He shook his head. “So come with me.” He hadn’t given up on that. It was his response daily. Just come with me. Let’s do this together. You’ll get a great job there, too.
“Stop,” I said. “I can’t. You know that. I have a career, too, remember? Publishing is a New York business.”
“Of course I remember.” He ran his hand through his hair. It was long then. A full head of curls. “But I want you with me. I want to be there for you. I want to sleep next to you and make you coffee in the morning and be in your life. This is one chapter. The next time, we can go where you need us to.”
“I need us to be here,” I said.
Jessica thought I was crazy. “You love him,” she said. She was frantic. Up until the minute that I walked him downstairs, she was trying to convince me to change my mind. We were in my room, surrounded by a swirl of my things—discarded in the process of packing his. “You’ll regret this, I know you will. Just stay together.”
“I can’t,” I said. “Long distance never works.” What I meant was: I won’t be left. I won’t be left again.
“You don’t know that!” She threw a pillow down hard on my bed. “You found him. Him. Sabrina, I’m serious. Don’t give this up.”
But I did. I didn’t go, and I never asked him to stay. Standing by his car, the summer sun reflecting off my tear-streaked face, the words coursing through my body until I was sure he could read them on my skin. All that came out was “Please.” He thought I meant: Just go, make it quick, don’t ask me again. What I really meant was: Stay.
He held me. We cried into each other’s shoulders. I didn’t know how to say good-bye, so I didn’t.
I went back inside. I drew the blinds and I lay on the floor of my bedroom.
“I don’t know how to be here for this,” Jessica said. She was crying, too.
“So don’t.”
She left. She was due to leave on her honeymoon, and the following week I’d get texts from her periodically. Cabana honey! Of Sumir lounging on a chair by the ocean. Honey-dewing. A plate full of melon and plumerias. I knew it was her attempt at reestablishing normalcy, of taking a break from the fallout. I responded with the like. Yay. Aww. Love. We were both pretending.
In those first early weeks, my coworker Kendra was the only one I confided in. We had both been hired as editorial assistants and started within a month of each other. We were working at an imprint called Bluefire that published mainly children’s books. Kendra was a lifelong young adult fan, and this was her dream job. I was desperate to move into the nonfiction sphere, but everyone told me once you got your foot in the door, moving internally was much easier. Most of our days were spent scheduling meetings and reading from the stack of submissions our bosses got from agents. Kendra was all wide-eyed wonder, out to discover the next Harry Potter. We’d spend lunchtime in the conference room, swapping manuscripts and bagels and trying to find a stepping stone to what came next. I would have loved it if my heart wasn’t completely shattered.
“You need to go out,” Kendra told me. “You know the best way to get over someone is to get under someone else.”
“What if you like being on top?” I asked.
Kendra’s eyes went wide. “A joke! She lives!” Kendra held her belly, which was round and plump like the rest of her. She had straight black hair and the greenest eyes I’d ever seen, besides Tobias’s. She wore glasses with black wire frames and men’s button-down shirts. She brought Toblerones to work that her mom sent her by the dozen. I was always sugar high.
“I can’t go out,” I said. “It’s only been two weeks.” I hadn’t heard from him since he’d arrived in California. But it was what I had asked of him, and he was respecting that. Living without him felt like a sword to the chest every minute on the minute. There were small things, like his forgotten socks I found in the hamper, or the Le Creuset pot we bought at a yard sale and cooked chili in all winter. The whole apartment made me think of him. The whole city did.
“A friend from college is having a party,” Kendra said. “Harlem. Eight P.M. We can get a marg after work and head up. Stay for twenty minutes.” She stood back and studied me. “Just so, you know, if you kill yourself I can say I tried.”
We went. The party was small—ten people hovered around a love seat and beanbag chair. We drank warm vodka and ate Tostitos, and I stayed three hours. There was a guy there named Paul who worked in the design department two floors above us at Random House. He was short and laughed easily. At the end of the night, I let him kiss me. And then I let him date me for almost two years.
9:42 P.M.
CONRAD AND I ARE BACK INSIDE, and dinner is in full swing. Robert hasn’t said anything else; we’re still processing. But Conrad comes back boisterous—clearly infused with the night air.
“More wine, mon cherie?” he asks Audrey.
She nods, her cheeks red. Her eyes settle on him as he pours, and I think that maybe Audrey Hepburn is developing a crush on Professor Conrad. Crazier things have happened tonight.
I’m hyperaware of Tobias to my left. I need to figure out what went wrong, to sort through it so that we can find our way back to each other. I feel compelled to tell him, to have him in this with me, but I’m not sure it’s time yet. I look over at him. He’s cutting a scallop with his head down, the way I know he does when he’s really considering something. Tobias was never great at multitasking.
“Hey,” I say. Just so he can hear.
He looks up at me like he’s astonished to see me there. “Hi. How are you?”
We both laugh. It’s an insane thing to ask.
“This is so strange,” I say.
“Is it?” he asks.
“Of course it is. We’re sitting at a table with Audrey Hepburn.”
“Oh.” He turns back to his meal.
I keep my voice low. “What?”
“Nothing,” he says. “I thought you meant us.”
I swallow. “That too,” I say.
He smiles at me. That smile that used to stop me dead in my tracks. That used to strip me of sanity and clothing in the middle of any fight. And I think maybe he knows, too. Maybe he thinks we’re here to get back as well.
“The food is really something else,” Conrad says a little too loudly. “Truly divine. Has anyone tried the pasta?”
Jessica waves her hand in the air. She’s twirling some tagliatelle around her spoon. “So good,” she says through a mouthful.
“We really should have done this before,” Audrey says, and the whole table bursts out laughing. I think, for the first time, as I look around, that maybe this wasn’t such a bad idea after all. That maybe something important can and will happen here tonight.
“Too true, too true,” Conrad says. “Audrey, entertain us. It is mealtime, after all.”
“With what?”
“You know, when you were little, your mother used to sing ‘Moon River’ to you?” Robert says, like he’s just now remembered it. The rush in his voice is excitement.
“Is that so?” Audrey says.
“I love that song,” Jessica says. “We danced to it at our wedding.”
I remember Jessica and Sumir swaying to Shania Twain, but I don’t say that now. I know she’s not lying, not intentionally. Jessica, for all her judgment and opinions, doesn’t have the best memory.
“That was our favorite,” Tobias says. Under the table I feel him reach for my hand. He squeezes once and then lets go. But the contact has been made. My whole body feels like a sparkler.
“Sing for us,” Conrad says.
Audrey blushes. “Oh, no, no. I couldn’t. There are people around.”
“Nonsense,” Conrad says. “They don’t mind.”
He stands up and claps his hands together. The restaurant falls silent. Waiters pause, mid-serve. Conversations halt. Wineglasses are suspended in hands mid-sip.
“Would it trouble anyone if my dear friend Audrey here sang a little tune?”
As if on cue, everyone swings back into motion. Sounds rush back in around us and people return to their meals.