Chapter 7
7
Tatum
I land in New York with June’s hand in mine. It’s such a shock I startle, shaking it off like a spider’s crawled across my fingers. Obviously it’s as simple as the fact that at some point in our flight, we both dozed off, and we grabbed on to each other without realizing. But why would my body do that without my permission? Don’t I know better than to reach for the things I can’t have?
Friends , I remind myself. That has to be my guiding light for this trip. My own friends and I have put up with each other’s every anxiety and complaint for over twenty years. It’s the only intimacy I have direct proof can last without souring.
June’s still asleep, completely undisturbed by the landing turbulence. I’m wide awake, more alert than I’ve been all day. Nudging her gently, I whisper, “We’re here.” When that’s not enough to wake her, I put more force into my next shake.
She comes back to the surface, her long lashes fluttering as she mumbles, “Where am I?”
“You’re a deep sleeper,” I tell her.
When she realizes it’s me, she sits up straighter. “ Tatum ,” she says, and it’s hard not to feel charmed by the way her voice brightens. She rubs her eyes and yawns. “Sorry. I took a sleeping pill. I have terrible flying anxiety.”
“Wow, I didn’t even notice. I was too busy worrying about the takeoff.” All of this is easier to say now that it’s over and I’ve survived it.
We’re actually here. In New York City. Together.
“I figured that,” June says with a gentle, sleepy grin. “When we were boarding, you looked like you’d seen a ghost.”
It’s all coming back—the long day of travel that’s now behind us. All the anxiety and nerves in the buildup. I’d been so stressed that I failed to process what June’s earlier body language had meant. My vision had snagged more than once on her shaking leg, bouncing up and down as she’d wrung her hands together, and I was too lost in my own concerns to put the pieces together.
I think now of what she said yesterday, about being bad at being alone. My heart softens—a tiny, dangerous space cracking open, clearing room for all I’ve yet to learn about her.
Friends. This is what they do. Learn about each other.
“God, I’m sorry,” I say.
“Don’t be,” she says. “It was weirdly helpful. I realized that in the event of a crash, we couldn’t both be scared. One of us needed to have it together. Unfortunately, I’d already taken the sleeping pill when I went to the bathroom before we boarded, so I slept right through all the brave protecting I was going to do. But in my mind, I definitely looked out for you.” She reaches her arms up as she yawns, and I get a peek of her stomach, the barest hint of brown skin exposed beneath her loose tank top.
My face flushes. I make a point to look at the air vent above us as I say, “Thank you for your energetic protection.”
“Anytime.”
We deplane and make our way to baggage claim, bleary-eyed as we wait for our luggage to hit the carousel. I open my messages to text my group chat, ironically titled We Don’t Live in Trove Hills .
There are four of us in it—Presley, Nya, Emmett, and me. Most of us have known one another since grade school. Presley and I have been friends since kindergarten. All three of them moved away from Trove Hills for college, just like I did. Presley came back and lived with his parents for a few years, but he’s gone again too, off to Vegas. Nya lives in Austin. Emmett’s never in one place for longer than six months. He’s currently in Nashville, not far from where my sister lives.
The chat title is a joking reference to their long-standing wish that someday I will leave Trove Hills too.
Tatum: I’ve made it to New York in one piece.
Emmett: What did you guys talk about on the plane?
Tatum: We both slept through pretty much the whole flight.
Emmett: So what are you going to talk about now?
When I told the chat about this trip, they were supportive, if deeply confused. They already know that June once asked me out and I said no. They know we still see each other at the diner all the time, and it’s not weird despite my past rejection. Good friends that they are, they also know better than to press me too hard about it all.
They don’t know why I’d take a trip like this on such short notice after years of only taking carefully planned vacations built around other events—visiting one of them for their birthday or spending a holiday like the Fourth of July together. And truly, I don’t entirely know the answer to that either.
This is somehow the first trip I’ve ever taken that doesn’t have a deliberate agenda, and it’s with the one person I won’t let myself date even casually. The chat obviously thinks it’s because I want to make a move on June while I’m here. They don’t understand how precious and important our diner interactions are to me. I already survived rejecting her, and then accidentally breaking up with her on her girlfriend’s behalf. I can’t push my luck any further and risk losing her presence in my life forever.
Tatum: Thank you for your resounding faith in my conversational skills. We were both nervous about flying, so we haven’t discussed much yet.
I look at June, hoping to prove Emmett’s skepticism wrong by saying something conversationally enticing. A real dazzler of a statement that starts this New York City adventure on the right foot.
Maybe it’s only in my mind, but it seems that our shared quiet has somehow turned awkward. It’s become the silence of strangers stuck together on a long elevator ride. Of distant acquaintances at a dinner table waiting for their mutual friend to come back from the bathroom. We need the warmth of the lights at Rita’s and the chaos of the line cooks inserting themselves into the daily humdrum. Without those constraints, there are so many options for what we could be talking about that I have no clue where to actually begin.
So, tell me about your childhood. Do you actually like the coffee we serve at Rita’s? Do you wish it was your ex here instead of me? Why don’t you like to be alone?
I open up the chat window again.
Tatum: Now you’ve psyched me out.
Emmett replies with one of those mischievous-looking emojis.
Presley: You could ask her what she thinks about soup.
This is his first contribution of the night, and it’s as chaotic and strange as he is.
Tatum: Why would I ask about soup?
Presley: Everyone always has a really strong opinion about soup. It’s a good conversation starter.
Nya: I hate soup
Now that Nya’s finally joined the chat, all four of us are present. It’s nice to be together like this, even if it’s just through text messages. It’s the closest we ever get to actually hanging out. It used to make me sad, not seeing them in person very often. It happens once a year if we’re lucky. I spent so long being upset about it that I wasn’t appreciating the time we do have together. It was Nya who reminded me, gently, that we will never again be teenagers wandering around our hometown. We won’t be able to all meet up at the twenty-four-hour pizza place at two in the morning. Even if it’s one of us dropping life updates into the group chat for everyone else to dissect on their own watch, it’s still better than nothing. And she is so right. This chat is proof that no matter what, we will remain friends forever. Across state lines. Year after year. We will always care about one another.
Nya is the busiest of all of us, going out in Austin almost every night. I don’t even need to check her location on my phone to know she’s at some bar with her friends, stealing a moment to read this while in the bathroom or waiting for another drink.
Nya: But hold on. Let me scroll up and find out why we’re talking about soup.
Presley: See? A strong soup response.
“Do you like soup?” I ask aloud, shoving my phone back into my backpack for the time being.
June startles, pulling out a headphone I didn’t even notice she’d started using. “Hmm?”
“Do you like soup?” I repeat, hating myself even more on the second round.
“Are you wanting to get some after we get our bags?” she asks, not understanding my question in the least. “I’m hungry too.”
“What screams classic New York meal louder than a bowl of lobster bisque?”
She laughs, then rubs her eyes, like she needs to wake up even more to understand what’s going on here. She’s treating my obvious joke as a somewhat serious statement, which forces me to keep my face composed. My dignity is on the line. If a judge puts me under oath and asks about this moment during the trial for my honor, I will never be able to explain my actions. Your Honor, the group chat made me, I swear.
“I’ll see if I can find somewhere that has soup,” she says, taking out her phone to look online.
I don’t stop her, because I need a moment to yell at the chat. After I finish transcribing the soup exchange to them, June’s bag shows up on the carousel. Emmett sends a voice memo that I tell him I can’t play, because I’m still sitting in the middle of the soupgate that he inadvertently caused by making me doubt myself.
Presley: I never could’ve known you’d just ask that COLD.
Tatum: Forgive me for not realizing I needed to prepare a warm-up to soup-related inquiries! Now she thinks I’m fucking obsessed with soup. Don’t be surprised when you see my posts. Expect an ongoing series on New York’s best split pea.
Emmett: Tatum the soup sweetie thinking about her upcoming liquid-based meals.
“Did you really want lobster bisque?” June asks, startling me back to the present.
“No,” I admit. “I was trying to be funny. And then you believed me.”
To my relief, she laughs again. “For what it’s worth, I really like soup. I would’ve gone for lobster bisque with you.”
Fighting embarrassment, I look down at my phone, furiously typing an update for the chat.
Nya: Hold on, hold on!! Why did you admit that?! You should’ve carried the soup secret to the grave. Like how we made Laney think there are dogs that come out after midnight to attack coyotes.
Tatum: To this day she still won’t sit in our parents’ backyard without warning us about the night dogs.
I’m almost smiling. When we were in high school, we really did convince my then preteen sister that dangerous wild dogs roamed our hometown after midnight, and she, now a full-grown adult, somehow still believes it.
One by one, our fellow passengers claim the remaining bags, until there is one lone luggage piece on permanent rotation. Every time it passes, I convince myself it might be mine and I’ve somehow forgotten what it looks like. I even pick it up once and inspect it, as if maybe I forgot that I actually packed everything into a black leather duffel bag instead of a bright green hard-sided suitcase I bought on clearance at TJ Maxx last fall.
My phone vibrates with texts from the group chat, asking me for more updates. Texts from Carson come in too. And from my dad, telling me how excited he is for the coming week’s activities. With the dread of losing my luggage blooming inside me, the constant vibration becomes an annoyance. I put my phone on do not disturb.
“I think I have to go file a missing bag claim,” I finally say, choking back the threat of tears. I can’t grieve what’s packed in my luggage right now, caught in whatever liminal hellscape missing suitcases go to. It’s too early to see this as a bad omen.
June gets to work calling us a ride as I give my information to the airline. Now that they’ve attached tracking to every piece of checked luggage, they’re able to tell me where my bag is. Somehow it never made it onto our plane, but they assure me they will put it on the first flight out tomorrow. I can come back to the airport to pick it up, or they will have it delivered to me. I even get a travel voucher for the trouble.
So not a bad omen at all. Just a minor inconvenience. Nothing that will damage this adventure in any substantial way. And the voucher is kind of a win.
I turn to June and say, with a smile, “It really can’t get any worse than that.”
Enter Eleanor’s home.
We knew her apartment would be nice. The place certainly delivers on that promise. The building is on the Upper West Side, twenty stories tall and overlooking Central Park, complete with a doorman in the lobby and only one other neighbor on her floor. Her unit has a small foyer entry with lovely herringbone wood floors, and ornate crown molding along the top of the walls, briefly fooling us into thinking we are in for a treat. Then we turn the corner into the main living area, where we are greeted with piles of empty delivery boxes and unwashed plates. Cat toys in various states of destruction. Storage containers. Articles of discarded clothing.
Oh, and old, rotting food.
I love clutter. A shelf full of your favorite beloved knickknacks, curated over decades? Absolutely. An unswept floor covered in the memory of every Amazon Prime order you’ve ever placed in your life? Significantly less appealing to me. The breathtaking skyline views from the windows almost make up for it, but there is only so much heavy lifting a view can do when it smells like old eggs in here.
“I thought she liked your perfume,” I say, attempting something like humor again. “If Eleanor has enough taste to wear Lightbell, why the hell is her place such a disaster?”
“We can’t stay here,” June says, looking as horrified as I feel.
A fluffy brown cat slinks between my legs, meowing for pets. Syrup. I recognize him from the pictures. His presence feels like the tiniest mercy, and I bend down to pet him, swallowing back an urge to cry.
“I’m sorry,” I say, because that much is true. If she were here with Vanessa instead of me, they’d be in whatever hotel Vanessa booked, not staying in the random condo of a very distant acquaintance.
This trip hasn’t even started and it’s like a slow-burn version of my worst-case scenario. It’s exactly how relationship dynamics begin to change for the worse—a series of seemingly minor inconveniences compounding atop one another like hairline fractures that will one day break everything into a thousand pieces. How do I stop us from falling apart if I can’t anticipate the exact places where we will first begin to crack?
I need to turn this around. And fast.
“It’s too late for us to figure out a new arrangement now,” I say. “Why don’t we go out right now and experience this New York nightlife I’m always hearing about? We can even get some soup.”
June pets Syrup, running her delicate hand along the length of his fluff. He starts to purr from the affection.
“We just need to feed the cats first,” she says.
“Of course,” I tell her. “We can do that much.”
Problem solved.