Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
October. Two things due to bookend the month: our final wedding payment at its end, round four of Soulmails pending toward
its beginning.
Weekends were the only respite from the constant go-go-go pace of media. The first Saturday, I was desperate for a run.
Every time I used my fingers to press face SPF into my pores, I regretted not wearing it daily in my twenties. While I waited
for it to dry, I slipped into an all-black, slightly worn-out pair of leggings and tank top, quickly ponytail-braided my hair,
and jammed a baseball hat on top.
On my way toward Central Park, I called Aunt Josie. Last week, I’d posted Natalie’s pictures and videos of our stay at her
cottage, and one of my followers unearthed the address and shared the rental listing in the comments. I maneuvered past a
bodega with fresh fruits and winced. “I’m so sorry, Auntie.”
Josie barked a laugh. “Are you kidding me, bingo-bingo?” My aunt has never called me the same thing twice. It used to irritate
Mom, but it amused me. “When I started getting hits, I jacked up the price. I’m booked for two straight years. I owe you a
dinner to thank you.”
One positive of social media. The news buoyed my run.
I was fast, sweat sprawling my spine, my upper lip, my forehead, beneath my hat.
Fall sunlight slanted through the trees, and leaves crunched beneath my rubber soles.
I made it to Central Park before slowing, and nearly stopping, because that was when I saw him.
Because the museum was on the west side of the park, I’d purposefully steered toward the east side. But to my surprise, Caleb
was near the entrance to the zoo. For a moment, I panicked he was on a date or something, but he appeared to be alone. When
he saw me, he lit up.
“How can I not see you for fifteen years and then suddenly run into you everywhere?” I asked, panting. Pretending he didn’t
break our last several plans. Pretending he hadn’t ghosted me, that I hadn’t seen him since Natalie’s party, when he’d dipped
so suddenly.
Pretending this wasn’t freaking me out.
“Maybe we passed by each other all the time and didn’t know it,” he said. His eyes darkened. “Though, never mind. I’d have
recognized you anywhere.”
The thrill started south of my belly button. I worked to ignore it. “What are you doing?”
He cocked his head. He’d lost his summer tan, which made his features stand out. “Well, childhood friend. I’m going rollerblading.”
“You don’t have Rollerblades.”
“Step one of this endeavor? Swinging by the rental stand.” His smile sharpened his cheekbones. “What are you doing, besides
coming with me?”
It was brazen, sort of flirty, but also just wholly and completely Caleb. My smile was overtaking me. “I can’t rollerblade.
Are you out of your mind?”
“It’s your lucky day. They have pads and helmets, too.”
When we were both properly suited, we started slow. Caleb’s skills were evident right away. “Thought you’d be better at this,
Adler,” he teased. “It’s the same thing as ice-skating.”
I grunted. “I used to be.”
“I remember. You could do one of those turns.”
“Axels.”
“Who taught you how?”
“Me.” I wobbled. “I taught myself.”
“What happened?”
I pushed off, testing my balance. My glutes squeezed, already the good kind of sore from my run. I was going to regret this
tomorrow. I glided down a hill, its slope coming faster than I expected. I bent my knees in an “oh, shit” subway stance until
the hill crested, and I slowed. My heart pounded. I was alive.
“My doctor told me I couldn’t ice-skate anymore,” I said. “Said I had a fifty percent chance of tearing the other ACL.”
His eyes widened. “Oh. Crap. Want to stop?”
“Not at all.” I made a shaky loop. Exhilaration swirled in me, and I thought: buoyant. I slanted my eyes his way. He stopped skating to meet my glance. The afternoon sunlight warmed each of us in a soft glow.
I felt like a kid again, and I took off so he could chase me.
“I have to ask you something important,” Caleb said once he’d caught up.
My temples tightened. “Okay.”
“Can you give me recommendations for a new comfort show?” He spun a wide, one-footed circle around me.
I stuck out my tongue. “Show-off. And why are we talking about comfort shows?”
“Two reasons. I’m trying to talk to you about something benign, because we’ve got loads of dramatic stuff to talk about that
I don’t feel like talking about.”
I skated over a rock, the reverberation jolting up my spine. “What’s your second reason?”
“Show selections tell a lot about a person.”
I had to concentrate. I zipped my core muscles like a sweatshirt, bottom to top. “Oh, yeah?”
Light crept through Caleb’s eyes. “Definitely.”
“Great. Mine are Friends or Grey’s Anatomy to fall asleep to. The Great British Baking Show is my background show.”
“A woman with entertainment classifications,” Caleb said, miming being impressed.
“Don’t be too impressed. Natalie’s are True Blood for sleep, and Emily in Paris for background.”
We whizzed past a family in matching shades of clothing. A photographer shouted at them to pretend to laugh, and the little
girl of the bunch burst into tears. “That’s . . . something.”
“She’s an enigma.”
“Guess so.” Caleb skated to a stand with four-dollar water bottles. He purchased two, and we sat on a bench.
“Four-dollar waters. My childhood self is throwing a fit. What are you, rich?” I teased, shaking the bottle he handed me.
“Incredibly.”
“What’s your comfort show?”
“Schitt’s Creek,” he said immediately.
“Good one.” I drank. The water slid down my throat, streamed into my stomach. I leaned against the bench and stretched my
arms overhead. “Wanna know something delicious?”
“Always.”
“Even though he says he hates it, Wells’s is Glee.”
Caleb choked on his water. It spluttered over his shirt, joining dark sweat marks on dark fabric. “No,” he managed.
I smiled back, but my stomach sank. I’d crossed a line. In a family studies class in college, I’d learned that step one to
breaking apart a relationship is confiding something about that person to someone to whom you could be attracted. That detail
had clocked in my mind. “Swear,” I said now, softly, feeling wicked.
There on that bench, the roofline of Caleb’s museum visible beyond the changing tree line, it was easy to imagine a future with him in it. Caleb leaned against the bench, his arm sailing behind me. If he shifted it forward an inch, it would capture my shoulders.
I wanted to tip my head to rest on him. But even though Wells had betrayed me, the saying about two wrongs and no rights was
like a pattern on my personal fabric. Besides, with the possible chance I could be recognized, photographed, it would be a
problem. So I didn’t. I counted to ten in my head, deciding if I was going to say what I wanted to. “Wells wants to move,”
I said.
Caleb stilled. “Back in together?” he asked. Was his voice thick? I couldn’t tell.
“No. Well, yes, but.” I paused. “To California.”
“You’re moving to California?” Disbelief etched into his tone.
I shook my head. “He mentioned it last night but brushed it off at my reaction.” But our October payment was due soon. I might
not be moving to California yet, but if things kept going, I might be getting married to my soulmate.
He inhaled, as if gearing up for a response, but two people walked by us. One wore a cardboard sign advertising CONTACT YOUR
SOULMATE IN THE NEXT REALM. In a starchy collared shirt and with a deep-set frown, the other looked like she would be pictured
on an oatmeal label if she hadn’t worked herself up into such a frenzy. A picture of piousness. They were separated by the
full swath of the wide Central Park path, but they stalked one another warily, two lightning bolts down the railroad tracks.
The psychic was closer. She tick-tocked her gaze between us. “Either of you two have soulmates who’ve passed on to the other
side?”
“You can’t call people from heaven,” Piety Jane called from yards away.
“And you ain’t a conduit,” the psychic said, breezy. She appraised Caleb and me, then snapped her fingers my way. “I know you,” she said.
I waited for it.
“You’re the French fry girl at the movie theater,” the psychic said.
My chest hiccupped with swallowed laughter. I nodded. “That’s exactly who I am.”
“Tell them to bring back the crinkle fries.”
“Only God is supposed to know this information,” shrieked Piety Jane. She was the kind of person who gave religion a bad name.
Her anger was shocking; it was turning over a log by a river and watching green-brown salamanders streaming over your toes.
“God and potato farmers,” whispered Caleb.
“I’ll tell them,” I promised. When the two left, I shook my head ruefully. “This is a weird world.”
“New York has always been weird,” Caleb said. We sat in silence, perhaps both of us thinking about ways our New Yorks have
been weird to us. I missed obscurity, missed the way the world used to work, prior to the point when chance was cleaved.
“Life is too short,” I muttered, but before I was done with my sentence, Caleb stood with a velocity that could only be described
as rocketlike.
“I have to go,” he said.
I startled. “Now?”
“Yeah, I’m behind at work.”
“It’s Saturday.” I tried for a smile.
“I’m behind at work,” he repeated.
“I get it. Maybe we can hang out soon?”
A hand drifted to his temple. “Maybe.”
I recoiled. Hurt was heavy, I had learned. My neck shrank into my shoulders. My leg muscles quivered, ached, but here on the
bench, I could steady myself. “What about getting together when Natalie gets back in town?”
“We’ll talk then,” he said. But then he paused. “Is your wedding still on?”
“It’s still booked,” I said slowly. Dully.
His nod was solemn. “Good luck with everything,” he said.
A leaf detached from the tree near us, drifting into my lap as he retreated. It was ringed with red, crispy brown on the edges,
like a worn paperback. And despite my plan to run back to my apartment, I called an Uber. I was halfway home, already past
Thirty-Third Street, when I realized I was still in roller blades. By the time I was in the shower, the hot water stinging
the new blisters skimming my ankle bones, the credit card late fee dinged my phone.