Alex
I’ve been walking for four hours. Even though I spend all day in my dress shoes, they’re not meant for this kind of mileage. I can feel blisters burning as they form on both my heels and the sides of my arches.
I’ve had no destination. I’ve stuck to the waterfront and stayed near the gray water of the Hudson and been enjoying the fact that the clouds and the chill and the wind have kept most people home. There are only the more determined runners out in their long sleeves and stocking caps.
I’ve revived an old Instagram I used to vet dates and employees. It doesn’t bear my real name. I open it and click on Hailee’s profile. It was set to private when she was dating me, but since the paparazzi got bored it’s public again.
She hasn’t posted since the picture James showed me. I’m waiting for her first post from Seattle or the mountains.
Confirmation that she made it safe since I don’t want to text her and ask her myself. I click to my feed and scroll mindlessly until I see a post from her friend Sophia. I followed her friend for this exact reason. My heart catches in my throat. My skin feels like it’s tightening over my bones.
There’s a picture of Hailee smiling in between two friends. It was posted a couple hours ago.
Hailee’s still here.
According to the caption, she’s still going to the rally at Central Park. Sophia’s caption says her flight leaves tonight.
I keep looking at the picture. She doesn’t look particularly happy. The smile is far from reaching her eyes.
I put my phone down and stare out at the white-capped waves on the bay. I have to sit down. I back up to a bench to get off my sore feet.
There’s still time.
She’s not gone.
I almost feel worse than I did before I saw the post. Now I’m presented with a choice again. But Hailee’s trying to enjoy herself, not be conflicted about her decisions like I am now. I curse and wrestle a deep breath into my lungs to try to think more clearly.
To try not to think at all.
I look right, up the path I’ve walked from. There’s a woman who has been on a similar route as I’ve traveled. She walks a dog. It’s one of those long-legged, long-nosed greyhound-looking ones.
A Borzoi, I remember. It has a thick, gray coat of fur and a bored way of walking, lumbering with his long snout near the pavement.
The woman and I have had the same aimless path for the last half hour, and if this weren’t such a popular walking spot, I’d think I was being followed.
She passes, and as she gets in front of my bench, the dog veers over to me casually and tilts his snout down, expecting to be scratched. There’s nothing demanding or excitable about his behavior. It’s all very matter-of-fact. Pet me, sir.
“Well, hello,” I say and scratch the Borzoi’s foot-long snout.
“Moses doesn’t say hi to very many people. Hope you don’t mind,” the woman says in an English accent.
I look at her. She’s in her late forties. Her hair is undyed, wiry, and gray. Her smile and bright-green eyes make her look much younger in appearance than the hair on her head makes her seem. She’s in a long coat of checkered tan wool that reaches her ankles.
“Not at all,” I say and look back at the dog. He rests his nose on my knee while I scratch him.
“Looks like we’re the only two who can brave the weather,” the woman remarks.
I’m not one to usually make small talk with strangers, but I don’t mind today. It’s not just my feelings. It’s her laconic dog and bright, kind eyes. I want to talk to her. “I don’t mind it.” I look at the gray sky. “It fits my mood.”
“Mine, too.” The woman tilts her chin up towards the bay and closes her eyes as a strong breeze throws itself against us both. I have to squint to see her through the wind. She looks wise yet still young.
“How’d you come up with the name Moses?”
“Oh, my husband named him. Rhymes with noses was his thinking. That’s what he always called him anyway.”
“Noses,” I say, and the dog suddenly lifts his long snout from my leg and looks into my eyes searchingly.
“It’s been a while since he’s been called that,” the woman says, sadly, staring at the dog.
I’m able to put two and two together. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Oh.” She widens her eyes, surprised at my ability to deduce her husband’s death. “Thank you. It’s the anniversary of the day he died. Hence the dark and stormy walk. I’m not as sad as I seem. I’m thankful the sun’s not shining. That’s a shitty feeling, being depressed in the warmth of the sun. But listen to me ramble. I didn’t mean to put anything on you.”
She takes a step forward and starts to lightly tug on Moses’s leash.
“How many years has it been?” I ask, and she stops.
She cocks a single brow, clearly unsure of my question.
“Since he passed?”
“Five.”
I nod. It was October when Mila died. The 23rd. When that day passed last week, I did what I’ve always done for all these years—I gritted my teeth in the morning and put it in the back of my head.
Moses sits on his haunches with perfect posture and stares at me with half-closed eyes to fight the wind. “I lost someone in October, too,” I say.
“So, we’re walking for the same reason?” the woman says and tilts her head at me with a small, curious grin. But she’s wrong. I’m not walking today because of Mila.
“Truth be told… I think I’m walking because I’m going to lose someone else.”
“Ah.” She nods. “Girl?”
“Yeah,” I say and smile back.
“But she’s not gone yet?”
“No. Not yet.”
“So, what’re you doing plodding around here?”
I sigh, not sure exactly how to answer. It’s because I’m afraid of ruining her life. Afraid of making her dread the months of work she’s wanted for so long. I tell this woman what Hailee had thought about why we’re apart. “It has something to do with fate not wanting us together.”
“Fate?” She blinks at me, confused. “Oh, darling, fuck fate.”
My eyes widen.
“You fight for love, dear. If I had let fate decide my life with my husband Michael, I would’ve lost him a dozen times over, and not just the once. It’s a bunch of rubbish, expecting the universe to bring you together, because in reality, the world often tries its very hardest to pull you apart.”
I grin. This woman speaks just like she looks: interesting. With her long coat and strange dog named Moses. I want to say something about how getting a pep talk from a stranger about love feeling like fate. Because isn’t that how it goes in all the romantic movies? But that’s probably because broken hearts are hard to hide. I wanted to talk to her. Needed to.
“I think it’s at least fate that I ran into you on this dreary day,” I say.
“And I think you would’ve chased her anyway, love.” She gives me a subtle wink and starts to walk on.
There’s nothing more to be said. I stand and look at my watch. I think about the thousands thronging Central Park. I pull out my phone to call Hailee, but my hand hovers over her contact name.
I want it to be more personal than a phone call. I’m not anywhere near convinced she’ll even say yes because I have a new idea. My heart rate feels like it’s soared to over a hundred beats a minute. The wind doesn’t help my anxiety either. It feels like there’s a storm coming, and if I’m not quick, I might be caught in it for the rest of my life.
I turn on my heel and I run.
***
Traffic reaches a standstill five blocks from Central Park. I get out of the cab when walking will be faster.
As I reach the crowd, I realize there’s far more than the ten thousand people I thought might attend.
I think there’s that many confused tourists alone. I get side-eyed by skunky-smelling, dreaded hippies as I shoulder my way into the crowd in my suit and overcoat.
I look like the man to these goddamn tree huggers, and they make sure I have to work for it to get to the stage. I send a few stumbling who expected me to back off by standing in my path. I’m terrified that I might smell like their armpits when I reach the stage.
That’s not my only fear. This event has been going on for some time. A woman has been playing the guitar and singing. Maybe the speakers have already gone. Hailee’s flight is tonight. She might’ve left already.
“I need to speak to your stage manager.” I hand a security guard a fifty. “I was supposed to speak. I’m running late.”
He says something inaudible into his microphone and gestures for me to follow him once another guard in a black polo takes his place at the metal barrier.
We walk to the back of the stage. I can see a woman with a clipboard and blonde bangs directing people. I wait next to the security guard until she walks over.
“What is it?” she barks impatiently. It’s been a while since someone has talked to me like this. She must not recognize me. I’d smile in amusement if I wasn’t so damn stressed.
“Is Hailee Barnes still here?”
“I have no idea who that is.”
She turns to leave.
“Hold on,” I say. “I’m supposed to speak tonight.”
I can see she has a small tablet resting on the clipboard. She taps it a few times. “Name?”
“ Blackwell.”
Her head tilts up from the tablet, and she stares at me for a moment. I can see her throat bob as she gulps nervously. Being on the covers of those magazines isn’t for nothing.
“Mr. Blackwell, I’m sorry. Um… I’m not seeing you on the speakers list.”
“I was a last-minute addition. May I?” I gesture at the rope that separates me from backstage.
“Of course,” she says. And the security guard lets me in.
“Let me just find my Greenpeace contact,” I say, lying. “I’ll get back to you.”
“Certainly, Mr. Blackwell. Ask for Susanna if you need to find me.”
All I can do is give her a wave since I’m already disappearing into the crowd backstage. It’s all networkers and businessmen.
People who would just as quickly bulldoze the forest they’re protecting if it would give them the same social clout as saving it. Thankfully, none of these hippies are very tall. I can see most of the backstage crowd by tilting my head up a few inches.
No Hailee.
But my eyes do lock on to a familiar face. It’s her friend I saw her getting lunch with. The one whose Instagram I follow.
Sophia.
I have to turn on my side to slip through the bodies to reach her. “Sophia!” I shout, and she frowns like I’ve just crawled from a sewer drain.
“Sophia, is Hailee still here?”
Another woman stands next to her. She’s the other friend from the picture that was posted today—Alana. “We haven’t met,” I say quickly. No matter the circumstances, I’m not going to stiff one of Hailee’s close friends on a handshake. I shake Alana’s limp hand. It seems she’s too caught off guard by my sudden appearance to shake back.
They stare at me like I’m a ghost.
“Is she here?”
“She just went to go find her Uber. Five minutes ago, maybe.”
“Which way?”
Alana points in the direction of the crowd. “Her pickup was on the far side of the park.”
“Shit.” I pull out my phone. I’m about to call her again. I have no other choice. But then the solo artist’s set finishes on stage, and I’m struck by an idea.
I don’t even think. I just start walking.
Shoulders back. Head straight. I walk as confidently as I ever have right onto the stage. I beat the host to the microphone. He’s a short man in a blue suit and Converse sneakers. He deserves worse than being shown up for that abominable combination of clothing. I smile and take the microphone. He reaches for it and then looks left and right as if he’s confused by the programming.
By the time I lift my eyes, I’m staring at twenty thousand faces. But I’m only looking for one.