Chapter Three
It would be an understatement to say that single, friendless, and directionless was not how I imagined my life would look when I moved to New York. Sam had this vision for us when we were in college. We’d rent a small apartment on the Upper West Side and grow old shopping at Zabar’s, taking walks in Central Park, and going to Yankee games on Saturdays. He always said he saw our future here, where there are museums and theaters, where culture is baked into every brick. He said I was too big for a small town, that together we would take on the world. I loved imagining our future together, what we would name our kids, if they would have his nose or my eyes. But I never imagined us living in New York. This dream was singularly his.
Despite everything, I decided I had to give it a try. But now that I’m here, my life looks nothing like what he had imagined. I don’t go to museums. I don’t go to theaters. It’s sad, pathetic, and lonely, and I don’t think I’m cut out for it. And if I’m not cut out for it, what am I even doing here?
The apartment I share with Sonya is tiny. There aren’t that many nooks and crannies, but every one of them is stuffed to the brim with cookware. My French press lives above the fridge next to our toaster and hand mixer. I have to stand on my tippy-toes to reach it.
There are only a few items stuck to the front of our fridge. A picture of Shakespeare, a set of magnetic poetry, an invitation to Sonya’s cousin’s graduation party, and a save-the-date for a wedding. The wedding.
The parents of the bride and groom cordially invite you and a guest to witness the union of Alexandra Chase and Theodore Brightwood. Please save the date of our celebration: September 15th.
I trace the edges of the embossed postcard. Alexandra looks like Sam here. Just a little bit in her smile.
It dawns on me that I used her nickname as my fake name last night with Henry. This save-the-date says Alexandra, but to me, she’s Andy. Sam’s younger sister and my best friend.
The couple in the picture stand in a field of tulips. Andy’s hair is nectarine-red, Theo’s dark as licorice. I know that Andy will be a beautiful bride, and I’ve known since the first time I met Theo that he loved her. I guess if there ever was an appropriate time to use the phrase power couple , it would be in reference to Andy and Theo.
I turn the card over so the picture is facing the fridge. This way I don’t have to look at it and acknowledge the fact that my old friend is almost a stranger now. That our lives splintered away from each other and now we barely talk.
I can’t think of what happened the last time I saw Andy. The last ugly thing I said to her.
I fill our rusty kettle with water, place it on the burner, and fill my French press with coffee grounds from Sonya’s girlfriend’s coffee shop. The nutty scent breathes life into my lungs.
Sonya has a nine-to-five at a jewelry store in SoHo, so I know I’m alone. I don’t bother changing out of my stretched-out senior-skip-day tee, putting on a bra, or even putting on pants. My short hair sticks up in all kinds of odd directions and I have a tiny white drool stain on the corner of my lip. How could Sam possibly have found me attractive in the morning? He’d take me home looking like Cinderella and wake up next to the evil stepsister. Nonetheless, he would roll over, kiss me, and tell me I was beautiful.
I haven’t felt beautiful in years.
Sam used to get me coffee from a Quik Mart on baseball practice mornings. I’d wake up to the smell of watered-down black coffee and chewy bagels and I knew before I even opened my eyes that I was loved. When I think of Sam, I think of those mornings. He smelled like any college boy might, a little musty and faintly sweaty, but mixed with something sweeter, vanilla maybe, and always Quik Mart coffee.
My mom said I was lucky I got someone to deal with me, someone as patient as Sam. I’ve always been prone to anxiety, and sometimes even depression, though the brunt of that came much later. After Sam. Back in college, I was able to manage that kind of thing on my own. Not that it was ever easy, but it was nothing like it is now. Sam was like a balm. With him, I was more focused, more level. He was such a peaceful person, while I had a hurricane stirring inside me at all times. We were incredibly different, but it surprisingly worked. For a time, it worked.
The whistle from the teakettle drills a hole through my skull, and I tip it over the press. I can’t believe I’m going to have to wait ten more minutes before the coffee is ready to drink, but when I moved to New York I insisted that I’d be the kind of person who uses a French press. I love coffee, but if I were honest with myself, I’d acknowledge that I much prefer coffee from Quik Mart.
My head feels like it’s full of cement. I can’t wait any longer. I press the grounds to the bottom of the glass beaker and pour myself a cup. It’s definitely too weak, but I can’t bring myself to care.
I take my mug into the living room, which is as cluttered as the kitchen. Our gray futon sags under my weight as I sit. A crappy coffee table covered in chipped black paint—which we found on the corner of 149th—sits in front of me, and the walls are mostly bare except for a few abstract canvas prints we bought at HomeGoods and one piece of beige macramé Sonya got at a thrift store. We have a small TV stand (also found on the street), a blue rug, and a couple of mismatched trays we use for meals. Nothing in here is very heavy—heavy furniture is too permanent, too serious, so everything in here is cheap and light and will leave almost no proof that we were ever here when we inevitably move out.
I check my phone. One text from Andy Chase.
Hi Bennet. Thank you so much for the KitchenAid! So sorry you couldn’t make it to the shower, but we’re all hoping you’ll make it to the wedding. Let me know ASAP.
I close the message. Buying that KitchenAid practically bled my bank account dry, but I had to get it for her, especially considering that the thought of going to her wedding makes me physically ill, and the guilt is eating me alive. Andy and Theo’s wedding will be perfect, as was their unseasonably early spring-themed wedding shower I assume. Theo is a successful entertainment lawyer in L.A. and his paycheck combined with the Chase family money will definitely cover the cost of the extravagant wedding Andy is surely planning. Every detail will be prepared with exquisite and modern taste, from cakes baked by celebrity chefs, to flowers arranged by famous boutiques, to the bridesmaids’ ballet slipper fingernail polish. It will be a citrus-scented Los Angeles dream with orange and purple sunsets across the horizon and people so gorgeous they should all be featured in magazines. Andy will leave nothing to chance, and the results will be worth her painstaking efforts. The weekend will be beautiful. And I will be miserable.
I’ll answer her later.
I crack open my laptop to check my schedule. I have a shift at two. I can probably squeeze in a grocery run before then.
Out of curiosity, I type Yankee Stadium into Google. Turns out the stadium I was standing under last night didn’t even exist when Sam was seven. I was picturing that moment all wrong.
Fantastic.
If you think you know the worst place to be in New York City, think again. It is without a doubt the Trader Joe’s on Seventy-Second Street. It seems like the entire upper half of Manhattan is holding court in the two-story grocery store at any given time, and today is no different. Open-toed shoes aren’t safe in New York in general, but especially not in cramped NYC markets. Last summer, a woman ran over my foot with a shopping cart and my toenail split in half. When I had the nerve to shriek in pain, she only rolled her eyes and kept it moving toward the gnocchi, leaving me and my poor toe to bleed out next to the Two-Buck Chuck.
I grab a basket and descend down the escalator into the store.
I stock my cart with mostly junk food and frozen meals, considering that’s all I ever have the capacity to prepare. When I’m at the checkout line, I grab a bag of gummies and dark chocolate peanut butter cups that are placed at an end cap.
My cashier looks no more than nineteen, with straw-blond hair and adolescent acne. He’s got the longest eyelashes I’ve ever seen. Boys have it easy in life, born with all the beauty and none of the beauty standards.
“Hey,” he chirps. “Find everything okay?”
I lug the heavy basket onto the counter and nod. This is the part I hate, when there’s clearly supposed to be social interaction, but conversation falls between us like a brick. I pray he lets the brick fall and smash to the ground and doesn’t attempt to pick it up with a comment, or god forbid a question. I hold my breath as one by one my basket empties and gets repacked into brown paper bags.
“Your total will be $189.45. You can insert your card whenever you’re ready.”
I cringe. I cannot afford this. I spent most of my food money last night. But it would be far too embarrassing to ditch and run now, so I dig into my bag in search of my wallet. I pause when it’s not in the normal pocket. Odd. I rifle through all the random crap at the bottom of my purse, but I can’t find it. Shit.
“Sorry, one second,” I mumble.
I remember that there’s a huge tear in the purse lining. Sometimes stuff gets lost in there. That has to be where my wallet is.
The cashier cocks his head, smiling. “Do you have Apple Pay?”
Of course I don’t have Apple Pay. Sonya begged me to let her set it up a few months back but I couldn’t be bothered.
“I know it’s in here somewhere,” I huff.
His smile starts to fade as I stick my hand in the hole between the lining and exterior of my purse and feel around. I find two mismatched earrings and a dinner mint, but no wallet.
“I’m sorry, I—I must’ve left my wallet at home.”
He clutches the bags like I’m going to run off with them.
“Then I can’t give you these. I’m sorry.”
Oh god, oh god, oh god. He’s looking at me with a condescending smile that makes me feel as small as a grain of Trader Joe’s frozen jasmine rice.
“It’s fine. I, um…I’ll leave.” Mortified, I book it out of there. As I tumble out onto the street, I realize that I know exactly where my wallet is.
It’s on the bathroom floor of L’italiano in the East Village.