A car alarm sounded, close, noisy. It jerked Darlene out of her body. Back into her head.
She froze.
He froze.
She was back, in the West Village, on Waverly Place, her arms around Zach. Zach. She inhaled hard and pushed him off her.
He almost fell over. “Um, wow. That was…” He looked absolutely stupefied. “Who are you, and what have you done with Darlene Mitchell?”
She couldn’t answer. Could not speak, think, process at all. She was a blank sheet of music. An empty stage.
What the hell had she just done.… with Zach?
Zach adjusted something in his pants—she would not think about that, no she would not—and looked over his shoulder. “And I guess we had a bit of an audience.”
Only now did Darlene remember that the Livingstone family had witnessed the entire make-out. Crowded at the restaurant entrance, Mark’s eyes were slit with suspicion while his mother looked somewhere between stunned and scandalized. Imogene looked genuinely amazed.
Darlene stared back, feeling caught out. She spent so much of her life listening to her father lecture her about how she presented herself. Darlene knew respectability politics were bullshit, but she did like to be in control. Unless she was kissing Zach, apparently. Which was only for money: a lot of money. It didn’t matter what his family thought: she was the one getting the upper hand in this situation. She’d negotiated the terms, she’d only do what she wanted to. She was playing him. Darlene ignored the wild thrum under her skin and took another step back, away. “I’m getting a cab. Go finish loading the rest of the gear.”
First base only. She would never kiss him like that ever again.
23
Zia flopped onto Darlene’s couch, limbs aching. She’d intended to simply drop off the leftovers from Clay’s photo shoot to Layla but had somehow gotten roped into cleaning the bathroom, then cooking dinner. Boundaries. She had to get better at boundaries. She loved her sister and wanted to help, but she’d always been susceptible to guilt and Layla knew how to work it. It felt manipulative, and it irritated her. Back at Darlene’s apartment, where she’d been crashing most nights, Zia tried to shake it off. She popped open a Montauk Summer Ale and contemplated the piece of paper Clay had given her.
His cell number.
Of course Zia wanted to see Clay again. But a new horizon was beckoning.
She reread the enthusiastic email she’d received from the team leader in Mozambique. Yes, they’d love to hire her as a volunteer coordinator at the women’s resource center. Six months in Africa. Wanderlust stirred, stretching like a cat waking up from a nap.
Zia was intrigued by Clay, but she was also wary of what falling for someone could do to her. Had done to her before. The loss of freedom. The loss of self.
She’d been intrigued by Logan, too.
Her ex-boyfriend’s name still made it feel like there were spiders under her skin. He’d been her first serious relationship, back when she was only twenty. He was almost thirty, devoted to owning good suits and making good money. The kind of man who thought everything they wanted already belonged to them.
Logan had made everything that happened feel like a consequence of her behavior. Now she knew abusive relationships were never the fault of the survivor.
Air drained from her lungs, replaced by a suffocating blackness closing in.
The feeling of being trapped. Completely powerless.
Don’t think about Logan. Don’t go back there.
The front door opened.
“Darlene!” Zia swiveled around, grateful for the distraction. “How was the gig? Zinc Bar, right?”
“Fine.” Darlene looked pensive and distracted, but also light. Like a girl with a secret.
“Dee. What’s going on?”
“If I tell you something, you have to promise not to judge me. Or ask any follow-up questions.”
“Okay.”
Darlene sank down next to her on the sofa. “I kind of… just… made out with Zach.”
A bolt of surprised excitement made Zia grab Darlene’s arm. “What? When? Finally!”
Darlene was blushing. “Finally?”
“C’mon, you guys have mad chemistry. I knew this would happen.” Zia edged closer, grinning. “What was it like?”
“I said no follow-ups!” Darlene couldn’t stop a smile unfolding over her face. “But it was pretty hot.”
Zia laughed. “So, what—do you want to date him?”
Darlene exhaled, looking conflicted. “Can you keep a secret?”
Zia could. She’d kept Clay a secret. And it felt like freedom to release herself into Darlene’s world. Zia grabbed a beer from the fridge and handed it to Darlene. “Tell me everything.”
24
“You said Kamile would post about us on Sunday.” Liv wedged her phone under one ear, stirring a pot of green-pea risotto in her kitchen. “It’s Friday.”
Savannah blathered something about being “on it, totally on it.” The girl was an atrocious liar. She didn’t wear her heart on her sleeve; she was parading around in a giant heart costume.
Kamile had agreed to share her “fantastic, flawless” experience of working with In Love in New York in the first public photograph from her wedding day, which would be the most valuable to her fans. There was indeed a picture posted last Sunday morning, which Liv was able to see online, even without an Instagram account. A Vogue-worthy shot of the beatific bride gazing at her devoted groom, both awash in golden-hour light. The caption? Married my best friend yesterday #sealedthedeal. Over twenty-four thousand likes. Two thousand comments. Hundreds of reposts. No one tagged except for Dave. Even Liv knew what that meant. And it wasn’t just her business: Kamile had promised a few other vendors the same kind of trade, vendors Liv felt responsible for. She muted Savannah, and asked Ben to set the table. As soon as he was out of earshot, Liv unmuted the call and cut Savannah off.
“Listen, Shipley. I worked for eight weeks on that wedding. You promised she’d post and that we’d get so many referrals we’d be instantly back in business. But there’s no post, and no referrals.”
There was a tense pause. Savannah sounded strained. “I have another friend, who’s getting married this summer…”
Liv almost dropped the phone in the saucepan. Panic flared in her chest. “Another— No. I can’t wait that long.” Liv squeezed her eyes shut, humiliated. “I’m broke.”
“So am I,” Savannah said passionately.
Being broke in your twenties was a rite of passage. Being broke in middle age was frightening. Liv was cooking to save money. Between the mortgage, bills, and all their weekly costs, the Goldenhorns were hemorrhaging cash. She’d enjoyed working on Dave and Kamile’s wedding. She’d actually let herself see a spark of faith in Savannah.
“You’re a naive idiot,” Liv hissed. “I never should’ve trusted you.”
“But, Liv—”
Liv hung up and let the phone clatter to the messy kitchen counter.
Was this why Eliot changed his will—to punish her for falling out of love with him by pairing her with a ditzy business partner doomed to fail?
“Ready, Mom!” Ben sung out.
Liv inhaled a breath. When she was Savannah’s age, she said whatever was on her mind and indulged every passing emotion. Who knew acting would be so handy as a parent? Ignoring the stress tears in the corners of her eyes, she swung around and made herself smile. “Great job, honey!”
The risotto looked runnier than the one Sam made. Perhaps they added too much stock? She’d only eyeballed the measurements.
Ben pursed his lips at his bowl. “We can still order a pizza.”
“No pizza.” Liv took a seat opposite her son. “We made it from scratch.”
Ben’s expression indicated this was the problem.
Ben forked risotto into his mouth. Disgust flickered over his face. Liv made herself swallow a bite. The worst pea risotto in history slimed down her throat.
“Let’s
order a pizza,” she said. “Quickly.”
She couldn’t really afford it. But they had to eat.
Liv scooped up both bowls. It was a pretty good excuse to call Sam, ask for advice. But surely the frisson between them was just in her head. Like Eliot, Sam’s next partner would probably be someone Savannah’s age. It was risky and silly to think about love and sex (Wait, why am I thinking about sex? Stop thinking about sex!). There was no way anything would, should, or could ever happen between her and Sam Woods.
Liv tipped every last grain of risotto into the trash. “I don’t know what happened. We followed the recipe.” More or less.
“Sometimes, things just don’t work out how you think they’re going to,” Ben said. He got quiet.
Liv scooted a chair next to him and ran her fingers through his hair in the way that always soothed him. “You thinking about Daddy, honey?”
He nodded, eyes on the floor.
“You miss him?”
He nodded again.
Her heart felt like a wet dishrag being squeezed until it was bone-dry. “I miss him too.” She kept stroking his hair. “Hey, remember all the crazy costumes Daddy would make for Halloween?”
A smile almost lifted her son’s mouth. “Yeah.”
“How many can you remember?” She ticked off her fingers. “There was the year he was Willy Wonka and you were an Oompa Loompa, and then, what else?”
“I was Harry Potter and he was Dumbledore.”
She’d made a wizard robe out of an old blanket. Ben looked adorable in his stripy scarf and round glasses. “That’s right. Oh, what about the year Dad was a Ghostbuster and you were the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man?”
“I don’t remember that.” Ben sounded worried.
“Yeah, you were still pretty little, but we have about one thousand photos. So we won’t ever forget.”
Her son looked up at her. “Do you think I’ll ever forget Dad?”
“No!” A pit opened up in Liv’s stomach, its depth surprising her. She felt horrified. “No, sweetie, I don’t, I really don’t. You won’t, I promise.”
“But how? I don’t remember being the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man.”
Liv hadn’t contemplated the fact she’d be the primary bearer of Eliot’s memory. And that would mean swallowing her betrayal forever, only giving Ben the highlights. That was her maternal duty. But it also felt a bit like lying. “Because we’re going to talk about him. And look at pictures and tell stories and keep him alive in here.” She pressed her hand against her son’s chest. “In our hearts.”
“Mom,” he said, “that’s really cheesy.”
She laughed. “Maybe. Maybe it’s okay to be cheesy. Every now and then.”
“Mom?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Can I order the pizza now?”
Liv unlocked her phone, checking there was no Amazing news!! text from Savannah. There wasn’t. “You got it, mister.”
Financial ruin, here we come.
“No, I want to call.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Do you know how?”
He nodded.
“Okay.” She handed him her phone.
Ben tapped and scrolled until he found the number and dialed. “Hello? I’d like to order a large cheese pizza. Yes, that’s the address. We’ll pay in cash. Thank you.”
“Look at you, ordering a pizza like a pro.” Liv knew she was biased, but it was quite possible her child was the smartest kid in Prospect Heights, and maybe even the entire world. She wanted to give him everything. “So clever, Benny.”
“Well, I’ve seen you do it a million times.” He sounded more upbeat than a few minutes ago. “You and Dad didn’t really cook a lot.”
“That’s true. What were we doing all the time?”
Ben pushed his glasses up his nose. “Working.”
He was right. They did work all the time. But in different ways.
When Ben was still a mysterious lump in Liv’s belly, she’d had many conversations with Eliot about equal parenting. She intended to raise a feminist, and that meant seeing his dad cleaning and his mom sitting at the head at the table. “He should know masculine and feminine is all on a spectrum,” Liv would say, rubbing her swollen belly while munching dill pickles. “My unborn child will respect women or I’ll have failed as a parent.”
“He will, sweetheart,” Eliot promised, helping himself to the last pickle. “And if we’re especially lucky, he’ll also be a genderfluid poet who wants to save the whales.”
“One can only hope.” Liv chuckled.
But somewhere along the way, Liv’s gender-neutral parenting dreams had been diluted. On top of running In Love in New York, she was the one doing the majority of the physical and emotional labor of raising her son: the one who packed the lunches and did his laundry and consoled him after a fall. Even progressive Brooklyn was behind the times: the parenting group she joined was called Prospect Heights Moms, the attendees of which complimented her as a career woman and, more upsettingly, a girl boss. “There’s no career men,” Liv would point out. “Or boy bosses.” The moms would all ooh, fascinated, and switch the topic to keto diets.
Things changed between her and Eliot after Ben was finally born, following their punishing four-year IVF journey. Benny was a fussy baby, mother-hungry, and cranky with Eliot. Their couple identity didn’t flow easily from “couple trying to conceive” to “couple being parents.” Eliot wasn’t a bad father, but he wasn’t an exceptionally good one. Liv suspected he liked being the baby of the relationship, vaguely resentful that Liv was no longer on tap to indulge his need for reassurance—that he was lovable, or a genius, or impressively virile. Liv had a new love. A tiny, unreliable god in the shape of a frog-faced baby she adored with swoony fierceness.
Liv’s desire to have a second child, a baby girl, pushed them further apart. Every time she brought it up, Eliot would look at her like she was absolutely mad. “You’re too old,” he’d say, or “I think we have our hands full with one.” Unequivocally no. And so her secret fantasies of teaching a girl how to be a woman, sharing all the important things her own mother did, or didn’t do, went unmet. Instead, she focused on Ben’s needs, and the needs of the business, a demanding and fulfilling entity that she also deeply loved.
Liv’s line of work involved negotiating tradition (what was expected) with change (what was truly desired). She met the life she was given with the ideals she thought she had and tried to make it work. So did Eliot. But it was only after they became parents did the ravine between their two approaches become clear. At the time, it seemed like the only way. But now, just like a bride who was deciding not to wear white down the aisle, Liv was beginning to understand there were so many more possibilities than what she thought she saw at the time.
As Liv put the risotto bowls in the dishwasher, the question presented itself to her with frightening clarity: Was being a wife something she still prioritized after Ben was born? Or had it somehow been lagging in third place, behind mother and business owner? She was probably a better friend than she had been a wife, given all the time she spent drinking with Gorman. For years, she’d been certain that seeing Eliot every day, in the home they shared and the business they owned, had been the highest form of intimacy. But now, Liv had to wonder: Had she still been married to her husband?
Or to everything else around her?
25
The next day, Savannah let the city distract her from the fiasco that was In Love in New York.
She took the subway to the Upper East Side to visit the Metropolitan Museum of Art, ending up in a room full of modern masters: Georgia O’Keeffe, Salvador Dalí, Pablo Picasso. One of Modigliani’s famed reclining nudes gazed back at her, eyes heavy-lidded, flesh glowing and creamy. Transcendent. New York was like this—unexpected pockets of beauty and history, offered as casually as one tosses bread crumbs at pigeons. She’d turn a corner, and suddenly, there was Carnegie Hall or a naked cowboy with a guitar or a supermodel in sweats. Once
, she saw Lady Gaga, in a full, glittery ball gown, getting into a black Suburban on Park Avenue. For one brief second, they locked eyes. Savannah swore that Lady Gaga smiled at her.
At first, it felt like a waste to have these experiences alone. She and Honey would occasionally text each other perfect little New York moments—a subway saxophonist playing “New York State of Mind,” a particularly excellent lox bagel—but still, physically, alone. Savannah was used to defining herself in relation to others—a daughter, an intern, a best friend. Alone, she was just herself, discovering who she was when no one else was around. Her own mother never had this opportunity: Terry and Sherry were high school sweethearts. They’d never spent more than two nights apart. But having been in New York alone for the past few months, Savannah could feel herself changing. Like the best work of art or a glass of good whiskey, her layers were beginning to reveal themselves.
And yet, even the magic of New York couldn’t fix her current predicament. It was almost closing time on Saturday night when Savannah hauled herself onto a barstool at ’Shwick Chick and let out a heavy sigh. “I need a drink.”
Honey reached for the Pappy Van Winkle.
Over the past week, Kamile hadn’t replied to any of Savannah’s increasingly desperate texts and voice mails. The newlywed was lying on a beach in the Bahamas, ironically unplugged. That wasn’t how the world was supposed to work. You give, you get.
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