Thinking About Forever

3. Wednesday

Chapter 3

Wednesday

I show up to work the next day feeling hungover from the sake, the unexpected and riveting dinner, and staying up way too late playing every Matt Johnson album ever produced. Listening to his music felt almost voyeuristic in the context of my personal connection to him, albeit about thirty-six hours old.

It felt like reading his diary—wrong, and yet I couldn’t stop. Some of the songs were familiar to me—the big radio hits—but the ones I love are new to me, the deep record tracks that seem soulful and inspired. I'm blown away by the depth he weaves into a three-minute song. I am amazed at his ability to layer so much meaning and cleverness while offering up big, profound ideas in a way that feels accessible and relatable to everyone who might be listening. His singing voice sounds different than his speaking voice, deeper and yet raspier all at once. It’s provocative.

I didn’t stop at looking up his music. I Googled him and saw hundreds of photos, many of which showed him on stages and red carpets with beautiful women—actresses, fellow musicians, and models. All gorgeous and talented in their own right. Is this his type? I felt a pit form in my stomach. While I’ve certainly never been short on confidence, I do not consider myself to be anywhere near the level of these other women.

Why do I even care? This is a patient’s emergency contact who was coerced into sharing a meal with me, nothing more, nothing less. Strangely, I did not see any interviews with Matt about the women he was linked to. No outright confirmation about any one relationship. It was all speculation, though the proof in the photos is undeniable. I ended up drifting off into a deep, dreamless sleep, but as soon as I woke up, I thought about him.

I swipe onto the unit and make my way toward the nurse's station. Dave greets me with a furious look on his face.

“I texted you fifty times last night! Not a single response? Did you know I could hardly sleep? How could you do this to me?”

“Dave, it is not my responsibility to fill you in on every single detail of my boring pity dinner.”

“Boring, my ass! You got to sit across from that perfect specimen for at least two hours, so you better spill.”

“Want to have lunch with me today?”

“Fine,” Dave says begrudgingly.

* * *

After an uneventful morning full of paperwork and a vibrant lunch with Dave at which I shared some, but not all, of the details, I make it to Sid’s room. He is sleeping soundly, and Matt sits by the window, headphones on, working on his laptop. I gesture for him to come out into the hallway.

“How's it going? How are both of you doing?”

“I think we’re doing just fine. My dad is as ornery as ever because Dr. Patel told him he has to stay through tonight. I have to say, everyone here is fantastic, but especially the nurses. They somehow placate him, and I know it isn't easy.”

“Good. I want to talk to you both about some of the discharge resources we have, so maybe I can come back when he’s awake.”

Matt watches my mouth while I speak in a way that makes me very aware of how close together we are standing.

“Do you have plans tonight? My dad wants to order in Thai, and I was just going to camp out in his room. Want to join us?” He is now looking into my eyes.

“I’m sorry, I can't. I'm busy,” I say quickly.

“Yeah, of course, no worries. Maybe another time.” Suddenly diffident. It's cute.

“I feel like I’m going a little nuts being in here for so many hours of the day. I can understand why he is so adamant about going home. Hopefully, it happens tomorrow.” As he runs a hand through his thick hair, his brows furrow.

“My thing tonight isn't until seven, but I’m going home to walk my dog beforehand. You can join me if you’d like. Get some fresh air,” I say impulsively.

“I’d like that.” He smiles that half smile.

“I’ll text you when I’m at the entrance of the park. It’s only a few blocks from here.” We exchange numbers, and I once again head back to my office wondering what the hell I am doing.

* * *

I stand at the entrance of the park, anxiously awaiting Matt’s arrival. I shift my weight from foot to foot and twirl the leash around my wrists. Murphy, completely unaware of my mounting nerves, sits wagging his tail, restless to begin his walk.

What am I doing?

I know Matt has approached me from behind; it’s like I can somehow sense his presence. Murphy jumps up, ripping the leash from my hands and taking off in a full sprint toward Matt.

“I think your dog likes me,” he says with smile, walking back toward me holding Murphy's leash.

“A lot of people think that. He is the most excitable forty pound mutt in all Central Park.”

Murphy jumps all over Matt with absolutely no manners and begins frantically sniffing at his right jacket pocket. With Murphy serving as a buffer, my eyes rake over him. He's wearing a tight gray T-shirt with an old-school, eighties-style white windbreaker over it, black shorts, and Nike sneakers. He looks the part of a musician, effortlessly cool, all six foot four of him confidently on display. I smile as he pulls out a piece of bacon wrapped in a napkin from his coat pocket.

“I hope you don’t mind. I came prepared. It's from the cafeteria breakfast my Dad refused to eat.”

“Not at all. You’ll have a fast friend.”

We fall in stride together, heading for the usual loop Murphy and I do most nights after work. The first few moments are filled with comfortable silence. We see the regular crowd of dogs, and I notice their owners slow down, doing double takes. Matt notices, too, and ducks his head. I glance at him, wondering if he notices the ways he shrinks himself.

He breaks the silence. “I’d like to say you get used to it, but that's not completely true. At least there aren’t any paparazzi.”

“How can you tell the difference?”

“If I can see them, the paparazzi will usually ask me questions. Some I’ve gotten to know a little, not here, but in LA. They’re okay guys, for the most part, just doing their job. Plus, it's not exactly rocket science to figure out where they will be and avoid it. It’s taken me a long time to figure out how to navigate the press in general, but that’s a story for another day. The problem now is iPhones.”

I laugh. “You sound like a real Boomer when you say that.”

“I know, I know, but it's true. Because of iPhones, anyone can be paparazzi. I’ve started getting this spidey sense when someone is on their phone trying to take a picture of me. Sometimes they end up on blogs or gossip social media accounts. It’s mostly fine but still a little unnerving. It doesn’t get to me so much anymore. New Yorkers are generally much better about it. They don’t give a shit, and most of the time I can go about my business unbothered.”

“What a strange way to live,” I murmur, mostly to myself.

He shoots me a look, and I worry I’ve offended him. “Yeah, it’s not for everyone." He recovers quickly, "So, tell me more about what’s going on in that interesting mind of yours today.”

“Just trying to think of what I'm going to have my team do at practice tonight. That's the thing I have. I volunteer as a field hockey coach at the high school in my neighborhood. We do preseason workouts every Wednesday night."

"Coach Anderson." He says it slowly, trying it out. "I like it. What's that like? I've never played an organized sport in my life."

I look at him in all his rock star glory and try to conjure up what a young Matt Johnson might've looked like in high school.

"It's a lot of fun. There's a lot of overlap between coaching and therapy. I love the girls, they're energetic and hilarious, and it’s a nice balance for me. Plus, it makes me feel rooted in this community. I know you know this, but New York is full of transplants, like me. I didn't want to feel like I was just passing through. Coaching has been an antidote to that for me. It makes New York feel real."

"That makes sense."

"Apart from that, my only other pressing issue is to book a trip to see my brother, Ryan, as soon as possible. He lives in Denver, and it’s been way too long. The pandemic halted our quarterly visits, and we never got back into the swing of things.”

“What’s Ryan like?” Matt asks.

“He’s awesome, a typical older brother. We’re only eighteen months apart, so we got mistaken for twins often as kids. He works as an environmental scientist, mostly focused on conservation efforts. He moved to Denver in 2018 to work on a giant project focused on restoring the Native trout populations out there. We are close, we always were, but even more so after my parents split up and my mom had to go back to work full time. She worked a ton of hours, so it was just the two of us a lot of the time.”

I leave out the fact that Ryan was essential in nursing me through the early weeks of my divorce. He flew to New York unprompted and helped me move all my stuff out of Jersey and into my new apartment. Then, he camped out on my couch for an extra two weeks, working from my kitchen counter during the day and dragging me out for margaritas and long walks at night. He even went as far as to schedule a hair appointment for me after informing me I looked like the girl who crawled out of the well in The Ring .

It wasn’t lost on me that Ryan had to process the loss of Nick, separate from my own grief. They had been incredibly close, especially in the early years of our relationship. But there was never any doubt where Ryan’s loyalty would lie. He had even reached out to Nick behind my back before the divorce and talked to him about trying a little harder, putting in some more effort, after I’d broken down and cried to him about our dwindling marriage. When his suggestion was rebuffed, Ryan drew a line in the sand and stood firmly on my side. As far as I know, Nick is dead to him.

On the topic of brothers, I say, “Your dad told me a little about Eric. I'm so sorry. What was he like?”

Matt blows out a breath.

“Eric was the coolest little brother you could imagine. He was only two years younger than me, but I swear I have a memory of the day my parents brought him home. Does that make sense?”

I nod.

“We shared a room, even when he was a baby, so I was always the first one to hear him cry. I made it my mission to take care of him, giving him his pacifier, patting his back, singing to him. Probably the first person I ever sang to, now that I think about it. I felt so important that I got to help with this little baby.

“And then suddenly, he was big enough to play with me. And from that moment on, we were inseparable. Every single memory I have from my childhood includes Eric. He somehow managed not to be the annoying little brother. He had the best imagination and made everything fun. He could read a room faster than anyone I knew and defuse a tense situation with a perfectly timed joke. The kid was funny . I have no doubt he would’ve had a long and successful career in comedy if he were still alive. He could somehow neutralize my parents’ anger, especially when I was the one in trouble. I get stuck in my head a lot, wondering what my life would be like if he were still here. He would’ve been the perfect wingman to be on this ride with me. I think he could’ve kept me grounded, helped me navigate some of the more turbulent times.”

“You seem pretty grounded to me.”

“Thanks, but I wasn’t always this way. I went a little off the rails, in my own way. But I know Eric would’ve kept me in check. He had that way about him—talking me down, keeping me balanced."

Midway through the walk, we hit a stretch with no other people. Murphy trots ahead of us, his proud little walk. I feel Matt’s hand brush against mine. Electric. I focus on the path ahead.

“What is life like for you, with your job? You’ve seen my life, my work, my day-to-day at the hospital. I can’t help but think it couldn’t be more different from yours,” I ask.

“It’s not so different, believe it or not. I know my life might sometimes seem glamorous, but it's a lot of the same. I try to treat my music like a nine to five. I go to the studio every day during the week, working on new stuff, fine-tuning old stuff—the consistency of a schedule is very important to me. When I’m on tour, it's a ton of travel, obviously. But I try to keep my same routine. It's the only thing that keeps me sane and well. I did the whole party every night after a show thing when I was younger, and it burned me the hell out. I couldn’t keep performing like that, so I’m a little rigid when I’m on the road, just to make sure I don’t get back there again. Apart from that, I feel like I have a lot of free time. I’ll do dinners with friends, dabble with some hobbies, come back and forth to see my dad. Not quite the rock star life some people imagine.”

“Yeah, you’re just an average Joe.” I angle my head at the man walking toward us, wide-eyed and openly staring at Matt.

Matt laughs at that and gives the guy a quick nod. We circle around and head back toward the entrance of the park, where we started.

“Was your dad serious that you haven’t gone a date in two years? Or was he just busting your chops?” I ask.

“A little of both, I guess. I have gone on a few dates here and there but nothing that ever panned out, nothing worth mentioning to him—which is exactly why he mentions it all the time. What about you?”

“Same, a few dates here and there, nothing worth mentioning,” I say.

“It’s not that I don’t want to date, despite what some people may think. It’s just that I took a very intentional break for a very long time—actually, at the advice of my therapist a few years ago. It got me out of the loop of making the same mistakes. Since then, it’s been a little easier to see what works and what doesn’t work for me. I’m a little cautious, probably too in my head about a lot of things. I just want to be sure. To feel sure. Plus, I’m not at all interested in the entire modern day dating process, as we know it. Mostly the online part, but also the interview process of it, the performative part. Maybe that’s a mistake, but I just have this hope that when it’s right I’ll know, and the overthinking part of my brain that has plagued me most of my life will magically disappear. Wishful thinking, I know. I just kind of have a picture in my head of how it all should be, should feel, and I'm not willing to settle for anything less. If that makes sense. But anyway, because of all that, I kind of ended up in this perpetual state of singledom,” Matt says.

“I know what you mean. I’ve found myself in a similar position. Part of me wonders if it’s just inertia or being cynical, or both. But it seems like a hell of a lot of effort to date at this point in history, especially at my age ... which is only thirty-eight.” I watch his face for a reaction, not that I expect one, but I’ve had enough experience seeing the way in which certain men find women over thirty-five to be invisible. Matt doesn’t bat an eye. I go on.

“It's daunting to stare down the barrel of online dating. Like what you said—the performative part of it. The curated part of it. A dog and pony show, showing only the desirable parts of you. Plus, all the unwritten rules and waiting around. How exhausting. Why can't we just be honest? And the never-ending apps and swiping is so depressing to me. Nothing ever goes anywhere, and it perpetuates the idea that there is always someone better on the horizon. The unicorns. It’s not real, and it just sets everyone up for disappointment.” I've obviously spent a lot of time thinking about this.

Matt nods emphatically. "I couldn’t agree more. And I’m only forty-two. A young, robust, forty-two."

I smile, “I had no doubts about your sturdiness.”

"That makes me either an elder millennial or a very young Gen Xer. Not a Boomer. For the record."

"Elder millennial has a better ring to it."

He laughs.

“Are you ever lonely?” he asks. The way he cuts to the chase is refreshing.

“Sometimes. Not really. I have a full life. I’ve been able to invest a lot into my friendships, my relationships with my family, my coworkers, my field hockey team, my career. It hasn’t yet felt like I’m missing something." Plus, I had that something, and it turned out to be not that great. "Maybe the occasional Sunday night, I’ll feel a wave of sadness or loneliness. Same goes for the holidays, or rainy and snowy days. Maybe some special occasions, like weddings, or other places when people are paired off, too. But they’re just waves. Moments, really. Not a permanent state of being. Murphy fills the gaps pretty well.” I sound more confident than I feel.

While I believe everything I am saying, I often feel like it is sitting on the surface of my skin, not wholly sinking in. The truth is, I second guess myself often and spend a lot of time reconciling the life I thought I would have as I near my forties and the life I do have.

“Is a long-term relationship and marriage something you want?” he asks.

“Yes,” I answer honestly. “For you, too?”

“Yes. I want it all. I want the marriage, the kids, the white picket fence. I always have. And always will. That can feel a little heavy sometimes, like, why don’t I have this thing I want so badly? What am I doing wrong?”

“What makes you think you're doing something wrong?”

"Well, what else could it be? I guess I can only understand my part in it."

"I'm impressed you can take accountability for your part in it. A lot of people can’t do that. But the other person matters a ton, obviously—their history, their wounds, their goals, dreams, etc. Also, you can't discount the environment."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, sort of like, the collective unconscious. The world in which we live and all the different elements of culture, society, politics, religion, etc. Everything. It plays a part, maybe not a huge part, but still a part. It can impact our beliefs. Which impacts the way we think. We have a lot of beliefs about dating, love, marriage, that may be outside of our awareness. Like everyone has one perfect match , or your partner should be able to meet your every need . Or relationships should not require effort, and if you do have to work on it, something is wro ng."

He nods, brow furrowed, staring ahead. "That makes a lot of sense."

"What do you think some of those unhelpful beliefs might be for you?" I ask.

His face breaks into a wide smile. "Are you going to bill me for this?"

I laugh. "Touché. I didn't mean to pry. I just like hearing your take on things."

"I really like hearing your take on just about everything.”

My cheeks burn.

"So, why mental health? What got you into the field?" he asks as we approach the final stretch of our walk.

"Me and my brother were very anxious kids."

"How so?"

"We both worried all the time. For no identifiable reasons, besides maybe just genetics. But from as early as I can remember, I always had this feeling that something terrible was going to happen. It was relentless. I could never figure out how to get ahead of it. So, I was always on the lookout for potential threats and was constantly on edge.”

“My brothers worries were similar to mine in a lot of ways but also different, and his got worse when my parents divorced while mine got better. It got so bad my mom dragged us to a therapist when I was nine and he was ten. This was way before therapy was mainstream. It was a horrible experience—we only went once. The therapist was cold and judgmental. She didn't seem interested in connecting with us or helping us. I walked out of that session thinking, if I had a chance to sit with a kid as anxious as me or as Ryan, I would do better. At the very least, I would make sure they didn't feel alone."

He looks at me inquisitively, like he is trying to figure me out. "You don't seem anxious to me. You seem very calm and even keeled."

"I am. Well, I am both, I should say. Anxious and even keeled. It's all part of me, but it's not an all or nothing thing—more like in the continuum of me, all these different parts exist. And don't get me wrong, I still have the something terrible is going to happen, the other shoe is going to drop, don't get your hopes up panic stuff. But I've had a lot of practice at catching it before it sidetracks me."

He nods slowly, seeming to take in everything I am saying.

"Hmm. I like that. I contain multitudes ," he replies thoughtfully, rubbing his hand against the stubble on his jaw.

I smile. This guy continues to impress me. "Yes. That's Walt Whitman."

He nods. "This has been fascinating. And eye-opening for me. You're giving me a lot to think about. You might actually need to bill me."

"I'll consider it pro bono," I say.

We make it back to the entrance of the park and stand to the side.

“Thanks for letting me join you and Murph man.” He kneels to give him some ear scratches. “You know, every time I talk to you, I find myself not wanting it to end.”

Butterflies fill my stomach. “I feel the same way." It's easy to be honest with him, knowing how honest he is with me.

"Can we do it again?” He seems wide open.

“Considering you’re camped out at my place of business, I feel confident we’ll run into each other again very soon,” I say.

“Okay.” He dips his head in a little bow.

“Thanks for joining us. Murphy was thrilled.”

“Were you?”

“Yes, I was equally thrilled.”

"Have a good practice, Coach Anderson.” He leans in and gives me a quick hug and a kiss on the cheek. I feel the contact all the way in my toes and notice the slightest hesitation as he pulls away.

His scent lingers for a moment longer than his lips. Thank God I have practice tonight. I need something to take my mind off him.