1100 AM Marco #2
“Your boyfriend owns a yellow Maserati.”
“So what?”
“So don’t talk to me about what’s tacky.”
From the living room Marco heard David say, “It’s a big boat. You’re going to love it, I promise.”
Emily set a hand on her hip. She prodded the inside of her cheek with her tongue.
“You’re still in love with her,” she said. “Which is actually very sad. I mean, how long has it been since you dated? Like, fifteen years?”
“Are you kidding me? How long are you going to keep this up?”
“Keep your voice down,” she hissed. But then her face softened. “You are, though. Just to be clear. That’s why we aren’t together anymore.”
“Oh, that’s why?”
“It’s one of the reasons.”
“Well, you seem perfectly content with how things have worked out.”
Emily linked her hands behind her head. She stood there for a moment, not moving at all, before letting out a quiet laugh. She looked at Marco, then at the tie and the suit he had set out on the bed.
“Those don’t match,” she said, and left the room.
Rami finished his eulogy and sat back down; Adam’s aunt stood to read from John 14.
Clearing her throat, she said, “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places.
I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.
And you know the way to the place where I am going.
” Alison Liu pulled a Kleenex from her purse and used it to dab beneath her eyes and wipe at the space beneath her nose.
She whispered, “It’s like, what does that even mean?
” then tucked the Kleenex back into her purse.
Her stomach grumbled; she covered it with her arm.
Two rows in front of them, Satya Patel’s husband started coughing, a wet hack that caused Adam’s aunt to pause momentarily.
She tried to regain her footing and find her place, and when Satya’s husband coughed again, Satya leaned over and whispered, “For God’s sake, go outside.
” With very little grace he stepped over knees and feet to free himself of the pew and jogged toward the church’s door.
For a moment Marco heard the sounds from the street amplified.
Mia glanced behind her, and for a brief second her eyes landed on him.
She smiled—he thought she smiled—and then turned back around.
At the altar, the priest broke a communion wafer in half.
He said, “Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world,” and Alison shifted uncomfortably in her seat.
“Are you going to go up there?” she asked.
“I can’t. I’m Catholic. Are you going?”
“I think so. I mean, my parents were raised Presbyterian.”
“Were you baptized?”
“Oh God, no. Nothing crazy like that.”
“I’m not one hundred percent sure, but I think you technically have to at least be baptized as some sort of Christian to take communion in an Episcopal church.”
Alison set two fingers against her lips, frowning.
She said, “Well, if I don’t eat something I’m going to pass out,” then stood up and joined the line gathering in front of the altar.
After the service had ended, people filed slowly down the church’s nave and gathered on the steps outside.
Marco joined them, though soon found that he was unsure of whom to talk to or stand with.
Alison had left him to speak with Rami; Sasha and Theo appeared to be in the middle of an argument; he hadn’t seen Richie anywhere.
Groups had formed, their backs to him; it felt like a college reunion, or what he imagined a college reunion might have felt like had he ever gone to one.
The sun was bright, and he lifted a hand to shield his eyes.
He remembered what Emily had said, the sharpness in her voice when she asked, “When was the last time you saw any of those people?” and he wondered if she was right, and if it was actually weird and selfish for him to have come.
He had wanted to see people who knew him when he was young, before he got married or had children or signed divorce papers, because he thought that doing so might help him feel a bit more like himself, as opposed to the version of himself that he felt like he had been pretending to be for the last twenty years.
But now that he was standing here alone, he considered the possibility that he hadn’t been pretending to be anyone—that instead he had changed in real and unrecognizable ways.
On the step below him, Nina Guzman said, “We all just have to remember that we aren’t alone in our darkness, you know?
” and, excusing himself, Marco made his way down to the sidewalk and began walking north toward Chelsea.
At the corner of Christopher Street, he stopped to allow a car to pass in front of him.
He looked east, into the gnarl of the West Village.
He was trying to think of the best way to get back to his hotel when he heard Mia calling out to him.
“Look what we have here,” she said.
“Hi, Mia.”
“I thought I saw you in there.”
They were standing next to a Citi Bike station, and Marco moved forward and out of the way so a man could unlock an electric bike. When the man was gone, he turned back to Mia. He heard himself say, “Well, lucky for you, you did,” and immediately wished he could take it back.
“You cleaned up pretty nice,” she said.
“I hadn’t seen him in forever. A while ago he texted me that he was going to be in DC for the weekend and I forgot to text him back until after he’d already left.” Marco flipped up the tip of his tie. “I figured it was the least I could do.”
“When was that?”
“Six months ago, maybe.”
“We hadn’t spoken in nearly two years.”
“Really? That’s surprising.”
“I said something stupid that I didn’t mean. I think he was waiting for me to apologize, and I didn’t.”
“He should’ve known you well enough to know that’s a stupid thing to wait for. Besides, he could have called you too.”
“Yeah.” For a second it seemed as though Mia was going to cry. Then she said, “Well, anyway.”
They stood there looking at each other, a few feet separating them.
“It’s nice to see you again,” Mia said, and stepped forward to hug him.
Marco felt her hand resting between his shoulder blades, could smell the soap on her skin.
Behind them a woman struggled to unlock another Citi Bike.
She said, “These motherfucking things,” and for a moment Marco held Mia tighter.
Then she detached herself from him and took a small step away.
“How’s life in our nation’s capital?” she asked.
“Dysfunctional. Bad restaurants. The same, I guess.”
“Sounds like a dream.”
“I hear you’re in London?”
“For a bit.”
“I saw your book in some roundup of the summer’s hottest reads. I thought that was funny.”
“Because it didn’t belong there?”
“No, because it’s a book about global warming, and it was on a list of the summer’s hottest reads.”
Mia shook her head, laughing. She unzipped her purse and began digging through it. Her hair fell in her face.
“My mother’s going to be the only person who reads it. And she’ll probably end up using it as a coaster or something.”
“That’s not true. I’m going to read it. I’m proud of you.”
“It’s really not that big of a deal. Have you been into a bookstore recently? There are already too many books.”
“Stop doing that.”
“Doing what?”
“Acting like nothing you do is important.”
“Nothing any of us do is that important.”
A young woman in her twenties walked between them, talking loudly on her phone. She said, “No, yeah, I don’t even know, but probably,” and continued trudging west toward the West Side Highway. Mia went back to rummaging through her purse.
“So are you heading to the reception?” she asked.
“I wasn’t planning on it. I don’t know too many people anymore.”
“You know me. And where else do you have to go?”
Marco rubbed his cheek. He looked at his tie again.
“I don’t know. Nowhere, really.”
“Well, those sound like some thrilling plans.”
She pulled a single loose cigarette from her purse, holding it up to the sunlight like she had discovered gold.
She actually said: “Eureka.”
“Who smokes anymore?” Marco asked.
“Right? I asked Courtney the same thing, but then she offered me one, and I was like, why not, sure.”
“They’ll kill you, you know.”
“I think we’ve had enough talk of dying today, don’t you?”
“You’re right, I’m sorry, light ’em up.”
Mia clicked her teeth together, thinking. Then she rolled the cigarette between two fingers and put it back in her purse.
“So why aren’t you there?” he asked.
“Where?”
“This hopping funeral reception you speak of.”
She looked at him for an uncomfortable amount of time, like she was waiting for him to answer his own question.
“I don’t know. I guess I was coming to find you first.”
She laughed a second time. Marco said, “Okay, yeah, I guess that makes sense,” and felt his face grow warm.
He loved her—he had always loved her, even when it felt like he had never hated someone so much.
It turned out Emily was right about that.
Whether Mia loved him too was a different question; the same went for what would happen next.
He didn’t actually know if they would see each other again tomorrow.
There was always the chance that they would both realize that the people they had turned into were totally incompatible with the versions of themselves that they remembered—that what they had been chasing wasn’t actually each other, but the way they used to feel when they were together.
But he didn’t want to think about any of that now.
Instead what he wanted to think about was how beautiful the sunlight looked, shimmering off new green leaves, and the clear certainty of church bells ringing down the street.
He wanted to think about how incredible it was that even on the shittiest, grief-stricken days, life could rearrange itself to reveal these little pockets of joy.
“So?” she asked him.
“So, let’s go.”