The Night to Remember

‘I can see it now!’ Lana declared, her words slurring as she stumbled into the table and a chair drunkenly. Her dark brown hair is everywhere, covering half her face and sticking up in strange places. Lana could never hold her liquor.  

Laughing, I gestured with my glass for her to continue. Jordan is giggling next to me, his own glass half-empty before him. This is better than going out to a bar, with loud people shoving and pushing against us. Where one of us has to be sober to drive home, or we face the wrath of Uber costs. 

We three introverts prefer the nights at home in a dingy apartment that smells of old cigarette smoke and will never be free of Jordan’s tabby cat’s fur. 

‘Okay… okay - ‘ Lana tried to start, leaning forward and tilting the chair just enough to lose her balance and sprawl onto the floor. None of us could stop laughing for what felt like forever and ever. 

Jordan shakes me out of the memory. He’s not laughing now. He’s older, somber, and sober. Neither of us is those dumb, freshly twenty-one-year-olds who drank cheap wine and seltzers in our shared apartment. Jordan has a full beard now. Not the bit of stubble he called a beard because he thought it was cool. 

Nothing is the same from that night. Of course, everything should change from twenty-one to twenty-five. But I miss the old Alex, who took no shit and whose favorite movie was The Emperor’s New Groove. 

“‘Cmon,” Jordan says quietly, taking my arm. “We’ve got to go set up.”

Seven little words. Not exactly the dreaded seven words, but they’re bad all the same. 

I scratch Darwin the tabby cat’s ears before we walk out of the apartment. It’s newer than the old one, in a better neighborhood, with a landlord who isn’t a piece of shit and proper ventilation. Down the stairwell because the elevator is under maintenance. 

There’s yelling down one hall and children laughing down the next.

Laughing… Laughing…

‘Okay, hear me out!’ Lana said as she pulled herself from the floor. 

‘Please get on with it already,’ I said before taking another swig of my drink. It burned down my throat, but by that point in the night, it was a sweet pain I craved. 

Jordan cheered out his agreement. Lana shook out her hands, trying to concentrate. 

I took a moment to gaze in wonder at my friends. Jordan, with his stubble, brown eyes I could just melt into if I let myself, and soft southern drawl that instantly drew me in and made me feel safe. Lana, with her reckless abandon of dark, frizzy curls she didn’t have the time to properly care for, strong jaw, and mysterious aura. If you saw the two of them walking down the street together, they’d be the definition of a walking bisexual panic. You’d think they’re both confident and flirtatious, but in reality, they’re my two loveable, broke nerds.

 ‘Follow me now. What have you both always wanted?’

Jordan raised an eyebrow, skeptical. ‘Wha-’

Lana waved her hands and shushed him. ‘Don’t question it!’

Humming, I think about her question. What have I always wanted?

What I want…

“I want those flowers anywhere but here,” I tell some poor confused girl. She’s holding a giant vase filled with white flowers and looking at me wide-eyed. “Look, whoever told you that those could go in here was wrong. Mrs. Lakewood can’t be around chrysanthemums; she’s severely allergic. I’m sorry. Could you please put them in another room, somewhere off to the side? Hell, the banquet room will be better. She won’t be here by then.”

The flower girl nods and totters off with the bouquet of flowers. Sighing, I survey the rest of the room. People have been slowly trickling in and out, delivering different things. Jordan is dealing with the caterer, who is almost two hours early. There’s no place to store the food here, so everything will go bad before people even grab their plates. The girl who just went off is the florist's assistant, I think, and the actual florist is nowhere to be seen, although the trail of her work is everywhere. There are some other people off in the corner of the room that I’ve completely forgotten what their job is, and, at this point, I’m too stressed to know. 

Big events stress me out, yet I work in tandem with the fundraising team at my work. Helping them plan giant events that will help us fund the next project to help make a difference in schools. But Suzane from work can’t take over the work for today. So it’s up to me and Jordan. 

Speak of the devil.

Jordan walks over to me, fidgeting with the cuffs of his jacket. “What happened with the caterer?” I ask once he’s close enough. 

He waves the question off. “Taken care of, but we have another issue. Someone ruined Lana’s dress.”

I stare at Jordan for a minute. “What do you mean ‘someone ruined Lana’s dress?’”

“I mean exactly that. I don’t exactly know what happened, there was a lot of stammering and half-finished sentences, but they need another dress.” 

This. This is exactly why I don’t like planning things by myself. Emotions are high enough as it is without this. 

I sigh and start to say I’ll go find her a new dress when I see someone walk into the room who shouldn’t be here right now. “Can you take care of it, please? I need to….” I gesture over to the man who just walked in. Jordan looks that way and recognizes him as I did. He nods, and I kiss his cheek, murmuring something about how amazing he is before I walk over to my boss. 

“Ah, Alex!” My boss, Allen, says as I walk over to him. He’s wearing a dark gray suit and gives me a friendly smile. 

I like my boss. He cares about kids struggling in schools just as much as I do. He’s helped me so much with everything I’ve ever wanted.

‘I want to help kids. Teaching didn’t work out, but someone’s got to help them learn. This whole system is garbage. I mean, no one is actually doing anything for the disabled kids unless they fight tooth and nail! It’s not fair. Not to mention the kids who aren’t diagnosed for whatever reason. And the bullying statistics - ‘

Jordan grabbed my hand to shut me up. ‘We will be here all night listening to your rant for the millionth time. We know how you feel about the US education system.’

I gave him a sheepish smile. But, of course, I can’t help it when this subject has been the topic of dozens of my projects and papers throughout school. There’s just the problem of finding a job where I actually feel like I’m doing something. 

My stomach was doing cartwheels with Jordan’s hand on mine. He’s a pretty boy. And pretty boys - 

Lana cleared her throat to bring our attention back to her. ‘Alex, I can see you getting your dream job. Some company is going to see your potential and how much you care, and they’re going to want to hire you on the spot. You’re going to help thousands of kids before you’re twenty-seven. And Jordan…’

Jordan took his hand off of mine. My skin instantly felt colder. ‘Lana, darling, Alex’s ‘future’ is easy enough to see. He’s working hard and has always wanted to do something like that for as long as we’ve known him. You’re also probing him and giving him an answer completely based on his answer! You’re cheating at this whole future thing.’

Lana squawked in indignation before grabbing a fresh drink, and I just shook my head. We’re drunk, and yet Jordan is the sensible one who can see through anything. Surprisingly enough, he’s the artistic one amongst us three. He wanted to paint murals or portraits of people he found interesting.

‘Fine, I’ll tell you what I see in your future, Jordan, without my method!’ She said and took a long pull of her fruity seltzer. 

“What are you doing here, Allen? I thought I let you know I wouldn’t be able to come in for a few days.”

Allen looks confused by my confusion. Like I should already know the answer to the question I’ve asked.

“You did,” he assures me. “Did Lana never tell you?”

His words only confuse me more. What could Lana have told me about my boss? As far as I knew, Allen and Lana didn’t know each other. Apparently, that assumption was wrong and has now made an ass of me. I shake my head, and Allen starts talking again.

“You know Lana’s parents died a few years back?” I did know. They died a few months before I met her, and I never knew much about them. Neither did Jordan. “They owned a company that went to her upon their death. She put it up for sale, saying something about how she didn’t know how to run the thing and the workers deserved a competent CEO, and I bought it from her. We kept in touch. She often dropped by to see how things were going. Lana talked about you a lot, and that’s how I got your resume.”

There’s a shattering sound behind me, and I think it’s all in my head because my world has finally taken the final hit and is crumbling around me. But when I whirl around, it’s the florist's assistant, back again with another vase free of chrysanthemums now shattered on the floor. 

My heart rate is speeding up too fast, and I need to get out of here. I direct Allen somewhere since he’s early before running out of the room and into the hall because I cannot deal with the revelation he just gave me. 

‘You are going to get a big commission that’s going to change everything, probably in the next two years. Your best portrait yet. And you’re gonna get your shit together and finally ask out who you’ve been tormenting yourself about.’ Lana said with finality. 

Jordan stared at her, completely in shock. I laughed softly to myself and finished off my drink. ‘Damn, Lana, going at him hard.’ 

She smiled proudly, crossing her arms and sitting back in her chair. ‘I’ll be proved right, just wait.’

It was easier to agree with her than try to argue. 

Jordan finds me outside. My brain phased back to memories, and somehow I ended up outside. I need the sounds of the busy streets, not some stressed florist yelling at their assistant for being careless.

“Hey… Alex, what’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.” Jordan asks me, concerned. 

He walks over to me, setting down the garment bag he had in his hand. I can’t answer him. I’m too lost floating above the ground and swimming in the memories of that night. I can only recall pieces of that one stupid night because I got so drunk, and everything went hazy and nice and simple. Jordan puts his hands on my cheeks and tries to help me reground. He is a good boyfriend like that. After a few moments, he kisses my forehead and then leans his forehead against mine. “What is it, darlin’.”

I take a shaky breath. “She organized everything. She… Lana got me my job. I… I didn’t do anything to deserve it. She just gave it to me without me knowing.” 

Jordan looks confused, and I don’t blame him. Taking another breath, slowly calming down, I try to explain. “Do you remember that night when we got drunk at the old apartment, and Lana told us she could see our futures?” He nods, and I continue. “She did it, J. Think about it. I have my dream job - “

“I told you that night; you worked hard for that job. It was what you wanted.”

I shake my head. “Lana’s parents owned my company before Allen did. She sold it to him after they died. She told them to hire me… or… she at least suggested it. And you’ve been getting a lot of offers recently to do more work!”

It’s clear that Jordan doesn’t want to believe this, but then something clicks behind his eyes. “Oh… oh my god… That portrait I did of Lana, a few months ago, it’s gone. I can’t find it anywhere in her apartment and I randomly got a huge Venmo payment. That’s when all the requests started coming in. She… Lana must’ve sold the portrait or something.”

We both already know that she was right about Jordan asking someone out. It was me two years ago. He finally got the hint of our mutual crush and asked me out. Now we live together in a way that isn’t platonic and with our other best friend. 

“It’s like she planned this whole thing out, but… why?”

When Jordan recovered from his shock, he finished off his drink. ‘Lana, you’re gonna be the death of me. Wait, where are you with all of this, oh so wise one?’

She was quiet for a moment, contemplative. That was when Darwin knocked a pile of books down, and we all scrambled to help him even though he was a perfectly capable cat. Lana’s place in the future was soon forgotten as we cooed over the cat and drank more than our livers would like. Every moment for the rest of that night faded into a warm, happy, hazy memory.

The puzzle piece slots into place. The whole reason we’re here: Lana’s illness. The one she hid from us for years and died from not four days ago. The doctors said she’d known for a long time. Knew that she was terminal, yet she didn’t tell a soul.

“She set up our lives because she knew she wouldn’t be in them for much longer,” I whisper softly to Jordan. “She did everything to give us what we wanted. Lana knew she wouldn’t be around to see it, so she was testing to see if she was right about our desires so she could set everything in place.”

I watch Jordan connect the dots I’ve finally seen the string for. It’s been invisible for so long that I hadn’t even noticed I’d followed it with Lana’s guidance. 

Jordan huffs out a laugh and shakes his head. “If we weren’t at her funeral, I’d say we need to burn the witch for her fortune-telling witchcraft.” 

I can’t help but laugh. 

It’s stupid and ridiculous, and I should be absolutely seething right now that my friend meddled with our entire lives. But this insane revelation strangely relieves the pain of Lana’s death ever so slightly. I could maybe understand her motives if I thought about it long enough, but we don’t have the time, and I don’t know if I have the emotional capacity. 

“We should go back in,” I tell Jordan quietly. He knows I’m right, so he picks up the garment bag he put on the floor, and we walk back into the funeral home. 

The flowers are still a small wreck, Allen is a walking treasure chest of unanswered questions standing awkwardly to the side, and the mortuary assistant may have destroyed Lana’s favorite dress on accident, but I feel like Lana’s actually there now. Watching over my shoulder and smiling her crooked smile. Triumphant that her plan worked. 

Today, I remember. We all will remember. 

I will remember the almost ghost, my best friend, who told me on a night I will try to engrave the rest of the memory into stone she could see it now. Who I should’ve believed sooner.