As she pulls back, Chess studies me, putting one cool palm against my cheek. “You look better,” she says, and I manage a smile, patting her hand before returning to my seat.
“I feel better,” I tell her as I sit down. “Mostly.”
I brace myself for more questions, and given how sick I’ve gotten of talking about my health over the past year, I’m already formulating a way to brush her off, but then Chess spots her book on the table, and gives a pealing laugh.
“Oh my god, did you bring that for me to sign?”
Her green eyes are bright as she sinks into her chair, slinging her bag over the back. “I would’ve sent you one, you know.”
It’s stupid to feel embarrassed around someone who has held your hair back while you puke, on multiple occasions, but my face goes a little hot as I wave at the book.
“It’s my mom’s,” I tell her. “I made the mistake of telling her I was seeing you today, and the next thing I know, this is in my mailbox with a Post-it.”
Get Jessica to sign this, please! She can make it out to me. （Deborah.）
Chess snorts now as she picks up the book. “Classic Deb,” she says, and then once again, she performs one of those magic acts of hers—pulling a pen out of that enormous bag, signing the book, signaling to the waiter, ordering a glass of wine, all as she scrawls her signature across the title page.
Sometimes I feel tired just watching her.
Handing the book to me, Chess leans back in her chair and pushes her hair away from her face.
She looks different these days, thinner and blonder, but I can still see the girl I met the first day of fourth grade at Johnson Elementary, just outside of Asheville. The girl with a splash of freckles across her nose, big eyes and wide cheekbones, who’d leaned forward and conspiratorially whispered, “I’m glad I’m sitting next to you.”
It’s funny how such a little thing can form a lifelong bond.
“So, how’s your writing going?” she asks as the waiter brings her wine. I’m sticking with iced tea, still on a handful of medications that I don’t want to mix with alcohol, and take a sip before answering her.
“It’s okay,” I finally say. “Been a little slow getting back into it after … everything.”
Everything.
It’s the only word that can sum up what a complete and utter shit show this past year has been for me, but it still comes nowhere close to touching it.
Career stalling out? Check.
Health suddenly terrible for no reason that any doctor can figure out? Check.
Husband deciding to leave after seven years of seemingly happy marriage?
Fucking check.
It’s been over six months since Matt left, and I keep waiting for all of it to hurt less, for it to be less messy, less … I don’t know. Clichéd. Humiliating. My mom actually asked me the other day if I was thinking about moving back in with them, and given the state of my finances—between a late book and an increasingly expensive divorce—I’d actually started considering it. Chess watches me now, her brows drawn together, and then she pulls her leg up, her heel on the edge of her chair, her arms wrapped around her knee, a position I’ve literally never seen anyone contort themselves into in a restaurant. I guess once you’ve pulled the same move on Oprah’s couch, you can do what you want.
I wave a hand. “Seriously, it’s fine,” I tell her. “The latest book is, like, epically late, but it’s book ten in the series, and book nine’s sales weren’t exactly setting the publishing world on fire, so I don’t think anyone’s all that concerned.” No one except for me, but that’s a different story.
Chess shrugs, the silver bangles on her wrist rattling. “People have no taste, then. A Deadly Dig was my favorite so far. That bit at the end on the beach where you’re, like, ‘Oh shit, the wife and the best friend did it together!’” She leans forward, beaming as she grabs my hand across the table. “So damn smart!”
Flopping back into her chair, she keeps smiling at me. “You were always so damn smart.”
Feeling almost absurdly pleased, I pick at another piece of bread. “You read A Deadly Dig?”
You write for long enough, you stop expecting anyone in your life to actually keep up with what you’re producing. My mom only got through book five of the Petal Bloom Mysteries, A Murderous Mishap.
Matt, my ex, never read any of them other than the first one. It had really never occurred to me that Chess would even keep track of the titles, much less read them.
But that’s the magic of Chess. Just when you’re kind of over her shit, she does or says something genuinely kind, genuinely lovely, something that makes you feel like the sun is shining right on you.
“Of course, I did,” she says, picking the last piece of bread out of the basket. “You read mine, right?”
I have, more than once, but not for fun or because I genuinely enjoyed them. I think of lying in my bed, exhausted and nauseous, so sick and tired of being sick and tired, reading Your Best Self and then You Got This!, shame pricking hot under my skin because I was looking for shit to dislike, looking for sentences to roll my eyes at. What kind of person hate-reads their best friend’s books?
“Obviously!” I tell her now, a little too bright, but she must not notice because she just smiles at me again.
“Good. I never would’ve written them without you.”
I blink at her. It’s the first time she’s ever said anything like that, and I have no idea what she means. By the time Chess launched herself as this weird combination of Taylor Swift, Glennon Doyle, and a girl boss Jesus, we weren’t talking all that much. I was wrapped up in my own writing, and Matt, while she was taking over the world.
“Oh yeah, I was very vital to your process, hanging out here in North Carolina,” I joke, but she shakes her head.
“No, you were! You were the one who actually got me to commit to writing, you know? You always took it so seriously with your little notebooks, blocking out those … what did you call it? You had a little timer for it.”
It’s called the Pomodoro technique, and I actually still use it, even though it’s not exactly doing me much good these days. I wave her off.
“I was just a nerd,” I tell her, and she reaches across the table to swat at my arm.
“That’s my best friend you’re talking about, bitch.”
The rest of the lunch passes by quickly, so much so that I’m actually surprised when the check comes. Chess swipes it up before I even have a chance to pretend I was going to pay, and then we’re outside on the sidewalk, the late May afternoon warm and rainy.
“I’ve missed you, Em,” she tells me, giving me another hug, and I smile against her collarbone, shrugging when I pull back.
“I’m always here,” I tell her. I don’t mean for it to come out quite as sad sack as it does, but it’s the truth. Chess is the one who is always on the go, but I’m still here in Asheville, the same town where I grew up. We only managed this lunch because Chess had a signing at the local bookstore this weekend.
“Well, good,” she tells me now, flashing me a wink. “That way I always know where to find you.”