June
I get my father’s current address off Mara. Florida, where he grew up. I heard once that most people die within a fifty-mile radius of where they were born. I write a letter. My first correspondence in years. “Don’t expect too much,” Mara warns me, over the phone. “He’s still Dad.”
“I know,” I say. “I just figure he should know what I’m thinking of doing.” What I don’t admit to Mara or even barely to myself is: I’m curious what he’ll say. Hell yes or hell no. If he has any advice. Bizarrely, I think I’d listen to it. My letter isn’t long, just one page, outlining the facts and a few details of my life. Enough to say, I’m okay, I don’t need you. Enough to say: But if you get this: reach out.
* * * *
“Mmm,” I groan. “So good. Sooo good.”
Steph gives me a funny look, winding pasta around her fork. “You’re very . . . vocal these days.”
I lick Alfredo sauce off my finger. “Carbs and dairy. Must express appreciation.” My entire body vibrates with pleasure. It needed pampering of the pasta kind tonight, and now it’s purring like a fat happy cat.
“There’s nothing specific that’s inspired this orgasmic gastro gratitude?”
It’s pointed.
I pause. Unsure.
Steph sighs and hands me her phone.
A photograph of Elan and I.
A tiny part of me is relieved: this is why she’s been acting so strange all night, atypically evasive, decidedly awkward. In a post-BRCA world, bad news is no longer limited to celebrity breakups and what wasn’t available at the bodega. But the larger part is horrified.
Sprung.
In the picture, Elan and I are at his local coffee shop, a cute French place on the corner of his block, waiting for our morning order. He’s got one hand on the back of my neck, the other in his pants pocket.
He’s smiling at me and I’m staring up at him. An annoyingly obsequious look on my face, but I do look pretty, and you can see my whole outfit, which is on point: black silk jumpsuit, blush-pink bomber jacket, black nails, pale-pink lip gloss. Behind us, baskets of baguettes and buckets of peonies. The morning light makes my skin look flawless, my hair like spun gold. Objectively, it’s an extremely cute picture of two attractive New Yorkers who look very much in love.
I love this photo as much as I feel invaded by it.
My heart is smacking my ribs. The caption reads: Spotted at my local! NY-designer Elan Behzadi + his beautiful ladyfriend #streetstyle #newyorkmoment
It’s a British girl’s account, someone Steph follows called SJ. London gal taking on the Big Apple! her bio reads. I love fashion, pugs & Keanu Reeves. She only has three thousand followers. This picture already has more than a thousand likes. Because she’s tagged Elan. That means it’s on his Instagram, too.
“Do you know her?” I ask.
“Not personally,” Steph says.
“I can explain. I just need to message her.”
Identifying myself as “the girl in the picture,” I ask SJ in a nice but urgent way to take the post down: It’s a little complicated, I type, but we’re not a public couple.
Now, all I can do is wait. And face Steph, who is looking at me with puppy-dog eyes and a brave little smile. I’d almost prefer it if she was furious: that, I’m familiar with. “Do you want to talk about it?” she asks, in a soft no-judgment voice.
I don’t. But now I have to. I explain how, after her initial reaction, I didn’t feel comfortable telling her that Elan asked me out. And then about the limo, and dinner at Golden Century, and staying over on weekends, and then weeknights, and how even though he’s a genius, he still feels misunderstood, and how he feels sad, and how much I want to cure him of that sadness, and how brilliant he is, and how being around him is like having backstage tickets to my favorite band every night of the week, and I can’t believe this is my life and basically, for the past month or so, I’ve fallen head over patent-leather heels in love with Elan Behzadi.
“You obviously really care about him,” Steph says.
“That’s an understatement. I’m basically president of his fan club.” I catch myself gushing. “As well as being his equal in all matters of love and, um, life.”
“That’s great, Lace.” Steph touches my hand. “I’m happy for you.”
I don’t quite believe her. “Are you?”
“What do you think Vivian will say,” Steph asks, “when she finds out?”
“She won’t find out. But even if she does, it’s none of her business.”
“But it is her business,” Steph says, “Clean Clothes is literally her business.”
Ouch. “If it was only up to me, I’d probably tell her,” I say. “But Elan thinks it’s better to keep our business and personal lives separate, and so do I.”
“So it’s Elan’s idea,” Steph says. “To be secret.”
“His life is very complicated.” Even to my ears, it’s an excuse. But I can’t stop myself explaining that if we were to go public, then it’s on the record, permanently. “It’s only been a month.”
“Or so,” Steph says. “A month or so. Two months?”
I’m starting to get annoyed. “We’re still working out how we feel.”
“But you know how you feel,” Steph says. “You just said you’re in love with him.”
My restraint snaps like a cheap chopstick. “Steph, why don’t you just tell me what’s on your mind? You’ve obviously got some therapy thoughts about this. What, is he stringing me along? Am I being naive?”
Steph bites her bottom lip. “Are you still doing the bucket list?”
“I’m having a lot of sex, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“But ‘a lot of sex’ wasn’t on the bucket list.”
“That was the point,” I say. “The outcome.”
“So you’re not doing the bucket list,” Steph clarifies. “What about your BRCA stuff? Have you seen another plastic surgeon? Talked to Patricia? What about rescheduling with that woman from the forums you were supposed to meet up with—Bee?”
“I’m still only twenty-five, Steph,” I say. “It’s not like I’m forty-five: I’ve got time.”
“It’s one hundred percent your choice,” Steph says, hands up in placation. “I’m just wondering . . .”
“What?”
She levels her gaze at me. I brace myself. “Are you putting his needs over yours?”
This is not what I expected. I pivot, trying to find the best way to disarm this.
Steph continues, “Sometimes in a relationship where there is a built-in power imbalance, like there is with you and Elan, it can be easy to prioritize the needs of the more powerful person. I’m your friend, not your therapist. I’m always going to support you, no matter what. But my advice is: don’t get too disconnected from your own agenda.”
“I haven’t.” Even I can hear how defensive I sound. Upsettingly, there is more than a grain of truth to what Steph is saying. If I’m honest, I do want Elan and I to be a public couple. I want to meet his friends, go to events together, for him to stay at my house, for us to talk about the decision I have to make. But as each week goes by, it feels more and more like we’re living in a separate reality, as connected to my real life as the residents of a snow globe. I can’t look at her when I say, in not much more than a whisper, “But I can’t be totally honest with him about my needs.”
“Why not?”
“Because he’d probably end it.”
“Well, that’s not a very good relationship,” Steph says. “Is it?”
No. Probably not. But the idea of not seeing Elan, not having him in my life, is more than foreign. It’s distressing. I’m not just close to him. I’m trapped.
The front door unlocks. “Hello?”
It’s Cooper.
“In here,” Steph calls, giving my arm a pat.
I arrange my face into neutrality. His lights up when he sees me. “Hey, Lacey! Long time.” He sinks down next to me, eyes sparkling. “Wow, it’s such a beautiful night. T-shirt weather! I walked by the river and there were all these people dancing, and I ended up doing a tango with this total stranger. I love New York! This city is the best!”
Is it?
Steph grabs our empty pasta plates. “More rosé?”
“I’ll have some rosé.” Cooper looks at me hopefully.
“I should get going,” I say. “Long subway home.”
“I can drive you,” Cooper says.
“You have a car?” I’m shocked.
“Uh, yeah,” he says. “I know, it’s ridiculous. I pay more to park it than to drive it.” His eyes haven’t left mine. Enough unspoken words jostling behind them to require crowd control. “Let me give you a lift.”
I can’t. I can’t split myself between two men, even if one of them probably wouldn’t care less. I need perspective, not Cooper’s warm body inches from mine. “Thanks,” I say. “But the subway is a good place to think.”
I gather my things and hug Steph goodbye. I understand this was needed and that now we should feel closer. But our hug is awkward. The urge to flee takes hold, and I resist the impulse to run out the door. “Are you all right?” Steph asks.
I nod, instinctively, and then shrug, honestly. “I’ll talk to Elan,” I say. “And, Steph?”
“Yeah?” She’s so open it makes me nervous.
Fighting the urge to mumble at my feet like a teenager, I look her in the eye. “Thanks for being such a good friend when I’m such a bad one.”
She looks like she wants to say more but she knows I want to go. “You’re not a bad friend, Lace,” she says. “We’ve all got flaws.”
Mine just happen to be family-size.
Cooper’s in the bathroom. I linger in his bedroom doorway for a moment. It feels like standing on the edge of someone’s soul, peeking in. Light blue walls, stacks of books, a closed silver laptop. On his desk, a harmonica. Is he learning to play? A gift that’s gone unused? A piece of his past he’s carried with him? I want to curl up on his futon and wrap his blankets around me, inhaling the smell of his sheets.
I leave without saying goodbye.
* * * *
I’m almost at the subway when I hear a male voice calling my name. It’s Coop, running to catch up with me.
“Did I forget something?”
He runs both hands through his hair, panting a little. “I’m . . . not . . .”
“Finishing your sentences?”
He laughs and adjusts his glasses. He meets my gaze squarely. “Can I take you out for dinner?”
I blink. “A date?”
“A date.”
“A date date.”
“A date date date.” He grimaces. “Oh boy.”
I shift my purse onto my other shoulder. “What happened with Miss Organic Tampon?”
“Truthfully,” Cooper says. “She wasn’t very funny.”
The revelation gushes into me, filling me from top to tail. There is something about Cooper that sates me completely, in the way of a bowl of hot soup on a snowy night. Part of me wants to say yes, heck yes, let’s go right now! But that would be more about punishing Elan than connecting with Coop. “I can’t. I’m . . . seeing someone.”
“Oh.” He’s surprised. “Cool.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, meaning it. “Just bad timing, I guess.”
He lets out a wounded breath. “I deserve that.”
I touch his arm, and yes, I do want it around me. I feel like a fool for getting caught up in Elan when this boy, this smart, kind, cute-as-hell boy, is right here in front of me. I want to say I’m sorry, and that he deserves the best, the very best, but everything that flashes into my head sounds like a bad breakup song.
And so I just squeeze his arm, give him a small smile, and continue down into the cold subway.