The Lost Night

by Andrea Bartz

  I said some sort of nutty things that day. About Edie, especially. She was a really amazing person and I feel bad that I was talking about her being manipulative or narcissistic or whatever and how she had made so many enemies. She was also charming and free-spirited and loving. Remember that time she threw a fancy cocktail party in our crummy apartment with a tablecloth over a card table she borrowed and bodega flowers in a vase on top? That was just as much Edie as the cold or shrewd person I was trying to make her out to be. I guess what I’m saying is, we all have a choice, and I choose to see her as a beautiful person in that stage of my life. And similarly, I count you as someone super important to me. Now that I’m back in the city, I’d love for us to get together more. And, you know, talk about the present and the future, not just the past. Call me anytime!

  XO,

  Sarah

  I read it twice, then lean back in my subway seat and close my eyes. There’s another dichotomy I’ve been playing with: There’s the Tessa who felt overcome with anger, sick with exclusion and hurt. The Tessa who felt backed into a corner and frenzied from the lack of options. But that’s only her from a certain angle, through a certain lens. And, of course, there’s the Lindsay wallowing in her childhood, pawing through the old anger and jagged violence, and the one here on this subway, finding a way forward, seeing her own pitfalls and learning how to avoid them. We all get to choose.

  The train is climbing now, steadily escalating like a plane after takeoff. It breaches the surface and we’re on the Manhattan Bridge, the train gasping as if for air. The two skylines are there again, behind us Manhattan’s sawtooth horizon, and out front Brooklyn’s outline light-studded and bone white. I picture Edie, a million Edies an arm’s reach away from one another in that old chamber of mirrors, carefully sketching out the day’s events, documenting a twenty-four-hour period that mattered because it happened. I see infinite universes spanning out around her and in all of them but this one she’s alive and beautiful and going on thirty-four, her skinny freckled arms wrapped around her friends, tickling their sides and laughing into the molecules around her.

  Acknowledgments

  First of all, unspeakably huge thanks to you, the reader. You chose to buy or borrow this novel, and that blows my mind. I am eternally grateful.

  This book never would have happened without my incredibly supportive New York family, including Julia Bartz, Leah Konen, Abbi Libers, Erin Pastrana, Megan Brown, Jennifer Keishin Armstrong, Paul Schrodt, Kate Lord, Emily Mahaney, Michele Hirsch, Alanna Greco, and many others—I’m so grateful for your encouragement and love (and, often, hilarity) throughout this five-year process. Thanks for talking me down, pumping me up, cheering me on, setting me straight, and making it clear you always have my back. I’m especially indebted to the brilliant friends who read and commented on early drafts. Love and gratitude to my non–New York friends as well, including Lianna Bishop, Katie Scott, Blaire Briody, Kate Dietrick, and Jen Weber. I am so very blessed to have you in my life.

  Thank you to my incredible, unstoppable agent, Alexandra Machinist—I’m still pinching myself that I get to work with you. Huge thanks, too, to Hillary Jacobson for finding me in the slush pile and forever changing my life.

  I’m very grateful to my astute, insightful editor, Hilary Rubin Teeman; I couldn’t have asked for a better collaborator and guide. And big, big thanks to the bright and brilliant Jillian Buckley and the entire outstanding team at Crown. I’m awestruck.

  Thank you to all the wonderful editors, bosses, and colleagues who’ve helped me hone my craft over the years. I feel lucky to have worked with so many talented, amazing women.

  To those who shared their technical expertise—Loren Bartz, Thomas Sander, and others—thanks so much for your time and help. (All departures from the realm of possibility are, of course, my own.)

  Shout-out to the party friends, hipster dudes, and memorable Brooklyn characters who made 2009 a hell of a year. Special thanks to Booters Liebmann-Smith for getting me past McKibbin’s front doors.

  Finally, thanks to my parents for turning us into avid readers and encouraging us to pursue our passions (even if you guys find the whole writing thing a little bewildering). I’m also grateful for the enthusiasm of my extended family, especially Tom Denes and Nagypapa and Nagymama. I love you.

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