I grabbed Grandpa’s old leather overnight bag from the top of the closet and started throwing clothes into it. The weathered bag was impractically bulky and couldn’t fit in the overhead compartments on airplanes. But his initials were embossed on one of its flanks and though I hadn’t traveled in years, whenever I’d carried it, it was as if he was with me, his whispered wisdom stitched into its sturdy seams. I could really use some of that now.
My phone flashed with a text from Sebastian. He’d managed to book a last-minute rental car and would pick me up the next morning at eight o’clock, which would get us to Maine in the early afternoon.
At least I could rely on somebody, even if it was the last person I expected.
I waited an hour before going to ask Leo to walk George while I was gone. No way was I asking Sylvie. I was embarrassed that I’d let myself think we were close friends. I’d been so careful to never let myself make the same mistake I had with Priya.
“You alright, kid?” Leo frowned in concern as I stood in his doorway. “You seem kind of agitated.”
“Of course!” I forced a smile. “Just a lot to quickly organize for the trip. Thanks so much for taking care of George while I’m gone. It’ll just be one night.”
“It better be—don’t want you bailing on our next game.”
“I would never.”
I savored Leo’s chuckle as he closed his door. A consistency I could still cling to.
I was halfway through my apartment door when I heard footsteps on the stairs.
Damn. I should’ve waited another hour.
“Hey, C—I’m glad I caught you!” Sylvie’s unfailingly enthusiastic tone, which I usually found soothing, triggered the ache in my chest. I needed to get better at turning that emotion off.
“Hey, Sylvie.” I kept my expression neutral.
She had an envelope in her hand. “This was in my mailbox by mistake. It looks like a check, so I figured you’d probably want it sooner than later.”
“Thanks.” I avoided eye contact as I took it from her.
“So, I’m dying to know what you decided about Hugo!” She leaned casually against the wall by my front door. “Are you going to try to find him?”
“I’m driving up to Maine with Sebastian first thing tomorrow.” All I wanted to do was scurry into my apartment and shut the door.
“With Sebastian? No way! I can’t wait to hear about that.” Sylvie’s grin widened. “Hey, I just got a great bottle of tempranillo from the condescending wine guy. Want to come downstairs and tell me all about it over a glass?”
“I can’t, I’ve got to pack for tomorrow.” I shuffled farther into my apartment. “Sebastian’s picking me up early.”
“Okay, no worries,” she said, stepping away from the wall. “But could you at least tell me why you’re acting weird?”
I fiddled with my watchband, trying to think of an excuse. “What do you mean?”
“Well,” she said in a way that was both teasing and serious, “let’s start with the fact that you’re avoiding eye contact with me.”
I forced myself to look at her. As soon as I did, the betrayal I’d felt seeing her and Julia embrace began to flare again. How could Sylvie come between two people who so clearly loved each other?
I sucked in a slow breath, trying to swallow my hurt.
It didn’t work.
“How could you ruin Julia’s marriage like that?” My voice was unnervingly high-pitched. I hoped Leo had his TV turned up loud. “She and Reuben are happy together. They’ve been so happy for years.”
Sylvie’s eyebrows flattened with confusion. “Who’s Julia?”
“The woman you were making out with this afternoon outside the café.” I didn’t care that my cheeks were bright red. “I saw you.”
The look on Sylvie’s face was inscrutable at first, then shifted into suspicion. “The woman I was kissing is called Bridget.”
Oh. Right. Julia was the name I gave her. When I first started spying on her and her husband in the privacy of their home.
Sylvie cocked her head curiously. “How do you know she’s married, anyway?” She crossed her arms against her chest. “And why do you even care?”
The redness seeped down to my neck as shame began to course through my body. I realized how ridiculous I was being. But it felt impossible to turn back—like I’d already unraveled the person Sylvie thought I was.
So in that moment, all I could do was step backward and close the door, sinking down onto the floor into an emotional mess of my own making.
37
I woke up before my alarm, mainly because I hadn’t slept. Yesterday’s debacle with Sylvie and Julia (well, Bridget, if we’re being technical) had looped through my mind the entire night.
Dulled by sleep deprivation, I carried George downstairs and practically had to force him to lift his leg and pee. Even though there was no way Sylvie would be up this early, I still held my breath when we passed her door.
She probably thought I was unhinged after my outburst and the way I’d ended our conversation. In retrospect, my reaction was melodramatic, even a little childish. But it still bothered me that Sylvie would come between a happy couple, even if she did like to bend the rules. At least I had forty-eight hours before I’d have to think about dealing with her—thank God I had an excuse to leave town.
Leather overnight bag slung over my shoulder, I gave my living room a final glance. A pang of wanderlust surfaced as I thought about how long it had been since I’d last gone away on a trip. Five years at least, and that was only a weekend in Philly to see a museum exhibition on funeral pyres. I missed the freedom of travel—observing the world and uncovering its magic, decoding its people, all while still enjoying my solitude. It nourished me in a way that nothing else did.
I was out on the front stoop exactly one minute before Sebastian’s promised arrival time. He pulled up outside the building in a rented black Chevrolet Spark twenty-five minutes later.
He rolled down the window and waved. “Sorry, I had a bit of trouble getting up so early.”
“That’s okay,” I lied. I was annoyed that he didn’t care enough to show up on time. Or maybe the thing with Sylvie was making me overly sensitive—at least he’d turned up at all. “Thanks for picking me up.”
“Of course.” Sebastian reached under the steering wheel and pressed the button for the trunk, nodding at my bag. “There should be room back there next to my suitcase.”
He watched in the rearview mirror while I tried to wedge the bag in next to his larger-than-cabin-sized suitcase. (Was he planning to be away longer than one night?) After trying several times to lever my cumbersome bag in beside it, I gave up and slid it into the back seat. When I joined Sebastian in the front, I took solace that his hair was as unkempt as mine.
We sat in relative silence until we’d left Manhattan. Sebastian must’ve been really tired if he wasn’t trying to make conversation—or maybe he felt as awkward as I did about our conversation yesterday at Claudia’s.
Once the fugue of tiredness had dissipated from my brain, I pulled out my book. A little rude, maybe, but so was making me wait on the stoop for almost half an hour.
“Wow, you can read in the car?” Sebastian’s chattiness had stirred. “I could never do that. I get really bad motion sickness.”
“I’m sorry—that must be frustrating.” Passing the time getting lost in the pages of a book was one of the things I loved most about traveling.
He adjusted the car’s visor to accommodate the sun. “Not really. I’m not much of a reader—I find it kind of lonely, to be honest.”
This revelation contradicted several of the scenarios I’d conjured when weighing him up as a potential romantic interest: strolling together through used bookstores, swapping book recommendations, reading side by side in bed.
“You don’t even read before you go to sleep?”
“Nah, I usually fall asleep watching TV.” Sebastian peered at the mundane strip of suburbia fringing the highway. “Hey, there’s a drive-through Starbucks up ahead. Let’s get coffee.”
We were second in the queue of cars.
“You take your coffee with milk and sugar, right?” Sebastian asked.
My annoyance piqued again. “Black, please—no sugar or cream. Drip is fine.” He’d made me coffee several times before at Claudia’s, so shouldn’t he remember by now?
But also, why did it bother me?
* * *