The first Valentine’s Day after college, a month before you and I reconnected, I went out with Alexis and Julia and Sabrina and we got stupidly drunk on cosmos and apple martinis. Julia didn’t get out of bed until two in the afternoon, and Alexis BlackBerry-messaged all of us each time she vomited, which I think was six times that day. I just had a headache for about eleven hours straight. Sabrina, of course, was fine.
Then there was you—and your epic celebrations. The Valentine’s Day we spent together was incredible, the kind of thing only you would do. By the time I got home from work you’d cut photographs of both of us into tiny stars and tacked them to the ceiling.
“‘And he will make the face of heaven so fine / That all the world will be in love with night / And pay no worship to the garish sun,’” I said, when I saw what you’d done.
You answered by wrapping your arms around me. “God, I love you,” you said.
“I love you right back,” I answered. You kissed the top of my head as I looked around.
You’d moved the furniture so there was space for an enormous picnic blanket in the middle of the studio. A plate of truffle-grilled-cheese sandwiches rested on one corner of the blanket, and a bottle of champagne sat in a small garbage pail full of ice on another. When I took my coat off, you pressed play on an album of Shakespeare’s sonnets set to music.
“Wow, Gabe,” I said, once I’d hung my coat in the closet. Everything you had done floored me but also somehow made me feel a bit unworthy. I hadn’t done close to this amount of planning for Valentine’s Day.
“I figured it was too cold out for a picnic under the stars, so I brought the stars to us. Shakespeare’s stars.”
I kissed you, hard, then slipped off my heels and sat down with you on the blanket.
“This was the best way I could think of to celebrate you and me,” you said, as you picked up a triangle of grilled cheese. “Hungry?” you asked.
I nodded and you held the sandwich while I took a bite. Then you took a bite yourself.
After I’d chewed and swallowed, I looked up at you. “My present for you isn’t quite as . . . extravagant,” I said. I walked across the studio and pulled a wrapped bundle from underneath my side of the bed. It was a cashmere scarf that I’d knitted during a month of lunchtimes at work—the same exact blue as your eyes.
“Happy Valentine’s Day,” I said, as I handed the gift to you.
You opened it, and your smile lit up your face. “Did you make this?” you asked.
I nodded, feeling less insecure about my gift.
“It’s so soft.” You wrapped the scarf around your neck and left it there the whole rest of the night. “I love it,” you said, “almost as much as I love you.”
I saw you pack the scarf when you left for Iraq. Did you wear it there? Did it make you think of me? If I head back to your apartment now, will it be tucked in the bottom of one of your boxes?
• • •
ALMOST TWO WEEKS after Jason and Vanessa’s wedding, it was Valentine’s Day 2005. Darren isn’t the kind of guy who would create an elaborate romantic Valentine’s Day picnic like you, but he’s sweet and generous and I knew he would do something to celebrate. I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. I wasn’t sure if I should break up with him, since I didn’t know if I felt as strongly for him as he did for me.
I called Kate and told her what I was thinking. “I just don’t feel like I did with Gabe,” I said.
I heard her take a deep breath. “You do need to be fair to him,” she said. “Because I think he was serious when he responded to your uncle at Jason’s wedding.”
“I know,” I told her. “That’s what got me thinking about all of this. And because it’s almost Valentine’s Day.”
“Do you like spending time with him?” Kate asked.
“I do,” I said.
“Does being with him make you happy?” she asked.
“It does,” I said.
“Okay. That’s good. Could you see yourself falling in love with him?”
I thought about it. I thought about him, about his sweetness and generosity and sense of humor. I thought about running with him and going to parties with him and cooking at home with him. I thought about his body, naked next to mine.
“I think I could love him,” I said.
“Do you think you could marry him?” she asked. “Because, you know, he is almost thirty. He’s going to be thinking about that for real pretty soon, if he’s not already.”
I tried to picture it—me, Darren, a wedding, a baby, coming home to him every night.
“Maybe,” I said. “I don’t know. Maybe.”
Kate was silent for a moment. “Then I don’t think you should break up with him,” she said. “If you’d said no you couldn’t love him or no you couldn’t see yourself marrying him, then I’d say you have to. I’d say it isn’t fair otherwise. But since you can, I think you owe it to both of you to see if that’s where this goes. Just take things one step at a time.”
“Okay,” I said. “That makes sense. I’ll see where it goes.”
“Also,” Kate said. “Tom and I are planning a Valentine’s Day dinner party. Would you and Darren like to come?”
I wondered for a split second if the reason she didn’t want me to break up with Darren was so we could come to her Valentine’s Day dinner party as a couple. “I’ll ask Darren and let you know,” I said.
I asked him, and he said yes. Then added, “But can we spend the day before together? Sunday?”
“Sure,” I told him. “Should we come up with something fun to do?”
“I have some ideas,” he said.
Valentine’s Day with Darren meant a trip to a bike shop in Chelsea.
“So,” he said, “I was trying to think of the perfect gift to get you for Valentine’s Day; I wanted it to be something that felt . . . couple-y. And I was walking by this shop and I saw that sign.” He pointed to one that said: Sweetheart Special! Bike with Your Baby! “I went in to see what the deal is, and basically we can get a set of matching bicycles for Valentine’s Day for the price of one!”
I blinked at him. “You want to buy me a bike?”
He shrugged. “Well,” he said, “I want to buy us both bikes. And then maybe this summer we can ride them together. Either here, or if we get a share in the Hamptons. Biking to the beach together could be a lot of fun.”
I blinked again. After I got over the fact that Darren wanted to buy me a bike, which I admit is a weird gift, I realized what a thoughtful gift it actually was. He wanted to get me something that showed me he planned to be together throughout the spring and summer too. If I accepted it, was I agreeing to the same thing? Did I want to agree to the same thing? I thought about bike riding with him—it would probably be a lot of fun. And the idea of going into a share house with Darren instead of just by myself was really appealing. I liked my life with Darren in it, and I was pretty sure I’d continue to like it. More and more, in fact.
“This is a huge gift,” I said.
“Well, your bike will be a little smaller than mine,” he answered.
I laughed. “Do the colors have to match?”
He scratched his head. “I don’t think so,” he said. “But let’s go ask?” He said it like a question, like he wasn’t a hundred percent sure I’d accept this gift, or his suggestion to go into the bike shop.
I took his gloved hand in mine. “Yes, let’s,” I said. “And if I forget to say it later, thank you.”
I’d planned to give him a bottle of his favorite bourbon for Valentine’s Day, but I quickly changed my mind.
“By the way,” I told him, spotting a sign as we walked in the door. “I’m returning the Valentine’s Day gift I was going to give you.”
He looked at me with questions in his eyes.
“I’m getting us matching helmets instead.�
� I pointed to the sign that said: Cold Weather Sale: Two for the price of one!
He smiled and then leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I knew you were my kind of girl,” he said.
And I was starting to think he was right.
xxxiv
A week after Valentine’s Day, my cell phone rang with a long-distance number on it. I didn’t recognize the country code, and—amazingly—you weren’t the first person I thought it could be. I’d figured maybe someone from one of the stations in Europe that was licensing our show was trying to get Phil and couldn’t find him at the office so was trying my cell. (I know, not likely.) I picked up the way I did at work.
“Hello, this is Lucy Carter,” I said.
The line was quiet.
“Hello?” I said again.
“Luce?” It was you. It was your voice. I felt it deep in my stomach. My name on your lips vibrated through my whole body, and I was glad I was sitting in my desk chair already because I didn’t think my legs would’ve been able to support me.
“Gabe?” I said.
I heard you sniffle over the phone.
“Are you okay, Gabe? What’s going on?”
“I have a black eye,” you said. “And a gash in my cheek. My lip is split. And my ribs are bruised.”
My heartbeat was speeding up now. “Where are you? What happened?”
“They tried to take my camera, and I wouldn’t give it to them, so they beat me up until some U.S. soldiers stopped them.”
“Are you in Baghdad?” I asked.
“Yeah,” you said. “I’m in the green zone now. I’m safe, I’m okay. I just . . . I just needed to hear your voice. I hope it’s okay that I called.”
“Of course it’s okay,” I said. My eyes were welling with tears at the thought of you broken and bleeding and wanting to talk to me. I wondered, if I were hurt and shaken, who would make me feel better—you or Darren. Or maybe it would be Kate. Or my parents. “Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
“You’re doing it,” you said. “You’re there, you’re talking to me. When those guys were on top of me, all I kept thinking was: What if I never hear Lucy’s voice again? And I’m okay, and I’m hearing your voice. So it’s good. The universe is good.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that. What to say. After all those months of silence, here you were, hurting and missing me too.
“Will you be back in New York any time soon?” I asked.
“I think this summer,” you said. “The Associated Press is making me take next week off, and I think I’m going to go see my mom. Then I have vacation time coming this summer. I was thinking about visiting then. I miss everyone. I miss you the most.”
I wanted to ask if you were coming home to stay. If you missed everyone enough to give up on the idea of living in Iraq. If you missed me enough. But instead I said, “I miss you too, Gabe.”
Then Phil was standing in the opening of my cube and saying, “Lucy? Do you have the notes from that budget meeting yesterday?”
And then I was nodding at Phil and telling you that I had to go, and you were saying you’d get in touch soon, and I was saying okay, we’d talk more then.
But I didn’t hear from you again until the last day of your trip to visit your mom when you wrote me a quick e-mail saying that you were feeling better and looking forward to your return to Baghdad. And then all the worry for you, the concern I’d felt when I heard your voice—it hardened back into anger. How could you have called me like that, brought those feelings back to the surface, if you weren’t planning on following through? It wasn’t fair, Gabe. So much of what you’ve done, what you’ve asked of me—if I were a referee, if life were some sport, I’d stand up and shout, Foul! or Do-over! like we did when I was in summer camp. But there are no referees in real life, no true do-overs.
I kissed Darren extra hard that night.
• • •
BUT I COULDN’T GET YOU out of my mind—I kept thinking about how you were trying to show people everywhere how similar we all are in the hope it would combat violence, and instead you got hurt.
There had to be a message there. Wisdom I could share with the next generation. I wanted to turn something awful into something helpful, carry on your mission, in a way.
A few weeks later, I proposed a new storyline for an episode of It Takes a Galaxy. The story was about Roxie, the gray alien, going to another planet and taking pictures for her Book of Caring, the pamphlet she’d been putting together and sharing with her friends and neighbors in earlier episodes. When she got there and started to take pictures, some of the people on that planet didn’t understand what she was doing, why she was taking their picture. And they beat her up because of it. There was a huge debate about it at the office, but violence among children was on the rise, and Phil decided we should go ahead and make it.
I don’t know if you read any of the coverage it got, but that remains the most-talked-about episode of It Takes a Galaxy in the show’s history. It was the first time physical violence was depicted in a cartoon kids’ show on network television. There were debates on the Internet, pundits speaking about it on the news. It raised the profile of our show and opened up a channel for us to tackle other difficult issues. That episode took It Takes a Galaxy in a whole different direction. And it got me another promotion.
I should have thanked you for that. For the inspiration. I’m sorry I didn’t do it before. But I’m thanking you now.
xxxv
It’s funny, when you and I were together I sometimes daydreamed about the future—but not in a concrete way. Thoughts would come in snaps and flashes. I’d imagine meeting your mom—which I’m sorry I never got to do in person. Or I’d imagine us moving into a bigger apartment so you could have an office that wasn’t the coffee table. Or I’d imagine us going on a long vacation together—another thing I’m sorry we never did.
With Darren, the future didn’t come in flashes like that, it was discussed over and over. Darren has a plan, always. He plays chess, and I’ve come to realize that he treats life a bit like a chess game, thinking six or eight or ten steps ahead so that he’s sure to reach whatever goal he’s set for himself. Close the deal. Capture the queen. Check. Mate.
That first year he and I were dating, a couple of weeks before my birthday, he asked me if I had a bucket list.
“A what?” I asked.
“You know,” he said, “a list of things you want to make sure you do before you kick the bucket.” He pulled his wallet out of his pocket and unfolded a list that was tucked inside. “I started mine—wow—almost five years ago. When I turned twenty-five. I’ve been crossing things off and adding to it ever since.”
There was something nice about being with a guy who was almost five years older than I was—seeing that careers move along, people pair off, things end up okay—but once in a while the gap between us felt even wider, like he’d done so much more living than I had. This was one of those times.
He spread the paper out in front of us on the dinner table at Teresa’s on Montague—his favorite Sunday night dinner place. I looked down and saw:
Bucket List
Ride a Segway
Run a marathon
Go island hopping in Greece
Learn to scuba dive
Go on a cruise
Get a rescue pet
Learn to speak Chinese
Drive a racecar
Get married
Become a dad
Visit Australia
Race in a triathlon
Buy a beach house
Ride a bike from Brooklyn to Montauk Point
“That’s an impressive list. And an impressive bunch of things you’ve crossed off. How was Greece?”
“Beautiful,” he said. “I went with my cousin Frank. He lives in Silicon Valley. Good guy. We drank a lot of
ouzo and went snorkeling and sailing. Ate a lot of fantastic food, too.”
“So what’s next?” I asked, hoping he wasn’t going to say “get married,” hoping this didn’t mean he was going to propose to me right then, right there.
He studied the list. “I think either the Segway or the bike ride,” he said. “Or maybe the triathlon, but that’s a lot of training to commit to if I decide to do it.”
“How far is it from Brooklyn to Montauk Point?” I asked.
“About a hundred twenty-five miles,” he said. “I’ve mapped it, but I’m not sure I’m ready.”
“But now that we have our new bikes . . .” I said, smiling.
He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Would you ride that with me?”
I shrugged. “How about for your birthday?” I suggested. “That gives us from now until June to build up our stamina. We can train in three months.”
He leaned across the table and kissed me. “That sounds like the best way to spend my thirtieth birthday I can think of. But I was really asking about your bucket list because of your birthday. Is there anything that you want to do?”
I couldn’t think of anything off the top of my head. “Maybe I should start a list and see what comes to me,” I told him, pulling a pen and an old Duane Reade receipt out of my bag. My bucket list is still written on the back of that receipt. I don’t think I ever showed it to you. I should add that to my list right now: Share this list with Gabe. And maybe: Ask Gabe to make his own bucket list. But if I add those items, I don’t think I’ll ever get to cross them off. Prove me wrong, Gabe. Please.
I wrote Bucket List at the top of my receipt and then cribbed a few points off Darren’s—even though numbers 2 and 3 seemed more to me like eventualities than desires.
Go to Australia
Get married
Become a mom
Go to the top of the Empire State Building
The Light We Lost Page 9