floors and its stupid driveway, they drifted to the comfort of the past and ignored the perils of the present. They reminisced about Sarah's first job, about the Halloween parties and the Thanksgiving feast Lizzie's dad had force-fed them, laughed at the failed attempt to drag a Christmas tree through the door and generally tried to ignore the fact Lizzie couldn't handle the idea of it all coming to an end.
