by Tash Skilton
“People always say they have a lot of time, but then all of a sudden they’re in their thirties or whatever and it gets complicated, you know?” He looks intense all of a sudden, the way he looked the day we met.
“Hey, lighten up,” I say, patting down his messy hair.
“I’m just thinking about Leanne. My boss at TITMH. Sorry, Tell It to My Heart. She was going to have kids with Clifford, and now they’re divorced, and it’s like”—he mimics me—“ ‘who knows’ now. Which sucks.” He clears his throat. “I’m guessing.”
I’ve clearly hit upon a touchy subject. And I don’t know if I want to ruin an otherwise perfect day. Besides, that portfolio isn’t going to write itself. “Playing hooky has been awesome, but I think I should get some work done.”
He stands. “Yeah, me too.”
“Want to meet up the day after tomorrow? I could call to rebook those massages at Hotel the . . .”
He perks up. “Yes! I’ve got some errands to run that morning. Will you be okay getting there on your own, or—”
“Shoot me a point-by-point instruction manual and I’ll make it my personal treasure hunt.”
“You got it.”
We seal the deal with a kiss.
CHAPTER 31
MILES
“This might be a new masterpiece. Even for Clifford.” Aisha looks up from her phone. “I think I may have just gotten fired. But also offered a new job.”
She passes her phone across the table to me. We’re having dinner at one of our favorite ramen places, but she’s been waiting for an e-mail from a gallery interested in exhibiting some of her pieces so she’s been apologizing while obsessively checking her phone.
I skim the e-mail. “I . . . can’t even count how many different sports metaphors are bungled in here. Oh, wait . . . he’s going to open up a sports bar, isn’t he?”
“Probably,” Aisha says as she takes her phone back. “I’m sure all the bartenders will be dressed in jerseys.”
“Um, sexy jerseys, Aisha. Come on.”
“Million-dollar idea,” she says. “And what do you think the acronym P.O.I.N.T.S. is for?”
I think for a moment. “Pants Off, I Need to Shit.”
Aisha snorts.
“That sucks about your job though,” I say. “Are you going to be okay, money-wise?”
“What are you talking about?” Aisha says as she twirls some noodles around her chopsticks. “We are about to make some serious bank with Clifford’s sexy jersey sports bar. SON.”
“You’re right.” I nod solemnly. “So you’re picking up the bill tonight, right?”
“No way. Elders always pay,” Aisha says before sighing. “It’s not great timing, I’ll admit. Not that working for Clifford has ever been even remotely pleasant or predictable, so maybe it’s for the best that I figure out a different gig. I hope Zoey’s going to be okay too. Speaking of which . . .” She waggles her eyebrows.
“I knew I shouldn’t have told you. . . .” I groan.
“Oh, but I’m so glad you did. Did you know I came this close to setting you guys up?”
“You did?” I ask.
“Yup, because you’re perfect for each other.” She expertly pierces a mushroom with the end of her chopstick and plops it in her mouth. “Though I can’t believe you lived next door to each other and didn’t know she worked at Sweet Nothings.”
“Well, we were kinda busy hating each other,” I explain.
“Foreplay. Nice.”
I almost can’t resist the urge to throw a piece of soggy bok choy at her. “Anyway. I think she’s going to be just fine despite the demise of Sweet Nothings. She’s decided to start her own freelance business. But I’ll check in with her when we have our date tomorrow morning.”
“A morning date? Oh my God, you guys are soooo in your thirties,” Aisha teases.
“Yeah, enjoy all four months left of your wild twenties,” I reply. “Once midnight strikes on your birthday, you get an immediate shipment of Ensure and drugstore reading glasses.”
Aisha pauses. “ ’Cause that’s what you’re going to send me, isn’t it?”
I smirk as I lean back in my chair. “You bet your boxing gloves.”
* * *
I’m up early the next morning so that I can run my errands and still have time to shower and dress. After all, when I finally saunter over to Hotel the, I want to look good.
I’ve just exited my building, shutting the heavy front door behind me, when I hear a shaky voice call out, “Miles.”
I turn around and it happens so quickly that I don’t recognize her by her voice or her face. She’s run into my arms, sobbing, and it’s honestly the sense memory of her body pressed into mine that finally makes my brain identify who she is and just what is happening.
“Jordan?” I say incredulously as she sobs into my arms. “What is it? What’s happened?” I move her a little away from me to make sure she’s still pregnant, even though I could feel her belly between us.
She looks a mess though. Liquid leaks from her eyes and nose, her dark, curly hair is wild in the way that I always liked but that she never did so she’d carefully tame it every morning. “I . . . I . . .” She takes in a deep breath and I know she’s counting to seven in her head, the way she always tells her clients to do when they’re having an anxiety attack. She finishes the breathing exercise and looks up at me, her hand going to her stomach. “I don’t think I can do this.”
“The babies?” I ask, stunned. The fact that she wants kids has never been a question. Or, at least, it wasn’t for the Jordan I knew—which, admittedly, might never have been the real Jordan.
But she shakes her head. “I want the babies. Just . . . I don’t think . . . with him.”
“Yoga Doug?” I say and Jordan starts a little at the shared nickname we once had for him. I’m guessing that’s not what she calls him anymore. Maybe she doesn’t even remember until now that we used to make fun of having such a meathead for a yoga instructor, all our jokes about how he probably thought namaste was Sanskrit for “Nah, man.”
“He . . .” she starts again, but then is racked by a fresh wave of sobs.
“Hey, it’s okay,” I say as I gently move her out of the way of a swinging satchel carried by a harried businesswoman. “Do you want to come up?”
She nods and I reopen my front door. The ride up the elevator and walk to my apartment is silent, except for the occasional sniffle from Jordan. She doesn’t look at me the whole way. When we get inside I invite her to sit on the couch and offer her a glass of water, which she accepts with a nod.
When we’ve both settled in, I wait for her to begin speaking. When she doesn’t, I take the lead. “Did Doug leave you?” I ask as gently as I can. I mean, I won’t win the fight, but, if that’s the case, I will still gladly go over and attempt to punch him out.
“No,” Jordan says, putting her glass of water on the table. “I mean, I don’t know. He’s freaking out. I’m freaking out. The thing is . . .” She wrings her hands, takes another deep breath to compose herself, and finally looks at me. “He was never supposed to be the father of my children, Miles. That was always supposed to be you.”
I could say something right now about how she was the one who ruined that the minute she let someone else’s sperm inside her. But I look at her tearstained face and her rounded belly between us and I just can’t.
Memories tug at me everywhere. For two years, my brain’s synapses fired away with visions of the two of us, visions of our future. And there were always (at least) two children in the picture. There are two children here with us now.
Jordan’s next shaky breath is a small “oh” and her hand goes to her belly. “They’re kicking. Do you want to feel?”
I hesitate for a split second. Then nod.
She takes my hand and guides it to the right underhand side of her belly. I immediately sense it, the little spasm. It feels like electricity coursing through from her body to my hand; it feels intensely r
eal.
“This one’s the kicker. Baby B, as she’s creatively called,” she says with a small laugh, the little bells laugh. “Baby A is chill. He seems to flip over every once in a while, but this one . . . Another kick. “She’s a firecracker.”
“Like her mom,” I say.
Jordan smiles and then her face cracks open. “I don’t want her to be a screwup like her mom,” she says, her voice thick with tears. “I screwed up the best thing I had going, Miles. And I don’t want my kids to suffer for it. Our kids, if you can find it in your heart to let that happen.”
Baby B knows her cues. She reaches out to me again, a tiny wave—or a fist bump if she’s anything like her dad, her real dad.
But it’s her mom who is openly sobbing now. And the only thing my heart knows to do in that moment is to hold her and let her.
CHAPTER 32
ZOEY
I’ve learned nothing if I thought yesterday’s e-mail from Clifford would be the last time I’d hear from him. He can’t resist continuing his copyright infringement streak by sending me a clip of ’N Sync’s “Bye Bye Bye” with his own lyrics dubbed over. “I know that we’ll make more dough, it ain’t no lie. Just wait until you hear the SCORE, you won’t say bye, bye bye.”
I forward it to Miles and chuckle to myself, imagining his reaction.
Then I pull up the hand-drawn instructions (complete with color-coded illustrations and landmarks) that Miles taped to my door last night so that I can re-create the path from our place to Hotel the.
During my trek, I fluctuate between terror and laughter. To keep my mind occupied during the subway ride, Miles included a blank page where I’m supposed to take note of the best and worst tattoos I find, and he’ll grade my pictures upon arrival.
Feeling like a smug regular by the time I reach the ridiculous underground hotel, I even help a new guest locate the way in. “It looks like a service entrance, doesn’t it?” I smile knowingly. “Here, I’ll show you.”
Good deed done, check-in complete, and fluffy robe (it has cat ears, natch) on, I’m relaxing in the spa lounge waiting for Miles and taking in the décor.
In the fireplace is a Lite-Brite creation of a Yule log, the magazine selection consists entirely of back issues of an obscure trade publication called Fashion Mannequins Quarterly, and the seats are shaped like large hands and made out of memory foam; I can’t wait to hear what Miles has to say about this.
Our names are called so I send a quick text to my errant partner-in-crime: You okay? Where are you?
“I just need five minutes,” I explain to the masseuse.
“It will be deducted from your massage time,” she replies before turning on her (thigh-high!) boot heel and exiting the waiting area.
More than ten minutes pass—and I’m pacing with agitation at this point—before my phone buzzes with his response: can’t talk rn sorry
* * *
Over the next day, I tell myself a dozen times that there’s a simple explanation—a work or family issue has come up—and that any second now he’ll tell me what’s going on, and I’ll be able to offer a sympathetic ear.
One day turns into two days.
Two days turns into three days.
On day four, I realize that not only isn’t there a simple explanation—there’s no explanation. There is never going to be one.
By this point, I’ve sent five texts and left two voice mails. The voice mails started out concerned: “Could you call me back, just let me know if you’re all right?” and slowly evolved to “So I guess this is just . . . over?”
When I hang up that final time, tears spill out of my eyes. I wipe them away as fast as I can, but they keep coming. I splash cold water on my face from the kitchen sink, and wipe myself dry with a dish towel. It’s rough against my skin, harsh and unforgiving.
My thoughts race, back and forth, back and forth. I’m an oil painting from Picasso’s Blue Period; the original image is one of sadness, but I keep slapping angry new coats of paint on the canvas, trying to hide it, hoping no one will go digging and scraping at it and find out how many layers there are.
What did I do wrong?
Was I just too much? Did I come on too strong?
Was I too “me”?
Did he get tired of me that quickly?
A knock on the door has me drying my face again. It can’t possibly be Miles. Right? But what if it’s Miles? Shit. I don’t want him to see me so broken. I hold my breath and look through the peephole. Mary stands there, ferret Frank on her shoulder, a lit cigarette dangling from her lips and one in her hand—she sometimes forgets she’s already smoking and lights a second.
I unlock and open the door and usher her inside.
“Finished rehearsals early, thought I’d stop by and see what’s new,” Mary says, putting out both cancer sticks in an ashtray on my coffee table that says “Ash me no questions and I’ll tell you no lies.” She keeps it here for whenever she makes an impromptu visit. “I have a pair of tickets for previews if you’re interested. No pressure. You kind of lived the play, after all.”
“You know you don’t have to do that. I get that we’re not . . . part of each other’s lives anymore,” I mumble.
She looks affronted. “Says who?”
“I’m not on your payroll, but you keep giving me things—why do you keep giving me things?” I ask, hating the painful, pleading quality of my voice.
“What things?”
“This hugely discounted apartment, the spa day, the massages.” I lower my voice, jerk my head toward the shared wall. “Miles.”
Her hazel eyes sparkle with mischief. “Didn’t realize I’d gifted him to you. Something happen?”
“You definitely engineered it. And don’t change the subject, please.”
“Just tell me the good stuff and then we’ll get back to your thing,” she says.
Despite my confusion and misgivings about her serial drop-bys, I settle beside her on the couch and find myself giving in. After all, who else can I tell?
“It was wonderful. We had the best time at the most pretentious place ever.”
“Then why do you look so miserable?”
“Because it’s already over and done.”
“How do you know?”
I shrug. “He ghosted me. I don’t know why I’m surprised. I mean, why would he choose me?” I look away and bark out a laugh to cover up the truth of the next statement. “No one else has.”
“I say this with all the love and respect in the world, but what a fucking absurd theory to have.”
Startled by Mary’s raised voice, Frank jumps to the floor and slips under the couch.
I swallow tightly. “Is it? My parents never wanted me around—stop, it’s true—they confirmed it completely at dinner when I saw them—and you didn’t want me around, and, and, two seconds after you shove me out the door . . .”
“I didn’t shove you out the door—”
“You literally did, and slammed it on me.”
“Not in a bad way!” she protests.
“And two seconds after you shove me out the door, you hire a dude-bro to manhandle the phones,” I snap back. “How do you think that made me feel?”
Her brow wrinkles in confusion. “Darren? He waters my plants and I asked him to pick up the phone ONCE. Did you call me? When? What happened?”
“It doesn’t matter. The point is—”
“Your gran wanted you,” she interrupts forcefully.
“That wasn’t a choice. She was the only family member left—she had to take me in.”
“But she adores you.”
“I know. And I adore her, too. But it’s not the same thing as having a parent who wants you around. When people have a choice, I’m never the one they choose,” I add shakily.
“All of this is nonsense,” she roars. “Why do you think I pushed you out of the nest?”
“Because you think I suck, obviously; you couldn’t even look at me when I gave you notes on your play
—”
“Because I want more for you! You shouldn’t be stuck emulating me—look at me!” She stands up so I can see her full outfit: sailor shirt, leather culottes, striped tights, and high-heeled penny loafers. A feather boa not owned by me also hangs on the coatrack. (It’s not owned by Mary, either; it’s Frank’s.)
We stare at each other for a moment.
“You were dealt a shit hand in the parenting department,” she says. “It’s true. But you’re wrong about something. Parents shouldn’t want you around. Not forever. The good ones don’t. It’s selfish to keep a son or daughter home when what they need most is to find their way in the world.” Mary never does anything quietly, but right now she is, so I lean in, in time to hear her say, “You’re the best kid I could’ve hoped for. And if I’d kept you as my personal assistant, you’d never have had the chance to spread your wings, write your own scripts, and fly. I sent you away because I want the world for you.”
Tears fill my eyes for the second time today.
“Don’t you remember what you told me the day you interviewed for the job? You wanted to be a screenwriter. As for thinking you ‘suck,’ that is ludicrous with a side of bullshit. I value your input, and your ideas were clever, but for a memoir adaptation to be a memoir adaptation, I think it all needs to come from the filly’s mouth, don’t you?”
“Yes, I get it—”
“Good. Now go write your own stuff, willya?”
“I don’t want to,” I grit out. “You think I do, and maybe eight years ago I did, but I’ve changed—it isn’t what I want anymore. I can’t do what you want me to do!”
She waits.
“There are seven basic plotlines in the world,” I tell her. Nothing she doesn’t already know, of course. “Could I write a Boy Meets Girl, or a Man Versus Nature? Yeah, probably. But so could anyone else. It’s not the plot that matters, it’s the way you tell it.
“I always figured revising other people’s work was meant to be practice for creating original stories. But what I realized is I’d rather take someone else’s idea, their one-out-of-seven storyline, and flip, twist, rearrange, and improve upon it so the audience will think they’ve never seen it before. George Orwell said, ‘Good prose is like a windowpane.’ I want to be so good, no one will know I was there; they’ll be so engrossed in the story, they won’t even see the words. I like editing and shaping, not starting from scratch. Actually, I don’t just like editing, I love it. So that’s what I’m going to do.”