Standing on her tiptoes, Gabbie dragged the curtain of her east-facing window shut with a satisfied grunt. When she’d found the studio in the Heights a few weeks after graduation, she loved it for its relentless sunniness, but whenever she FaceTimed Dan, her boyfriend of four and a half years, Gabbie had to block out all natural light and turn on her desk lamp so that she could see Dan’s adorable face unobscured by pesky rays of sun. Sitting at her desk, Gabbie clicked the call button and waited as it rang. It always took Dan a little while to answer when she called. When he had first left for Nairobi in June, the delay had annoyed Gabbie, but as the weeks passed, she started to expect it, even enjoy it. She examined her reflection in the front-facing camera of her MacBook, fluffing her five-day-old wash-and-go in an attempt to resuscitate the flattening curls, then tapping to blend the Covergirl under-eye concealer she’d applied a few moments ago.
Most days, Gabbie just FaceTimed Dan as she was (he loved a natural look) but she figured her birthday called for at least a little primping. It was also the first time she and Dan would be seeing each other in days; they usually spoke six times a week, but between Gabbie’s last-minute Teach for America training sessions and the soccer tournament Dan was organizing for his students, they just hadn’t been able to get it together. The computer stopped ringing, and she heard Dan before she saw him.
“Jambo!” he said. A second later, his face filled the screen, and Gabbie smiled at the sight of him. His dark brown hair was longer and shaggier than it had been in college, and he was painfully red and flaking from the sun, but overall Dan was the same as ever—unblemished pale skin, strong dark brows Gabbie had always envied, and the slightly clefted chin she loved to tease him about. When he waved hello, she noticed, with satisfaction, a wood beaded bracelet on his left wrist. Gabbie wore an identical bracelet on hers; they’d bought them together in Thailand on their postgrad trip in May.
“Hey!” Gabbie said, hooking a piece of hair behind her ear. “Jambo,” she added, but Dan shook his head, laughing at her pronunciation.
“A for effort,” he said with a grin. “C plus for execution.”
Gabbie smiled. “Wow,” she said, mock offended. “Are you that harsh of a grader with your students?”
Dan laughed and looked down before his eyes flicked back up to Gabbie’s face. “Sorry. Teacher chat,” he explained, referencing the WhatsApp group that was forever interrupting them.
“No worries,” Gabbie said.
“So, how’s your birthday been?” Dan asked. He’d messaged her “happy birthday!” at midnight his time, but it had only been 5:00 p.m. in New York. For a brief, annoyed second, Gabbie thought he still didn’t know her birthday (there had been incidents in the past), and then immediately felt an apologetic rush when she remembered the time difference.
“It’s been a pretty perfect day.” Gabbie said. “I talked to my parents and brother on the phone, then I finished up my lesson plans through the end of the month. And now I get to talk to my favorite person.” Dan nodded as Gabbie spoke. Behind him, she could see the white walls of his one-bedroom apartment, bare except for a picture of the two of them at graduation, next to another of Dan with his parents and older sister, standing on a beach in matching khakis and dress shirts. “I might do something tonight,” she added, mostly to fill the silence. “Go to a bar or something.”
Dan’s eyes fell to his lap again before he looked up at her, dragging a hand through his hair. “I wish we could do something together,” he said, giving her a little smile. Gabbie closed her eyes, her chest tight with longing.
“Same,” she breathed.
Gabbie and Dan had been dating since their freshman year at Brown, when they just happened to run into each other at the African Students Association table at the orientation week club fair. She’d thought he was South African for months before finding out he was actually just from Colorado, but that didn’t deter her. In school, their lives had intertwined easily—there was nothing if not free time on a college campus, and they filled the gaps between class and extracurriculars with each other. In high school, the nice nerdy boys had always liked Gabbie, a fellow dork with a sweet face, but Dan was the first boy she’d met who was nice and cute at the same time. It seemed like a crazy bonus that they were both double majoring in Africana Studies and Education. They’d spend their days at school reading together in the shade on the Main Green, wasting their money on disappointing concerts at local bars, and having cozy couple’s brunches at the dining hall on the weekends.
But since he’d left for Nairobi, things had changed—and in the most annoyingly predictable way. Dan had gotten distant—literally, of course, but also figuratively. He was always missing their calls to make time for his students and cool new Fulbright friends, and sometimes he took so long to reply to Gabbie’s messages that she’d worry something happened to him. As a devoted teacher herself, Gabbie totally understood the importance of dedicating time to your kids, but sometimes she wondered if Dan was putting his students, or whatever else he had going on in Nairobi, before her. Then she’d brush the thought away—she knew Dan loved her, and that if she’d just taken the placement in Nairobi with him like they’d planned, she wouldn’t be having any of these concerns.
It didn’t take much for Dan to sell Gabbie on the idea of Fulbright, but then Gabbie’s parents had begged her to stay in the Northeast, or at the very least in the country. The pressure on both sides was a lot, but when Gabbie got an offer to work as a third-grade teacher at one of New York’s most deprived schools, she caved to her parents’ daily phone calls and increasingly elaborate bribes.
Gabbie submitted her Fulbright withdrawal a few days before graduation and somberly broke the news to Dan (in that order, just in case he was able to convince her again). She hated hurting anyone, especially Dan. But after she’d told him, Gabbie felt a tiny pull of excitement as she realized her parents’ pushiness meant she was getting to live out her lifelong dream of moving to New York City. She’d gone back to her empty dorm after graduation dinner and pricked pins into a paper map of Manhattan, marking Magnolia Bakery, ABC Home, Loeb Boathouse, and every other essential she could hit on her DIY Sex and the City tour.
Still, on lonely nights, Gabbie wondered if her kids (thirty-two of them, each gifted and brilliant in their own special way) were worth it. She loved her job, but she still felt her heart drop every time she rolled over in bed to find an empty space instead of the familiar warmth of Dan’s hairless chest.
“You should definitely go out tonight,” he said. “It’s your birthday, you should see your friends.”
“Yeah, but . . .” I don’t have any, Gabbie wanted to say, but it was too embarrassing.
One particularly boring Friday night in August after Dan had left, Gabbie had shot off a quick message to Kirsten, an acquaintance from college whom she’d always liked but for some reason had never been able to turn into a friend.
Gabbie
She and Kirsten hadn’t spoken since the beginning of summer, when Kirsten was home on the Upper East Side and kept asking Gabbie to get dinner. At the time, wrapped up in Dan, Gabbie had always summarily declined. After what felt like a lifetime, Kirsten’s reply popped up on her screen:
Kirsten
Kirsten
That night, Gabbie had ended up drinking three glasses of red wine before doing an ab workout video (on her laptop) while watching Love Actually (on her TV).
There was a moment of silence, and Gabbie looked into the FaceTime window, trying to make virtual eye contact with Dan, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was gazing at what Gabbie guessed was another tab on his computer.
“What’s so interesting?” Gabbie asked. She’d hoped her tone would be caustic, but instead it came out sounding genuinely curious. Ugh.
“Nothing,” he said. “Just looking at some reporting one of the other teachers did on women’s hygiene here for NPR—pretty cool stuff.”
“Oh,” Gabbie said. She couldn’t help but wonder if the teacher in question was Kim, the tall, athletic social studies teacher who coached the netball team at Dan’s school. Since moving to Nairobi, Dan had mentioned Kim more than Gabbie would’ve liked, if she was being honest. According to Facebook, she had run track at Stanford and it seemed like her hair could hold a braid-out for days. Maybe she was the reason Dan had been so distant last week. But Gabbie quickly chastised herself—it was just as likely that Dan was busy putting together a surprise care package for her birthday.
“Listen, I gotta go,” Dan said. “Teachers’ happy hour.”
“Right,” Gabbie said. She didn’t remember seeing that on his Google calendar.
“Happy birthday, babe. I know you’ll find a way to make it a good one,” Dan said. He gave another smile, but he was already looking at a corner of the screen, ready to X out of the call.