Page 62 of Next Time Will Be Our Turn
“My first place there was this really old flat—you gotta call them ‘flats,’ Tulip, not ‘apartments.’ Anyway, it was so old the window frames were handmade. The wood was slightly wonkyand curved, and if you looked closely, you’d see that the glass was thicker at the bottom because it had set that way.”
“That sounds so cool,” I said.
“Yeah. I thought that was really cool too, until winter came. Then I realized old windows didn’t do shit against English winters. Holy crap, I nearly froze to death. I basically spent the whole winter wrapped in my ski jacket.”
I laughed at the thought of Ellery huddled in her tiny London apartment. I told her about my life in Jakarta and how I hadn’t been allowed to put my education to use at all. “I was a glorified gopher. Until I got married. Then I became a housewife. That’s it. The end.”
She tugged at a lock of my hair. “The end, huh? You’re not even thirty yet, I don’t think you can say, ‘The end.’ ” She looked at me so intently that I felt my face grow warm. “You’re very far from the end. You’ll write it. Your own story. In your own time.”
When Ellery said it, I could almost believe it. That there was a better future out there for me. That it wasn’t too late for me.
She told me about being isolated in one of the biggest cities in the world. “English people are hard to befriend. They are friendly, up to a point. But it was hard to make close friends. I didn’t have anything like this back there.”
“Why did you stay there, if you were so lonely?”
She was quiet for a bit. “I don’t know. Out of habit, I guess. By the time I graduated from uni, I’d gotten used to living there. Forgotten what it was like here, really. Forgot what it was like to have a friend like you. You were my best buddy, Tulip. I can’t believe I fucked it up so badly.”
“You didn’t fuck it up. You didn’t fuck anything up with me.”
“Oh, I fucked up plenty of things with you. I’m just glad you don’t hate me for it.”
Every word was a drop of honey that warmed me to my very core. I drank in her words and luxuriated in the glow of them. They fed my soul. I couldn’t have enough of them. Story after story we fed each other, unable to get enough. Desperately piecing together all of the lost puzzle pieces to get a blurry image of what our lives had been like all those years.
Then we’d drive back to Pasadena, where Ellery dropped off me and Hazel. Hazel would rest her warm cheek on my shoulder as I waved at Ellery. Watching her drive off was always hard. I felt a piece of my heart leaving with her each time her car drove away into the distance. As the days went by, that piece became bigger and bigger.
Some mornings, Ellery and I would go to the farmers markets. There were a ton of different ones in LA, and we visited them all. The most famous market was probably the one at The Grove, but it was kind of out of our way, and very expensive, so we tended to stay around the Pasadena area. Ellery would bring this wicker basket that was so ridiculously huge, I told her she looked like someone out ofChildren of the Corn, and she laughed and told me I was just jealous of her cool basket. She was still growing her own plants—we’ll get to that later—and her cooking repertoire had expanded since the last time we’d hung out. At the farmers market, she would buy clover honey, locally made stinky cheeses, and spicy sausages. Then we’d go back to her place, where we would gather other ingredients from her beautiful patio.
When Ellery moved back, she’d splurged on a ground-floor apartment that had a large patio. It was really a modest space,plain concrete with a wooden fence around it, but Ellery had transformed it into something magical. She’d installed multiple hanging racks to maximize the space, and from these racks hung pot after pot heaving with herbs and vegetables and fruits. There were tomatoes and chilies and strawberries. In the front of her apartment, there was a row of huge pots, and in these she’d planted a lemon tree, an orange tree, and a lime tree.
Ellery would take out the treasures she’d found at the market (that was what she called them. She’d say, “Let’s see what treasure we managed to find today.”), lay them out on the kitchen counter, and stand there looking thoughtful.
“Clover honey and spicy chorizo,” I’d say. “Kind of a weird combo, Bellery.”
And she’d say, “Oh, you just wait, Tulip.” Then she’d step out onto the patio. I’d follow, because I loved Ellery’s patio, and I especially loved watching Ellery in this magical space she’d built for herself. She had such a graceful way of moving, especially when she was surrounded by plants. She’d pluck the tomatoes and plop one in my hand. She grew two different kinds, and they were both the most delicious tomatoes I’d ever had, so tart and sweet they were almost like candies. Then she’d trim a few sprigs of basil and rosemary and press the sprigs into my hands, still warm from the LA sun. By the time we went back inside, my skin would smell of herbs and fruit.
We’d go back to the kitchen, where Ellery would lay every ingredient out neatly on the counter before she started cooking. And, oh, the food she made. She’d perfected her art in England. She dipped the rosemary into the honey and brushed it onto the sliced cheese, and somehow, the combination turned the strong cheese into something surprisingly mild and completely addictive.The chorizo she diced up and sautéed with onions until the whole place was filled with a mouthwatering smell, then she mixed in some freshly cooked pasta, grated some cheese onto it, and presented me with the most delicious pasta dish. Everything she made was simple and yet perfect and so very Ellery.
Other mornings, we would go hiking up in Griffith Park. Hazel loved going on hikes. She loved toddling uphill, though she would inevitably get tired after about twenty minutes, then Ellery and I would have to take turns carrying her up the trail. I swear, Hazel got heavier by the minute. By the time we reached the top, Ellery and I would both be panting like crazy. But there was something about the torturous hike that I loved, a shared experience that brought Ellery and me still closer together. We laughed so much doing it, her teasing me and me teasing her right back.
“Hard to”—gasp—“hike when you’re so unfit, Tulip,” she’d say.
“Oh please. I’m barely”—gasp—“out of breath.”
“Oh yeah? I bet”—gasp—“I could beat you”—gasp—“to the top.”
“Race you!” And I’d break into a run, Hazel squealing happily on my back. The run lasted all of seven seconds before I stopped, wheezing.
Ellery would laugh when she caught up with me, patting my shoulder and saying, “Good run, Tulip. That was practically a marathon.”
“I’m carrying a really heavy load here!”
“A very cute heavy load.”
“Obviously. The cutest. There is no one cuter than her.”
We’d look down at LA, sprawled out beneath us, and I’dthink:I’m here in LA with Ellery O’Shea, and somehow, we are just as close as we used to be. What a wonderful life it is. What a beautiful twist of fate.I’d steal glances at her and try to imagine what she was thinking of in those moments as she gazed down at the city. Iris was always full of ideas and fizz. She’d look down and see possibilities. Parker was driven by ambition; he’d look down and see a city he wanted to own. But Ellery was a dreamer, and I could never guess what was going through her mind. Sometimes, I felt like she lived in two worlds, and I could never gain access into the other world that existed in her mind. I realize this was probably what most writers are like, inhabiting two places at once, one foot in each world. I got stupidly jealous of that other world for taking up space in her mind, but then again, I knew it was yet another reason why I was so enamored with her, because I knew I would never be able to read her as easily as I read Parker. She was a mystery I would never be able to solve.
Once, when she got that faraway look in her eyes, I asked her, “What are you thinking of?”
