by Tash Skilton
* * *
I’m sitting on the air mattress on the floor of Sayeh’s room, fka my room, staring at the application on my computer, when my sister walks in.
“Celeste and I are about to go out for some boba. Want to come?”
“And Botox?” I ask.
“Strictly boba,” she responds before adding, “this time.”
I don’t know how but apparently Celeste and Sayeh are soul-mate roomies. They love each other, constantly spending their time out of the apartment grabbing dinner or drinks. Sayeh has apparently been helping Celeste develop a far more robust business plan for her spa, and Celeste has in return been performing free Reiki cleanses for Sayeh. They must be working because I have never seen my sister so relaxed. Relatively speaking.
I shake my head. “Thanks, but I’ll take a raincheck.”
“No, you won’t,” Sayeh says, coming over and putting out her hand to help me up. “You haven’t been outside except to go to work in three days. You’re coming with us.”
I could argue but, honestly, I’m tired of arguing. And she’s right. So I take the proffered hand and let her pull me up from the floor.
True to her word, we go to a non-Botox boba place that’s still within walking distance. The sun has just set, leaving the last vestiges of a pink and orange sky fading up into a velvet blue, silhouetting the palm trees like a postcard. Wish you were here. I don’t have to think too hard about who the “you” is.
I place my order at the counter and then go sit down at a corner table. Celeste orders next and sits across from me while my sister is still waffling between a lychee or a honeydew bubble tea.
“I hope you don’t mind me saying this, Nina,” Celeste says. “But you seem down. Your aura is very murky.”
“I’m okay,” I respond.
“Yes,” she says. “But okay is not the best way to go through life. We should aim for incandescent happiness at all times.”
“Um . . . yeah, sure, I’ll do that,” I say, as Sayeh comes over, her phone under her armpit as she balances a tray holding all of our drinks. I grab my Thai tea.
“What are we talking about?” Sayeh asks as she plops down with her green drink.
“My lack of incandescence apparently,” I respond.
Celeste nods vigorously. “Of course, the operative word there was aim. We have to try for our own happiness. Sometimes there are factors out of our control that make that impossible. But to the best of our ability, we have to find the small things we can do to lighten our loads.”
“Oh, all of the factors here are within Nina’s control,” Sayeh says. “She just refuses to acknowledge that’s true.”
“What are you talking about?” I ask Sayeh.
“Here,” she says, dramatically taking her phone out from under her arm and flipping it over to reveal a round smiling face with short, dark hair.
“Maman!” I say in surprise, then turn to Sayeh. “Did you just have her staring at your armpit for two minutes?”
Sayeh shrugs. “Sometimes you gotta make sacrifices in service of the element of surprise.”
“Nina, azizam,” my mom says, beaming. “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” I say, smiling. “I’m sorry I haven’t called you as much as I should have lately.”
“Oh, I know you’re busy . . .” Maman starts, but Sayeh cuts her off.
“She’s not fine, Maman,” Sayeh says, turning the phone so that we’re both in frame now. “She’s heartbroken.”
“Oh,” my mom says and I worry her face is going to crumple at the mention of heartbreak. But it doesn’t. Instead, she looks thoughtful as she says, “Sebastian?”
I nod. If anyone would understand the need to stay away from someone you’re too emotionally attached to, it’s my mom. “It just didn’t work out.”
“It didn’t work out because Nina was worried about it not working out,” Sayeh butts in. “So she broke up with him.”
“Um, no,” I say. “That’s not what happened.”
“Then what did happen, Nina?” Sayeh asks. “Did he break it off?”
“Of course not,” I mutter. I can’t even follow that up with a but he would have because it’s not true. Sebastian never would’ve broken up with me. I settle for, “But we would have hurt each other eventually. It’s not worth it.” I turn to my mom, knowing she’ll understand.
Now I see the tears I was expecting earlier. “Oh, Nina,” she says. “This is my fault.”
I blink at her. “No, it’s not.”
“When your father left, I never should’ve let you see me fall apart,” she says. “You were just kids.”
“You’re only human, Maman,” I respond. “And you’ve never been very good at hiding your feelings. How could you have hidden that from us? Besides, if I blame anyone, it’s Baba.”
She sighs. “I know. And that’s my fault too. Your father hurt me, that’s true. But I was the one who let it take over my entire life. And what’s worse, I let it take over yours. But I’m working on that now. Did Sayeh tell you I’m seeing a therapist?”
I gasp as I look over at my sister, who shrugs and mouths an I know, right? “No . . .”
“Well, I am,” Maman says. “And she’s helping me to, what do they call it? ‘Unpack’ a lot of stuff.”
“That’s great, Maman,” I say, smiling. Now that I take a closer look, her face seems a little smoother, a little more relaxed than I’m used to seeing it.
“Yes,” she says. “But I need to talk to you, too. Both of you. Because I don’t ever want to be the reason either of you is unhappy.”
“You’re not,” I say firmly. “This has nothing to do with you. I chose this. And I’m not unhappy.”
“You are, azizam,” Maman says. “I can see it in your face.”
“And what’s more, you’ve never been happy, Nina,” Sayeh adds. “Incandescent or otherwise, except in college. And then again for the past few months. What do you think the common denominator is?” She’s looking at me expectantly.
“That’s not true,” I sputter, looking at my mom for validation.
“It is, Nina,” she says quietly. “You love Sebastian.”
I sigh. “Well . . . obviously. I’ve never made a secret of that. Of course I love him. But that’s exactly why I need him as my friend. I want him to be in my life forever.”
“And are you friends now?” Sayeh asks. “Now that you’ve broken his heart?”
I gulp because hearing it put so bluntly hurts, even though I know that’s exactly what I’ve done. “Not at the moment,” I say weakly. “But I’m hoping he’ll come around.”
“The worst part is, you’ve broken your own heart too,” Sayeh continues. “And for what? Because our parents had a crappy marriage twenty years ago? Because nothing lives up to the stories you publish on the internet? None of these are good reasons to deny yourself something that, yes, makes you incandescent. I mean, annoying AF . . . but incandescent.”
“It’s not worth it,” I mutter again, staring into my drink, trying to will myself not to cry.
“Yes, it is,” my mom says emphatically. “You deserve to be happy, Nina. And you need to do everything in your power to accomplish that.”
I see Celeste, who has been quietly sipping her drink but watching us, enraptured, nodding emphatically. “That’s what I was trying to say,” she whispers.
“Sebastian makes you happy,” Maman adds.
I open my mouth to respond, but I get another flash of an image. This time, it’s not Sebastian kissing someone else, it’s me kissing someone else. It’s two lips touching. It’s an exercise, like one of the stretches my physical therapist would lay out for me.
1) Place arms around other subject’s neck.
2) Lean head closer to him.
3) Bring lips together.
What it’s not is friendship and romance and laughter and intimacy all rolled into one. It doesn’t burn through my heart and my brain and my thighs all at the same time. It’s em
pty. Safe and empty.
I look up at the three expectant faces staring at me, tears in my eyes. “But what can I do? I can’t undo what I did. I can’t unbreak his heart.”
“At the risk of contradicting the iconic Toni Braxton, I think you can,” Sayeh says, causing me to give a very loud snort. She reaches out to touch my hand. I can’t remember the last time she did that, maybe when she was five and she still needed me to hold her hand while she crossed the street. I look up at her. “We just have to figure out how.”
CHAPTER 37
SEBASTIAN
“So. Do you want to tell me why you really quit? And with a scathing speech, no less. I had to look up the meaning of ‘corker,’ by the way.”
Janine and I eat lunch across from each other at her desk, instead of separately, or as was often the case for me, in my car.
“The briefcase revelation wasn’t a good enough reason?”
I roll up my slacks to reveal a goose egg along my shin from the briefcase’s repeated, rhythmic slamming into my leg the past few months.
She winces. “I knew about the handcuff mark, but I didn’t know about the bruising on your leg, or your neck and shoulder getting so tensed up while driving. Why didn’t you tell me?”
“It has recently come to my attention that I tend to push that stuff down. Also, I figured it was the price of getting to work on my favorite show. I knew there were fifty people lined up behind me who would take the job in a heartbeat and never complain.”
“That’s Hollywood’s most insidious claim,” Janine acknowledges. “And unfortunately, it happens to be true. I could’ve made your position a non-paying internship, used your salary to redo my kitchen, and still had Harvard grads applying for it.” The look on my face must seem murderous because she quickly adds, “I’m joking. Somewhat. Should we take a look at these cover letters?”
Two days after my dramatic exit, I’d apologized to Janine and offered to train a replacement over the next few weeks, as well as tie up any loose ends. In return, she presented me with a severance check, reimbursement for gas and the shattered car window, and workers’ comp for my ailments. Most Hollywood producers would’ve cut me dead and blacklisted me, so I’m trying to count my blessings. To her credit, she’d always been upfront about the fact that this job had no internal promotions and that its purpose was to give me an overview of the business. On that count, it more than exceeded expectations. My crash course in the worlds of script research, casting, acting, preproduction, production, and postproduction would have served me well if I planned to go into any of those fields. It turns out it’s perfect for realizing I don’t want to do any of those things either.
“I’d offer to make some calls and find you a new gig, but I get the feeling that’s not what you want. Or am I wrong?”
“You’re not wrong. I was treating everything the way a fan would, with a fan’s wide-eyed gaze, because that’s what I prefer: watching the story on a screen once it’s been edited and presented as entertainment. I just want to enjoy the show again. Speaking of, I have an idea for a show-themed cookbook. . . .” Sadness creeps over me at the words. Without Nina’s encouragement, I never would’ve pursued the book in earnest.
I present Janine with the binder, images, and recipes I’ve compiled. She impassively flicks through it. “I know someone who runs an event planning company, would that interest you?”
“I’m not sure, but I’m willing to give it a try. Thanks, Janine.”
“By the way, you’re not the first assistant to quit on me. You are the first to come back to make things right, which is the only reason I’m extending that offer.”
* * *
On the last day of her prolonged visit, Millie and I visit the Broad museum. It was on Sayeh’s checklist all those weeks ago, and Millie thought it sounded cool.
We’re only allowed sixty seconds in the Infinity Mirrored Room, the crown jewel of LA-based social media. They time us, and I know I’m supposed to frantically take a selfie while pretending to be serene, but I deliberately left my phone in the car.
I use my allotted minute to stare at all the versions of me, these alternate-reality Sebastians, these shards of lives unlived, paths untaken.
Nina and I gave everything to each other.
But there are so many pieces and elements to a life, maybe we should’ve kept some in reserve, held back a little. Maybe if we had, we’d still be together.
The kicker is, I’ll never know. The only closure I’ll get on this heartbreak is going to have to come from me; she won’t be providing any.
Her reasons for ending us were flimsy, absurd, even, but that’s not on me. What is on me is my reaction to her, both in college and during our short-lived romance. I gave her too much power over my emotional state. She controlled me like a goddamn puppet, but I let her. The pedestal I built for her, and shined and glossed each day beneath her feet, needed to come crashing down.
Because the truth is, she’s not a queen and she’s not perfect. She never was.
Quite frankly, she’s a mess.
I loved that mess with everything I had, though. I can be angry at her for her choices while also mourning the loss of what we had.
“I need to move out,” I tell Millie while she packs up. “I don’t want another roommate, but I can’t justify a two-bedroom place anymore, either.”
She nods. “I get that.”
“Maybe Sam’s parents will take me in.” They’ve been saving his old room for him, and the thought makes me laugh, briefly, and that’s something, I guess.
Millie will start uni soon and I’m excited for her. I have to keep myself from giving unsolicited advice, specifically, Don’t fall in love. Of course, I know that’s not the advice I’d give even if she asked. Besides, I’m too late. Her cellist in Yeovil adored the postcards and will be waiting for her at Heathrow.
Still, she’s mourning the end of Nina and Sebastian in her own way, right alongside me. “You guys were the only het couple I shipped. Guess I’m back to viewing life through slash-colored glasses. If Nina doesn’t see how special you are, she’s not worth the pain. Not anymore. And I was rooting for you more than anyone.”
“I know.”
“I love you, Seb.”
“Love you too. Don’t get too blotto during freshers’ week, okay?”
“Call me whenever you need to talk. You’ll be in Sherborne for Christmas, right?” she confirms when I drop her at LAX.
“Yep.” It’s strange to think about what my life will be like by then. The Infinity Room reminded me there are a million ways my life could splinter. “Thanks for staying longer. I really appreciate it.”
We hug and I think of fairy dust and carrying her in my arms when she was five and I was thirteen, after she fell asleep in the car. She kisses my cheek and that’s that. My little sister is gone.
When I return from the airport, I check my woefully neglected mailbox and what do you know? The paycheck for my under-five role has arrived. My old agency took a cut because of course they did. They also took additional money for unspecified “promotional expenses.” What remains: seven cents. A check for seven cents.
That makes me laugh too. (Somewhat, as Janine would say.) My rueful smile falls off my face when I reach my apartment door. An envelope’s been taped to it, my name written in elegant calligraphy. I swallow tightly and peel the envelope off the door. Terrified of what’s inside, I don’t open it right away. I sort through the rest of my mail, kick off my shoes, and make myself a simple dinner first, eating quickly while trying to pretend I’m eating slowly, as though I’m completely unbothered by the mystery envelope THAT CLEARLY CAME FROM NINA. I recognized the stationery set I gave her before we crashed and burned, as well as her calligraphy art.
The instant my last bite of food hits the back of my throat, I slide my finger under the flap and brace myself for more devastation. A more thorough explanation of why she can’t be with me, probably.
But it’s not a letter, it’
s an invitation, crafted in the same impeccable, inked calligraphy as the envelope:
You are cordially requested to appear at the following event.
Where: Sam’s apartment
What: You’ll have to find out
When: Sunday, 7:30 pm, until Sam kicks us out
Why: See “What,” above
What to bring: Yourself and ONLY yourself, we mean it, no food, no drinks, JUST SEBASTIAN.
I wear a nice button-down shirt and a new pair of jeans on Sunday. I’m five minutes late, for which I have no defense considering I live down the hall.
I pull my shoulders back and knock on Sam’s door. As specified, I haven’t purchased or cooked anything, and it’s distinctly odd to arrive empty-handed. Unnerving.
Freeing, too.
“He’s here! Everyone, shh, get ready!”
“Shut up, he can hear us.”
“Just open the door!”
Scattered footsteps, then Matty swings the door open.
“Wait, do you live here now?” I joke lamely.
“Enter,” he says.
Sam’s studio apartment has been cleaned and organized to accommodate a crowd. There’s music playing, a table full of snacks and alcohol, and a banner on the wall: HAPPY SEBASTIAN APPRECIATION DAY. I think of how I felt when I was younger, as though I was perpetually on the outskirts of a party I hadn’t been invited to. Today, I am the party. I laugh, embarrassed but touched, as various Ithaca alumni greet me.
There’s one Ithaca alum I’m holding out hope for, though she’s nowhere to be seen.
“In case it’s not already clear, you don’t need to do anything for us to be friends,” Matty says quietly. “Just be you.”
“I told you, he and I already hashed this out,” Sam informs Matty.
Matty slings an arm around my shoulder. “Just making sure.”
I salute him. “Yes, sir.”
Matty steers me to the table and unveils a gargantuan, lopsided, yet instantly recognizable creation. “We made your Seraphim Cake and it was a fucking ordeal.”