“This will be your room,” Grandpa said, then gestured to the piles of books. “We’ll take care of all that tomorrow.”
He pulled out the bentwood chair from the desk and set my suitcase on it. The sky-blue vinyl glowed against the room’s muted palette of mahogany, leather, and tweed.
“It’s been … a big day. If you need me, I’ll be in the living room.” He patted me stiffly on the head then quickly returned his hands to his pockets. “Goodnight, Clover.”
“Goodnight, Grandpa.”
I stood in the middle of the room, absorbing my new reality. Did I have to brush my teeth every night now that I lived in the city? Miss McLennan was a stickler for teeth cleaning. A lot of things might be different now. Who would take me to school? Would my new school let me borrow books from the library? Would it have an oak tree in its yard?
I decided, as a test, to “forget” about teeth brushing for the night. Sliding down between the bedsheets, I inhaled the scent of unfamiliar laundry detergent seasoned by mothballs. The bedding was tucked in so firmly around me that it was difficult to roll onto my side. I imagined that was what it felt like to be held in a tight hug, but since I hadn’t experienced many of those, I wasn’t completely sure.
I reached over to the nightstand, slowly pulling the edge of the discolored doily to grab hold of my animal almanac without toppling the vase. Lying back against the lumpy pillow, I rested the book on my chest and flipped through the pages to the section marked P.
Satisfied that I knew everything about pandas, I began to learn all I could about pigs.
5
Except for running into Leo at the mailboxes the day after Guillermo died, I managed to go the next five days without interacting with a soul. But extended solitude was always a fickle thing. At first it soothed, swaddling me from the chaos and expectations of being human. Then, in an instant, it shifted from rejuvenation to numbing isolation.
Sitting on my sofa as the sixth day of seclusion ticked by, unable to remember when I last washed my hair, I felt the beginnings of that shift. It was like the telltale tickle of the throat before tonsillitis. The onset of symptoms began like it always did, with my viewing habits. Of course, there’s nothing wrong with losing yourself in a romantic movie or TV narrative—that’s the whole point of them. But even I knew there was a perilous line between watching something vicariously and watching it to replace real-life emotions. The sign I was toeing that line was whenever I began to compulsively rewatch the same romantic scenes over and over, trying to squeeze more out of the narrative than existed—as if, on the hundredth replay, a new scene might magically appear. Today I’d watched the most romantic parts of Practical Magic at least twenty times each. But instead of the pleasant spread of oxytocin I usually got from watching movies, I felt a yearning in my chest, as if Sandra Bullock’s emotional peaks and troughs were my own.
When you grow up as an only child, you learn to inhabit your imagination almost as frequently as you do reality. No one can let you down—or leave you—when you’re in control of the story. So when the constant rewatching of a love story no longer fed my ache, I’d often continue the narrative as a fantasy in my mind, envisioning the characters’ lives long after the final kiss and rolled credits.
That’s when I’d know I needed to get out of the house and reconnect with the real world.
As I reluctantly pulled on my coat, a light flickered on in the apartment across the street. Dusk still flirted with daylight, so the reflection of the remaining sunset against the window made it harder than usual to see inside. But I still recognized the two figures shrugging off their own coats and snuggling up together on the sofa. In the four years they’d lived opposite me, Julia and Reuben hadn’t drawn their shades once—I wasn’t sure they even had them. It seemed less a symptom of exhibitionism and more a sign that they were so content in their intimate bubble that they didn’t give a thought to who might be watching from afar. As I observed their blissful embrace, I wondered what it must be like to be so caught up in someone else that the world outside didn’t matter. Then the angle of the sun shifted, casting an almost-blinding reflection into my eyes and severing my view into their living room. Sighing, I pulled down my own window shades and forced myself out the door.
* * *
I never agreed with New York’s problematic reputation as a melting pot; my New York was more like a chunky vegetable soup, where people mostly floated in proximity without interaction. I often liked to slip into a weekday screening at the independent cinema on Sixth Avenue, alongside other solitary filmgoers—the closest thing I felt to a gathering of kin. Scattered at uneven intervals in the rows like beads on an abacus, we could be alone together. And as the projector clicked to a stop and the lights reignited, everyone shuffled out and continued on their lonesome way.
But that night, I knew the idea of watching a movie with the slightest trace of romance—even in the company of others—would only fuel my compulsive behavior. So to pry myself from my solitude, I got on the F train toward Midtown, headed to the only kind of social gathering I ever really frequented: a death café.
I first attended a death café while backpacking in Switzerland in my early twenties, where I spotted a ragged flier taped to a lamppost, inviting passersby to a “café mortel.” Who wouldn’t be tempted by that? The casual gatherings usually took place at restaurants and had been developed by a Swiss sociologist named Bernard Crettaz as a way of normalizing conversations around death. Complete strangers got together to ponder the intricacies of mortality over food and wine, and then went their separate ways. Genius. A British guy called Jon Underwood had since evolved the idea into an informal network of what he called “death cafés” across the world, and they’d begun springing up in New York City in recent years. I usually attended one every few weeks, comforted by the balance of human interaction without emotional investment.
Plus, death was the one topic I knew by heart.
The overstuffed F train was a tangle of arms gripping poles, faces dodging backpacks, and eyes avoiding one another. Most people loathed the forced surrender of personal space, the feeling of another body pressed against theirs. I found it quietly thrilling. Except for when I was tending to my clients—holding their hands, mopping their brows, rubbing their backs—I rarely got to exchange physical touch with another person. It had always been that way—I didn’t even know if I was ticklish. Aside from the occasional pat on the head or shoulder, Grandpa had shown his affection for me in more practical ways, like equipping me with essential life skills. As a result, I savored any chance to feel another body in contact with mine, even if it was fleeting.
The train groaned to a halt at Thirty-Fourth Street and the sea of commuters parted briefly. As I slid my hand along the overhead pole, a lean man in a navy suit and gray tweed coat slotted in beside me, a folded copy of The New York Times in his hand. The doors closed and the commuters compacted, as if someone had pulled an invisible rope around them like twine on a bundle of sticks. The momentum pushed the man closer toward me, my face now inches from the meticulous knot of his striped silk tie. Feeling the warmth from his broad chest, I closed my eyes and inhaled the beguiling blend of sandalwood, expensive soap, and maybe a hint of whiskey. I imagined him wrapping his arms around me, bringing his hand to my hair as I pressed my cheek to his lapel. My heart swelled at the thought.
“THIS. IS. FORTY-SECOND STREET. BRYANT PARK,” the automated voice scolded abruptly over the loudspeaker. Pulled from my fantasy, I reluctantly shuffled toward the opening doors. The man in the navy suit didn’t look up from his newspaper. But as I trudged up the chewing-gum-scarred steps, I thought I smelled the faint scent of sandalwood on my coat.
6