This was supposed to be it. My big break, my one chance! And after my parents scraped by to help me pay for NYU, and all the years I’d dedicated to honing my craft, maybe I just didn’t have what it takes. Maybe I just wasn’t cut out for it? I was really something in No-Name, Connecticut, but as for the Big Apple, I wasn’t hacking it. There was a reason people believed if you could make it there you could make it anywhere, right? Sinatra never bothered to sing about what happened if you couldn’t. The song was called “New York, New York” after all, not “New York or Bust.”
The entire way home, rocking side to side on the air-conditioned subway, I vacillated between giving myself a mental pep talk to carry on acting come hell or high water and giving myself permission to abandon it entirely, without guilt. But by the time I’d finally made it back to Gabe’s apartment, nothing had been settled, and all I wanted was a hot shower and a warm, supportive hug.
I let myself in, allowing my coat and bag to slide off my shoulder to the floor, before crumbling to the ground right along with them.
Gabe, startled, covered the receiver with his hand, and looked up from his laptop. “Hey, Ave,” he whispered. “You okay?” Gabe’s face twisted in confusion. I could see he was still trying to pay attention to the voice on the other end of his call, while also trying to discern why I was lying in a heap on the ground. As if I wasn’t fetal, he continued, “You’ll never believe it, the Clintons are going to be able to make it to the fundraiser after all. I’ve been on the phone with their secret service and the venue organizing details for their security protocols all morning.”
My body remained still but my eyes shifted to him, expressionless and flat. I waited another moment for a response, a question of concern, for him to check my pulse, anything, but instead, he swung his chair back around and spoke again into the phone’s receiver as he hunched over the desk to scribble a note. In a daze and at the speed of a roving sloth, I picked my bag and coat up off the ground, hung them both up on a hook by the door, and slumped down in the seat beside him. Without so much as a glance in my direction, he pressed on, “Yes, Susan. Sounds great. Don’t worry, we’ll get it all sorted when I arrive. No, it’s okay, I’ll come over sooner so that I can take care of it, and I’ll just change there . . . yup, sounds good. See you in twenty.”
He closed his laptop and finally turned to face me. “Okay, I’m all yours. For the next two minutes anyway, and then I need to get over to the event space. What’s going on? How was your audition?”
I expelled a sigh, hoping it would say all the things I couldn’t. “I don’t know where to even begin. Actually, I do. I’ll begin at the part where I mooed at the entire casting team.”
“What does that even mean? You mooed?”
“It means I bombed. It means I won’t get this part or any other part—not today, not tomorrow, maybe not ever.”
He picked up his phone and scrolled through a few emails, finally landing on the one he was looking for. “C’mon, I’m sure it wasn’t as bad as all that,” he said without looking up.
“No, you’re right, it was worse.”
He peeked up from the phone. “Exactly! It could have been worse.”
“Gabe, that’s not what I said.”
“Sorry, I am trying to listen to you, I’m just . . .”
“Distracted. I know.” I stared at him blankly, unable to even conceive the idea that he was so completely oblivious to what a huge deal this was to me. My voice constricted as my frustration mounted, and I did my very best to fight back the tears gathering behind my eyes. “Hey, didn’t you tell Susan you’d be there in twenty? You’re going to be late.”
He glanced down at his watch. “Oh shoot, yeah, I need to get going. Av, I really am sorry. I promise to give you my undivided attention as soon as we get home from the fundraiser tonight. We can talk about all this later. But really, don’t worry, I’m sure you’ll get a final callback. It sounds like you did great!”
I opened up my mouth to rebut—It sounds like I did great? I mooed for God’s sake!—but before I could even squeak out another syllable, he pressed a kiss to my forehead, snatched his tux from the hook on our bedroom door, and rushed out of the apartment.
“This was the final callback,” I muttered to myself, now alone in the space where I had been hoping to find support and comfort. But like usual, he was off on his next crusade.
It took me almost a full two minutes to pull my jaw up off the floor and move from the spot where he left me. I was utterly dumbfounded. Not an ounce of empathy or sign of understanding. For what felt like at least the hundredth time over these past few months, my feelings not even a blip on his radar.
Chapter Eleven
At precisely 9:59 a.m., Gabe strode into our café clutching a black-and-white marble notebook, wearing the same green canvas crossbody bag with eclectic patches he had almost a decade ago. The punctuality, however, was a welcomed change. Before finding me in the crowd of tables, Gabe placed an order with the barista and picked up two steaming mugs after tossing a few bucks into the nearby tip jar. The barista’s face lit up as she leaned over the counter to thank him, flashing a flirty smile and more than a hint of cleavage, neither of which he seemed to pay much attention to.
Gabe popped up on his toes to survey the room. Our eyes met, drawing me in like a siren song, and he made his way through the sea of people over to where I was seated. He set his bag on the ground and eased into the chair across from me.
Sliding one of the mugs over without missing a beat, he said, “Tall drip with two shots of espresso, oat milk, and one sugar.”
The thoughtfulness of the gesture was one thing, but the fact that he hadn’t forgotten how I took my coffee caught me completely by surprise. “Thank you. I can’t believe you still know my order.”
“By heart,” he responded, never breaking eye contact as he took a sip. He leaned in closer to study my face, and suddenly, I forgot how to breathe. “So, Avery Lawrence,” he said, chewing on his bottom lip, “I guess you weren’t an apparition after all. You look beautiful, by the way. I’ve always loved your hair like that.” He studied me as if trying to recognize someone he’d known a lifetime ago.
My fingers instinctively moved to tuck a wisp behind my ear. “Well, it’s a far departure from the mess I was when I showed up at your door,” I joked, inwardly cringing at the memory.
“The thing I haven’t been able to work out, though, is how you knew where I lived? It’s a sublet, and I only moved in a few days before,” he said.
“You probably wouldn’t believe me if I told you,” I answered.
He raised his eyebrows, crossed his arms over his chest, and said, “Try me,” his gravelly voice intensifying the challenge in his words.