Chapter xxxvi
xxxvi
ONE THING I’VE LEARNED IS THAT GROWING UP means friendships take on a different shape. Kate and Julia are still my closest friends—Kate more so than Julia—but if I see them once a month, I’m lucky. Usually, it’s more like once every two or three months. We text and FaceTime and follow each other’s social media to stay connected. And we all recognize that not seeing each other isn’t because we don’t want to, but because our schedules and our kids’ schedules are so insane all the time that hardly anything ever aligns.
Which is why when all three of us get together, it’s kind of a miracle. That miracle happened two weeks after I got back from Italy. I think Julia and Kate were worried about my mental state given the impulsive trip to Europe, the ten-year anniversary of your death, and that my forty-fourth birthday was in two weeks, so they made the time to see me. Which: fair. And also: why they’re my best friends.
Julia got married right before COVID and had a son three years ago. Kate’s kids are around Vi’s and Liam’s ages, and she’s still living in the house she and Tom bought right after Samantha, her second, was born. When Darren and I got divorced, Kate took me out one night, and, after we’d split a bottle of wine, she said to me, “I’m jealous. You get to try someone new.”
I know she loves Tom, but I also know she’s been bored with him for years. It’s like the older she gets, the more adventurous she wants to be, and the older Tom gets, the safer he wants to be. They started out similar and now she’s hoping to take a cruise to Antarctica while their kids are at camp for the summer, and he’s hoping to play golf at their country club. Both valid choices, both valid desires, but just not quite the same.
We met up in Manhattan at Bad Roman, a restaurant sort of near my office, near enough to Grand Central for Kate to get home, and down the 1 line for Julia, who had moved to a two-bedroom on the Upper West Side when Owen was born. She was a freelance designer now, working part-time from home.
When I walked in, Kate was already there and handed me a present.
“Thank you,” I said. “You didn’t need to.”
“I know,” she said. “But I wanted to. How Instagrammable is this place?”
I looked around. She was right—it was beautiful and looked a bit like it was designed with social media in mind. The wait staff walked by with gorgeous plates of food and placed them on meticulously set tables in a room filled with flowers and sparkling lights.
“It’s gorgeous,” I answered. “And supposed to be delicious, too.”
We sat at the bar and each ordered a glass of wine, waiting for Julia to arrive.
“I don’t want to make you say anything twice,” Kate said, “so I’m going to hold off on asking you about your trip to Italy.”
“I appreciate it,” I said, wondering how to spin my trip there, how to talk about Dax. “How’s everything going with you?”
She smiled. “It’s nice to be out for the night in the city. Nice to see you. And it’s only been about a month this time!”
“Go us,” I said as the bartender set our glasses of wine in front of us.
Kate laughed and then picked up her wine.
I picked up mine, and we clinked them together, looking into each other’s eyes until we both took a sip.
“And how’s Tom?” I asked, after I swallowed.
“Same Tom,” Kate said, taking another sip of her wine. “But we decided something big, I think.”
“Oh yeah?” I asked, wondering what this could be.
“We decided to take separate vacations this summer. I’m going to spend a week in Iceland, and he’s going to spend a week off from work at home, golfing and gardening. Other than for friends’ bachelor or bachelorette parties a hundred years ago, we’ve always traveled together. But when he suggested we take a week off to garden and go to the club this summer instead of traveling somewhere, I knew we had to figure out a better way. He didn’t like the idea at first, but I think he’s getting used to it now, maybe even looking forward to it. I told him he could take complete control of the garden and the landscaping, and I wouldn’t say a word, which made him happy.”
I was glad they’d figured something out that worked for both of them.
“Iceland sounds fun,” I said. “Do you want a travel buddy?”
Kate looked at me, then patted my hand. “I would love to travel with you, Lu, but for this trip, my plan is to go solo. I want to make all the choices, do all the things I want to do, not have to take anyone else into consideration. I want a selfish vacation.”
I laughed. “That sounds like a perfect plan,” I said.
I was alone so often, a selfish vacation wouldn’t be that much different from usual life, but I knew for Kate it was huge.
A moment later, I was enveloped in the scent of almonds and coconut and turned to see Julia behind me. She’d started wearing that Laura Mercier perfume just before she’d met Sebastian, and now no matter where I am when I smell that combination of almonds and coconut, I expect to see Julia turn the corner.
“Jules!” I said, giving her a hug. Her cheek was still chilled from the outside air where it pressed against mine, and she handed me a gift bag when I turned to face her.
“It’s a big container of your favorite banana pudding from Magnolia,” she said. “I put an ice pack in there, too, to make sure it keeps until you get home.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Kate slid down from her stool and grabbed both our wines. “Let’s head over to the table,” she said.
Kate and Julia weren’t friends on their own, but since they’d both been friends with me for so long, they had their own sort of relationship.
“How are the girls?” Julia asked Kate, as we followed the hostess to our table.
“So big, it’s absurd,” she said. “Victoria has been researching colleges—she has her eye on Wesleyan at the moment—and Samantha’s in high school now, too. She just introduced us to her first serious girlfriend— they’ve been together since homecoming in October. For the time being, my daughters are both happy and healthy, which is really all I can ask for.”
“College,” Julia said. “Wow. I can’t imagine Owen in college. Even 3-K seems like a big step.”
“Yeah, 3-K is huge,” Kate said.
We sat down and ordered, and then Kate looked at me. “Okay,” she said, “now spill. What’s going on?”
So I told them about Eric Weiss’s call, about the address, the trip to Rome, and meeting Bashir. I told them about traveling to Lampedusa and my time with Dax. They oooh ed and gasped at all the right places.
“And so?” Julia said. “Have you heard from him since?”
I laughed. “I have,” I said. “I think he wants something real, but I don’t know.”
“It’s so romantic,” Julia said. “You always have the best meet-cutes. Sebastian and I were a setup. Bor-ing.”
“How are you feeling about the tenth anniversary?” Kate asked quietly.
I looked at her. She knew about Samuel. I hadn’t told Julia yet, but I felt like it was time. Now that Bashir knew, now that Dax knew, it didn’t seem fair to keep it from one of my two closest friends.
“Jules,” I said, not answering the question. “I have something I need to tell you.”
Her face became serious, her dark eyes focusing on me, one eyebrow raised as if to say Why me and not Kate? “Sure,” she said.
“I’ve been keeping a secret for the last ten years. It’s about Samuel,” I started, then took a sip of wine.
Julia put her hand on my arm. “He’s Gabe’s son?” she asked softly.
I stared at her. How could she have known? I looked at Kate.
“I didn’t say anything,” Kate said, holding up her hands.
“Lucy,” Julia said, “I know what Gabe looked like. I know what Darren looks like. How could I not know?”
I felt my cheeks get hot. “Does everyone know?” I asked her.
“Definitely not,” she said. “Not everyone knew Gabe, knew what he meant to you. And some people might not want to put it together.”
“I don’t think Tom has any idea,” Kate volunteered.
“When did you figure it out?” I asked Julia.
“I don’t know,” she said, “maybe around his second birthday, when his hair got long enough to curl, when his dimple started to become really pronounced, I suspected. And then as he grew, it became more and more obvious, not just from the physical side of things, but some things he says sound so much like things Gabe would say, his talent for art—I remembered when you told me Gabe’s mom was an artist. It all just made sense.”
“And you’re not mad?” I asked, my eyes getting teary. “You’re not mad I didn’t tell you?”
Julia shrugged. “I was at first—or more just sad that you didn’t think you could trust me. But then I realized there was a lot you were dealing with and that there were a lot of reasons you might not have wanted to say the words out loud. I forgave you a long time ago.”
I wiped the tears off my cheeks and leaned over to hug Julia. “I’m sorry,” I said to her. “It’s not at all that I don’t trust you. I do. But you were right, there was so much going on.”
I felt her arms around me, but then she pulled away. “Kate knew?” she said. And now I could tell she was a little hurt.
“Right place, right time,” Kate said. “I called during a breakdown, it could’ve just as easily been you who called.”
Julia nodded.
“She’s right about the timing,” I said. “I spoke to her before before Darren made it clear what he wanted, before I promised him I wouldn’t talk about it to anyone. And then I was stuck. I wanted to tell you, but I didn’t want to betray him again.”
Julia nodded again. “I get it,” she said. “And thank you for telling me now. Does anyone else know?”
And so I told her and Kate about my conversation with Bashir, about Dax, about how I wanted to tell Samuel, how I thought it was time, but Darren didn’t.
“Oh, Lucy,” Julia said with a small smile. “Your life will never be simple, will it?”
“Never,” Kate said. “But always exciting.”
I was laugh-crying, trying to keep my mascara from turning into train tracks down my cheeks, when the waiter arrived with our food.
“Let’s talk about 3-K,” I said, after Julia snapped a photograph of her beautiful salad. “How’s Owen liking it?”
And we chatted for the rest of the evening. Things mostly seemed back to normal, but I made a mental note to call Julia again tomorrow, to explain more and make sure we were okay.
When dessert came—we shared a stunning and delicious tiramisu ice cream cake—I realized that I was going to have a lot more of these conversations if Darren agreed to tell Sammy about you. I’d have to tell my parents, my brother, all three of the kids. Would Darren tell his parents and siblings? What about the twins? If Sam knew, it would be hard for the rest of the family not to. I understood why Darren wanted to keep this quiet. We were going to set off a bomb in the middle of our family if we told the truth.
But the truth always comes out in the end.