Page 90 of The Ripple Effect

She puts a hand up, stopping me. “I mean, remember how you didn’t say a single word about how unhappy you were at work until you’d already left two different jobs? I wish I’d pushed back on that. At least then I wouldn’t be saying the exact wrong thing to your sister—who you swore you’d never talk to again—when she shows up on my damn doorstep. I don’twantyou to change diapers and build baby furniture because you feel like that’s the currency of our friendship. I don’t want baby-furniture friends, Stellar! I want to be part of your life forreal. Good times and bad.”

My lip trembles. I thought Liz understood the way I am. The way dumping my problems on her felt like too much to ask when she had problems of her own.

“I tell you everything, Liz. Everything.”

“Yeah, you do, once you fix your problems all by yourself. Once you won’t have to ask me for something you feel you haven’t earned. But Stellar, I want you to tell me what really happened over the last few weeks.Today, not six months from now.”

“You already know what happened!”

“No.I know what happened to the business. I want to know what happenedto you. Like how you slept with McHuge again.”

“You slept with himbefore? When?” Sloane walks in, jiggling little Jess in the crook of one elbow. The baby’s clean, done up in a fresh white-and-orange BB-8 onesie.

“What?!” I yelp. “I never said I slept with Lyle at all.”

Liz closes her eyes. “This is horrible. I’ve successfully tricked someone into holding my demon child, and I want tonap so badly, but interesting grown-up things are happening for the first time in weeks. Anyway, of course you slept with him before. It took me a minute, but I figured it out. The two of you acted so weird at my improv showcase. You called him Lyle, same as you did just now. Only sex can screw things up that badly. And I want to hear about it, Stellar. I think I’ve earned it.”

I feel the same odd, uncomfortable pang I had when Lyle said he owed me one. The way I kept relationships exactly balanced got me through some hard times, but I think what I’m feeling is pain from my life no longer fitting into such a tight shape. Always exactly even, no room for either side to move. Or grow.

Liz is right. It’s up to me to make our friendship go deeper than who does what for whom.

I take a deep breath. “I had a one-night stand with Lyle last summer. And I slept with him again when we were pretending to be engaged. And… it may not be just sex.”

Liz cracks one eyelid, her gaze sweeping my body. “Interesting. Keep talking, friend.”

“And an hour from now…” I check the time.Fuck.“Less than an hour from now, he’s doing Renee Garner’s podcast without me. I was the one who wanted to save the Love Boat, but he put himself in the line of fire because he owed me one. But I don’t want things to be like that between him and me. I don’t want it to be that way between me and you, either. And I think I have to…”

“Go and support him,” Sloane finishes, readjusting the baby in the crook of her arm. “And you better get moving. There’s not much time.”

“I don’t want to bail on you, Liz. This is the first time we’ve seen each other in weeks. I don’t want our friendship to change.”

“Too late,” Liz says, one eye on the baby, whose squeaking is morphing from cute to hangry. “Everything changes, Stellar. Your life is about to change, too. Go. I’ll be here when you get back.”

“And I’ll text you when I get to LA,” Sloane says, preempting my objections. “I’ll miss you, little star. You’re a grumpy beast, but you do grow on a person. Take my rental car. Just don’t drive it like you drive the truck.” She pantomimes hanging out the window, shaking her fist.

“Hey,” I protest, but both of them are laughing like idiots. “Quit ganging up on me.”Like sisters, I think.

“Somebody has to, otherwise you’d never listen,” Liz says, scooping Jess from Sloane’s reluctant arms. “Go, Stellar. Go and get your love.”

It’s been dry in the valley this past weekend, golden days with pure sun shining through air untouched by humidity. Fine, pale-brown dust swirls in my wake as I bump up the road in Sloane’s rented white Mini, which is no match for either the clinging grit or the pitted, gravelly terrain.

At the corner leading into camp, maybe twenty cars are parked on the side of the road—which is more or less the middle of the road on this one-lane track. There’s no way I can get by.

I park behind them and gather myself for what’s to come. An icy drop of panic lands in my stomach, sending frost splashing into my chest.

Am I really about to give up control of my own narrative, at a time when I’ve lost the power to alchemize my terror into anger? Maybe I’m not strong enough to choose who I want to be in this situation. I froze before; it could happen again.

But I have to find Lyle before the show starts. There’s no time to make a spreadsheet of pros and cons.

I step out of the car, swipe my tongue over my teeth, and pat my hair. I did a quick style in Liz’s bathroom, fixing it in place with some of my friend’s one million hair products. My high, puffy braid is still holding. In a way, it feels like Liz is holding me, too.

There wasn’t time to go back to Lyle’s condo and grab the outfit Sharon liked, but maybe she’ll only listen to the audio. Besides, I like what I’m wearing: black quick-dry pants, hiking boots with chunky socks, and Lyle’s ring on a chain around my neck. Sloane bemoaned my fashion choices, then rolled up the sleeves of my sky-blue shirt to better show my bandage and win the sympathy vote. “At least this matches your eyes,” she said, smiling at me with her matching cyborg-pale baby blues.

I look like what I am: a canoe instructor who’s also a take-no-shit emergency physician.

I’ve seen enough film sets in Vancouver to know what one looks like, but it’s surreal to see onehere. A diesel cube van rumbles in the parking lot, giant cables snaking from its rear doors. I step over a branching array of cords feeding cameras, laptops, lights, and a sound mixing board.

Lyle’s nowhere to be seen. I’ve never been in this place without his huge presence filtering everything to gentle golden perfection.

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