Under The Apple Tree - 3.1

We’d left our cars partially because O'Connor's was on our busy main street, and usually impossible to find parking. As it was, it had been difficult enough to find parking close to Erin’s house. Laura had mentioned she had trouble too. When the weather got warmer, I usually walked everywhere. I wasn’t one for the gym and I’d never shown an aptitude for any kind of sport, so walking was the way I got my exercise.

As it was, the weather was decent for early spring, but a little too cold to be out and about, and once the last rays of sunlight disappeared, it would almost feel like winter. I was looking forward to ordering a mulled wine when we got there.

As much as I wished it was just a little bit warmer, there was a quiet peace about the town. That was one thing I liked about living away from the city, even if it felt boring to some. You could actually hear yourself think.

“Did you park far, Madison?” Laura asked.

“No, I took an uber,” she replied. Then she explained to us that she didn’t have a car. Hers had recently been totaled in an accident. There was an awkward lingering silence, and it was clear she wasn’t going to tell us any more about the accident.

“I mean, is your car going to be fixed?” I asked.

“Yeah, it will be,” Madison said.

“It’s a good thing you’re okay,” I said. I never knew the right thing to say when someone told me they’d been in one. I’d never been in an accident myself and it seemed like one of the scariest things that could possibly happen to a person, especially since I’d witnessed a few awful wrecks in my time.

“Thank you,” she told me.

“For what?”

“My life matters more to you than it does to my parents,” Madison said flatly.

I took a moment to process what she had just said. “Why do you say that?”

“All they cared about was the car and how much it was going to cost to fix,” Madison said. “They never even asked me if I was okay.”

“I’m sure that’s not true,” Laura said. “They probably saw you were okay, didn’t have a scratch on you. Did they pay for the repairs?”

Madison nodded.

“I’d be a little upset too. I’m sure you’re fine,” Laura said.

“Yeah, it’s just…” Madison trailed off. “Anyway, it doesn't matter.”

I thought to myself that she was lucky that she had people who would bail her out in tough financial situations like that. But I kept it to myself.

By then, we’d reached the entrance of O’Connor’s. While we were waiting to be seated, I remembered to text my mom to tell her I was going out and would be home late.

Madison noticed and asked me who I was texting.

“My mom,” I told her. “No one special.”

The hostess brought us to a corner booth which was one of my favorite places to sit in the whole restaurant.

O’Connor’s was a nice, homey place, and while it was a popular spot it was never usually too busy to the point that I was uncomfortable.

I was glad that Laura was there, because I always struggled with finding things to say whenever I was meeting new people. Luckily, she was more extroverted than I was and did better at making small talk with strangers. “How long have you lived here?” Laura asked.

“Well, I came here for college and I just never left.”

Laura laughed. “You love this dumpy town that much?”

Madison vaguely shook her head. “I like it here. I mean, I don’t know that I want to stay here forever. But…” she started to trail off. “It was easier to stay. After I graduated.”

“Do you have a job?”

Madison nodded and explained she worked as a graphic designer. I told her that I’d love to see her work sometime, and she said she didn’t really do anything too interesting. She worked with our local news channel a fair bit. It was how, actually, she’d met Erin.

The waitress came. I ordered mulled wine. Laura ordered a sangria, and Madison just ordered lemonade.

“Nothing to drink?” I asked. Certainly, I wasn’t going to blame anyone for not drinking, but I was a little confused, considering she was the one that invited us out.

Madison shook her head. “No, I don’t really drink.”

Neither one of us said anything.

“There’s more I could say, but….” Madison trailed off again. “I don’t know. I still don’t know either of you that well.”

“You don’t have to go into it,” I said, figuring there was, yet again, something else that I didn’t really understand. Some sort of difficult relationship with alcohol. It wasn’t anything she needed to apologize for.

“I can’t believe you’re both actresses,” Madison said. The abrupt subject change was jarring, but I went with it. “When you’re both famous, I can’t wait to tell everyone that I was your friend.”

I got this reaction sometimes from people who weren’t in the arts. People who thought it was so cool I was in plays and didn’t stop to think about how much work it really was. How much of it was a struggle, how much I doubted myself. There was nothing that made me feel quite the way that acting did, and yet, it wasn’t all glitz and glamor. I knew Laura felt the same way. Maybe that was part of the reason why we were so close. “Trying to be an actress,” I said.

“Are you in anything now?” Madison asked.

I shook my head. “Waiting for the right thing to come along.”

Madison turned to Laura. “What about you?”

Laura shook her head too. “Same as her.”

I expected Madison to ask us something else about acting, about roles we’ve had, about what we liked about it. Instead, she said something else entirely. “Why can’t there be men like Jay Gatsby in real life?”

Laura and I exchanged a look, unsure of how to respond. To a degree I understood what she was saying, but not only was it not anywhere close to one of my main takeaways from the book, the comment had come so out of nowhere.

“I think there are good men out there,” I finally said.

“I’d like to know where they are,” Madison said.

“You’re what, twenty-one, twenty-two?” I said.

“Twenty-one.”

“Don’t worry. You’ll find someone.” Saying this felt a little strange, since I was a solid four years older than her and it hadn’t happened for me. But I could tell she was upset, and I wanted to say something that I thought might help.

Madison shrugged again. “Anyway, I hope you both are as excited about summer as I am.”

Shortly after that, our drinks came, and started talking about just that. I told her that summer was my favorite season, the time of the year I felt most alive, most myself.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Madison said. She laughed. “You know… I’m from Puerto Rico, and it’s always hot and humid there. When I came here for college I was so excited to see snow. I still am, but I feel like it should always be warm.”

“I’ve been to Puerto Rico once,” I said. “It was a long time ago.”

She asked where. I said San Juan. “That’s where I’m from,” Madison said with a smile.

I told her because the trip had happened a long time ago, I didn’t remember much. There was one restaurant. Close to the beach. It just so happened she knew exactly the restaurant that I was talking about.

“I went there all the time with my family,” she explained. “We probably saw each other as kids and never knew it.”

“Maybe,” I said with a laugh.

Then Laura explained that she’d never been to Puerto Rico, but she loved summer too.

I think, looking back, it was in that exact moment that I thought Madison was someone I could be friends with. As weird as things had been throughout the day, both with Kayla and later with Brady, and I supposed the comments about her parents and the car, she seemed like a nice, normal person. The comment about Jay Gatsby had been a little random, but if anything, I understood it. And now we were having a normal conversation that normal people have when they want to get to know each other.

Madison had asked us both how our drinks were, and I said I really enjoyed my mulled wine. It was the perfect comforting thing on a chilly day like this.

I was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol. I’d always been thin and small, and as a result it didn’t take much to get me drunk. It wasn’t long before I finished it, and I wasn’t ready to leave the bar, so I decided to order a second one. The reason I bring this up is, in the months since, I’ve often had the passing thought that I would have seen the red flags a little bit more clearly if I hadn’t been drinking.

I can’t say for sure. Maybe that’s an oversimplification. Still, the red flags were waving at me right in the face, and yet, as I often do, I wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that’s what all of this is about, the more I think about it.

I’m an actress, and the one strength I’ve always prided myself on is my ability to understand people. So many people in our world are hurting so much, and a lot of times that hurt comes from the pain they feel in their own lives. Put another way, I want to be a storyteller because I want to understand people. I want to be kind and empathetic when so many others rush to judgment. I realized a long time ago that most people are trying to live life the best way they know how.

Laura tells me that I can’t beat myself too much for trusting Madison, for letting her into my life. She was fooled too. So was Erin and Brady and so many other people I imagined that we didn’t even know.