Chapter Twenty-Five
Life in New York is idyllic. Nora Ephron great.
For days, weeks, we have nothing but sunshine, cold sauvignon blanc, fifteen thousand daily steps, sex and harmony.
I almost can’t believe how happy we are, how happy I am.
From the moment I land we are just where we were always trying to get to.
I don’t even remember feeling this way in the beginning of our relationship.
Meeting Leo felt not like a puzzle piece snapping down into place but a softening.
The point was not that our corners fit but that he dissolved mine.
But now—now I can feel myself sharpening.
In using my ticket I have done a lot more than choose to go back.
I’ve chosen. And in some ways it feels like for the very first time.
I feel powerful, omniscient. I turned the whole world back. I did it. I can do anything.
And it’s this knowledge of power that makes the decision to stop trying for a baby not so much a sacrifice but a shedding. Of the woman who wanted that—the one who was so clearly clinging to a sinking ship. All I had to do was let go and float to the surface.
“We miss you here,” Dad says on the phone two weeks later. His voice is quiet, but he’s outside, and the waves wash out every other word.
“I miss you, too,” I say. “But New York is amazing. I’m really so glad I came.”
Today is Tuesday, and Leo had an early-morning shoot, which means he’ll be wrapped by six, and I’m headed to meet him for a celebratory dinner at Gramercy Tavern.
We never go to fancy meals—we can’t afford it, and in Los Angeles, it doesn’t seem worth it—but now we are people with $5,000 of disposable income and no upcoming fertility bills.
We decided to celebrate our anniversary in style.
“I’m glad you two are happy,” he says.
“How are you?” I say. I am distracted. I am trying to pick out a dress to wear. It is too hot for jeans, and everything summery I own makes me look like I’m in an L.L.Bean catalog. I settle on some black crepe shorts and a white T-shirt and heels. Sophisticated, not trying too hard.
“Did Mom tell you?” Dad says.
“What?”
I peer close into the mirror, applying lipstick.
“Stone is back.”
I hold the coral shade to my lips. Of course he is back. Just because I’m not there, doesn’t mean he isn’t.
“She didn’t mention it.”
“He came because Bonnie wasn’t doing so well. You know she’s been sick for a while, right? But she seems to be responding to this new trial they have her in.”
New trial. This makes me stop.
“What new trial?”
“I don’t know. Something Stone campaigned for. I guess he came out here and ended up convincing her to do it, and it worked. Good news.”
Good news. All at once, I feel breathless. I close my eyes and open them again. Is it possible that this wasn’t just a reset for me but for him? For all of us? Bonnie—alive and improving.
I haven’t let myself think about that night. Sometimes, when Leo falls asleep (immediately, always) and I’m lying in bed, my mind will wander right up to the seam of it. But I don’t cross the line. There’s nowhere to put it. There’s nowhere to put it because it never actually happened.
But now I see that not only did it not happen but things had to happen this way. It was only in taking it back that we got what we were really meant for. And now it’s not just true for me and Leo—it’s true for Stone and Bonnie, too.
“That’s incredible,” I say.
Stone is not with me—in the ocean, at breakfast—at the edge of the Greek. And with that time he’s changed Bonnie’s mind. With that time he’s saved her life. There’s been nothing for him to do but be close to her, exactly as he wanted.
“Yes,” Dad says. “Let’s hope it stays that way, but it’s looking really promising.”
“It will,” I say, firmer than I mean it. “I know it.”
“Where are you guys off to tonight?” Dad asks, changing the subject.
“Gramercy Tavern,” I say. I cap the lipstick, pick up my bronzer brush.
Dad whistles. “Fancy.”
“We’re celebrating,” I say, more defensive than I mean to be.
Dad pauses. “It’s a good thing,” he says.
“Yeah,” I say. “I know.”
He wants to talk more then. About New York and the weather and if I think Brooklyn is better than Manhattan these days, the way everyone says. But I’m rushing to get off the phone. I have to send half an hour’s worth of emails, and I should be on the subway in fifteen minutes.
“All right,” he says. “I get the hint.”
“I’ll call you next week!”
We hang up, and I pull my shirt over my head—careful to avoid the makeup—open my laptop, and settle on the couch.
The place in Brooklyn is happy, and I’ve found myself falling into a rhythm here.
I wake up and go for a walk, stop for a coffee at one of the plethora of hipster bean shops.
I’ve taken to having a cortado, which I didn’t even know existed before I got here but now I don’t think I can possibly live without.
Then I come back to the Henry Street apartment and work from the couch.
Leo leaves early—usually before I’m up—and I have the place to myself.
I’m normally able to finish my work before Los Angeles is even conscious, which leaves the second part of the day for exploring.
I’ll take the F train into the city and begin there, or I’ll explore Brooklyn.
I venture out to Red Hook, visit art galleries and restaurants that only serve oysters and champagne on tap.
I fondle trinkets in the real-life Etsy storefronts—candles shaped like elephants, hand-blown glass napkin rings.
When I hit a lull, or the ninety-degree summer heat becomes too much to bear, I’ll pop into a coffee shop and order an iced cortado with cinnamon and sit in the air-conditioning while I eat a chocolate chip cookie the size of my hand.
I pull on a white eyelet shirt and tuck it into the crepe shorts I already have on. I find a pair of black strappy sandals—no heel—grab a black faux leather clutch I bought at the farmers market in Brentwood, and head out the door.
The New York night is weighted. In Los Angeles even a one-hundred-degree day burns off into the seventies by 8:00 p.m., but in New York the heat lingers, sits like a first date closing down a bar.
I hop on the F, which everyone is telling me is nightmarish but actually seems totally fine. The train is about 70 percent empty, and in thirty minutes I’m being spit out onto Sixth Avenue at Fourteenth Street.
I’ll be about ten minutes early to dinner, so I take my time walking over to Fifth and then up to Twentieth Street.
Flatiron is buzzing with activity—it’s a summer night in the city, and people are out enjoying the weather.
A crew of Rollerbladers rolls down as a group of teenagers dips into an apartment building on lower Fifth.
Seventeenth Street between Fifth and Sixth seems to be shut down for an evening fair, and adults enjoy open-air wine as kids run up and down the block chasing giant bubbles and balloon animals.
Everyone is always talking about how New York isn’t what it used to be, how the city is empty, how apartments sit vacant, and yet—the streets are packed, property values are on the rise.
Nothing stays static forever, I think. But why is the past always memorialized as better?
I never spent time in New York when I was young, but now that I’m less young I’m here and enjoying every beat of what this New York is delivering.
Leo is already at the restaurant when I arrive, hovering by the door.
“You’re here,” I say. Ten minutes late for Leo is on time. I’m used to it.
“I am,” he says. “I had to run uptown and drop some stuff with post. Didn’t take as long as I expected.”
He cocks his head to the side, taking me in. “You look great.”
“So do you.”
He’s wearing khakis and a short-sleeved button-down. He has some TOMS slides on. He looks casual, relaxed, even if his forehead is beading up with sweat.
I give him a quick kiss. “Hi.”
“Hey, babe. Let’s go in before I melt.”
He opens the door, and I duck under his arm. He glides a hand onto my waist as I pass by him. I smell his cologne—something he hasn’t worn in so long. Cardamom and red wine. He smells like winter here tastes, and I imagine us walking into the same restaurant in December, snow on the ground.
The inside of Gramercy Tavern is old and oaken. We are having dinner in the Dining Room, which feels like a cross between a New York institution and a cozy den. As soon as we walk in, I immediately feel underdressed.
Men in suits with jackets slung over their chairs and sleeves pushed up to their elbows sit across from women in slim-fit black pants engrossed in their iPhones.
The walls are cream, and there are high, dark beams overhead, heavy curtains separating the Dining Room from the bar and soft overhead lighting.
If New York is not what it used to be, then this is what it was.
Leo raises his eyebrows at me. Fancy.
I wiggle them back. Do we dare?
Our last anniversary we spent in the hallway between our bedroom and bathroom.
We had had plans to go out—pasta at our favorite, Donna’s, in Echo Park.
We loved the cozy bar, simple sauce, and the fact that the owner, Michael, Negroni in hand, seemed to inhabit the place like a home, not a restaurant.
But my period came, the day before, and I was wrecked with pain.
For some, fertility treatment has a negligent impact on their cycle, but for me it was brutal.
I felt doubled over in cramps, nausea, breast tenderness that made my B cup start sleeping in a bra.
Every time I took it off and let them down, it felt like I’d been punched in the chest.
I roll my shoulders, dislodging the memory. Tonight is not about one line or Clomid for a full fourteen days. Tonight is about us. Life is about us now.
We are seated at a table that is far too big for the two of us—square mahogany, set to perfection. We square off a corner of it as the waiter pulls back my chair.
“Someone will be over momentarily. I hear we are celebrating. Would either of you care for a glass of champagne?”
“Please,” Leo says, gesturing to me.
I open and close my mouth in a way I hope communicates Same.
“We can’t afford this,” I tell Leo. “Can we?”
“Baby, I have a thousand dollars in twenties in my pocket.”
Leo’s pay is good, but the best part of the gig is that he gets a per diem. Every day, one hundred dollars in cash. Leo stuffs all of it into a Ziplock bag and hands me a wad every couple of days. I feel flush with cash.
When was the last time someone paid in cash here? Could we pass for the mob? I look at Leo. Probably not with the TOMS.
“Besides,” Leo says. “Tonight isn’t about can’t. We’re here. We’re happy.”
“We’re more than that,” I say. I lean over and reach for him, thread my arms around his neck and kiss his mouth.
Our champagne arrives. Leo lifts his glass. “To the next chapter,” he says. He gets serious. He puts his hand on top of mine. “I don’t think I can remember ever loving you more. Thank you.”
For our first wedding anniversary Leo and I went to Maui. We rented a little place in a town called Paia—an Airbnb that had no AC and a half-functional mosquito net—but we loved it. We’d walk Baldwin Beach in the morning and go to the Fish Market for tacos and tuna burgers at night.
We rented a car, and one day we drove over to Wailea—a more touristy area, where the big, fancy hotels are.
Everyone said we had to go to the Four Seasons for drinks, so we did.
We sat in their sprawling, airy lobby with picture-perfect ocean views and a stream of light Hawaiian music.
We ordered twenty-seven-dollar cocktails and eighteen-dollar edamame and picked at it until sundown.
Leo wore khaki shorts and a loud Hawaiian-print shirt.
Something purple and orange we had picked up at ABC Stores, mostly as a joke.
I remember looking at my hulking, sweating, out-of-place husband—who was only in that hotel and on that island to make me happy—and thinking that if there were ever anything I could do to put his happiness first, I’d do it.
Leo runs his thumb over the back of my hand.
I feel bathed in his warmth, the warmth of us, of our marriage, and I think how happiness is determined not by getting what you want but by determining which things to hold on to and which things to let go.
That there is joy in relinquishing. How extraordinary it is to be given the second chance to see the path we were always meant to travel down.
In the early days of our marriage, I’d look at Leo and feel terrified of how much I loved him.
Because to love him meant to be decimated at losing him.
To love him that deeply meant that my happiness was now in someone else’s hands.
And it wasn’t just the love, it was the reliance.
As time went on we became like an ecosystem.
We needed each other for sunlight and shelter and food and water. We needed each other to grow.
But sitting with Leo now I don’t feel the weight of us, of everything that might come our way—of even our dependence. I feel the ease of the now, the way the universe seems to be rewarding our pivot with nothing but open road. A true new beginning.
“Thank you,” I say. Thank you, thank you, thank you.