by Faye McCray
Just as we were finishing up, Max went to the bathroom, and Allison rose to order her third piece of pizza.
“So, you’re cool with this, right?” Natalie said to me when they were out of ear shot.
“Cool with what?” I said taking a gulp of my Pepsi.
“This. Me… Lesbians… Max…”
“Of course, Natalie.” I put my Pepsi down and reached for her hand. She smiled, a level of ease settling into the air. I smirked. “So if that means you need me to screen hot lesbians…”
She pulled her hand away, rolling her eyes and laughing. “But seriously, Nate.”
“I’m seriously cool with it,” I said looking in her eyes. “I want you to be happy, kid. You look really happy.”
“I am,” she said just as Allison returned with the pizza.
Allison took a bite of the corner of her pizza. “Max is cute,” she said, her mouth full.
“Right?” Natalie said smiling.
Natalie and I watched as Allison took another big bite of her pizza, staring down at the gooey cheese and closing her eyes briefly while she chewed. She didn’t even look up when Max returned to the table.
“Baby,” she said to me after she swallowed. “You think you can get me one to go?”
Natalie and I burst into laughter.
***
Phil called just when Allison entered her fourth month of pregnancy. He was still with Ana and she had recently gotten a job in New York. They were coming up for the weekend to look at apartments. He would still be in D.C. for a few months, but he was actively looking for a job in New York. He wanted to have drinks at a restaurant on the Upper East Side while Ana spent the evening visiting some cousins on Long Island. He told me he had big news. I was pretty sure I could guess what it was.
I hadn’t seen Phil since my mother’s funeral. And even then, although he met Allison and my sister, we barely got a chance to speak. He and Ana had arrived hand-in-hand and laid a bouquet of white flowers at my mother’s casket. He sat in the row behind my family, patting me on the back every so often to remind me he was there. I was glad he was.
It had been almost a year since my mother died and over two years since we graduated college. He and I had talked on occasion, but we had always stopped short of making plans to get together. He worked a great deal and most of his free time was spent with Ana. Phil was doing well for himself. He was working his way up at his brokerage firm. He had his own office. He even had a lady whose sole job was to make him coffee and know his schedule. Though I was happy with Allison, I couldn’t help but feel slightly ashamed that I had so little to show for my education. My shame nearly caused me to cancel three times.
Phil sauntered into Houston’s restaurant on the east side of Manhattan like he had stepped straight from the pages of GQ magazine. He wore a tailored gray suit, plaid button down shirt and solid black skinny tie. A messenger bag was draped across his chest. His once shaggy blonde hair was cropped neatly around his head. I couldn’t help but feel insecure in my jeans and sweater. Besides a slightly shorter haircut, I probably looked exactly the same. In fact, I was pretty sure the sweater I was wearing was the same thing I wore the last day of classes.
“Ay!” he yelled as soon as he saw me, his arms wide for an embrace. I hugged him, slapping my hand hard on his back. It felt good to see him. “You couldn’t dress up to see me?”
I laughed. “Excuse the fuck out of me, Ryan Gosling,” I joked. “This isn’t a date.”
Phil laughed taking a seat next to me at the bar. I noticed two well-dressed women across the bar checking him out.
“Obviously, it’s working,” I continued, nodding in the direction of the women.
Phil looked over at them and smiled. “Kamikaze,” he said to the bartender. “Those ladies are going to have to look but not touch,” he continued turning back to me.
I laughed. “What the fuck did you just order?”
“A drink.”
“So you come in here looking like an ad in GQ, you order some fancy drink, you tell me you don’t want women to touch you. Are you about to come out of the closet?”
“What? No… I didn’t say I didn’t want women to touch me. I said those women can’t touch me.”
I gave him my most affected, blank stare.
“Ana and I are getting married.” He looked at me with a wide grin. I assumed that was his “big news” but hearing it was crazy.
Married? Wow.
At that moment Kerry popped in my head. I couldn’t help but wonder if we would be on the same path had we stayed together.
“Wow, congrats, man,” I said shaking off the nostalgia. I shook his hand firmly.
“Thanks. Ana Miguelina Delgado has tamed the beast,” he said with an exaggerated Spanish accent and smile. “Now, I just need to find a job out here. What’s been going on with you?” he asked, polishing off the last of his drink.
“I guess I have big news, too,” I said, taking a sip of the Blue Moon I ordered. I had no clue why I felt so nervous to tell him. “Ally’s pregnant.”
Phil practically dropped his glass, his lap breaking the fall. “Congratulations,” he said, placing his glass safely on the bar. “You ready for that, man?” He looked at me, his eyes wide and doubtful.
I shrugged. “I guess I have no choice.”
“You always have a choice,” he said taking another drink. “But, I’m glad you see it that way.”
I nodded, suddenly very eager to change the subject. “How are your parents?”
He sighed and ordered another drink. “Separated,” he said staring into his empty glass.
My mouth dropped open.
Not surprisingly, Phil’s father’s indiscretion in college wasn’t a one-time thing. Over the years, his father had developed an addiction to dying his hair and “fucking twenty-year-old girls.” Phil’s mother found out shortly after we graduated and confronted him on a Friday night when they were all having dinner. Although initially very angry, his mother forgave him and tried her best to work things out. It was Phil’s dad who insisted on a divorce.
I gathered quickly that Phil had lost a great deal of respect for his dad, and they no longer had much of a relationship. It was unfortunate considering I had spent so much time in college envying them.
Phil’s mother, on the other hand, was doing surprisingly well. She was drinking copious amounts of wine and travelling a great deal with a group of raunchy divorcees with highlights in their hair and low-cut shirts.
“I get hit on by one of my mom’s friends every time I go home,” Phil said shaking his head. I laughed. He said he had never seen his mom so happy.
Phil wanted me to be his best man at his wedding. Despite the years that had passed, he still considered me his closest friend. It made me feel like a dick for waiting so long to reconnect. I accepted, of course, but I couldn’t help but wonder if Jayna would be there. I knew she and Ana were very close in college. It seemed only natural she would be there. I asked Phil, and he told me she had gotten married to a guy in the military shortly after she graduated.
“She went through a lot after everything with you and Kerry,” Phil began. “She made some dumb choices but ended up with a pretty good guy she knew from back home. Last I heard from Ana, she was pregnant and living overseas,” Phil continued. “She’s invited but I’m more than 100% positive she isn’t coming.” I was relieved she wasn’t coming but possibly more relieved to know she was okay. Over the years I’d started to regret my treatment of both women. Not just Kerry.
“Have you spoken to her?” Phil asked after a lag in conversation.
I didn’t even bother to pretend I didn’t know he was talking about Kerry. “No.”
He nodded. “I saw her over the summer. We were at Capital Grille not far from where I work in D.C. She was with her parents. I was with some co-workers. She popped by our table on her way out. I could tell that she was nervous to talk to me. She’d just graduated and was headed to law school.”
&nb
sp; “Oh yea?”
“She asked about you and I told her you were back in New York.”
I nodded. I wanted to ask more. Where was she going to law school? Did she look happy? Did she look bitter? Was she with anyone? Questions I was sure he didn’t have the answers to.
“I called you after I saw her but you didn’t pick up,” Phil continued taking a big gulp of his drink.
I felt that familiar twang of guilt deep in the pit of my stomach, shame for what I had done to Kerry, shame that I’d never tried to make it better. I wondered if she had gone home the night she saw Phil and remembered us at our worst. Or had she remembered us at our best? I wondered if she allowed herself to remember us at all. Reminiscing about my time with Kerry was like recalling an accident. Like remembering stepping into the street in a hurry and not taking the time to look both ways. If I could just rewind and take that extra moment. That extra moment to pay attention to what was coming. Maybe I wouldn’t have been lying on the ground.
“We were so young,” Phil said pulling me out of my thoughts. “Think about it. Neither of you had any business being so serious at such a young age.” He signaled to the bartender to give him another drink. “Get him one, too.”
Phil and I hung out for almost two and a half hours. Talking about things we had done in college, parties we had gone too, women we had hooked up with. Phil encouraged me to get my shit together now that I was having a kid.
“The longer you sit on that degree, the less it’s going to be worth,” he warned, his words slurring.
After we were both impressively drunk, Phil admitted to being scared to death about marrying Ana. Especially after his Dad fucked up his marriage the way he did. I admitted to similar feelings about becoming a father.
We stumbled out of Houston’s promising not to let so much time pass again. Especially now that he would probably be moving to New York. Just before Phil boarded his cab, and I headed to the train station he called out to me.
“You’ll make a good Dad,” he said, pointing into the air for emphasis, nearly losing his footing. I laughed and turned away, hoping it was at least slightly possible that he was right.
***
When I arrived home, I was mostly sober. A subway ride and brisk walk will do that. Allison was waiting for me in the kitchen with a clingy lavender negligee that stopped right below her ass. Her hair was loose, full and long, fanning around her shoulders in big waves. Her face was fuller and her cleavage spilled out of the top of her lingerie. She was just starting to really show and her normally thin frame was made more voluptuous in pregnancy. I thought pregnancy would just make her fat, but she had never looked more beautiful.
“Did you have fun?” she asked kissing me on the cheek.
I nodded. “It was good to see him. Better to see you,” I added, pulling her close to me.
She smiled. “I’m barefoot and pregnant,” she said simply looking down at her feet. I laughed and kissed her, pulling her close to me, her bulging belly pressing into me. She smiled and looked down between us. “I think I should get on top,” she joked.
I smiled preparing to kiss her again but stopping to gaze into her eyes. For a moment, I was very aware that she was carrying our child and that she had continued to stand by me, even with all she had learned.
“You know it’s hard for me to say what I’m feeling right?” She nodded leaning in for another kiss. I stopped her by placing my hand on her chest. “But what you have been to me…” I continued. I paused taking a breath to search for my words.
“I love you, too, Nate.” She kissed me and led me back to our bed.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
If I hadn’t been obsessing over her every curve… from the way she sat with her right leg crossed over her left, to the way her hips cocked to the side when she waited in line, I may not have recognized her. However, that Monday morning in January, over three years since I had seen her last, I knew it was her without hesitation.
Kerry.
She stood in the hot food isle of Gristedes, staring indecisively at the scrambled eggs and checking her watch. She wore a black suit, her once braided hair long and loose, bangs framing her made-up face, burgundy lipstick painting her lips. She looked beautiful and grown up. Like a picture in a magazine, not someone I used to know. She toyed with the pearl earring in her left ear and picked up a wrapped muffin with her free hand, carefully reading the ingredients.
“Make a decision, baby,” a young man said sneaking up behind her and wrapping his arms around her waist. She leaned back into him and smiled, saying something I couldn’t quite hear from where I hid behind our holiday display. He laughed.
“It doesn’t even look fresh,” she said scrunching up her face at the food. “It’s probably been sitting here for days. Who actually buys the hot food at a grocery store anyway?” She smiled, turning towards him and wrapping her hands around his neck. They kissed.
“This is why we should stay by my place, I have much better food options,” she said looking back at the food and pretending to gag.
“This food is fine. Excuse me,” her companion yelled in my direction.
Oh shit, I thought to myself, turning sideways hoping she hadn’t seen me. As much as I had fantasized about seeing her again, I wasn’t ready for her to see me adorned in my Gristedes’ name tag and working at a supermarket. Her companion walked closer to where I hid, partially shielded by our battery display. I backed up to be out of view from where Kerry stood.
“How long has this food been sitting here?”
“It’s cooked every morning,” I said pretending to arrange the products on the shelves beside me. “The muffins are baked at an outside facility and shipped in.”
“He says every morning,” he yelled in Kerry’s direction. “My fiancée thinks she is too good for your hot food,” he joked, straightening the collar on his gray suit. I nodded, managing a small smile.
“Jon, don’t tell him that!” Kerry said, laughing. I heard her footsteps heading towards us.
“I’ll get the manager.” I turned, heading towards the stock room as fast as I could without breaking into a run.
“That’s not necessary,” I heard Kerry say just as I rounded the corner and burst into the stock room, hoping she hadn’t seen me.
***
After about forty-five minutes of “busying” myself in the stock room, I finally crept back out and took over a register so one of our cashiers could go on break. My mind was reeling. I questioned whether I had actually seen her or whether I had made the whole encounter up in my head. I was tired. The night before, I made a midnight cookie dough ice cream run for Allison. She had just started her third trimester and was in a constant state of hunger, discomfort and irritability. She and her maternity pillow also took up most of the bed.
“Have a nice day, sir,” I said to an older gentleman as I handed him his bag of groceries. He was the last one on my short line. Early mornings were usually pretty slow. I leaned back against my register running my fingers along my temples convincing myself seeing Kerry had all been a figment of my drowsy imagination.
“Nate?” I heard just as I allowed myself to believe my own lie.
I looked up and Kerry stood at the end of my isle, draped in a gray cashmere shawl, her fingers resting on the conveyor belt, her brown eyes just as beautiful as they had always been. For a moment, I said nothing, the sweetness of her voice saying my name still dancing in my thoughts, bringing with it a flood of nostalgia.
“Wow.” I was unable to stop the smile from widening my lips.
“Hi,” she said with a nervous laugh, walking closer to me. I stepped from behind my register a few feet in front of her. “I wasn’t sure if it was you. I thought it might have been, but I had to come back and see. I was in here earlier with my fiancé,” she explained.
“Oh yea?” I said pretending I hadn’t noticed.
We stared at each other for a moment, the inevitable awkward silence nursing on the air. It was like all the
words we needed to say came rushing to the threshold of a small door, too many to fit out, too big to say.
“Well, how are you?” she asked, leaning in for an uncomfortable embrace. I welcomed her, pressing my hands into the small of her back. She shifted uncomfortably and pulled away.
“Nothing,” I answered incorrectly, suddenly feeling embarrassed to be standing in front of her in my Gristedes name tag. Glad I no longer had to wear a uniform.
“Good.” She smiled. “I’m living in Astoria. I’m in my first year of law school at Fordham.”
“I knew you would do it.”
We were silent.
“Well,” she said after a moment. “I should probably go. I’m interviewing for a summer job this morning. Besides, I don’t want to interrupt,” she said gesturing to my register. A woman was slowly making her way up the isle to purchase her items.
“Yeah, sure.” I nodded, understanding the need for her to leave but wanting desperately for her to stay. Our eyes met for a moment and volumes of timeless words passed between us. I was sorry. I was so very, very sorry and a part of me wanted to get on my knees and scream it at her feet. She turned, paused and reached into her brown purse and pulled out a card.
“Give me a call. Maybe we can do lunch,” she said, visibly conflicted as to why she was doing it.
I put her card in my pants pocket and grabbed a discarded piece of receipt paper, jotting down my cell. “Just let me know when,” I said throwing the ball in her court.
“Okay,” she said, taking the paper. Our fingers touched, sending sparks into me. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her as she turned and walked away.
***
That evening, I replayed my relationship with Kerry over and over again in my head. The good, the extremely bad and all the in-between. I remembered her wrapped in a blanket on my bed, her eyes lighting up when I sat beside her and the feel of her soft hand sneaking up my back to wrap me in her embrace. I missed how she made me feel like I was so much more than I was. Like I was better than the mediocre life I always felt was inevitable.