“I can’t believe it’s taken you this long to invite him out,” Summer said. She applied magenta matte lipstick to my mouth and handed me a piece of toilet paper to blot.
Summer knew exactly why it took me a year to suggest that Garrett and I see each other outside a grocery store: I was terrified to mess with something so flawless. I was a perfectionist when it came to things I loved, and I didn’t want to shatter our glittery snow globe—a foul-mouthed Hallmark movie inside a Trader Joe’s.
There was the household goods section, where he insisted that Duran Duran’s “Lay Lady Lay” was better than Dylan’s. I laughed straight into his earnest blue eyes, and like a lady, I told him to “fuck right off.” He shook his head at me with a grin—it was an expression that looked a lot like love, and then his eyes darted away from mine.
The dairy aisle, where we rapid-fire listed nineties one-hit wonders. Where he tried to convince me that Blues Traveler was “so much more than a one-hit wonder,” and before I could give him my trademark Maggie Vine smirk, his hand brushed my cheek, one earbud went into my ear, and right there in front of the 2 percent milk, I fell in love with “Hook” because it was the song playing when Garrett Scholl’s hand lingered on my face for a moment too long as his eyes stared at mine, unflinching.
The pots of mismatched wildflowers, where I forced one of my favorite unrequited love songs, Fiona Apple’s “Paper Bag,” onto him, hoping he would catch the non-subtle hint: Not being with you keeps me up at night. Truthfully, “Silver Springs” stood tallest on my podium of musical heartache, but Garrett wasn’t Lindsey Buckingham—we were in our early years, he hadn’t broken my heart, yet. Part of what kept me up at night was knowing Garrett had the potential to turn me into That Girl sitting on the subway, the one rage-sobbing “was I just a fool?” to complete strangers. He had the potential to break my heart and fill the cracks with fury. He had the potential to make me go Full Stevie Nicks—to turn me into a woman hell-bent on haunting his existence with my voice. So I went with the more optimistic approach, the second-most brutal song in the back of my mind, “Paper Bag.” I watched Garrett’s jaw clench as Fiona Apple’s “hunger hurts and I want him so bad” met his rock and roll eardrums. We were inches apart, the headphone cord dangling between our chins, and the line buzzed on my gums like a drunk cigarette. He stood motionless after the song ended, slowly handed me back my earbud, and, eyes locked on mine, without a hint of his usual smile, said, “I’ve been there.” I wanted to ask, “Are you there, right now, with ME?” I longed to step forward and close the gap between us with a simple, “We don’t have to be there,” against his lips. But all that followed was a head nod, because I wasn’t sure I could recover if I received confirmation that he didn’t feel the same way.
The mixed nuts section, where, holding a package of salted pistachios, Garrett opened up about his late grandfather, a man who would leave tiny pistachio shells strewn throughout his Connecticut Tudor home. His grandfather was hard on his father, so his father was hard on Garrett. I watched Garrett’s jaw clench with emotion as he finished telling stories of emotionless men who shared his last name. He painted on a smile, burying his hurt inside, but I saw it just the same: there was pain inside the man who radiated sunshine.
The vitamins section, where I broke down after a typical fight with my mother—an argument spurred by my refusal to take the real estate license exam and follow in the footsteps of the thirty-year plan she had set out for me. He stepped forward, wrapped his huge arms around me, leaned down, and held me tightly. I loved how my head fit under his chin. “I envy that you’re brave enough to put your dreams first. I’m not,” he whispered. He pulled back and smirked at me, using his hand as a ruler as he measured the top of my head, coming just to his neckline. “Seriously, how short are you?” I elbowed him, laughing as I wiped away tears.
Garrett wasn’t fearless enough to put his dreams first, but I didn’t blame him. We were both only children, and we concluded that our parents should have made more options for success instead of setting their legacies on top of our shoulders. My mother was waiting on the moment I would come to my senses and follow in her real estate broker heels. Meanwhile, Garrett was acing the role of the golden child, a child who by definition doesn’t deviate from the path laid ahead. He was going to follow in his father’s venture capitalist shoes, even if he spent a couple nights a month moonlighting as the lead singer of a band. The Finance Guys, true to their name, was a bunch of finance guys in their midtwenties who refused to give up their nights to a job they would soon have to give up their nights to. Music was what he wanted to do for the rest of his life, but he was smart enough to know that music wasn’t what he would do for the rest of his life. In some ways, I envied Garrett, but I also felt a sense of pretentious bitterness. What gave him the right to take up space on a stage if he wasn’t prepared to wake up on it? He could afford nice wine and healthy food, and he got to enjoy the spotlight once in a blue moon. But gun to my head, I would rather bleed for every penny and go to sleep in a shitty apartment with a smile on my face than the alternative. Garrett’s glory days were about to be behind him. I got the sense mine were approaching.
Over the last year, steam had started picking up. I was playing at different venues in the city five nights a week. I sold a handful of demos after each show. It was a high like no other when people put cold hard cash into my sweaty palms just so they could hear me sing again. A few months ago, I crushed an open mic night in Murray Hill, and the director watching offered me a Wednesday residency. I was starting to recognize the faces in the crowd, and I realized the same people were coming back to drink cheap beer in an old dark bar just so they could hear me sing, again. My Stevie Nicks cover on YouTube did a crawl from 12 to 5,245 views. I had fans. But it was inside a chilly, bustling TJ’s on a Monday night with no spotlight on me, where I felt the most seen.
I was aware that Garrett had a girlfriend. He probably looked at her the same way he looked at me in front of the checkout counter, and the possibility of witnessing his affection for another woman made me want to meet an untimely death. Equally appalling: Garrett believed I was the most authentic person he’d ever met, and if he stepped into my world, he would see Maggie Vine faking it with someone else—which was exactly what I had been doing for the last two months.