New York is a funny city. You can live there for years and never see your next-door neighbor, and then you can run into your best friend while getting into a subway car on your way to work. Fate versus free will. Maybe it’s both.
It was March, almost a year after graduation, and New York City had swallowed us up. I was living with Kate on the Upper East Side in that huge apartment that had once belonged to her grandparents. It was something she and I had talked about doing ever since we were in middle school. Our childhood dreams had become a reality.
I’d had a six-month fling with a coworker, a couple of one-night stands, and a handful of dates with men I’d deemed not smart enough or not handsome enough or not exciting enough, though in hindsight there probably wasn’t much wrong with them at all. Actually if I’d met Darren then, I might have thought the same thing about him.
Without the constant reminder of Philosophy Hall or the East Campus dorms, I’d stopped thinking about you—mostly. We hadn’t seen each other in close to a year. But you did pop into my mind at work when I was skimming storyboards with my boss, when we were reviewing episodes focused on acceptance and respect. I thought about your kitchen and felt good about the decision I made.
Before long it was Thursday, March 20th, and I was turning twenty-three. I had a party planned for the weekend, but my two closest friends at work, Writers’ Room Alexis and Art Department Julia as you called them later, insisted that we have a drink on my birthday.
The three of us had become obsessed with Faces & Names that winter because of the fireplace and the couches. The temperature was hovering around forty, but we thought the bar might turn the fireplace on if we asked. We’d been there enough during the past few months, and the bartender liked us.
Julia had made me a paper birthday crown that she insisted I wear, and Alexis ordered all of us apple martinis. We sat on the couch in front of the fire, coming up with things to toast before each sip.
“To birthdays!” Alexis started.
“To Lucy!” Julia said.
“To friends!” I added.
Which devolved into: “To the photocopy machine not jamming today!” and “To bosses who call in sick!” and “To free lunches scrounged after fancy meetings!” and “To bars with fireplaces!” and “To apple martinis!”
The waitress came over to our couch with a tray that had three more martinis on it.
“Oh, we didn’t order those,” Julia said.
The waitress smiled. “You girls have a secret admirer.” She nodded toward the bar.
There you were.
For a moment I thought I was hallucinating.
You gave us a small wave.
“He said to say happy birthday to Lucy.”
Alexis’s jaw dropped. “You know him?” she said. “He’s hot!” Then she picked up one of the new martinis that the waitress had placed on the table in front of us. “To cute boys in bars who know your name and send over free drinks!” she toasted. After we all took a sip, she added, “Go thank him, birthday girl.”
I put the martini down, but changed my mind, taking it with me as I walked toward you, wobbling only slightly on my high heels.
“Thanks,” I said, sliding onto the stool on your left.
“Happy birthday,” you answered. “Nice crown.”
I laughed and slipped it off. “It might look better on you,” I said. “Want to try?”
You did, crushing your curls with the paper.
“Stunning,” I told you.
You smiled and put the crown on the bar in front of us.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” you said. “You did something new to your hair.”
“Bangs,” I told you, pushing them to the side.
You stared at me like you did in your kitchen, seeing me from all angles. “Beautiful with or without bangs.” You slurred your words a little, and I realized that you were even drunker than I was. Which made me wonder why you were alone, lit at seven p.m. on a Thursday night.
“How are you?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
You propped your elbow on the bar and leaned your cheek into your hand. “I don’t know,” you said. “Stephanie and I broke up again. I hate my job. And the U.S. invaded Iraq. Every time I see you, the world is falling apart.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, the information about Stephanie or your assertion that the world was falling apart, so I took another sip of my martini.
You kept going. “Maybe the universe knew I needed to find you tonight. You’re like . . . Pegasus.”
“I’m a winged horse, like in The Iliad?” I asked you. “A male winged horse?”
“No,” you said. “You’re definitely female.”
I smiled. You continued talking.
“But Bellerophon never would have defeated the Chimera without Pegasus. Pegasus made him better,” you said. “He got to fly above everything—all of the pain, all of the hurt. And he became a great hero.”
I hadn’t understood that myth the same way. I’d read it as one about teamwork, about cooperation and partnership; I’d always liked how Pegasus had to give Bellerophon permission to ride him. But I could tell your interpretation was important to you. “Well, thank you for the compliment, I think. Though I might have preferred a comparison to Athena. Hera. Even a Gorgon.”
The corners of your mouth quirked up. “Not a Gorgon. No snakes on your head.”
I touched my hair. “You haven’t seen how I look first thing in the morning,” I said.
You looked at me like you wanted to.
“Did I ever tell you I was sorry?” you asked. “For what happened. With us. I’m not sorry that I kissed you, I mean. But”—you shrugged—“I’m sorry about what happened after. I was trying to do the right thing. With Stephanie. Life is—”
“Complicated,” I finished for you. “It’s okay. It’s forever ago now. And you did apologize. Twice.”
“I still think about you, Lucy,” you said, looking into your empty glass of whiskey. I wondered how many you’d had. “I think about that fork in the road, what would have happened if we’d taken it. Two roads diverged.”
Now I would laugh if you called us a road, but then it felt so romantic, you quoting Robert Frost to me.