by Tia Williams
“Can you imagine what must be going through all their heads? We should start a support group for StyleZine survivors of the Erica scandal.”
“Are we Erica? Like Brangelina?”
“Today’s been hell, we might as well get a fun celeb couple moniker out of it.”
He chuckled. “Cute.”
There was a loaded pause. They were no longer a couple; that was a weird thing to say. “So where will you live?”
“No clue.”
“Do you have enough money? If…”
“Nah, I’m cool.”
“But where will you go? I can help…”
“I don’t need help.” His tone said, this is not your place anymore.
Jenna nodded, backing down.
Then they were silent, sidewalk traffic breezing past them.
“You know, you didn’t have to go that far, defending me,” said Jenna. “Exposing Darcy to the whole office.”
“Yes I did. I can’t let anyone hurt you. It’s against my religion.”
“Even now?”
“Always.” He looked past her, down Broadway.
No one will ever love me like this again, she thought.
“So, I guess I’ll just wait here for a cab. You’re gonna take the train home?”
Jenna nodded.
“But…your big poster.”
They both looked down at her Hallelujah poster, the vintage print that they bonded over, ages ago.
“It’ll break my heart to look at this now,” said Jenna. They glanced at each other, and looked away.
“Promise you’ll call me when you figure out where you’re going to stay?”
“I promise,” he said, but he knew he wouldn’t. “Will you be okay?”
“I started over before; I can do it again.”
There was another awkward pause. Jenna knew it was time for them to part, but the thought of never seeing Eric again was impossible.
“Well,” she started, “I should probably go catch the train.”
She just stood there.
“Don’t make this harder, Jenna. Walk away.”
“I know I need to, but I can’t.”
“Walk away. Or else I’m gonna grab you and take you with me.”
Suddenly, she flung her arms around Eric’s neck, pressing herself to him, trying to memorize his scent, the way his body felt against hers. She needed to be this close to him again, one last time. But he didn’t touch her.
“Go, Jenna.”
She shook her head. “Not yet.”
“This is what you wanted.”
Eric stood there, rigid, trying to resist her. Finally, with a groan of frustration, he pulled her face in front of his and kissed her passionately. He kissed her like he wanted to sear his memory on her brain. Like he wanted her to know he owned her, no matter who came after him. Like he wanted to scar her for life.
He broke it too soon. A few seconds more and they both knew she wouldn’t have left. She’d stay with him for the night, another day, a week—but it would’ve just been postponing the inevitable.
“Goodbye, Jenna,” he said, leaning his forehead against hers.
“Goodbye, Eric,” she whispered.
And then he vanished into the crowd.
CHAPTER 32
It was a breezy summer’s day, almost four years later. Birds were chirping, violets were in-bloom, and Jenna and Billie were drinking lattes on a bench at Hall Playground. The colorful, high-tech playground was near Pratt University’s campus and a few blocks from what they now called the Lane-Franklin-Jones Compound. Jenna had moved into the upstairs apartment in Elodie’s brownstone, and Billie lived one block away. They were like one big slightly dysfunctional family, splitting babysitting duties and sharing Sunday night dinners (James Diaz, Elodie’s newly minted fiancé, usually made ultra-authentic fajitas—with sauce on the side, for Jenna).
“But he’s such a wild child,” Jenna said to Billie, with barely-hidden pride. She adjusted her cropped gold lame blazer, which was impractical for the playground but so fun (“Cher Does Corporate America”). “There’s no way he’s walking down the aisle without bursting into the ‘Thomas the Train’ theme song or something.”
“He’ll definitely go rogue,” said Billie. “But he’ll be an adorable ring-bearer! And he’ll have his two faux-big sisters right there with him, as flower girls.”
On The Compound, May; Billie’s frilly youngest daughter, Gracie; and Jenna’s wild child son—who everyone referred to as The Baby, since he was the youngest—were practically being raised as siblings. They spent half of their lives in each other’s houses.
“We just had May’s black taffeta dress made. Gracie’s wearing an Elsa costume,” said Billie. “It’s 2016, I can’t believe Frozen is still a thing.”
What Jenna couldn’t believe was that Elodie was going to be a bride. But she was wildly in love, in this shockingly functional, permanent way—and she was doing it on her own terms. No cookie-cutter shenanigans. No rings, no marshmallow dress, no bouquet toss. Just a cool rooftop ceremony, with the bridal party wearing whatever they wanted—and a very grownup reception at an absinthe-soaked cabaret called Moist.
“The Baby’s going to look so handsome in his tuxedo sweatshirt and khakis!” Jenna handed Billie her phone. “Look, I took a picture of him in it. Are you dying?”
“Awww!” moaned Billie, enlarging the pic. “I’ll never get over how little he looks like you.”
“DNA is insane,” said Jenna. “Literally, anyone could’ve been his mother. Oprah, Ariana Grande. Gwyneth. Viola Davis. Anyone.”
Jenna watched The Baby chase Gracie, who was wearing enormous sequined wings, around the playground with a toddler-size basketball, trying to convince her to shoot hoops. She was born wielding a magic fairy wand; she wanted no part of little boy games.
Just then, the basketball flew from out of nowhere and smacked Jenna clean between her brows.
“Wooooooopth! I’m outta control, Mommy!” He ran to her and then rubbed her forehead with his pudgy palm.
“Be careful, monkey!” she said, pulling him into her lap and tickling him until he squealed with giggles. She kissed his cheek and he wiggled off her lap, tearing Jenna’s iPad out of her bag and cueing up The Lego Movie. Then he slipped on his attached toddler-sized Sony headphones, and ran off to watch it by the swings.
“My little miracle,” said Jenna with a laugh. “Sometimes I can’t believe he’s real. It’s like I’m looking at a hologram.”
“I don’t say this enough,” started Billie, “but I’m in awe of you. Making the choice to raise a child on your own? While holding down a professorship at Fordham? I think you might be the bravest woman I know.”
“Really? I’m so touched,” said Jenna, and she was. The past four years had been such a whirlwind; she’d barely taken a second to breathe and reflect.
The day Darcy fired her, she didn’t waste one second torturing herself. She emailed James Diaz from the street, asking him to go to coffee and discuss her teaching Fashion Theory for his department. They sat at Starbucks for hours, discussing her ideas, her teaching style, and her love for nurturing teens. Over an untouched chai latte, she described to him why teaching part-time at that Virginia community college was one of the most rewarding professional experiences of her life. Helping to shape the next generation of editors, stylists, buyers, and designers? She felt like they were doing her a favor, reviving her creativity—and reminding her why she loved fashion in the first place. She was one bite into her croissant when James offered her the job.
Jenna felt lucky. She was a mother to the funniest, sweetest kid in Brooklyn. She had her dream job. Jenna felt like she was in exactly the right place at the right time.
Of course, things weren’t perfect. Work was demanding, and even though Elodie and Billie helped, most days she felt like she was barely keeping up. Between running The Baby to and from daycare, trying to devote every second to him when she wasn’t teaching, and working
insane hours—Jenna was perpetually exhausted. But it was a satisfying exhausted. Like the way you felt after amazing sex or a transcendental workout. Worth-it exhausted.
Yawning, Jenna stretched and took her attention off Gracie and The Baby. She watched the Pratt students in their denim cutoffs and clingy tees, hanging out in cliquey clusters in the park—just talking and laughing and being twenty. And then she squinted. One of the students looked familiar. He was standing near the colorful, complicated playground typing something into his phone, wearing a huge backpack full of camera equipment—a backpack she’d know anywhere.
“Oh my God, Jenna,” whispered Billie, slowly lowering her coffee cup to her lap. “Is…that…”
Jenna shot up so fast that her bag somersaulted to the ground. Big boy pull-ups, Transformers and sippy cups went flying.
“ERIC!” she screamed, and everyone at the playground turned to look at her. Of course he didn’t hear her, since there was a sidewalk and half a park between them—and he was wearing headphones.
She left her bag on the ground and sprinted in his direction. On her way, she tripped over a double-wide stroller, elbowed her way between two rainbow-haired kids mid-makeout, and lept over a stylish homeless guy trimming his bangs under a tree.
Gasping for breath, she stood behind him, her heart bursting. Was he actually right in front of her? They hadn’t spoken since their last day at StyleZine.
She thought about Eric constantly, missed him totally, and always fleetingly wondered if maybe today would be the day she’d run into him. She’d practiced a thousand different things to say to him when this moment happened, and now she’d forgotten all of them.
She ruffled her hair, pinched her cheeks to create a flushed effect, and then cleared her throat. He didn’t budge. So, she tapped him on the shoulder. Then, he turned around. And ripped off his headphones.
“Mother-fuck!”
Jenna laughed. “Hi!”
A wide smile spread across Eric’s face, the same one she recognized from the first time she met him. The one that, after thirty seconds of knowing him, had turned her life upside down.
“Jenna! You’re here! What are you doing here? You’re so…I can’t….I don’t even know how to act right now!”
“Me either!”
“Can I hug you? I gotta hug you.”
“You better!”
Then he did, and it was concave, polite—the greeting of two people who were unused to touching each other and not sure how far they should go—but then they slipped into what felt familiar. Eric lifted Jenna off of her feet into a squeezy-tight embrace and, by force of habit, she smothered his cheek with kisses. After a breathless ten seconds, he put her down. They backed away from each other a couple of steps, both self-conscious about how good it had felt.
“What are you doing here?” asked Jenna.
“I’m scouting playgrounds for my new film,” he said. “A film? A full-length movie?”
“Yeah, thanks to mad investors and Kickstarter! It’s based on the last day of my dad’s life. Obviously I don’t know what happened, but it’s just my way of piecing it all together.” Eric was talking crazy fast. It was like he’d saved up years of information to tell Jenna, and couldn’t get it out quickly enough. “It’s like an ode to throwback BK, lots of color, street personalities. Basically tracing his footsteps around the hood for twenty-four hours. Very Do the Right Thing.”
“You’ve been writing this story in your head your whole life.”
“You know me well,” he said, smiling. “It’s been a little hard to focus, cause I’m always traveling. I just got back from San Francisco, shooting a Travelocity commercial.”
Jenna gave him a celebratory shove in the arm. “That’s huge! You must’ve gotten an agent at South by Southwest. Actually, I know you did. Is this the part where I pretend I wasn’t Googling your name incessantly during the festival?”
“Stalker.” Eric looked thrilled. “Yeah, I got an agent. I started out assistant-directing a director I randomly met in the club with Tim, years ago. I guess I built up a rep, and now I have my own assistant director. I spent most of last year living in Barcelona, shooting international ads. Reebok, Cottonelle. It’s been crazy, Jenna. The budgets are insane.”
Jenna shook her head, in awe. “I am so proud of you. You’re doing well.”
“But wait, though,” he said. “I even have my own place.”
“No!”
“For two years, me and Tim lived in the shittiest studio in Midwood. Our keys never worked, and we only had scalding hot water, which sounds like it would be better than only having cold, but it wasn’t. Tim felt like the address was bad for his brand.”
“His brand!”
“Right? I was like, what brand, son? You have moderate Snapchat engagement and strippers buy your kicks. Explain this brand.”
Jenna giggled.
“But now I have an ill spot in Crown Heights. I’m so mature. I have real art and life insurance. And I only smoke weed occasionally.” He paused. “Actually I still smoke mad weed.”
“Good, I was beginning to think you weren’t you anymore.”
Jenna smiled. “Wow. Getting fired from StyleZine was the best thing that ever happened to you.”
“And you, too. Is this the part where I pretend I haven’t memorized your page on Fordham’s website and read all of your syllabi and even found a video of one of your lessons on YouTube?”
“I’m the stalker?”
“Six hundred of those twelve hundred views are mine. It feels so good to admit that.”
Jenna laughed, and he smiled. And then they stood in front of each other, taking each other in, like long-lost twins reunited on a daytime talk show. Students buzzed all around them. The playground was raucous with boisterous toddlers. The block was alive with action, but they were still.
“I’m so happy to see you,” said Jenna.
“Me too,” he said. “I need to hug you again.”
Jenna snuggled into his arms. This time she stayed there longer. “God, you still hug so good,” she said, peeling herself away, with difficulty. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her shorts, and asked the question that she wondered too often. “I have to ask. Are you seeing anyone?”
“Well…yeah, sort of. You know. Here and there.”
Jenna’s stomach sank. This shouldn’t have surprised her, but she couldn’t picture him with anyone else.
“Oh Eric,” she said, jokily. “You’re such a magnet.”
“Not even,” he said. “I just don’t like being alone.”
“Why?”
He glanced down at the grass, carefully constructing his answer, and then met her eyes. “Because then I miss you too much. I start wanting to be where I can’t be, and I hate that feeling.”
Jenna nodded. She knew this about Eric. He couldn’t sit for too long with something that was upsetting him.
“I date sometimes, too,” she said. “Not often and not very well. It never feels…right.”
A few moments passed. A dry gust of wind hit them hard, and Jenna shivered a little.
“Do you think we’ll ever get over it?” asked Eric.
“I know that I’ll never be over you. But maybe that’s okay. Maybe I’ll meet someone that I can love in a different way, and be happy.”
“You believe that?”
“It’s what I tell myself when I want you so badly that I actually get nauseous.”
Eric reached out and fingered one of her curls. Then he dropped his hand.
“Well, I should…” started Jenna.
“Me too.”
Neither made a move.
“I keep waiting for it not to hurt so bad,” said Eric, finally. “Every time I meet a woman, I want her to be you. And these sweet, pretty, smart girls fail so miserably. There’s nothing wrong with them; they’re just not you. You know that ‘other half” people spend their life looking for? I already found her. She’s somewhere watching Inside the Actor’s Studi
o and eating yellow Skittles without me. I know who she is. But I can’t have her.” He paused. “It’s like dying of some mysterious illness and knowing there’s a cure, but it’s just out of reach.”
“Don’t do this to me,” she said shakily.
“I’m sorry,” he said, grabbing her hand. “It’s the truth.”
“For me too,” she said, and then kissed him on the cheek.
“Thank you, Eric.”
“What did I do?”
“You put me back together when I was in pieces. You gave me confidence, and reminded me that I was lovable. You saved me.”
“Nobody saves anybody, Jenna. That was all you. I just helped.
Shone a little spotlight on the parts you forgot were there.”
Then they just stood there, fingers intertwined—basking in the charged energy they always generated together. Even though the moment was laced with sadness, it was so good to feel that again.
Finally, Eric pulled Jenna closer and said, “Hey.”
“Yeah?” Jenna held her breath. Being that close to him still made her dizzy.
“Do you…think we could ever be friends?” He said this timidly. “Admittedly, I don’t know how to be around you and pretend that you’re not mine. But I can’t let you go, twice.”
Jenna smiled. “Let’s do it. We can at least try!”
“We can handle this, Jenna. And if I ever accidentally try to ravage you, your job is to remind me that your orifices are off limits.”
“I refuse to accept that responsibility. You breathe on me wrong and my panties fly off my body.”
“Which is why I gave you that responsibility,” he said, his eyes dancing. “Next rule: I can’t hear about any other dudes.”
“And I can’t hear about any of those thirstbuckets you date.”
“Stop talking like Terry.”
“That girl’s catchphrases permeated my brain,” she said with a light giggle. And then she let go of his hand and glanced over at the playground. Billie, the eternal romantic, was watching Jenna and Eric with her hand over her heart.