Chapter 13
13
Tatum
Dawn sounds wistful as she takes us through the Upper West Side of Manhattan, telling us about what’s survived, what’s been replaced, and what’s been forgotten. She even points out cinematic landmarks, indulging us in some production gossip she’s accumulated about the numerous TV shows and movies that have been filmed in this area. She knows so much it’s like being in the presence of a personal Wikipedia engine. There is no area of show business she doesn’t understand, including theater, though she tells us she hasn’t been to a Broadway show in well over fifteen years.
“Where have you been all this time?” I ask her. “I googled your name when we were getting ready, and you haven’t been in anything since 1987.”
She stops, her serene expression growing serious. “What’s your name? First and last.”
“Tatum Ward,” I stumble out.
She gets out her phone and speaks my name to her Siri. Her phone screen fills with massive text, set to the largest font size possible, as she combs through search results. “Do you work at Rita’s Diner?”
“She does,” June answers on my behalf.
“And you’ve lived at 143 Mandy Lane for the last, oh, twenty-nine years?”
“I deserve this,” I say, understanding what she’s doing. “Yes. I’ve lived there my whole life. Except when I went to college. But that doesn’t really count.”
June leans over, peering at Dawn’s phone. “Is her address actually on there?”
“You should get that taken down,” Dawn tells me. “You never know what someone can do with that information.”
“Most of the websites have an opt-out feature. It’s worth the extra time it takes to do it,” June adds.
“Well, I’ll still live on 143 Mandy Lane,” I say, confused as to how I’ve become the target of an online security survey when I was just trying to ask the once-famous actress why she hasn’t worked in decades. “Probably until I die. So if they know, they know.”
Dawn points to a bagel shop. “Stay here,” she tells us. “I’ll be right back.”
June and I wait on the sidewalk near the entrance, observing Dawn in her natural element. She has a long, almost sullen face, so distinct I can’t believe I forgot who she was for even a minute. There’s a uniqueness to her appearance that’s matched by her personality and tastes. You see her and you just know she’s someone . Even though she hasn’t acted in well over thirty years, she holds the spotlight of the bagel shop the same way she used to captivate the screen.
“You think you’ll live in your parents’ house until you die?” June asks me, pulling my attention off Dawn and over to her. She’s leaned up against the side of the building, thin black sunglasses perched just above the tip of her nose. She’s wearing the sheer paisley turtleneck tank and overall dress she joked about loaning me, which I was moments away from actually having to wear, until the courier arrived with my luggage. And thank god. I never could have pulled it off. It’s impossible how cool she looks, how right , like she was always meant to be lounging against brick walls in New York City as she asks people deep questions.
“When you put it like that…” I kick up a rock near the curb, trying to school my defenses. She’s just asking because she’s curious. It’s not an accusation.
“Is that what you really want?” she follows up. Okay, maybe it is an accusation. Or at the very least, a request for me to expect more from my life.
If we were at Rita’s, I’d tell her yes, it’s exactly what I want.
Being here, free from the pressure of my family and the expectation I’ve created for myself to keep everything running, my deepest desires are starting to stretch out. Maybe it’s the size of the buildings. Or maybe it’s the knowledge that one single block here is probably filled with more people than all of Trove Hills combined. There is just so much room. Not only for my want for romance, but all my wants in general.
It’s nice to take these wants for a walk, envisioning myself as the kind of person who could live here too, running down the subway steps to catch the train on my way to a coffee shop to write. Carrying a new fig plant up the four flights of my walk-up, excited to decorate my own space for the first time. Living on my own. Really on my own.
“It would be cool to have a dog,” I say to June.
This gets one of her biggest, sparkliest laughs. “That’s all that’s missing? A dog?”
“I just think that having a dog is something you do when you’re ready to create your own life.”
“So you’re admitting you haven’t done that yet.”
She’s very good at finding the weak spots in my responses and pressing on them. It’s hard to sit still and let it happen, but part of me wants nothing more than to let her keep going. To see how much I can take.
“I guess I am,” I tell her.
She tilts her head up toward the sun, and the twinkle in her plum lip gloss makes her mouth sparkle. “Good. You’re too talented a writer to stay waitressing at Rita’s forever.”
“How could you even know that? All you’ve ever read is my stunningly aggressive breakup text.”
“I talk to you almost every day,” she says, still basking in the warmth. “If the thoughts you write down are anything like the thoughts you say out loud, I know that you’re as funny and observant in your writing as you are while waitressing at Rita’s.”
“I’m not a real writer, though,” I reply, too quickly. There’s my limit, I guess. “I don’t charge people for my services, and I never could. I just do it because really, I like to be nosy. I get to know people’s problems, and I get to come up with a way to fix them.”
“I think that’s what most writers do. They gossip about people’s lives, real or made-up, and then they invent solutions.”
I take my phone out of my purse and snap a picture of her.
“Here,” I say, showing her. “For you to post. You know, for your independent-woman era.”
She barely looks at the screen. “Ah yes. Of course.”
“How are you doing, by the way? There are a lot more people out today than we saw last night.”
“You know, it’s funny. I don’t feel nervous here. Not so far, at least. I think I like having something to prove,” she says. “I don’t know if it will work forever, but for right now, reminding myself that I’m more than my anxiety is helping. And pettiness. That’s pretty motivating too.”
We both laugh.
“It’s extremely motivating,” I confirm.
“I actually like the energy of the city so far. It’s lively, but it isn’t too much for me. I could really see myself living here.”
My mind blanks, my personal panic button activated by her words. If the investors who want to buy into her business are from here, it would make sense that she’d move here too. But I hadn’t explored the reality of her absence. It’s almost impossible to picture my life in Trove Hills without her there, brightening up the corner of Rita’s Diner.
Dawn returns with a paper bag full of the goods, stopping me from having to say anything at all. “Follow me,” she tells us.
We end up on a random bench in Central Park, Dawn in the middle, as all three of us unwrap our bagels side by side.
“Everyone I know in the business has died,” she says.
It comes so far out of nowhere it takes me a second to connect it to the question I asked her earlier, about where she’s been. Afraid to startle her off the topic, I lift my head to show an interest in listening further.
“It’s kinda funny, that I can still be here, but I’m not really here at all,” she continues. “My older sister never had any kids, and neither did I. So when she died, I really just had nobody. This is where I’ve been the whole time. The same city I’ve lived in since I was born, surviving on the money from my youth and all the stuff my dead relatives have left me.”
“Surely someone’s tried to reach you, though,” I say. “You’re a legend.”
“When I was a little younger, my phone used to ring with requests. I’d just let those calls go to voicemail. I thought I didn’t want to talk to anybody. Now my phone never rings at all. I should probably get rid of my landline. But I like knowing it’s there.”
It’s weird to feel like I relate to her. Because I’ve never been a famous actor, but I have spent all my life in one place. And up until now, it’s been easy to imagine me forty years from now, still there, pretending it’s exactly how I want to be living, while knowing way, way down—in the deepest chambers of my wants—that it’s not true.
“Do you want to act again?” I ask her.
She waves me off. “No, no. Of course not. I’m way too old for that now. I’ve been too old for a long time. I’m ancient now.”
“No, you aren’t,” June protests. “Not at all.”
“How old are you guys?” Dawn asks us.
“I’m twenty-nine,” I say, right as June answers the same way.
Dawn flicks her wrist, as if to say, You wouldn’t get it .
“Have you not noticed the way everyone we pass looks at you?” I ask.
“They’re looking at me because I’m a crotchety old woman who might get in their way.”
“They’re looking at you because they recognize you, and they want to know where you’ve been,” I tell her. “They’re waiting for the next Dawn Flores slasher flick. Or some meditative Guy Cicero project with you as the lead. He’s very big into reviving the careers of old starlets.”
Dawn waves me off again, this time with less effect. “Stop flattering me. I get too full of myself.” She points to my food. “How’s the bagel?”
“It’s incredible,” I tell her, meaning it. “Puts to shame every bagel-related item we serve at the diner.”
“You work at a diner?” Dawn asks. “Oh yeah. That’s right. Rita’s. Damn. See? I already forgot what I learned about you from Siri. No way I could remember my lines at this age.”
“The diner is where Tatum and I met,” June says. “And now she’s here helping me.”
“June makes perfumes,” I remind Dawn.
“That’s right. You told me that too, and I already forgot. I was even gonna say when we sat down that one of you smells very good. But I’m not much for compliments. Same reason as above. Can’t have anyone getting full of themselves. Does you no good.”
“It’s definitely June,” I say. “She’s here to hopefully sell her business to an investor. She’s about to be one of the biggest names in perfume.”
“It could be Tatum, though,” June rebuts. “She’s wearing a gourmand that’s perfect with her skin chemistry. She smells like a glass of whiskey served with a batch of fresh cupcakes.”
“That’s really a compliment to her, because she lent me one of her perfumes this morning. She also picked out this outfit for me because my luggage arrived about thirty seconds before we met you in the hallway, and I couldn’t make a game-time decision that quickly. So if I look good, it’s only because of June.”
“Please,” June says. “Yellow is your color.”
Dawn clears her throat. “Anyway,” she says pointedly. “So June is here for her perfume business. What are you doing here?” she asks me.
There are a handful of ways I could answer that would be true, if not particularly detailed. Something tells me Dawn wouldn’t like that. She’d want the risky answer, the jagged truth I’ve only just started to acknowledge.
“I think I’m here to figure out what I want from my life,” I say.
“She’s in her Saturn return,” June adds.
Dawn nods sagely.
“What’s that mean?” I ask, feeling out of my depth, remembering how June and Vanessa could talk about this kind of stuff with familiarity.
“You’re entering the next stage of your life,” June tells me. “There’s upheaval. Change. You’re looking back on everything you’ve learned in this first third and thinking about what it means for the next third.” She leans closer. Drops her voice to a whisper as she adds, “Don’t worry. I’m going through it too.”
“You know, I’d tell you it’s all bullshit, but I got divorced for the second time and moved to LA in my late twenties,” Dawn says. “Went through more changes than I could count. Some didn’t stick, obviously, since I’m back here. But most of it was good. I needed it.”
“Is that why I kind of want to go on a date while I’m here?” I ask her.
June shoots me a look that could cut through steel, while Dawn glances back and forth between us like there’s something she thought she understood that I’ve just invalidated.
“June’s change is that she’s in her single era,” I add, trying to answer the questions they’re both asking with their eyes, reminding June that she’s trying not to date while simultaneously telling Dawn we are not an item. “I’ve been in my single era. But being here has me thinking about changing that. I’m not looking for anything serious. Just dipping my toes into the pool. Do you know where I go for that?”
“Well, shit,” Dawn says, clapping her hands together. “Of course I do!”
This is the first sign of true delight she’s shown me, and I feel weirdly proud of it. She springs up from the bench, waving a hand at us to follow.
“I didn’t mean right now,” I say, realizing it’s already too late. Doing this in front of June is mortifying. I’d rather scrub this park pathway with a toothbrush.
“One of the best places in the world to find a date is in the park,” Dawn says, ignoring my protest. “If you see someone you like, all you have to do is give them the look .”
“What’s the look ?” I ask.
“Oh, Tatum knows the look ,” June says to Dawn.
Dawn tips her head into her shoulder, batting her eyelashes.
“I’ve never made that face in my life.” My ears are getting so hot that I have to cool them down with my hands.
“She’s exaggerating the look,” June tells me, as if that helps. “It’s more like this.” Her eyes soften, both lids closing in on each other, little crinkles appearing at the corners. Her chin does tilt, but barely. And she doesn’t quite smile. It’s more of a quirk, a comma of an expression, incomplete but inviting, making you want to finish what she’s started by smiling all the way in return.
“You could be an actor,” Dawn tells her.
Just like that, the expression is erased, replaced with June’s usual demeanor. “I think I’m good with sticking to perfumes.”
“When have I ever made that face?” I ask.
June laughs. And so does Dawn. Like two coconspirators who have known me all my life, when really, I just met Dawn a few hours ago, and June only knows me through the diner, where I’m apparently inviting every guest to date me.
I want to defend myself, but there’s part of me that knows June must be right. The first time I ever saw her, I went out of my way to be impressive. It wasn’t often we had a customer around my age showing up all by herself, and I wanted desperately to have her come back again. I refilled her coffee cup more than she needed. Bussed her plates myself the second she took the last bite. Brought her out a complimentary slice of pie that I actually charged to my own tab and paid for myself. She’d come in with a laptop and notebooks, spread out all her things across the table to work. And as I watched her that first day, I thought, What are your secrets? Where do you go when you’re not here?
Who are you? Who are you? Who are you?
I wanted to know her, to invite her back to our charming little diner so I could see her as much as possible. It’s been a while since I thought about those beginnings, shutting all those memories down the moment she asked me out. When she did that, she turned the fantasy into reality, acknowledging what I’d spent so long tiptoeing around, pretending it was all in my mind. And it was too real to me, too vivid to see through.
With every other woman I’d been with, I’d been willing to give dating a shot, even though inside I felt worried—maybe they’d be too much, or maybe they’d be not enough. But I was willing to try, curious to see what would happen.
With June, I never felt worried. I felt scared. Scared of what could be on the other side of the diner. Scared of how much we might mean to each other, how long we might talk if we never had a timer on it, never had working hours to hold us back. Scared of what she might find if she got to know me better—that I didn’t know how to love right. That all the years of trying to make everyone else around me better had made me forget how to be myself.
“Who are we looking for?” Dawn asks, scanning people as they pass us.
“A woman,” I say. “I’m a lesbian.”
When I don’t elaborate, Dawn waves her hands impatiently. “And?” she asks.
The question makes me want to crawl into a ball. Because I look at June—who is currently admiring a tree—and I think, Someone like her .
Instead I spout off a list of qualities that I find attractive, careful to dance around anything that’s too specific to June.
Dawn rebuffs me the second I finish. “Oh really? You want a woman who is smart, funny, and kind? Well, shit, why didn’t you say that sooner? That really narrows down the field.”
I’ve already grown fond of how Dawn handles me. It’s a comfort to not be coddled. “What can I say? I’m a visionary.”
We walk for a while longer with me turning down everyone Dawn suggests. “Okay. I give up,” she says. “Let me know when you’re ready to be helped. Then we can do this properly.”
“I am ready to be helped,” I protest, but we all know it’s not true. “Fine,” I concede. “I will make an attitude adjustment, and we can try again.”
“Good,” Dawn says. “And make sure we do something fun beforehand. So I get something out of it too.”