by Clare Lydon
“That’s what first attracted me to Taylor — her optimism,” Paula said, letting out a bark of laughter with the obligatory head throw.
Was Taylor saying this was it for her and Paula? They were going to live happily ever after? Sally wasn’t sure if she was just incredulous at the pace of their decisions, or just jealous she couldn’t make them herself. Taylor was naturally decisive, unlike her: when Taylor saw an opportunity, she went for it. It’s the reason her wallpaper business had taken off, whereas other designers had fallen by the wayside.
Paula reached over then, laying a hand on Sally’s arm, pushing her beer in front of her. “Take a sip and a breath. You’ve heard of people moving cities before, right?”
Sally took a slug of beer: she needed it. “I have, but this is kinda sudden, isn’t it?”
Taylor shrugged. “I can work from wherever, I’m not tied to a city. And if I need to come back to New York, it’s just a plane ride.” She glanced at Paula now, stroking her hand again. “And the past few weeks have opened my eyes, I guess. You don’t meet people you want to be with that often, so when you do, I think it’s worth pursuing.”
“As do I,” Paula agreed, taking Taylor’s hand and kissing it gently.
Well, well. This was not the way Sally had thought this evening would pan out. “Congratulations,” she said, looking between them. “I just wish I could be so decisive.”
“You can — just make a decision and do it.” Paula snapped her fingers to illustrate her point. “It really is that easy.”
“It is?”
“Yes,” Paula said. “What’s holding you here?”
Sally hesitated. “Work — I can’t just pick up and leave. Plus I have friends here, and my apartment’s here.”
“But one of your friends is moving to Chicago.”
“I only just found that out.”
“But that’s another reason to move. And I can’t believe it’s just work that’s holding you back. That doesn’t make sense — you can work wherever you want to.” Paula paused, cocking her head. “Why did you leave Chicago in the first place?”
Sally fixed her gaze on the wall behind Paula, which was advertising a beer festival in the bar next month. “I guess to spread my wings, get away from Chicago. I went back after graduation, but it got stifling after a while.”
Taylor cleared her throat. “Bullshit.”
“Taaaaaylor,” Sally said, a warning note in her voice. But then she blew out a long breath as she realized lying to her aunt was futile in this situation, when one of her best friends was sitting next to her, who knew everything about her. She was going to have to tell the truth, wasn’t she?
“Okay,” Sally said. “I moved to get away from my ex, Casey, who’d just dumped me. And to spread my wings — I always wanted to try New York, and thought I’d have more opportunity to start a business here.”
“And did it pay off?” Paula asked, sipping her drink.
“I’ve done okay.”
“But Chicago might work, too.”
Sally nodded. “It might.” She’d often wondered if she’d made the right move, coming to New York, where there were more options, but also more competition. Would being a bigger fish in a smaller pond be better?
“So the real reason you left was to get away from your ex. Which was how long ago?”
“Three and a half years.”
“And you’re over her?”
Sally scrunched up her face. “Absolutely — I was over her the moment she walked out the door.”
“So you’ve stopped running?”
“I wasn’t running,” Sally replied, her voice deadpan.
“You were running, don’t kid yourself,” Paula said, raising an eyebrow as she spoke. “But you have to stop running at some point. Even I’ve decided it’s time to try the settling thing. Settling down, not settling. And if you’re not running from Casey anymore, you should do that, too. Unless Casey is still dictating your life?”
Sally shook her head decisively. If there was one thing she was sure of, it was that. “Casey’s my past,” she said.
“And what’s Harriet?”
“My future.” And as she said the words, a glow rattled through her, a surety of how true those words were.
“Do you need more of a reason than that?” Paula replied, giving Sally a look. “Just think about it — and if you’re worried about work, moving might open up new pathways, rather than close them. Especially with me and Harriet on your side.”
“It’s not what you know, it’s who you know,” Sally said, a ruffle of her old socialist principles sliding down her body. She didn’t want any special favors, she wanted to make it on her own. However, she had to admit, getting help was a welcome change.
Paula grinned at Sally, slapping her on the arm again. “Talk about it with Harriet when she comes tomorrow.” She paused. “In between all the fucking, of course.”
Sally rolled her eyes at her aunt.
Paula roared with laughter. “You’re so easy, just like your dad,” she said, giving Sally a wink. “Plus, I’m just buying some apartments near where I am, so you could rent one of those from me. And I might have another proposal for you, too, if you decide to move.”
“What’s that?”
“Say you’ll move to Chicago and I’ll let you know.”
“I’m not deciding now.”
“Spoilsport,” Taylor said. “We could have decided together.”
“I need to talk it over with Harriet first. And in the meantime, I need another drink. All this talking is thirsty work.”
“So it seems,” Paula replied, flagging down the waiter like he was an old friend.
Sally glanced at Taylor, who gave her a wink.
“You’re really just going? Just like that?” She was still having trouble getting her head around Taylor’s plan.
But Taylor just nodded. “Sometimes, you have to bite the bullet and just go for it. When it comes to you and Harriet, what have you got to lose?”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sally woke up the next morning feeling like her head had been burgled. Her brain rattled in her skull when she moved, rolling slowly with her movements, like a marble in a children’s boardgame. Damn Paula and Taylor: by the end of the night, tequila shots were in place as they toasted to their new lives in Chicago. Hang on, had she agreed to move to Chicago without telling Harriet first? She had no idea.
She made it out to her kitchen and stood glugging water straight from the bottle, the cool liquid soothing her dry shell. She should go for a run to shake this hangover, because she didn’t want to be broken for Harriet. She’d learned at university that exercise was the best cure for her hangovers, so before she could talk herself out of it, she ate an overripe banana from her fruit bowl, then pulled on her shorts, T-shirt and sneakers, and headed out.
At only 9:30, the streets of Queens were quiet. Harriet wasn’t due in till 1pm, which meant she had plenty of time to have a shower, tidy the apartment and get ready. The steady rhythm of her feet pounding the sidewalk and her headache pounding in her skull matched up perfectly as her feet took her past her local Jewish deli with its excellent bread, past the florist, past the thrift shop she’d got her perfect jeans in, and into the local park.
Overhead, the sky was a brilliant blue and cloudless, like nothing could break the spell it had over the city. The Bald Cypress trees at the park gate were bulging with ferns, and in the distance, a dog barked continuously. Straight ahead, the melting gray pathway was clear, save for a lone woman sitting on one of the red benches, reading a James Patterson novel.
Would she miss this park? This city? Maybe a little, but she knew the seeds of discontent had been scattered.
What Paula had said last night made sense. There was nothing holding her in New York but herself and her own fears. Was she really worried that Harriet would walk again like last time? If she was honest, she was hiding behind that excuse. They were different people now; things had moved on. P
lus, Taylor was moving to Chicago having known Paula for five seconds, so what was Sally waiting for?
She looked up the tree-lined path back to the park entrance and took a deep breath. Which was exactly what she needed to do when it came to making a decision and moving to New York. She had to take a deep breath, put one foot in front of the other and run down the path. Make the leap, and hope a net appeared.
Deep down inside, she knew the net was named Harriet.
She got home 15 minutes later, gasping for breath, her cell ringing when she got in the door. She ran into her bedroom, picking up the call before it went to voicemail. It was Harriet.
“Hey,” Sally said, leaning over, still catching her breath.
“You sound like you’re going to die,” Harriet replied.
“No, just got in from a run.” Still wheezing.
“Okay, just listen, I’ll talk.”
She didn’t like the wince she could hear in Harriet’s tone, but she was too breathless to respond.
“I’m not coming today because Dad’s had a relapse.” Harriet paused, sounding like she was collecting herself. “I’m in the car, on the way to the hospital now, so I don’t know much more. But what I do know is that I can’t make it again and I’m so sorry.”
“Fucking hell,” Sally wheezed, fear gripping her whole. “You don’t know anything?”
“Only that he was fine yesterday, but there’s been some kind of complication with the internal stitches, I don’t know any more than that. Mom says they’re going to need to operate, but apart from that, I’m in the dark.”
“Shit.” Sally paused. “What can I do? Can I do anything?” She felt so helpless. She wanted to be there for Harriet, but yet, she was stuck in New York. It was beginning to be a somewhat recurring theme, wasn’t it?
Harriet sighed. “I’d like a hug, but doing that over the phone is a little hard, isn’t it?”
“Especially when you’re driving,” she said, wanting nothing more than to do just that. “But leave it with me, I’ll see what I can do.”
Silence on the other end of the line.
“Harriet,” Sally said.
“Yes?” Harriet’s voice wobbled when she replied.
“I’m so sorry, and I’m going to be there for you, okay?” The steady beat of her blood in her veins was like a soundtrack to this moment.
More silence, followed by a sniffle at the other end. “I know you will mentally, but I wish you could be here physically, too. Just to squeeze my hand and tell me he’s going to be okay.”
Sally’s heart lurched for a second time. “Call me when you get to the hospital and give me an update,” she said. “And he’s going to be okay.”
Sally rang off, then immediately ran to the living room, fired up her tablet and began looking at flights to Chicago.
Harriet needed her and she was going to be by her side as soon as she possibly could.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Her mom was pacing the corridor when Harriet arrived. When she saw her daughter, she fell into her outstretched arms in a heap. This was not normal mother behavior, but then, this was no normal day, was it?
“Mom?” Harriet said, over her shoulder to thin air. Her mom was still clinging to her back, her fingers gripping Harriet through her shirt. “Let’s go and sit down and you can tell me everything the doctor has said so far.”
She pulled her mom over to two vacant white plastic chairs, nailed to the floor in the striplight-studded corridor. They sat side by side, her mom still holding one of her hands, squeezing it before she spoke. A small girl walked by, her hair limp, a dark-haired doll hanging from her hand. She was clutching the hand of a teenage boy whose face was ghostly white. Harriet wondered what nightmare they were currently living through, too.
“He was fine when he went to bed, but then he woke up in the middle of the night with some pain. He thought it was indigestion, so he went back to sleep, but then it came again and he just got worse. Eventually, I called a doctor, they called an ambulance, and here we are. He’s being taken in for emergency surgery — they think something’s got infected and it’s causing a blockage.”
She gave a crumpled wail before sitting forward, her head over her knees in the brace position. “I thought he was out of the woods, I thought we could start living our lives again soon. I can’t lose him, Harriet,” she added, her voice tiny, the size of a pea. “Not when we’ve just fallen in love all over again.”
Harriet curled an arm around her mom and pulled her close. “You’re not going to lose him, he’s a fighter. Plus, he’s young, he’s got at least another 20 years.” She almost convinced herself as she kissed the top of her mom’s head. And they’d just fallen in love all over again? Her dad’s heart had to recover, otherwise her mom’s would be broken for good.
“Where’s Daniel?” she asked as her mom pulled away, straightening up and sitting back in her chair.
“He’s on his way — he was staying over at Ava’s lake house last night, so he’s got a bit further to travel.” She paused. “Weren’t you supposed to be seeing Sally this weekend?”
Harriet nodded, closing her eyes. “Yes, but it doesn’t matter. I called her, she understands.”
Her mom stared straight ahead. “Sorry for messing up your plans, but it’s your father’s fault.”
“I’ll remember to tell him off if he pulls through.”
“If?” Her mom turned in her seat.
“When he pulls through.” Harriet let her mouth curl into a smile to try to lighten the situation. “How long is the surgery?”
“About five hours. Apparently when they open you up again, it takes time.”
“I imagine,” Harriet replied. “But it’s going to be okay — he’ll just take a little longer to recover, that’s all.”
Harriet’s phone beeped: she got it out of her pocket and checked it, and when she saw the message, she couldn’t help the grin that spread across her face.
“Is that from Sally?” her mom asked.
Harriet nodded.
“I thought so. You have that look about you. It reminds me of when I met your father all those years ago.”
Harriet’s bottom lip trembled when she heard that, but she held it together. Her mom was comparing their relationship to her own, and that meant so much. It meant that finally, after all these years, they were connecting about what mattered most in the world to Harriet, and her mom was valuing it just as much as Harriet.
Her mom reached for her hand again, and Harriet decided to stop thinking it was weird.
“I know I haven’t always been supportive of you and your girlfriends, and I’m sorry. I should have been, it was just… different and a little hard. It’s not that I disapprove, it’s more I wasn’t brought up that way. We didn’t talk about our sex lives, our partners. In my day, you just had a boyfriend and got married, because it was what you did. You didn’t think about having a girlfriend because it wasn’t an option.” She paused. “Not that I ever wanted one.”
“If this is you coming out to me, it’s a very weird time to do it,” Harriet said, a wry smile on her face.
“You know what I mean,” her mom said with a smile. “I just never expected to have a gay daughter, that’s all. You surprised me. But if Sally makes you happy — and I think she does — then I’m fully behind you. Life’s too short not to be happy, isn’t it?” She put a hand on Harriet’s face then, gazing at her with love in her watery eyes. “I love you, Harriet. I hope you know that.”
Fucking hell, today was just too much. A tear trickled down Harriet’s face as a wave of love crashed through her, putting her arm around her mom. “I love you, too,” she whispered into her hair.
After a few moments, her mom pulled back, rolling her shoulders, sitting up. She looked perplexed, as if she couldn’t believe she’d just been so emotional.
“What did Sally say on her text?” her mom asked.
“She’s getting on a plane this afternoon, and she’s coming straight
here.” The grin that had started in Harriet’s heart made its way onto her face. She’d told Sally she wished she were here, and Sally had made her dream come true.
Now, her dad just had to pull through.
“That’s good, she should be here, because she’s part of the family now,” her mom said, letting out an enormous sigh. “I just hope your dad will still be here by the time she arrives, too.”
“You and me both.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Sally dragged her suitcase up the hospital ramp and nearly ran straight into a gurney with a patient on it. She turned sideways just in time, slamming into the doorway as she did. With pain coursing through her left arm, she took a deep breath. This wasn’t a time to injure herself: she needed to be strong for Harriet.
She arrived at the coronary unit five minutes later, and saw Harriet first, deep in conversation with her mom. Mrs Locke, who Sally hadn’t seen since that summer. Suddenly, she felt like a teenager again, diminished in Mrs Locke’s presence, just like always.
But when Harriet looked up at her, that stopped. Because perhaps before, she’d felt insecure around both of them: Mrs Locke for her abrupt manner and her wealth, Harriet for her confidence and ease with the world around her. Plus, back then, she hadn’t thought she was good enough for Harriet Locke.
She didn’t believe that anymore. Harriet’s eyes shone, radiating something — dare she say love? — across the room as she strode toward Sally, taking her in her arms and kissing her earlobe when her lips landed there.
Harriet fell into the warmth her arms provided. “You came,” she said, a hitch in her voice when she spoke.
“Of course I came,” Sally replied, pulling her close. When she opened her eyes, Harriet’s mom was walking toward her, a gentle smile on her face, one Sally didn’t recognize. In fact, in all the time she knew her before, Sally didn’t think she’d ever seen Mrs Locke smile.
“Sally, so good of you to come, I know Harriet was thrilled,” she said, as Harriet let Sally go. “And it’s lovely to see you, too, after so many years.”