Chapter 33
NEW YORK
FEbrUARY 21, 2020
AGE: 33
CAN I GET YOU ANYTHING ELSE?” CAME A VOICE.
I looked up and saw a young woman staring at me. She was wearing a striped wrap dress and flats, office attire. We were back in Jentle Lentil HQ. “Edith packed your bags, which are up by reception. I called you a black car,” she reported. “Flight 695 to LAX. All the details of your itinerary are printed out for you here.” She handed me a pink branded folder.
“Thank you,” I said. “Did you check what Edith packed?” I asked, digging for intel. I had no idea who Edith was, or why I was going to Los Angeles. “Is it all appropriate for the trip?”
She gave a cursory nod. “The gallery scene there is a little different from the one here, so she found a couple of your more romantic pieces, like the ones you wore for your Fortune shoot. Edith uploaded the styling board on Pinterest so you can review the looks on your iPad on the flight. All the accessories are labeled with your color-coded index system, don’t worry. You’re going to really light the art world on fire with your style.”
“I think I’ve lit enough fires in my life,” I said wearily.
It was clicking into place. I was going to the Leigh Sullivan exhibition that I’d failed to attend, a decision that had cemented our split three years ago.
“Your prenatal vitamins are all packed,” she said. I glanced down at my torso and realized with a whopping start that I was massively with child—no doubt the result of my visits to Dr. Rosequist’s clinic and Alex’s understanding of FedEx’s dry-ice shipping capabilities.
“I’m pregnant,” I said.
“Don’t worry. I have your doctor’s note to travel,” the woman added. “We booked you at the Chateau. There’s just one thing.” She looked away, and I could tell she was extremely anxious as she blurted out the next part. “Your preferred room wasn’t available.”
My preferred room at the Chateau Marmont? A hotel I’d only seen in Us Weekly? This seemed like the least of my problems. I glanced down at my midsection again. My belly button was poking through my stretch T-shirt like a Thanksgiving turkey thermometer. Whatever was inside me was almost fully cooked.
“I’m so pregnant!” I blurted, once again.
The young woman looked like she was girding herself for an act of physical violence. “I know. I know,” she said, still cringing. “The room should be very comfortable given your, um, situation. I know how you feel about your hotels. I know I should have booked this sooner. If you want me to resign, I’d understand completely,” she said, tears welling up in her eyes. “But I want you to know that this job has been the opportunity of a lifetime and I have learned so much from you. You inspire me every day. You have a vision and you’re never afraid to demand what you want.”
“Thank you,” I said. “It is not that big of a deal, the hotel thing. Sometimes a change of scenery is good.”
Her chin trembled as she mumbled thank you. She was overcome with disbelief. “Your car is outside and ready when you are,” she said. “We’ll get everything sorted out by the time you land. It will be better than your last visit, I promise.”
“I’m sure it will,” I told her.
I did my detective work on the car ride to the airport, reading my emails. It was confirmed: I was flying out to the opening of Leigh’s solo exhibition, Over the Influence, the same show I’d been too broke to attend in my real life. I’d told Geeta the truth, that in addition to being broke, I was on the fence. My ambivalence came from all of Leigh’s partying and star fucking. Geeta had agreed with me that Leigh’s behavior was getting increasingly insufferable, but urged me to reconsider.
“Think of this like it’s her wedding,” I remembered Geeta saying. “You can’t RSVP no. It’s really important to her.” I didn’t RSVP no; I spent weeks debating whether I should go and then just didn’t RSVP at all. I didn’t go either. Over the following few months I remained in a shame spiral, afraid of what Leigh would say to me. But she never said anything. She didn’t reach out once. It was as if she had never invited me at all.
At the time, I’d told myself Leigh’s nonreaction was further proof that she didn’t care about me anymore. But she must have known the truth: as tight as money had been, I could have swung it. Hal and I had traveled to a wedding on the Oregon coast a few months after her show and I’d posted photos of the event online, which no doubt upset her. A wave of nausea hit me, and I doubted that it was just because I was a pregnant woman in the back of a speeding car.
THE AIRPORT’S FIRST-CLASS LOUNGE WAS FILLED WITH AN ARRAY OF free cocktails and tidy rows of snacks, nothing like my typical experience of eating Panda Express out of a Styrofoam box. At the buffet bar, I reached for a neatly packed box of sushi, then remembered I probably should stick to the vegetarian rolls. I added some baguette slices and jam to my plate and started eating greedily, fueling up for whatever lay ahead. My phone interrupted me with a buzz. It was a message from 000–000.
Cut the carbs. You must stay in a permanent state of ketosis—even in pregnancy.
After my fourth seaweed salad, I made my way to the gate, sat down, and studied the gallery website. Leigh’s show was a series of multimedia sculptures that “interrogate the dialectic of influencer culture, exposing post-modernism’s aesthetic detachment,” which was a fancy way of saying that the exhibition was a collaboration between Leigh and Zach Houston. Zach was a social-media personality known to his tens of millions of fans for signature apology videos that he created every time he offended an oppressed group of people, which was quite often. His defenders argued that he wasn’t racist, sexist, or homophobic, calling his detractors a bunch of woke snowflakes trying to silence a voice of truth. Partnering with Leigh seemed to me a blatant effort to cozy up to the LGBTQ+ community. I wasn’t sure what she gained from it, though, other than an army of annoying Instagram followers.
Maybe I would benefit from Leigh’s art in ways I hadn’t given her credit for. I could stand to learn a thing or two about apologies. I’d failed to extend one to Leigh after I failed to show up for her big debut. She’d been under the impression that I was coming, saving a spot for me at the dinner after the opening. In all the photos that she posted that night, there was an empty seat that stuck out like a missing tooth.
Leigh and I didn’t speak for almost a year after my no-show, not until Geeta’s stunning Hudson Valley birthday party weekend, where I had tried in my half-hearted way to make amends. When I brought it up, Leigh said she was over it, all was forgiven. She didn’t want to talk about it. But I could tell I was more or less dead to her, beyond redemption.
Just then, a text came in—from Leigh. It was a selfie in which she was standing next to what looked like a gargantuan tube of lipstick festooned with mirrors. See you soon, baby!!!!
Boarding now. I’ll be there in no time, I wrote, adding a lipstick emoji as I got up to stand in the boarding line.
My smile evaporated as I considered what was happening. This was supposed to be my final fix, the decision that would supposedly set me on the right path. And it was geared at righting all that went wrong with... Leigh? I’d always loved her, but how could attending this event possibly matter in the grand scheme of the universe—a universe where Geeta still wouldn’t speak to me, and where she was in grave danger.
As I inched forward in the boarding line, I sent Geeta a text. Damn it. Still blocked. And where the hell was Alex? The answer was in my text messages. Make that answers.
Babe, I’m at 42nd and 3rd.
Don’t be mad. I am going to make it. On the Belt Parkway.
The driver is gunning it.
I love you so much I feel badly for all the men out there who don’t get to love you.
Five minutes from the terminal. I’ll meet you at the gate.
Why won’t you respond? Are you mad at me?
You couldn’t say Alex wasn’t communicative. It was a bit much, nearing on creepy. But there had to be a reason for him. There was a reason for everything. My actions in the Memo always seemed small and ridiculous, yet their consequences were stratospheric. A pair of cameo earrings was all that stood between me and a lifetime of professional excellence. A piece of sea glass poking out of the sand was what led me to a man most heterosexual women would kill for. Maybe I had been sent to Los Angeles so I could go to a party and fix my relationship with Geeta by also fixing my relationship with Leigh—right? Everything was connected in strange ways.
Alex shot into the gate just as we were boarding. My husband looked so tall in the sea of average-size people. He reached out and gave my belly a warm rub. “How’s our little destiny doing?”
Our little destiny? Dear lord.
“I was stuck in an advisory meeting,” he said. “I told them I had a hard out but, my god, they had a fourteen-hour agenda.”
“Hard out” was a term that Alice liked to throw around when she just wanted to cut a meeting short. It occurred to me that Alex, though, really did have a hard out, and that I was it. He had arrived at my side in the nick of time. He was so unlike Hal, who rarely texted me, only showed up when he felt like it, and had a litany of excuses to weasel out of any obligation. Hal and I may have been more similar than I’d initially realized. I needed someone who complemented me, who made me a better person, someone who wasn’t afraid to commit and make babies together.
I stood on my toes and tapped my nose against Alex’s.
“So glad you made it,” I said, rubbing his back.
“You sure?” he asked. “You seem a little off.”
“Off?”
“Your left eyelid is twitching. You’re stressed, huh?”
“A little,” I said. Maybe a lot. The fact that he was analyzing the microscopic movements of my left eyelid seemed to only make things worse. Would he ever stop examining my every twitch? Who cared about my eyelid when there was a chance Geeta would be at the opening? Would she let me talk to her, let alone talk her out of making the worst mistake of her life?
Alex began to massage my shoulders. I felt my body relax as we stepped up to scan our tickets.
I was assigned seat 3A and Alex was in 3C, across the aisle from me. When he asked me why I hadn’t gotten him a seat next to me, I just shrugged and blamed Edith. “Typical,” he said. “I’m surprised you haven’t fired her already. You’re only on your second assistant this quarter? Congratulations!”
His words shouldn’t have stunned me, but they did. I was one of those monster bosses. The assistant who’d volunteered to resign just because my suite wasn’t available at the Chateau hadn’t been joking.
A different kind of shock came over me when I saw who was walking down the aisle toward us. In a hoodie and shredded jeans, carrying one of those stupid Supreme bags that cost thousands of dollars, was Levi Fischer. He was smiling at me like we were old friends.
“J-train! You’re my seatmate?” he said.
“Small realm,” I muttered. “Want to swap with Alex?”
“Nope.” He gave me a double air kiss before turning to Alex and offering a fist-bump. “I don’t normally fly commersh. This will be the last time, if I can help it,” he said, easing into the seat next to mine. “Got my pilot’s license!”
My stomach pooled with dread.
“That sounds—” I was about to say “idiotic,” but instead I had the presence of mind to say “exciting!”
“You’re looking good,” he told me. “Pregnant women are so fuego.”
I wished I had a barf bag. Instead, I had a misogynist troll for a seatmate. Picking up my phone, I scrolled through my photos, pretending I was engrossed in something extremely important so I wouldn’t have to engage with Levi. I swiped around a reverse chronological timeline of my current existence: selfies with my team at work; wallpaper samples taped to the wall of my Jentle Lentil office; screenshots of Yelp reviews of my company; calling my products “life-changing” and “waist wonders.” Then, a 3D sonogram of the two babies growing inside of me. These were my babies. They were kind of cute. I looked over at Alex and smiled.
“Hey,” I said to my seatmate, staring at the image. “Want to see them?”
“Them?” Levi said. “Let me guess: You don’t subscribe to the ‘gender binary’?” He used his fingers to make quotation marks.
“There are two of them. They are twins,” I said, turning the image toward him.
“Oh! No wonder why you’re so huge!”
I shot Alex a look. To his credit, he managed to convince Levi to trade seats with him, by warning him that I might throw up. Unfortunately, this new arrangement prompted Levi to speak at even higher volume than when he’d been on the other side of my armrest.
Shouting like a sportscaster at the Super Bowl, Levi proceeded to tell us that he was planning on attending Leigh’s party before jetting back to his home base in San Francisco. “I just bought a new pad,” he said, describing his six-bedroom townhouse. “There’s a gorgeous view from the roof garden. You can fire up the grill, prep a Negroni, and see the whole bay before you. It’s like you’re on the edge of the universe. My friend said it’s ‘transcendent.’ I just call it ‘sick.’” He chuckled.
Transcendent. Geeta’s favorite word.
“You okay?” Levi squinted at me.
“It’s nothing,” I said, forcing a smile. “I just get emotional on planes.”
“I can attest,” Alex said. “You should have seen her bawling through Eat, Pray, Love en route to Copenhagen.”
“Nice,” Levi said, raising what was left of his glass. “You checked out Noma, I assume?”
“Obviously,” I said. “What is the point of going to Denmark if you don’t check out the one place every rich person brags about checking out?”
“You are hilarious,” Levi said. We clinked our bubbly that had just been poured by the flight attendant—I took a tiny sip, then handed my flute to Alex, who promptly drained both of our glasses. Levi finished his, too, then popped some kind of pill and pulled his hood over his head. “Catch you on the flip side.”