Chapter VI
VI
Lucy
The morning after graduation, I’m still asleep when my phone buzzes.
I peel my eyes open to see James’s name and adorable contact photo—which appears to be one of those oddly impressive doodles Rebecca mentioned, a scruffy dog chasing its own tail.
My mind flashes to bowling victory dances, frayed menus, the starry tent.
Did all that really happen in one night?
And I got my law degree.
My brain fails to compute the totality of it, to make sense of the fact that he’s already texting me—just like he said he would when he dropped me off at the door of my building with a kiss goodnight.
I’m in a sort of stupor, staring at my phone, unable to act.
I’ve had some pretty good sex. Or at least I thought it was good.
Nothing compared to last night. He never stopped paying attention to me.
It wasn’t like, “Oh, you had your orgasm? Cool, my turn.” It never stopped being my turn.
He read me like a book, sensed exactly what I wanted, and didn’t always give it to me right away. He somehow knew I liked that.
So why am I finding the fact that he’s texting me overwhelming?
I finally pick up my phone. He wrote, “good morning,” and in a second message, “what are you up to today?” All lowercase, but full sentences, proper spelling. This guy knows his audience.
Now that my brain is partially online, I write back, “Still waking up, then buying ingredients for more French dip. Text you later?” He hearts the message. Good. Hopefully that buys me a few hours while I figure out what the hell I want to do.
I know what I need to do: get my damn grant proposal in.
I already feel the stress that I set aside yesterday wriggling back into my veins.
I have ten more days to finish it—alongside working my TA job and studying for the bar exam—so I’m going to need every available hour.
Because if I don’t get this grant . . . I don’t even want to think about it.
Keeping myself afloat in The Hague will be impossible without this money.
As I stare at the ceiling, failing to muster the energy to climb out of bed, my mind drifts to the backup plan I never allow myself to seriously consider.
The job I applied for at the firm where I interned last summer.
It’s one of the biggest places practicing international law in the U.S.
I interned at their Chicago office for a much-needed change of scene, but they also have offices here in New York and—it hits me—Portland.
On instinct, I roll to my side, open Google Maps, and type in “Newport.” James’s hometown. A two-hour-and-twenty-two-minute drive. If I were offered a junior associate position and chose that office, I could—
Nope. Lucy. Don’t you even dare.
I sit up on my bed and splay my toes on the cold wood floor—the shock helps bring me back to my senses.
I am not changing my plans for a guy. It’s nice to have that job as a backup—they’ll almost certainly make me an offer, interns always get offers—but the Portland office wasn’t even on my radar before this morning.
My eyes wander to a photo pinned above my desk of my mom and me on a plane.
Our cheeks squished together, big smiles on our virtually identical faces.
We had gotten a rare upgrade to business class, and she acted like we had won the lottery, insisting that we commemorate our moment.
I can’t remember where we were going. It doesn’t matter.
It only ever mattered that we were together.
If I could tell her about James, she’d joke that I should definitely pick Oregon. “Get some!” she’d tease, and I would bury my face in her warm, soft stomach. She’d run her fingers through my hair as she laughed at her own bawdiness, scraping her perfect, almond-shaped nails across my scalp.
What she would do, though, is take the job that was best for her. For my entire life, she never put a man over me or her work. I know she dated, but she never even brought a guy home. Not once. Her priority was always her career. She seized every opportunity. And she shared every adventure with me.
I push myself off the bed and directly into my desk chair. I need to force myself out of my head. I open my laptop, and the window for the short list of International Court of Justice cases I want to weave into my proposal is waiting for me. I turn on a white noise track and get to work.
A few hours later, I meet Rebecca in the dining hall for lunch.
My TA gig gets me extended student housing and a meal pass.
Considering the budget I’m on, it’s pretty clutch, and though carrying a tray amid a sea of undergrads can feel disorienting at this point in my life, there’s also something comforting about overhearing tales of fake IDs and midterms. Rebecca starts at a top firm in Manhattan doing criminal defense in a few months, but despite her signing bonus, she’s still game to be my date for bottomless cereal any day.
“Dude. What happened last night?” she asks, her eyes bright.
“It was fun.” I shrug as nonchalantly as I can, which isn’t very. “He took me bowling and we had dinner. How was the restaurant?”
Rebecca peers into my skull and stays there until I relent. “All right! Jesus.” I feel a slight heat come to my cheeks as I whisper, “We hooked up, OK?”
Rebecca leans back, absolutely delighted. “You sluts! How was it? I mean, don’t tell me any details, because ew, but was it good? Do you like him?”
I take a bite of my Rice Krispies, hoping the crackle will drown out any notes of uncertainty in my voice. “It was very good. He’s awesome. And we’re both leaving town in six weeks, so.”
Rebecca waits, eyes still boring into me. “So what?”
“So . . .” I shrug again, and Rebecca scowls at me.
“You’re not going to see him again?!”
“I don’t know, maybe. We were very up front that it can’t go anywhere—”
“To hell with that,” Rebecca chides. “You two were so cute together! It was, what, like three minutes we all spent together, and I was already picturing your future babies.”
I shake my head. “Dude, you’ve got to get a grip. We’re about to move to opposite sides of the planet.”
“So? Phone sex!” She points a stern finger at me. “FaceTime sex.”
“Gross.”
It goes on like that for a while, with Rebecca pushing hard for me to take James more seriously and me batting her back. Ultimately, we come to a compromise: I promise to text him after I finish my grant proposal.
I leave out the fact that I probably won’t turn it in until right before the deadline. She’ll be annoyed when she puts that together, but I’ve bought myself a week and a half, if James even remembers me by then.
James
As I wait for my train home from work, I open my text conversation with Lucy—like there’s any chance I could have missed a message.
I’m trying to be chill, but it’s been two full days, and she hasn’t texted back.
I know I told her I’d be OK if we just had that night, but now I’m feeling jumpy, like I’m going through withdrawal.
I burned two dishes and broke a plate at work today.
My friend—now my boss—was cool about it, but I need to get my shit together.
Maybe I just have to let Lucy go. My desire to live a small life in the small town where I grew up is an obvious red flag for her. I mean, she wants to go fight for civil liberties around the world. I want to make really good pasta from scratch. Where’s the overlap?
And what I didn’t tell Lucy is that I don’t just dislike traveling. I kind of hate it.
It’s stressful, and any time change messes me up for days, even if it’s only an hour or two.
Everything is always too expensive, too difficult to get to, too crowded.
When a few friends in Philly invited me to join them on a trip to Peru, the whole thing was a disaster.
I saved and planned for months, but when we got there, one of the guys wanted to just chill while the other wanted to hit every cultural site within a hundred miles, and I got stuck in the middle trying to make everyone happy.
Sure, the ceviche was amazing, but the rest?
No thanks. I prefer getting to know things well: walking the same strip of beach until I feel like I know every rock, testing a potpie recipe until it tastes like home.
Rubbing my temples with one hand, I reluctantly glance at the arrival countdown sign.
It feels like my train has been five minutes away for the last ten minutes.
I think about calling Rebecca to see if she has any inside info, but that feels over the line.
Maybe I should send Lucy a text to say .
. . what? I hope your day was good? Lame.
And she could easily just ignore it, then what?
Then you should take the hint, genius.
I’m getting in my own head. I look back to my phone and type, “want to grab dinner tonight?” Delete, delete, delete.
My second attempt: “have dinner with me”—no period.
A period feels too pushy. I send it as my train arrives, but I make the absurd choice to wait for the next one in case she responds quickly.
Lucy
I’ve just managed to stop thinking hourly about James’s hands all over my body when a text from him pops up on my laptop. “have dinner with me”—no period.
I’m at a good stopping point for the day.
I finished grading all the quizzes from the class I’m TA-ing, got in a few hours of bar exam prep, and finished an extremely rough draft of the personal essay portion of my grant proposal.
Plus, an annoyingly chatty study group has taken root at a nearby table in the law library.
There’s nothing standing in the way of me saying yes.
But as much as I want to see him again, I feel my chest tighten. I like him too much. Seeing him again feels like walking straight toward a hurricane.
Maybe I’m overthinking this? There’s no way he’s actually as kind and sweet and playful and fucking sexy as I thought he was the night we met. I was in a crazy emotional state. I was seeing the world through tear-stained, lust-tinted glasses. He can’t possibly hold up.
And what if no-strings sex is just what I need to relieve the stress of this summer?
After several minutes of indecision, I text him. “Sorry, can’t do dinner tonight. But I should be free around 11?”
Three little dots appear almost immediately. And then go away. And then they’re back. I catch myself actually holding my breath, my shoulder muscles tensing, as I wait for his reply.
“11 tonight?” he writes. “that works. your place?”
I feel my cheeks burn. I’m already nervous—and excited.