Chapter 5
Four years ago, I practically spit in Declan’s face that I didn’t need him. And now? I’m hoping he hires me at the coffee shop he manages? I mean, are you kidding? He couldn’t have written a better gotcha moment himself,” I say to Roshi’s and Faye’s bobbing heads on my phone.
“Blink,” Roshi starts. “There is absolutely zero reason to feel embarrassed. If he’s the manager then he probably could have refused giving you an interview in the first place.”
“Yeah. Or he took it just to rub it in my face,” I retort.
“Wait,” Faye chimes in. “Why is he working at a coffee shop? Wasn’t he going to be a professional football player?”
Her question makes my skin feel too tight in an instant. I try to school my face but there’s no use. My imagination has imitated memory so many times I can’t tell the difference anymore.
A moment of shock and then darkness. Waking up in a hospital room.
“He stopped playing his senior year. Couldn’t anymore. But I don’t know how he ended up back in Seabrook. I thought he’d still be in college in some random state,” I reply, voice shaky.
“Yeah, well, didn’t you just shoot yourself in the foot by lying in the interview? Don’t you actually need this job?” Roshi says.
Faye raises her eyebrows like, “Good point.”
“Guys, he’s not gonna hire me. He clearly wants nothing to do with me if that was our first conversation after all this time,” I respond.
“Yeah, that. Or he was just as shocked to see you as you were to see him?” Roshi suggests. “By that standard he could assume that you want nothing to do with him after the way you acted.”
I stare at her wine-red curls on my screen.
“Fair point,” I say. “I guess we’ll just have to see, won’t we?”
“I guess we shall,” Faye intones, regal as always.
“Welp. Faye, keep your eye out for a delivery. You should be getting something by today,” I announce.
“Blairy, stop, you shouldn’t have!” she squeals.
“Oh, please. Don’t thank me yet. You might think it’s hideous,” I joke, deflecting her excitement.
“Ohhhh, you’re the sweetest. If it’s from you I’ll love it no matter what.” Faye blows kisses from her hand to the phone screen and I pretend to dodge them.
I ordered a customizable kitchenware set from Etsy with her new initials engraved on them.
Faye’s boyfriend of two years proposed the spring of our senior year and they eloped in France before spring break was over.
(She always joked that a “ring by spring” was the ultimate goal of college.
She of all people was much too attractive to make that joke.
And apparently, it wasn’t one.) Her now-husband landed an engineering job that would bring enough income in for both of them, regardless of whether she chose to work or not.
She has informed us over innocuous champagne-fueled giggles that she will be choosing the latter.
Roshi rolls her eyes in the box that hovers beside Faye’s. “Ugh, I wish I were a housewife right now. If any of you would like to memorize the contents of my Civil Procedure textbook for me before school starts, let me know.”
“Pass,” I say.
“Yep. Hard pass,” Faye says.
We all became close after our first week at Pepperdine University, but much to our disappointment, our lives have diverged onto vastly different paths since our last day living together in our Facebook Marketplace–furnished apartment.
Roshi got accepted to Harvard Law School.
Faye moved into an apartment with Stephen in Virginia.
And when I was supposed to go to NYC for my consulting job, we planned multiple trips to see each other, our new states just a skip and a hop away.
But now we had zero dates on the calendar, reduced to seeing each other’s faces on a phone screen.
Roshi clears her throat, looking solemn suddenly. “Um, so, how’s Lottie doing?” she asks, saying the words quickly.
“Oh.” I wave my hand, discomfort fueling the movement. “She’s uhh— She’s been better,” I say, lips pressing together in an awkward line.
Roshi and Faye nod in unison, eyes downcast. There’s a moment of tense silence. Anddddd this is exactly why I don’t discuss these things, I think to myself.
“Well, let us know if you need anything, Blink,” Roshi says, finally ending the weird lull in the conversation.
“Yes, please let us know!” Faye adds.
“I will,” I say, knowing it’s a lie.
Roshi’s use of my nickname causes the genesis of our friendship to spring to mind.
A week before my freshman year at Pepperdine, I forced myself to go to a mixer to meet some other kids my age, but of course, I was terrified.
It was my first time being away from the tiny beach town of Seabrook where everyone was familiar and every corner was a safe haven of lush forestry and sandy cobblestone walkways.
The dark house was filled with sweaty bodies bopping to unintelligible mumble rap. My shoes stuck to the floor. The event had to be held off campus at an unofficial frat house to comply with alcohol codes on campus. I couldn’t have been further from my comfort zone.
I was pretending to fiddle with the drinks in the kitchen when a guy who had an uncanny side profile to Declan walked past. The disheveled blond-brown hair.
The way he took his strides, elongating each one like he had to get the most out of each step.
I was still fresh with hurt after our inexplicable separation. My whole body felt like an open wound.
The fight. The accident. His subsequent silence.
I froze, staring at his doppelg?nger walking past me with my eyes wide open, looking like I’d seen a ghost. That’s when Roshi walked past.
She waved a hand in front of my face.
“Oh my gosh, blink!” she yelled. “Your eyes are gonna dry up and fall out!”
I did finally blink, and my eyes readjusted to the tiny girl standing before me, box-dyed cranberry hair and nose ring glinting in the low light.
“Are you okay?” she asked. The sincerity in her voice made my shoulders fall.
“Uh, yeah.” I shook my head and tried a laugh to make my weird behavior seem like a fluke. “Just thought I saw someone I knew.”
“Ooooo! You like them?” she guessed, wiggling her eyebrows as she looked at the boy I mistook for Declan. “Come on, I can introduce you to him!” She grabbed my wrist, but I quickly shut her down.
After the way things ended with Declan, I vowed to be alone.
Maybe it was pride, but I spent most of my childhood believing I could prove my mother wrong.
All men leave at some point. It was the motto I spent countless nights overhearing her preach during late-night conversations on the phone or with Lottie in the living room when I was supposed to be sleeping.
“It’s just not worth it,” she’d say, clucking her tongue.
“All men leave or fall out of love at some point. You just have to accept that and move on.” She would say it flippantly, like becoming a single mother was just something to be expected.
That’s not true. It can’t be, I remember thinking as a naive child.
But my absent father and ghost of a childhood friend would beg to differ.
She was right, and I felt stupid for ever believing I could prove her wrong.
After I vehemently shut Roshi down, removing her hand from my wrist and explaining my vow of boy-dating celibacy, she stopped.
“Okay, Blink… no worries. Honestly, that’s kind of a power move with the whole short-haired, doe-eyed beach-girl look you’ve got going on,” she responded, leaning backward with her hands up.
The movement made me chuckle. This girl is going to be trouble, I remember thinking.
“I’m Roshi, by the way.” She stuck her hand out for me to shake, which was oddly formal in this environment.
I hesitated, then smiled and took her hand, shaking it like it was an oath.
“I’m Blair.”
“Cool name! No e at the end like in Gossip Girl?”
I nodded my confirmation.
“Sick.” She nodded, satisfied. “Mind if I still call you Blink, though?”
That was four years ago. We’re no longer the tiny, fresh-faced freshmen bopping around Pepperdine like scared chihuahuas, but she never stopped calling me “Blink” after that first night.
“Okay, welp. I’ve gotta go bury my face back into these law prep books,” Roshi says from the screen in the present, holding up a thumb and smiling with dead eyes.
“Yeah, I’ve gotta go too. I have a chicken potpie to toil over before Stephen gets home tonight. And before you roll your eyes, Rosh, it’s harder than it seems. Making sure the filling cooks without burning the crust is no joke,” Faye whines, lifting her eyebrows to indicate her sarcasm.
“Alright, guys. Talk soon,” I respond.
After our FaceTime ends, my lock screen illuminates.
The image stares up at me, taunting. It’s a screenshot from one of my favorite movie scenes at the end of Lady Bird when she’s walking down the streets of New York City.
She has tears streaking down her face, but she just keeps walking, not really sure where she’s trying to go.
She turns onto Waverly Place and Washington Square Park and then is lured into a cathedral from hearing the choir inside.
After a moment, she leaves the church and calls her mom.
Her relationship with her mom couldn’t be more different from mine, but there’s something about the way that movie captures the city.
She’s young, confused, still unsure of where she’ll go, but she’s there, and she’s ready.
That’s how I always pictured New York would be for me.
A clean slate. An objective bystander with open arms. Uninterested in where you came from or why you had come.
Just a place to be alone, unbothered by the disappointments of relationships, giving you the space to find independence for yourself.
A guaranteed way to ensure my mom’s future.
I let myself stare at the phone for another beat before slamming it facedown on my desk and standing to leave.
There’s only one reason I’m here instead of New York City right now.