Chase was smiling.
They had agreed to meet for lunch at a trendy café that was midway between both of their jobs. Chase wanted to buy Gert the prix fixe lunch, which included the house specialty, crumbled duck soup. This place had been a favorite of Chase’s and her husband’s before he died. She liked to eat there, but not alone.
When Gert came in, the eatery was alive with chatter and clanking plates.
“Raspberry crème brûlée with shaved chocolate,” Chase said, holding up the sturdy one-page menu. “Need I say more?”
“Chocolate!” Gert said, sitting down. “But I don’t know if I’ll have room after the duck soup, grilled shrimp appetizer, salmon steak and salad.”
“When you see the raspberry crème brûlée, you’ll have room,” Chase said. Then suddenly, she looked sad.
“What?” Gert said.
“What what?”
“You looked sad for a second.”
“Oh, nothing,” Chase said. “Well, you probably understand. I had a flashback. Right after he met me, John said the way to a woman’s heart was crème brûlée.”
“It doesn’t hurt.”
Chase unrolled her napkin in her lap. “So who’s this guy you’re seeing.”
“His name’s Todd,” she said. “He’s great.”
Chase smiled warmly. It felt strange to Gert to sense support from a friend that wasn’t the least bit tinged with jealousy.
“Maybe there’s hope,” Chase said. “I can’t imagine seeing someone. I know it might happen eventually. It just seems really distant right now.”
“I couldn’t imagine it, either,” Gert said. “But then it happened. I think it has to be the right kind of person. Even more than the timing.”
“Maybe.”
“It has to be someone who is very, very, very patient.”
“You’re lucky you found someone who cares enough to be that patient,” Chase said.
“I know,” Gert said. She really did know.
“Do you still have Marc’s things around?” Chase asked. “I don’t mean to pry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Gert said. “I do have some of Marc’s stuff around. Todd deals with it, just like I deal with it.”
Chase said, “John’s photos are all over my house. I can’t take them down.”
“Isn’t that hard?” Gert said. “Seeing their picture, and knowing they’ll never get to grow old? I’m going to be an old lady some day, and I’ll still have a photo of Marc at our Fourth of July picnic, looking twenty-seven and full of his future.”
Chase smiled knowingly.
The waitress came by and took their orders. She seemed to be absentminded, humming some foreign song. This made Gert laugh, and Chase laughed, too. In a minute, the waitress returned and doled mesclun salads onto their plates. She was still humming. Maybe they were just getting closer to spring.
“Do you go to the support group every single week?” Chase asked.
“I try,” Gert said. “Why don’t you go?”
“I don’t know,” Chase said, looking at her plate. “Every week, I intend to go. Then Saturday morning comes, I’m tired, it’s not a work day, and I say to myself, ‘There’s enough stuff I feel miserable about. Why do one more thing?’ So I just don’t.”
“Well, you shouldn’t make yourself go if it makes you feel miserable,” Gert said.
“Being there makes me feel better, once I get there,” Chase said. “It’s the dragging myself there that’s hard. I do see a therapist once a week, though. It helps some.”
“I did that for the first six months,” Gert said. “I go on the online support groups now, sometimes.”
“I like those!” Chase said. “Last week, I got on after work, and I felt absolutely horrible, and I wrote, ‘If one more person says, “You’ve still got your whole life ahead of you,” I’ll scream!’”
“Oh my God!” Gert said. “I think I answered that post!”
Chase laughed. “There were three others like it that same day. None of us is really that different.”
Gert shook her head. “There was something I was thinking of posting there, but I haven’t.”
“What?”
“Well,” Gert said, forking some mesclun, “I want to post about dating again.” She always had trouble picking up leafy things with her fork. “No one really writes about that there. And I’ve felt so guilty. I do care a lot about Todd. But I can’t stop having this little ball inside of me of tightly wound feelings for Marc. And it doesn’t go away. Half of me wonders whether, thirty years from now, it will still be there just as strong, bouncing around inside of me. And the other half is scared that it won’t.”
“Are you afraid of being happy?”
“Maybe I’m afraid of being too happy without Marc.”
“Not that I’ll be any different,” Chase said, “because I won’t, but I do know that you shouldn’t feel guilty. Thirty years from now…you’ll just have to feel how you feel.”
“I’m scared of a time when I won’t feel anything for Marc,” Gert said, “and yet, I’m scared that if I always have strong feelings for him, I won’t be able to put a hundred percent of my energy into Todd or whoever I end up with.”
“We just might not recover fully,” Chase said. “I don’t think we should kid ourselves. These were our first loves. We met them practically when we were kids, didn’t we?”
“Yeah,” Gert said.
“John’s bound up with my move into adulthood. Relationships were so new to me at the time. And when you get hit with your first one—wow. When you’re older, and you’re starting over, it’s not as new. There’s all this stuff that came before.”
“That’s right,” Gert said. “When you’re younger, they get your whole heart. And now I’m supposed to ask for mine back.”
The waitress collected their plates, which now contained soggy leftover stems. Crumbled duck soup was on deck.
“Starting over with dating is hard,” Chase said. “So is having to start over with friendships, though.”
“Tell me about it,” Gert said.
“I don’t think that college friend who was going to move in with me is still going to,” Chase said. “Part of me is glad.”
“What about friends at work?”
“Everyone at my job is like fifty-five,” Chase said, shaking her head.
“I know the feeling,” Gert said.
“You want to hear something funny?” Chase asked.
“I’d love to hear something funny.”
Chase smiled. “I was trying on clothes in The Gap the other day,” she said, “and I came out of the door to my dressing room at the same time as this girl across from me was coming out. She was our age, and was fat and had freckles, and she was laughing, just completely cracking up, and she had this big pile of clothes in her arms. And she said to me, like she had known me forever, ‘Oh my God! I always try on clothes and nothing fits, and today everything’s fitting and I don’t know what to do about it.’ And she just cracked up, and her clothes were falling off her arms, onto the floor, and it was so funny.”
“That is funny,” Gert said.
“I laughed, because it was funny. And she laughed, too. It was so easy. She seemed nice, and funny, and I thought, We could be friends. This is a person who I’d like to be friends with. Then she left.”
“You didn’t say anything else to her?”
“What was I supposed to say? ‘Uh, excuse me, will you be my new friend?’”
Gert laughed. “‘Yeah, can I get your phone number?’”
“‘Miss, would you like to have dinner and a movie sometime?’”
They laughed.
“How do you pick up a friend?” Chase asked.
Gert shook her head. “Nothing is easy anymore,” she said. She smiled and raised her water glass. “To new friendships.”
“To new friendships,” Chase said.
The waitress brought out the crumbled duck soup, and Gert was pleased to f
ind big hunks of duck. She thought of something, spooning for a chunk.
“Have you been to a sleepover lately?” Gert asked Chase.
“You mean, the kind people have when they’re twelve?”
“Exactly,” Gert said. “But with adults.”
Chase laughed. “Sounds like fun, but no.”
“Hallie and Erika are having this weird sort of party in a few weeks.” She told her about the “Stud Party,” to which they’d invited the men whose numbers they’d gotten in midtown. “And after the party’s over we’re having a sleepover to compare notes. It’d be nice to have another slumberer along.”
“That sounds great,” Chase said. Gert thought it would be a much better party if Chase were there.
Chapter
18
Gert stirred restlessly. She and Todd had had dinner together at the condo. She hadn’t been that hungry because of her lunch with Chase, but Todd had gotten back from work late, famished and pooped. Gert had told him about her lunch, and he had craved the duck soup, so they’d had to find something similar—and settled on barbecued wings from Kentucky Fried Chicken.
As they’d eaten, she’d thought that this definitely seemed like a relationship. But he still hadn’t said anything to indicate it.
During dinner, Todd had told her that Chase already seemed nicer than Hallie and Erika. She’d smiled. She wondered if it was simply pointless to hang on to her friendship with Hallie and Erika. She’d been really trying. Maybe she’d just outgrown them.
Yet, something kept her from giving up completely. She didn’t want to ditch Hallie just because she’d met a guy. She’d done that once before. If Todd left, Gert knew Hallie would still be there. Hallie always had been. Hallie had always liked Marc, too, even if she was jealous. How many other people would always be there?
Todd stirred in bed. He was on his back, asleep.
The phone rang.
Gert opened her eyes fully and looked at the clock radio. It was 1:18 a.m.
Her heart stopped. Good news never came at that hour.
Maybe it was just Hallie, having gotten back from a night of bar-hopping. She hoped so. She’d had enough scary calls in her life.
She picked up the phone.
“Gert?”
It was Hallie. Good.
In bed, Todd shifted but didn’t wake.
“You have to get dressed,” Hallie said.
“Why?”
“I need your help. I have to pick up Erika from the police station.”
“What? It’s…” She sat up and cradled the phone. “What happened?”
“I don’t know, exactly. She’s in Connecticut. They charged her with harassment. I know it’s late, but we don’t want to drive up there with just us. We could really use your help.”
“Who’s we?” Gert asked.
“Cat and me. She has a car. Her parents made her keep it as a condition of moving to New York. They planned a terror escape route for her.”
Gert rubbed her eyes and looked at Todd. He was waking up. She said, “I’ll help you.” What else could she say?
“Can you be outside your building by two?”
Words she’d never wanted to hear.
Todd opened his eyes and looked up at her. “Who was that?” he asked, squinting in the dim moonlight.
“Hallie,” Gert said. “Erika’s been arrested for stalking or something.”
He sat up. “And you’re going somewhere?”
“Yeah. Hallie wants me to go to the police station with her.”
Todd said, “I’ll go with you. You can’t take the subway alone at this hour.”
“We’re driving.”
“What? Where?”
“Connecticut.”
“Who has a car?”
“Cat, Hallie’s roommate. Her parents bought her one.”
“Nice.”
“I hope Hallie has the bail money,” Gert said, getting up to find a pair of jeans.
Todd pulled on his pants. “How much is it?” he asked.
“I didn’t ask. What do you think Erika did?”
Todd said, “What do you think?”
“I’m pretty sure her ex-boyfriend lives in Connecticut. Maybe she went to his house.”
“Wow,” Todd said. “Didn’t you just have dinner with Erika a few days ago?”
“I did,” Gert said. “Maybe she went back up afterward. She’s been in a bad state.”
Standing at the bottom of the driveway, they were both silent, staring across the street and waiting for Hallie and Cat to arrive. It was freezing out. Todd rubbed his hands together.
Gert looked at the white town houses and thought about the little blond girl again. She hoped that the girl was warm under the covers, dreaming.
“When they pick us up, we should stop for coffee,” Todd said.
“I could run upstairs and make some.”
“Nah. I guess once we get going it’ll be fine. The car has heat, right?”
“If what I know of Cat is true, her parents probably had it insulated with wool.”
Gert noticed that Todd kept looking across the street.
“A big family lives there,” Gert said. “They always leave their Christmas lights up until spring.”
“That’s lazy,” Todd said.
“Maybe they don’t want the holidays to be over.”
Todd thought about this. “That’s true,” he said. “Who can blame them?”
An engine sounded. Both of their heads turned. A Ford Contour was making its way up the street. Gert thought that if this wasn’t Cat and Hallie, she’d be pretty scared.
The car came to a stop in front of them. Cat was at the wheel. Gert was surprised she could see over the dashboard.
Looking at Hallie up front, Gert felt a momentary twinge of sympathy. Despite her flaws, Hallie was still willing to help her friend in the middle of the night.
Hallie got out and opened the back door, letting Todd slide in. She closed it and said to Gert, “You’re bringing him?”
“He was here,” Gert said. “I can’t just send him home.”
Hallie sniffed, “Well, I guess there’s room,” and went back inside.
Climbing into the back seat, Gert suddenly felt a bit of sickness run through her. She hadn’t been in a car much since the accident. She stared at the dashboard.
She’d let the junkyard keep Marc’s car. Who really needed a car in the city, anyway? Why had they bought one in the first place?
She looked around for her seat belt. Cars were death traps. She knew that now. It didn’t matter how many safe car trips she’d been on in her life. If you weren’t careful every second, something could get you.
“Put your seat belts on,” Gert said.
“Mine’s on,” Hallie said. Todd reluctantly put his on.
Cat leaned back and handed Todd a cup of Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Then she passed back a box with three doughnuts left in it.
“Oh, man!” Todd said. “Bavarian crème!”
Gert blew into the air just to see her breath.
“They were half price,” Cat said. “Six for three bucks.”
“Hallie, you ate a doughnut?” Gert said. “I’m shocked!”
“I didn’t,” Hallie said. “Cat ate all three.”
Cat stared ahead innocently.
“Should we go?” Hallie asked.
“‘We’ve got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses,’” Todd said. “‘Hit it.’”
No one said anything.
“That’s from The Blues Brothers,” Todd said. “Just trying to lighten the mood.”
“Don’t,” Gert said, taking his hand.
Cat started the car.
“Is The Blues Brothers in the male canon?” Hallie turned around and asked.
“That would fall under ’70s Saturday Night Live,” Gert said, yawning. “We’ll add, ’70s Saturday Night Live, anything related to ’70s Saturday Night Live and anythi
ng relating to the actors from Saturday Night Live.”
“That would cover the shocking omission of Animal House,” Todd said.
“A real classic,” Gert said.
“How come,” Cat said, from up front, “when certain movies are popular with girls, they’re called ‘chick flicks,’ but there’s no equivalent for guys?”
“How about ‘dick flicks,’” Hallie said.
“Can you put heat on?” Gert shivered. Todd saw this and massaged her knee.
“We have it on in front,” Hallie said. “I’ll switch it.”
Gert leaned back, watching the buildings grow in size, knowing the car was approaching a bridge. She closed her eyes. She could just nod off, but she couldn’t fall asleep. She didn’t know if Cat was a safe driver. She wouldn’t be able to drift off, as she might have in the past.
“So tell us what happened with Erika,” Gert said. Todd, who had had his eyes closed, opened them slightly.
“I don’t know all the details,” Hallie said. “Apparently Erika went up to Ben and Challa’s house and Ben wouldn’t let her in. She tried to push her way past him and Challa. One of them called the cops.”
“I never thought she would go that far,” Gert said.
“I didn’t, either,” Hallie said. “I shouldn’t have encouraged her. I just thought the stuff she was doing was funny.”
They were quiet for a minute. Gert heard the heat blowing.
“She should see a therapist,” Gert said. “I know it’s not my business, but…”
“I know,” Hallie said. “They’ll force her to, I would think.”
“If they don’t, you should suggest it. She might listen to you.”
“I will,” Hallie said. “I have to.”
“Did she sound hysterical?”
“No,” Hallie said. They were passing a group of tall unlit coops with flat roofs. “She sounded like a mess,” Hallie said, “but also like she was holding it together. She called her family first, but they didn’t pick up, and then she decided she doesn’t want them to know anyway. She only needs two hundred and fifty dollars bail.”
“She didn’t have it?”
“They won’t take credit cards.”
“Are there doughnuts left?” Cat asked from the driver’s seat.
“Four doughnuts?” Hallie asked. “Haven’t you reached the legal limit?”
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