The bathroom was very near the bed. There was no good place to put their bag. But there was a minibar, eleven-dollar doll-size bottles of vodka kept just a hair below room temperature, because those minibar refrigerators are never all that cold. There was a tray with chocolate bars riddled with almonds, a paper cylinder full of mini chocolate chip cookies, two bags of fancy potato chips with retro-looking logos. Later, after some particularly athletic fucking, even for them, even for that stage in their relationship—it must have been the hotel, its powerful suggestion of sex—they’d eaten it all: stale chocolate bars, salty chips. They didn’t have ice, so mixed the vodkas with a sparkling water. The room was small, but the view was impressive. Lauren had never understood real estate listings that trumpeted their views before that night. The city lights, then the darkness of the park; the choreography of the traffic lights and the pedestrian crosswalk signals. At that height though—not a sound. There was a helicopter in the distance, and even that, its insistent thrum, could not penetrate the room, which felt hot and smelled of their sex, a little animal, borderline unpleasant, or so it would have seemed to someone who just came in. They spilled the crumbs of aged-cheddar-cheese-flavored potato chips across the soft white sheets, and she swept them away with her hand. She lay on her stomach, and his mouth was on her ear, her neck, her spine, her waist, her ass, her thighs, the backs of her knees, the bottoms of her feet. They fucked again. There was a television in the bathroom. She turned it on, a sitcom she hadn’t seen in years: four old women sharing a house in Florida. She watched it through the wet glass of the shower door, stayed under the cascade of water for eleven minutes, twelve minutes, maybe fifteen. Gabe had ordered room service while she was in there, and he was in the shower himself when the dinner arrived, the rolling table guided by a smiling, heavyset woman with curly hair. One Caesar salad, a little parcel of bread, two cheeseburgers, a pile of onion rings, a bottle of cabernet. He left his wet towel in a puddle on the carpet, climbed onto the bed naked and started eating the salad with his fingers. They watched a terrible movie, finished their dinner, ordered ice cream sundaes, and fell asleep at eleven, the room’s curtains wide open, so the room filled with sunlight in the early morning, but they were so hungover they slept in, paid the extra money for a late checkout. He fucked her again, in the shower, then they dressed and slipped out into the city, where it was another normal Sunday afternoon.
That first year, they held hands on the sidewalk. Gabe’s fellowship ended. He became Doctor Lawrence. He gained twenty pounds. He ran the half marathon. He flirted with vegetarianism. He took a job at the Cooper Hewitt. He decided to give up his apartment, because the commute sucked. He asked her if they could get a place together. She suggested he move in with her. He did. He studied the cookbooks she brought home, learned to make scrambled eggs, very slowly, over a very low flame. He never did start leaving the door open while he peed. She did, sometimes.
He wanted to get married. He wanted to marry her. Lauren listened for it, the voice that would tell her what she was supposed to do, but she never heard anything. That’s what you were supposed to do, with big life choices: Listen to your instinct, listen to your inner voice. Hers had gone silent, or she didn’t have one after all. Lauren imagined that everyone but her had them, voices, cartoon guardians perched on their shoulders, saying yes, or no, or try this, or run. She tried creative visualization, which was something like prayer: a new last name, a child, a station wagon, a move to Riverdale. She wasn’t opposed to any of this, strictly speaking, nor, though, was she tempted by it.
She didn’t know what to do, but in the end, not knowing what to do is a way of doing something, too. Gabe lost patience. Finally, two years ago, he moved out. His brother helped him carry his things down the two flights of stairs. He called, from time to time, that first couple of months after. They met once, for a drink, at an unremarkable and dark bar on the Upper East Side, something near the museum, and convenient for him, since he’d moved to Queens. It should have been comfortable, but was not. It was as though they were strangers, or cousins, or their parents had been good friends and they’d been raised together with the assumption that the friendship would continue through the generations. It seemed impossible she’d ever known him, in a way. It seemed impossible that he’d lived in her apartment, that he’d shaken hands with her father, that his tongue had been inside her ass. They had two drinks, and then he stood to leave. He hugged her tightly, and there were tears in the corners of his eyes, and then, horribly, they were spilling onto his cheeks, which were bare. He’d recently shaved that beard. “I don’t know why this is happening,” he said, and then “Good-bye,” and then he was gone, so abruptly he forgot to pay the bill or offer to split it. She paid it and left.
There’s a knock on the door. Lauren’s eyes were closed, but if she’d fallen asleep, she feels very awake now, almost like it’s morning, though it’s only been moments. She stands. There’s sand on the tile floor. She must have tracked that in this evening. She puts her hand to her hair, touches it, primping by force of habit, trying to look glamorous for the maid, the waiter, come to tell her she’s left her phone at the table.
“Hey.” It’s Sarah. Cheeks a little red, a dead giveaway that she’s been drinking. If her parents had been the type to care about that sort of thing, her adolescence would have been much more difficult.
“Hi.” She pulls the door open wider, and Sarah steps inside. Lauren sits back down on the bed and looks at her. “What’s up?”
“Ugh.” Sarah slips out of her shoes and falls onto the bed next to her. “Ugh.”
“Too much to drink?”
“I need some water.”
She reaches over her friend’s body to the bedside table, blessing the faceless women responsible for the turndown service.
Sarah drinks. “Fucking Christ. Why did I do this?”
“Drink too much? It’s fun.” Lauren shrugs. “You’re celebrating.”
“It’s day one and I’m exhausted already.”
“You just need to sleep it off.” Lauren pats Sarah’s knee.
“I can’t drink like I used to.” Sarah squirms around on the bed. Their heads are almost touching. “I’m old.”
“You need to pace yourself, is all,” Lauren says. “We’re not old but we’re not seventeen. God, how many times have we ended up like this? Drinking bottled water, trying to fix what couldn’t be fixed?”