Maybe in Another Life

by Taylor Jenkins Reid

  “Thank you both,” I say as I follow them to their car.

  When we get to the bar, it’s fairly quiet. Gabby and Mark sit down, and I go up to get our drinks. I order beers for Mark and me and a glass of chardonnay for Gabby. The bill comes to twenty-four dollars, and I hand over my credit card. I don’t know how much money I have in my account, because I’m afraid to look. But I know I have enough to live for a few weeks and get an apartment. I don’t want to be a person who nickels-and-dimes, especially when Mark and Gabby have been sweet enough to give me a place to stay, so I just put it out of my head.

  I bring the two beers to the table and turn back to get Gabby’s wine. By the time I sit down, another woman has joined us. I remember meeting her at Gabby and Mark’s wedding a couple of years ago. Her name is Katherine, I believe. She ran the New York City Marathon a few years ago. I remember faces and names really well. It’s easy for me to remember details about people I have only met once. But I learned a long time ago not to reveal this. It freaks people out.

  Katherine extends her hand. “Katherine,” she says.

  I shake her hand and say my name.

  “Nice to meet you,” she says. “Welcome back to Los Angeles!”

  “Thanks,” I say. “Actually, I think we’ve met before.”

  “We have?”

  “Yeah, at Gabby and Mark’s wedding. Yeah, yeah,” I say, as if it’s coming back to me. “You were telling me about how you ran a marathon somewhere, right? Boston or New York?”

  She smiles. “New York! Yes! Great memory.”

  And now Katherine likes me. If I’d come right out with it, if I’d said, “Oh, we’ve met before. You were wearing a yellow dress at their wedding, and you said that running the New York Marathon was the hardest but most rewarding thing you’ve ever done,” Katherine would think I was creepy. I have learned this the hard way.

  Soon some of my old friends from high school start trickling in, the girls Gabby and I hung out with: Brynn, Caitlin, Erica. I scream and shout at the top of my lungs when I see each of them. It is so nice to see familiar faces, to be somewhere and know that the people who knew you at fifteen still like you. Brynn looks older, Caitlin looks thinner, Erica looks just the same.

  Some of Mark’s friends from work show up with their spouses, and soon we are crowding around a table too small for us.

  People start buying other people drinks. Rounds are on this person or that person. I nurse my beer and a few Diet Cokes. I drank a lot in New York. I drank a lot with Michael. Change starts now.

  I’m up at the bar again when I see Ethan walk in the door.

  He’s even taller than I remember, wearing an untucked blue cotton button-down and dark jeans. His hair is short and tousled, his stubble a few days old. He was cute in high school. He’s handsome now. He will only get more handsome as he ages, I suspect.

  I wonder if he has crow’s-feet like I do.

  I watch as he scouts around, searching for me in the crowd. I pay for the drinks in my hand and walk toward him. Just when I worry he’ll never see me, I finally catch his eye. He lights up and smiles wide.

  He moves toward me quickly, the gap between us almost instantly reduced to zero. He throws his arms around me and squeezes me tight. I briefly put the drinks down on the edge of the bar so I don’t spill them.

  “Hi,” he says.

  “You’re here!” I say.

  “You’re here!” he says.

  I hug him again.

  “It’s really great to see you,” he tells me. “Beautiful as ever.”

  “Thank you kindly,” I say.

  Gabby makes her way toward us.

  “Gabby Hudson,” he says, leaning in to give her a hug.

  “Ethan!” she says. “Good to see you.”

  “I’m going to grab a drink, and I’ll meet you in a minute,” he says to us.

  I nod at him, and Gabby and I turn back toward our table.

  She raises her eyebrows at me.

  I roll my eyes at her.

  An entire conversation without a word spoken.

  Soon the music is so loud and the bar is so crowded that conversation becomes difficult.

  I’m trying to hear what Caitlin is saying when Ethan gets to the table. He stands next to me, resting with his arm up against mine without a hint of self-consciousness. He sips his beer and turns to Katherine, the two of them trying to hear each other over the music. I glance over for a moment to find him looking intently at her, gesturing as if he’s making a joke. I watch as she throws her head back and laughs.

  She’s prettier than I realized. She seemed plain before. But I can see now that’s she’s quite striking. Her long blond hair is blown out straight. Her sapphire-blue dress flatters her, hanging off her body effortlessly. It doesn’t even look as if she needs to wear a bra.

  I can’t go anywhere without a bra.

  Gabby pulls at my hand and drags me onto the dance floor. Caitlin joins us and then Erica and Brynn do, too. We dance to a few songs before I see Ethan and Katherine come over to join us. Mark hangs back with the others, nursing his beer.

  “He doesn’t dance?” I ask Gabby.

  Gabby rolls her eyes. I laugh as Katherine, twirling, catches my eye. Ethan is spinning her.

  I wonder if he’ll take her home. I am surprised at how much this idea bothers me, just how unsubtle my feelings are.

  He laughs as the song ends. They break apart, and he high-fives her. It seems like a friendly gesture, as opposed to a romantic one.

  Looking at him now, recalling what it used to be like between us, how I liked myself around him, how I felt good about the world and my place in it with him by my side, how I ached when he left for college, I remember what it feels like to truly love someone. For the right reasons. In the right way.

  Gabby taps my shoulder, bringing me back to reality. I turn to look at her. She is trying to tell me something. I can’t hear her.

  “Some air!” she yells, pointing to the patio. She waves herself off like a fan. I laugh and follow her out.

  The moment we step outside, it’s an entirely different world. The air has cooled, and the music is muted, contained by the building.

  “How are you feeling?” Gabby asks me.

  “Me?” I say. “Fine, why?”

  “No reason,” she says.

  “So Mark doesn’t dance, huh?” I ask, changing the subject. “You love dancing! He doesn’t take you dancing?”

  She shakes her head, scrunching her eyebrows. “Definitely not. He’s not that kind of guy. It’s fine. I mean, nobody’s perfect but you and me,” she jokes.

  The door opens, and Ethan walks through. “What are you guys talking about out here?” he asks.

  “Mark doesn’t like dancing,” I tell him.

  “I’m actually going to go see if I can get him to cut a rug once and for all,” Gabby says. She smiles at me as she leaves.

  It’s just Ethan and me alone out here now.

  “You look a little bit cold,” he says as he sits down on the empty bench. “I’d offer you my shirt, but I’m not wearing anything underneath.”

  “Might break the dress code,” I say. “I thought since I’m in L.A., I should wear a tank top, but . . .”

  “But it’s February,” he says. “And this is Los Angeles, not the equator.”

  “It’s crazy how new this city feels to me, even though I lived here for so long,” I tell him as I sit down next to him.

  “Yeah, but you were eighteen when you left. You’re almost thirty now.”

  “I prefer the term twenty-nine,” I say.

  He laughs. “It’s nice to have you back,” he says. “We haven’t lived in the same city for . . . I guess almost thirteen years.”

  “Wow,” I say. “Now I feel even older than when you called me almost thirty.”

  He laughs again. “How are you?” he asks me. “Are you well? Are you good?”

  “I’m OK,” I say. “I have some things to work out.”

>   “You want to talk about them?”

  “Maybe,” I say, smiling. “At some point?”

  He nods. “I’d love to listen. At some point.”

  “What’s going on with you and Katherine over there?” I ask. My voice is breezy. I’m trying to sound as if this is casual, and I’m pulling it off.

  Ethan shakes his head. “No, no,” he says. “Nothing. She just started talking to me, and I was happy to entertain her.” He smiles at me. “She’s not who I came to see.”

  We look at each other, neither one of us breaking the gaze. His eyes are on me, focused on my eyes, as if I am the only other person in the world. And I wonder if he looks at every woman that way.

  And then he leans over and kisses me on the cheek.

  The way it feels, his lips on my skin, makes me realize I have spent years looking for that feeling and never finding it. I have settled for casual flings, halfhearted love affairs, and a married man, searching for that moment when your heart jumps in your chest.

  And I wonder if I should really kiss him, if I should turn my head ever so slightly and put my lips on his.

  Gabby and Mark come through the door.

  “Hey,” Gabby says, before staring at us. “Oh, sorry.”

  “No,” I say. “Hey.”

  Ethan laughs. “You’re Mark, right?” he says, getting up and shaking his hand. “Ethan. We didn’t formally meet earlier.”

  “Yeah. Hey. Nice to meet you.”

  “Sorry,” Gabby says. “We have to head out.”

  “I just found out I have an early-morning thing,” Mark says.

  “On a Sunday?” I ask him.

  “Yeah, it’s this thing at work I have to do.”

  I look at my watch. It’s after midnight.

  “Oh, OK,” I say as I start to rise.

  “Actually, I could take you home,” Ethan says. “Back to Gabby’s place later. If you want to stay for a while. Whatever you want.”

  I catch a coy smile come across Gabby’s face for a split second.

  I laugh to myself. It’s so obvious, isn’t it?

  By coming back to L.A., I’m not just trying to build a better life with the support of my best friend. I’ve also reopened the question of whether Ethan and I have unfinished business between us.

  We’ve spent years apart. We’ve gone on to live two very different lives. And we’re right back here. Flirting off to the side at the party, while everyone else is dancing.

  Will we or won’t we? and If I let him take me home, will it mean more to me than it means to him?

  I look at Ethan, and then I look at Gabby.

  Life is long and full of an infinite number of decisions. I have to think that the small ones don’t matter, that I’ll end up where I need to end up no matter what I do.

  My fate will find me.

  So I decide to . . .

  So I decide to go home with Gabby.

  I don’t want to rush into anything.

  I turn and give Ethan a good-bye hug. I can hear, through the door, that the DJ just started playing Madonna’s “Express Yourself,” and for a moment, I sort of regret my decision. I love this song. Sarah and I used to sing it in the car together all the time. My mom never let us sing the part about satin sheets. But we just loved the song. We’d listen to it over and over.

  I consider taking my good-bye back, as if the universe is telling me to stay and dance.

  But I don’t.

  “I should go home,” I say to Ethan. “It’s late, and I want to get on West Coast time, you know?”

  “I totally understand,” he says. “I had a great time tonight.”

  “Me, too! I’ll call you?”

  Ethan nods as he moves to give Gabby a hug good-bye. He shakes Mark’s hand. He turns to me and whispers into my ear, “You’re sure I can’t convince you to stay out?”

  I shake my head and smile at him. “Sorry,” I say.

  He smiles and sighs ever so subtly, with a look that says he’s accepted defeat.

  We walk back into the bar and say good-bye to everyone—Erica, Caitlin, Brynn, Katherine, and the rest of the people I’ve met tonight.

  “I thought for sure you were going home with Ethan,” Gabby says as we are heading back to the car.

  I shake my head at her. “You think you know me so well.”

  She gives me a doubting look.

  “OK, you know me perfectly. But I just feel like if things with Ethan and me are going to happen, they will happen on their own time, you know? No need to rush anything.”

  “So you do want something to happen?”

  “I don’t know!” I say. “Maybe? Eventually? It seems like I should be with an honest, stable, nice guy like him. He seems like a move in the right direction, men-wise.”

  When we get to the car, Mark opens the doors for us and tells Gabby he’s just going to take Wilshire Boulevard home. “That seems easiest, right? Less traffic?”

  “Yeah,” Gabby says, and then she turns around and asks me if I’ve ever heard of the Urban Light installation at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.

  “No,” I say. “I don’t think so.”

  “I think you’ll really like it,” she says. “They installed it a few years ago. We’re gonna end up driving by it, so I’ll point it out. This is all part of my campaign to make you fall in love with L.A. again, by the way.”

  “I’m excited to see it,” I say.

  “People always say that Los Angeles has no culture,” Gabby says. “So, you know, I’m going to prove them wrong in the hopes that you’ll stay.”

  “You do remember that I lived here for almost twenty years,” I tell her.

  “I meant to ask you.” She turns toward me as Mark looks ahead, driving. “How are your parents and Sarah?”

  “Mom and Dad are good,” I say. “Sarah’s at the London Ballet Company now and living with her boyfriend, George. I haven’t met him, but my parents like him, so that’s good. My dad’s doing well at work, so I think my mom is considering only working part-time.”

  They don’t send me money in any traditional sense. But for years, they have given me such a large amount of money every Christmas that I almost feel like I’m getting a Christmas bonus. I don’t know how much money my family actually has, but it certainly seems like a lot.

  “Your family doesn’t come to the U.S. anymore?” Mark asks.

  “No,” I say. “I always go over to see them.”

  “Any excuse to go to London, right?” Mark says.

  “Right,” I say, although that’s not really true. They’ve never offered to come back to the U.S. And since they are the ones buying the ticket, I don’t have a lot of say in the matter.

  I turn toward the car window and watch the streets go by. They are streets I didn’t frequent as a teenager. We’re in a part of town I don’t know that well.

  “Did you have fun tonight?” Gabby asks me.

  “Yeah, I did,” I tell her, my gaze still on the sidewalks and storefronts we’re passing. “You have a lot of great friends out here, and it was awesome to see the girls from high school. Did Caitlin lose like thirty pounds?”

  “Weight Watchers, I think,” Gabby says. “She’s doing really well. She was doing well before, though, too. Women don’t need to be thin to be valuable.”

  I can see Mark smile into the rearview mirror, and I smile back at him. It is a small intimacy between us, our mutual eye-rolling at Gabby’s political correctness. I start to laugh, but I hold it in. Gabby’s not wrong. Women don’t have to be thin to be valuable. Caitlin was the same person before she lost the weight as she is now. It’s just funny that Gabby always feels the need to spell it out all the time. She can’t take it for granted.

  Gabby’s phone dings, and she picks it up. I watch as she reads the text message and immediately hides her phone. She’s terrible at keeping things from me.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “What is what?”

  “On your phone.”
r />   “Nothing.”

  “Gabby, c’mon,” I say.

  “It’s not important. It means nothing.”

  “Hand it over.”

  She reluctantly puts the phone in my hand. It’s a text message from Katherine.

  Going home with Ethan. Is this a terrible idea?

  My heart sinks in my chest. I look away and hand the phone back to Gabby without a word.

  She turns back to look at me. “Hey,” she says softly.

  “I’m not upset,” I say back, but my voice is thin and high-pitched. Upset is exactly how I sound.

  “C’mon,” she says.

  I laugh. “It’s fine. He can do what he wants.” I’m glad I didn’t stay out late with him, looking to see if there was something between us. “I specifically did not stay out with him tonight because I didn’t want it to be a one-night thing. If it was anything. So there you go. Spares me the embarrassment.”

  Gabby frowns at me.

  I laugh defensively, as if the harder I laugh, the harder I can push her pity off me and out the window. “He’s a great guy. I’m not saying he’s not, but, you know, if that’s how it gonna be with him, I don’t need that.”

  I look out the window again and then immediately back at Gabby.

  “I like Katherine, actually,” I say. “She seems great.”

  “If I may,” Mark interjects. “I don’t know much about the history between the two of you, but just because he’s sleeping with someone else doesn’t necessarily mean . . .”

  “I know,” I say. “But still. It makes it clear to me that he and I are best left in the past. I mean, we dated forever ago. It’s fine.”

  “Do you want to change the subject?” Gabby asks me.

  “Yes,” I say. “Please.”

  “Well, should we go to breakfast tomorrow while Mark goes into work?”

  “Yeah,” I say, turning away from her and looking out the window. “Let’s talk about food.”

  “Where should I take her?” Gabby asks Mark, and the two of them start rattling off names of restaurants I’ve never heard of.

  Mark asks me if I like sweet or savory breakfasts.

  “You mean, do I like pancakes or eggs?”

  “Yeah,” he says.

  “She likes cinnamon rolls,” Gabby answers at the exact same time I say, “I like places with cinnamon rolls.”