do it,’ and he walks up to her and grabs them like they’re two clown horns. And he squeezes.”
October covered her face and giggled.
Cal said, “I learned a very important lesson that day. Don’t squeeze.”
After our laughter died down, Cal hopped out of the car and said, “Come on. Let’s look around.”
October and I followed Cal as far as the driveway, but he kept going.
“Chris . . . ,” October said.
“Nobody’s home,” he told her. And while there were no lights on and no cars around, there was no way he could know that for sure. “I just want to peek in the windows. For old time’s sake.”
He was all the way to the front door when October took a step closer to me, put her palm on my back, and said, “Just checking to make sure you’re OK. Being here, I mean.”
“I’m fine.” I nodded and stepped away from her. “Thanks, though.”
It was true when I said it. Seeing the house wasn’t a trigger for me. I had hiked past it a few times since I’d moved back and didn’t feel much of anything when I did.
It wasn’t until I looked up and saw Cal standing near the front door, calling my name the way only Cal ever did, that my mood took a nosedive.
The last time I’d seen Cal in that doorway was the day before he left for Brooklyn. He’d come over to make one last appeal, and he’d used the same argument I’d tried on Bob. “Give it a year. If we don’t make any progress you can come back and go to Berkeley. What do you have to lose?”
I had assured him I would give that serious thought and, to make us both feel better, told him I’d probably be in Brooklyn by Christmas.
I could see the internal debate on his face then, and the concern. “Harp,” he’d said, “promise me one thing. Promise me that no matter what happens, we’ll always be best friends.”
“I promise.”
The Pelican Inn opened in the late 1970s and is meant to look like a cozy medieval pub. The walls are brick and white plaster; the floors thick, wide planks of five-hundred-year-old redwood; and in the back corner of the restaurant there’s a walk-in fireplace with a big cauldron in the middle of it.
It was Friday, and the place was packed when we arrived. Right away I could see that all the people waiting in the entryway made October uncomfortable. She didn’t take her eyes off the floor, and she kept snapping the elastic hair band she wore around her wrist. I wondered to myself if we should go somewhere less busy, but Cal didn’t seem fazed by October’s behavior, and I didn’t think it was my place to step in and say anything if he didn’t.
There wasn’t a table for three available, but Cal sweet-talked the hostess, and she said that if we didn’t mind squeezing in at a table meant for two, she could seat us right away.
“Bloody brilliant,” Cal said in his Noel Gallagher brogue.
“Sounds fantastic,” I said as Liam.
October looked at us like we were two strangers she’d picked up on the side of the road.
The waitress led us to the back corner of the dining room, to a small table right beside the fireplace. The table had a chair on one side and a bench on the other. The bench was actually a section of an old church pew. It faced the room, and right away Cal took the single chair so he could sit with his back to the other diners.
I slid onto the bench first, all the way to the wall, but the space was so tight that when October slid in beside me, our legs and arms pressed against each other’s. I remember trying to hold my breath, trying to shut my body down so that she wouldn’t pick up on my reaction to being that close to her. But my leg palpitated like it had its own heartbeat, and I realized with resigned mortification that there was no way for me to hide my feelings from her.
Luckily, glancing across the table at Cal distracted me. He looked elated and proud, and it made me homesick to be there with him, though not for my literal home. I was homesick for the feeling I used to have when I was with Cal and could see the world through his eyes. There’s a certain sort of hope that kids have, even in the