She wanted to say all that to Isabel, but instead she just asked, “Did you love Mack?”
“Oh God, no.” Now Isabel answered quickly. “No. It was never about love. But I thought we were both on the same page about that. We would joke about it, or at least, I thought it was a joke. He’d be like, ‘When you get a boyfriend, work’s gonna be so boring,’ and I’d be like, ‘Just make sure whoever your girlfriend is isn’t prettier than me.’ You know, stuff like that. But the whole time, I was going on dates with other people and I’m pretty sure he was too. But then I met Andrew and I realized how different it felt. I guess I just wasn’t into Mack. And that’s when he decided he couldn’t handle it.” She paused. “You know, I think things got really bad when I posted about Andrew on Instagram. It was like, until that moment, if I was only Snapchatting it, he could pretend that the thing with Andrew was just as casual as we had been. Does that make sense?”
“Right,” Sabrina said. She was struggling to bring herself, mentally, to this world Isabel lived in. It didn’t feel like she had been twenty-six that long ago until she was confronted with the reality of actually being twenty-six. Certainly there was a lot that was the same—living with roommates, being able to stay out until one on a weeknight and get into work only slightly the worse for wear, thinking you were old because you were so close to being in your late twenties, which was dangerously close to being thirty. But there was this whole other element to Isabel’s existence—living your life in public, on social media, before you really knew who you were—that felt wholly foreign to Sabrina, and somehow scarier.
“You’re on Instagram, right?” Isabel asked suddenly. “I’ll follow you.”
“Um, yeah, but I don’t post very much.” She was suddenly self-conscious about her Instagram presence, which was a private account where she mostly posted pictures of her kids. “It’s at-sabrinablum-seventy-nine.”
“Seventy-nine,” Isabel said thoughtfully. “That’s when you were born?” Sabrina nodded. “I’m eighty-nine. Like Taylor Swift.”
“My daughter has recently discovered Taylor Swift,” Sabrina said. “Her nanny showed her some of her videos on YouTube. So now she begs me to let her watch them.”
Isabel laughed. “I can’t even imagine growing up right now and that being, like, a thing.”
“But do you even remember a time when you didn’t have internet?”
Isabel thought about this for a moment. “No. I guess not. I mean, when I was really little I don’t think we had it. But I was probably like six when we got AOL.”
“You were on AOL when you were six?”
Isabel laughed. “No, no. I wasn’t allowed to go on till I was probably like ten? But I would watch my mom and my older brother.”
“Still. I can’t imagine growing up with AOL. I mean, I was already a sentient, conscious person when you were born. I have a cousin who was born in 1989 and I remember it.”
Isabel shrugged. “I mean, yeah. I’m ten years younger than you. And someday I’ll be as old as you are now, and I’ll be having this conversation with someone who was born in 1999.” She was quiet for a moment. “Anyway. I guess we should get back. But…” She seemed to be having trouble articulating the question. “What do you think I should do?”
“About what, exactly,” Sabrina said. “About Mack? About Andrew? About talking to Katya? About being twenty-six?”
“Well, all of it, but really, I guess…Like part of me just wants to quit and forget about everything and part of me wants to stay just to, like, spite Mack. But listen. Can you please say something to Dan? Just tell him that you don’t think it’s a real story and he should tell Katya to leave me alone.”
“I…I don’t think I can do that, Isabel,” Sabrina said. “And honestly, I don’t think you should want me to do that.”
Isabel sighed. “Fine. I guess I’ll just figure things out for myself.”
19
Stand and Deliver
ON HIS LAST day at TakeOff, Casper Kim came to the door of Mack’s office around lunchtime and knocked, even though it was open. “Come in!” Mack said, way too cheerfully. Dial it back, he thought. “How’s the last day treating you?”
Casper smiled and sat down on the couch. “Gotta say, it’s been a little more emotional than I was expecting. Did you see my whole team dressed as me?” For Casper’s last day at TakeOff, his entire group had worn high-top sneakers, sweatshirts, and jeans. They had even gotten the thick black-rimmed glasses he always wore, and a couple of the guys had tried to style their hair the same way as him, with a swoop of bangs in front. They’d all arrived at work early and were there when Casper showed up at ten thirty, and Mack watched from his desk as Casper grinned and high-fived all of them.
“I did.” Good. Let him feel bad about leaving them. “Pretty great.”
“Yeah. Listen, I just wanted to say thanks for everything. I had a great time here.”