by Emily Giffin
“Josie?” he says, standing when I arrive at the bar, confirming a height of about five-nine, maybe five-ten. He has a nice, deep-enough voice with no detectable accent, though I know from his Match profile that he is from Wisconsin. I like his teeth, and I really like his smile, which raises him a half a point.
“Hi, Pete,” I say.
He asks if I’d like to stay at the bar or get a table. I start to say I don’t care, but then choose the bar; if the conversation becomes painful, we can always include the bartender—a little trick I’ve learned along the way.
“So. It’s really nice to meet you,” Pete says as we sit on our stools and angle our bodies toward each other. I hang my purse on a hook under the bar, and am careful not to make knee contact.
“Nice to meet you, too,” I say, noticing the cleft in his chin. A plus, which I remind myself is really a minus.
“Glad this finally worked out,” Pete says, referring to our scheduling difficulty over the past few weeks.
“Me, too,” I say, and on a whim decide to share my observation that he’s in the minority camp of looking better than his profile picture.
“That’s funny,” Pete says. “I was just thinking the same thing about you.”
I smile back at him and say, “Always better to undersell, right?”
He laughs and says yes, good point.
“But while we’re on the subject of photos,” I say, “may I offer you some advice on your Facebook profile pic?”
“You mean the Facebook request you denied?”
“I didn’t deny it. I just ignored it.”
“Fair enough,” he says, smiling. “So what’s your advice?”
“Lose the cat.”
“What?” Pete says with an exaggerated gasp. “You don’t like Fudge?”
“His name is Fudge?”
“Her. And yes. Her name is Fudge. Because she’s black. Get it?”
“Wow,” I say, shaking my head, smirking.
“What?” Pete asks.
“Fudge?” I say. “That’s a really weak name.”
“My niece named her Fudge,” he says. “And now she’s dead.”
For a second I think he means his niece is dead—and I’m beyond horrified by my ultimate foot in the mouth. Then I realize that he probably means that the cat is dead. “Fudge died?” I say.
“Yes. My niece was devastated. It was really her cat, but she lived with me because my brother’s wife is allergic….It was hard on all of us, though. Fudge really was a good cat.”
“I’m sorry,” I murmur, duly noting both his kindness to animals and his closeness to family. “Still. You really should have vetoed the name Fudge.”
He stares at me a beat and then says, “Oh, yeah? Well, you should have vetoed Brio. So there.”
I burst out laughing. “And why’s that?”
“Because…it’s Brio,” Pete says with a trace of Gabe-like food snobbishness. “Most girls in your zip code cancel altogether when I pick a chain.”
“You wanted me to cancel?” I say, noticing the bartender hovering near us. We don’t give him an opening, and he moves on to another couple.
“I like to weed out the snobs,” he says. “I’m from Wisconsin. Snobs and I don’t mix.”
“There are no snobs in Wisconsin?”
“Maybe two or three.”
“Well, I’m not one,” I say with conviction. “But my best friend is—and he accordingly advised that I cancel on you based on your restaurant choice.”
“Gay foodie?” Pete says.
“Don’t stereotype,” I say, smiling.
“Okay. But am I right?”
I shake my head. “No, actually. He’s a straight foodie.”
Pete raises one eyebrow and gives me a circumspect look. “Straight male best friend?”
“And housemate,” I say.
“Hmm…Interesting.”
“You’re threatened already?” I say, feeling bolder by the second. “Red flag.”
“Trying to make me jealous already?” he retorts. “Red flag.”
A coy staring contest ensues until the bartender reappears. This time we look up and order. I go with a vodka martini, straight up, Tito’s if they have it, Belvedere if they don’t.
The bartender nods, his gaze shifting to Pete. “And for you, sir?”
“I’ll have a Miller Lite….And we’ll order a flatbread, too,” Pete says, scanning the menu. He asks if I have a preference, and I tell him to pick something with meat.
“Sausage?” Pete asks.
I nod, and as the bartender steps away to put in our order, Pete says, “Good. You’re not a vegetarian.”
“Or gluten-free,” I say, thinking of my sister’s latest obsession. “I’m not even sure what gluten is, actually. Is it wheat? Or something else?”
“No idea,” he says. “But you know how you can tell that someone’s gluten-free?”
I shake my head and say no.
“Because they’ll fuckin’ tell you,” he says, with a very cute smile.
I laugh, as he looks pleased with his joke. “So you’re a teacher?” he asks.
“Yes,” I say. “First grade…I love it. I love the kids.”
He nods, his eyes slightly glazed. I try to think of something more interesting to say and then remember that I’m not trying to be interesting—or at least not more interesting than I really am. Instead I ask a question that I’d never dream of under normal first-date trying-to-make-a-good-impression circumstances. “How do you feel about kids?”
He hesitates, knowing a desperate, late-thirty-something question when he hears one, but keeps a poker face, as he says, “Kids are great.”
“So we have a lot in common,” I say as our drinks arrive. “We both like meat, gluten, and kids.”
Pete laughs a genuine laugh and raises his glass. “To meat, gluten, and kids.”
Our glasses touch, then our knees, before we both take a sip. I swallow, wait a beat, then really go out on a limb. “So,” I say. “This is my final date.”
He looks at me, appearing both amused and confused, and says, “Are you saying you won’t go out with me again?”
“Pretty much. No offense—I decided this before I even got here.”
“And why’d you decide that?” Pete asks.
I clear my throat, then say, “Well. As you know from my Match profile, I’m thirty-seven. Almost thirty-eight. So I think it’s time to throw in the towel on the whole dating and trying to find a husband routine. On top of that,” I say, now on a roll, “my ex-boyfriend’s six-year-old daughter is in my class. A painful daily reminder that I am way behind and seriously running out of time. So unless you end up being ‘The One’ and then the father of my children, this is my final date before I go secure the sperm of a stranger. Or, alternatively, move to Africa and devote my life to the poor.” I smile. “No pressure or anything.”
—
TWO AND A half hours later, our date is over and we are both standing by the valet, waiting for our cars. Although the evening was more fun than I expected—a solid seven—neither of us mentions Barnes & Noble.
“So?” Pete says. “Was this your last date, after all?”
I smile, then say, “Yeah. I think so.”
“So I shouldn’t call you?”
“Did you want to call me?”
“Only if you want me to?”
I carefully consider his question, then tell the truth. “I don’t know…Maybe…”
He laughs. “Can you give me a little more guidance?”
“Well,” I say. “I enjoyed the evening, and I like you, but I don’t think we have that…spark….”
Pete nods and says, “So…does this mean you’re headed to Africa?”
“Or a sperm bank,” I say, as I catch the valet giving me a double take before getting out of my car, the engine running.
“Well, good luck with that,” Pete says.
“Thanks,” I say, handing the valet four singles, then getti
ng in my car. I can feel Pete looking at me, so I open my window and say, “By the way, the cleft in your chin is cute.”
Pete smiles. “Is it enough to get me a second date, even without a spark?”
“You can try,” I say, hedging my bets, though I’m really not going to hold my breath. I wave goodbye, then drive back down Peachtree, not even waiting to get home before giving Gabe the update.
He answers on the first ring. “How did it go?”
“The seed of solo motherhood has officially been planted,” I say. “Pun intended.”
chapter six
MEREDITH
After Daniel’s funeral, I was secretly relieved to go back to college and escape the unbearable suffering in Atlanta. I called my parents as often as I could make myself, as I knew how much they worried about me, more vulnerable to parental fears than ever. Yet I also tried to push Daniel from my mind, throwing myself into my classes and auditions, anything to stay busy and distracted. Fortunately, my crush on Nolan quickly faded, replaced by a bigger crush on a guy named Lewis Fisher.
Lewis and I met in our stage diction class that semester, and were then cast as Mitch and Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire. A brilliant actor from Brooklyn, he captivated me with his talent, though I also loved his quirkiness and urban sophistication. One night after rehearsal, we lingered backstage long after the rest of the cast and crew had departed, discovering that we had something much bigger in common than acting: we had both lost siblings. I told him about Daniel’s accident, and he shared that his only sister, Ruthie, had jumped onto the subway tracks in the path of an oncoming N train a week shy of her sixteenth birthday.
We stayed up half the night talking, analyzing the two tragedies with a brutal frankness. We concluded that although Ruthie’s death was more emotionally complicated and troubling, in some ways it felt more unfair to lose Daniel—someone who had been so happy and productive. Lewis had a larger burden of guilt for not saving his sister—whereas my guilt came in the form of being the one who had lived. It was not only cathartic to talk about our losses but also deeply intimate. Our bond felt intense, and our chemistry unmistakable. After crying together, we hugged, then kissed.
By opening night, we were a couple. Even the theater critic at The Daily Orange, known for being stingy with his compliments, praised our “palpable heat” as one of the best parts of the production, lamenting that Stella and Stanley didn’t share a similar fire. To celebrate the review, we made love. It was my first time, and he said he wished it had been his, too.
Lewis and I became inseparable. We eschewed parties and bar scenes, spending most of our time alone or with a small group of fellow actor friends. We took the same classes, auditioned for the same plays, and spent every night in his bed or mine. We were too young to think about marriage, neither of us particularly aspiring to a traditional life anyway, but we talked about the future, what would happen after graduation—whether we would work in television or theater or film, whether we should move to New York City or Los Angeles. Maybe one of us would make it big and become a splashy commercial success—but that wasn’t really our goal. The only thing that mattered was that we were doing what we loved and that we were together.
I was almost happy, as close as I could come given what I’d lost, and for months, everything seemed easy, the effect of true love. Until everything felt complicated—the effect of falling out of love. The unraveling began in the fall of our senior year, when we both auditioned for As You Like It. Lewis landed the part of Jaques. A gorgeous blonde named Poppy scored the lead of Rosalind. And I got the insulting role of Audrey, a country bumpkinette goatherder. Lewis and I had never had a competitive dynamic in our relationship, but I found myself feeling insecure, resentful, and jealous, especially of Poppy, whom he seemed to worship.
I developed a mild eating disorder and began to self-loathe and second-guess. I questioned my future as an actor. I wasn’t pretty enough, I wasn’t talented enough, and I clearly didn’t have a thick enough skin. When I confided my reservations to my parents, they both seemed relieved. They said acting had been a good experience but encouraged me to find a more practical profession. My mom said I could always do community theater on the side, and my dad mentioned law school. A trial attorney himself, he pointed out that lawyering was just a different kind of performing. I didn’t buy it, but I enrolled in an LSAT prep class and began to research law schools, telling myself it was good to have a backup plan.
Always a bit sanctimonious, Lewis was appalled, accusing me of selling out. I retorted that that was easy for him to say; his parents were bohemian Brooklynites. In other words, he could follow his heart without killing his parents’ dreams. Things became more and more strained between us, and our sex, once passionate, turned mechanical.
That Christmas break, just after the one-year anniversary of Daniel’s death, my parents sat Josie and me down in our kitchen and announced that they were splitting up—their euphemism for divorce. I knew things had been rocky, and that my dad was drinking again, but I still felt blindsided, devastated by this second huge blow to our family. Without my big brother and the mooring of my parents’ marriage, it was as if I no longer had a family at all.
I had even less than that, in fact, because as soon as I returned to school, Lewis officially dumped me for Poppy. He confessed that they had been together since Thanksgiving break, but that he couldn’t bear to break my heart before December 22.
“I know how hard that first anniversary is,” he said.
“Gee, thanks,” I said, doing everything I could not to cry. “That was very big of you.”
—
MY FINAL SEMESTER of college was brutal. I quit acting altogether and fell into a paralyzing depression, the loss of Lewis and my brother hitting me at once. It was as if our obsessive relationship the year prior had simply delayed my true grieving process, and I was back to square one, my mother just waking me up from a sound sleep to tell me Daniel was dead. A professor who noticed my alarming loss of weight and slipping grades insisted that I see a university shrink. Therapy and drugs barely kept me afloat.
The only bright spot came that spring when my acceptance letters rolled in from law schools, including one from Columbia. It wasn’t Harvard or Yale, and law school was a far cry from neurosurgery, but it was still the Ivy League, and I knew my news made my parents proud. This, in turn, filled me with pride, which was better than being completely empty.
A few months later, I got the hell out of Syracuse, moved to New York City, and threw myself into my first year of law school, doing my best to avoid the theater, plays, or any other cultural offerings. Maybe Lewis was right, I thought, when I learned that he and Poppy were living in the Village and had joined the same theater company. Maybe I was a spineless sellout. Then again, maybe I was doing something noble and selfless, putting my parents first. I convinced myself that this was the case, and became determined to be their stable, successful child, the salve on their still-open wounds.
Of course, I think they hoped I would one day have a family, too, preferably in Atlanta. But if that didn’t pan out for me, Josie would have that covered. At the time she was dating a generically handsome boy named Will, who hailed from a “good family” (my mother’s phrase) in Macon, had impeccable manners, and wore seersucker and white bucks on special occasions. The two quickly became serious, giddy in love, the kind of couple who laid claim to baby names before they’re even engaged. She was doing her part to make my parents happy, and we forged a tacit agreement, an unspoken pact: I would accomplish and achieve from afar, and she would marry, become a mother, and provide the beautiful, local grandchildren. Maybe it would make Dad stop drinking. Maybe it would bring our parents back together. At the very least, we would both help them move on in our so-called new normal, a term I despised.
At my law school graduation, my parents presented me with my brother’s briefcase, the same one they had given him on his twenty-fifth birthday. It was a moment that was more bitter than
sweet, and I remember feeling intensely jealous of my sister’s end of the bargain. I had a law degree and a briefcase. She had real happiness. Her life as a teacher seemed easy, punctuated by one happy hour and road trip after another. Most important, she had someone to love.
Lest I become bitter, I reassured myself that her choices might actually free me in the long run. Maybe someday, I kept telling myself as I passed the bar and went to practice litigation at a top Manhattan firm and billed seventy or eighty hours every week. Maybe someday after Josie married Will and popped out a baby, I would follow my heart, too. Maybe someday I would be happy.
—
BUT THEN, BEFORE I could cast off my legal bowlines, Josie fucked everything up in grand Josie style. She called me in the middle of the night (though I was still at work, finishing a brief), bawling, telling me she had screwed up and that Will had dumped her. I asked her what happened, trying to sort out the facts so that I could offer her appropriate counsel.
“It’s a long story,” she said, her line whenever something was her fault or she didn’t want to get into it. “Just trust me. It’s over.”
“Well, then. You’ll get over him—and find someone else,” I said. “You’re not even thirty. You have plenty of time.”
“Do you promise?” she asked so quickly that I couldn’t help questioning whether she truly loved Will or she just wanted to get married. Maybe any cute boy in seersucker would do.
I obviously couldn’t assure her fate, any more than I had Daniel’s, but I still told her yes, it’s all going to be okay. After all, I thought, the universe owed us both a little mercy.
A week later, I flew back to Atlanta at Josie’s pleading, filled with the usual angst of going home. Being back always unearthed grief that I was able to mostly bury in the bustle of my everyday life in New York, where there was no association to my brother. I took a deep breath and braced myself as I rode the escalator up to Delta baggage. To my surprise, there stood Nolan. He still emailed me every six months or so, just to check in and say hello, but incredibly, this was the first time I had laid eyes on him since that night we stood in Daniel’s bedroom together.