The Ex Talk

“Oh—I’m fine,” I say, because we don’t yet have the kind of closeness where I can be fully open about the fact that I’m drowning in self-pity with a healthy dash of self-loathing. But maybe one day we will. “Just . . . job hunting. Shockingly, no one’s knocking down my door begging to hire me.”

“It’s rough out there. Hey, if you want to babysit,” she says with a waggle of her eyebrows, “we’re in the market for a new nanny.”

I force a smile. While I like her kids, I don’t think I could be around them for that many hours a day. I still don’t even know if I want my own.

“Tempting offer, but I’m going to have to pass,” I say, and she snaps her fingers.

“Damn. I was really hoping we could wrangle some kind of family discount. Nannies aren’t cheap.”

“Are you trying to trick Shay into becoming our nanny?” her husband Eric says, heading over with a glass of white wine.

“Yes, and it’s not working. Who are the kids terrorizing now?”

“They’re calmly eating ravioli. At least, for the next few minutes.” He tips his glass at me. “Shay, can I get you anything?”

I’ve had enough wine in the past week to power ten weddings, so I probably shouldn’t. “I’m good,” I say. God, they really are so nice. I don’t know why I was ever so reluctant. “Thank you.”

Since I waited until everyone else had gone through the buffet line to take my turn, I carry my plate of food back to the only table with empty chairs. Of course it’s the one Ameena and TJ are sitting at. She’s in a lilac dress that I remember buying with her at an estate sale last year, and I wonder if she remembers the Capitol Hill boutique where I bought my powder-blue one. Everything else about her is so familiar that I can’t believe it’s been months since we spoke.

TJ gives her a gentle nudge forward.

And I just . . . crumble.

* * *

—

Ameena and I venture deeper into the garden to talk.

“I can’t believe everything that happened,” she says, sitting next to me on a stone bench my dad planted here so many years ago.

“I can’t wrap my mind around it, either,” I admit. “Sometimes it feels like a bad dream, but then I wake up and nope, I’m still extremely unemployable and extremely embarrassed.”

She squeezes my shoulder, and I lean into her touch. “I wish I could have been there for you. I don’t hate Seattle, I swear. I was just so eager for a change. Everything I said was completely out of line.”

“Maybe,” I agree, “but I don’t think you were entirely wrong. The weirdest thing about this is that I feel relieved underneath everything. Relieved I don’t have to keep lying. And a little relieved that I can figure out if there’s a job for me out there that isn’t in public radio.”

“Shay Goldstein not in public radio,” she says with an exaggerated gasp. “What is the world coming to?”

That’s the most terrifying part: that I’ve defined myself by public radio for so long that I’ve never wondered who I am without it.

Maybe the truth is that I’ve been scared to find out.

Ameena opens up her beaded clutch. “I know it’s not traditional to give the daughter of the bride a gift,” she says. “I actually had these made before our fight. I was going to give you yours before I left, but . . .”

“Holy shit. You didn’t.” I unwrap a custom-made silver bracelet with WWAMWMD printed on it. “You got me a WWAMWMD bracelet.”

“So you never forget,” she says with a grin.

“Tell me you have a matching one?”

She pulls out a second one and slips it on. “Duh.”

We continue catching up. Ameena tells me more about her job, about Virginia, about the humidity her hair was completely unprepared for. After a while, TJ finds us and asks Ameena to dance. She lifts her eyebrows at me, and I gesture to her that it’s okay. We’ll be okay, too—or at the very least, we’ll try to be.

I venture back to the wedding guests, sliding into an empty seat next to my mother.

“How have you been dancing for two hours and you still look flawless?” I ask her.