Dream On(95)

Devin steps hesitantly off the sidewalk. “Sadie?” he blurts.

Mercedes whirls, and her face goes stark white. “Devin.”

Wait… what? Mercedes is Sadie? The Sadie? The nickname makes sense, but I can’t quite process the possibility that I’ve been working all summer alongside Devin’s pregnancy-faking, manipulative ex.

He steps back, every muscle tense. “What the hell are you doing here?” His voice is low and dangerous.

They face each other on the sidewalk, wearing twin expressions of disgust. I look from Mercedes to Devin and back again.

The back of my neck tingles. The tingle intensifies until it burns like I’m on fire. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen them together. Present blurs with past. Images float through my memories—my real memories—along with strains of music. The scene before me shifts and flickers. Dim lighting. Crowded tables. Devin and Mercedes.

My vision goes fuzzy. I stumble forward and my knees connect with the sidewalk—hard.

I remember.

I remember everything.





When I walk out of the bar exam testing center, I don’t feel happy, relieved, or anything, really. I’m sure I passed—I know in my bones I knocked it out of the park—but there’s only a dull heaviness left.

I don’t feel like making the two-hour drive home to Cleveland yet, so I spend the afternoon exploring the Short North district of downtown Columbus, drifting from one little art gallery to the next until blisters threaten to form on my feet and my stomach protests at its emptiness. I spot a little restaurant—Italian, I think. It’s close, I’m hungry, I go in.

The host gives me a pitying look when he seats me, as though a young woman eating alone is a travesty. I ignore him. My head is too full of other doubts to care. He seats me at one of the small, two-person tables crowded together along the back of the restaurant. A few minutes later a server arrives, and I place my order. As soon as he leaves, the ruminations start churning again.

It’s like I’ve run a marathon and finally crossed the finish line only to realize there’s nothing else on the horizon. What do you do with your life when your only goals have been to graduate from law school, pass the bar, and land a job at a high-profile firm… and you achieve all of those goals by the age of twenty-five?

My job as a first-year associate at Smith & Boone starts a few short weeks from now. What will the next twenty or thirty years of my life look like, I wonder.

I imagine slaving away in an office, working evenings and weekends until I finally make partner at age… who knows? Will my career leave me time for family? Friends? Art? Or will my life be the job: the single, overarching trait that defines my existence?

Mom would say it doesn’t matter. I can fill in the gaps with the things I love, and as a successful attorney at a top firm, I’ll have the financial security to do it.

But will it be enough?

Emptiness creeps through me until I’m so hollow you could ring me like a bell. Gazing out across the crowded restaurant, I’ve never felt so alone.

A couple walks in then—a stunning blonde wearing a fitted burgundy dress and a man who steals the attention of every person he passes, he’s that beautiful.

I shift uncomfortably when the hostess seats them at the two-person table directly next to mine. Our tables are so close together there’s only a foot and a half of space between them, if that. Edging sideways, the woman squeezes into the booth next to me, primly smoothing her dress beneath her. The man sits opposite her, unwinding his red scarf with white squares from around his neck and looping it on the back of his chair.

I study the man out of the corner of my eye. He and his date are dressed up nicer than the restaurant calls for. Did they just come from a show? Is this their first date, their fifth, or their fiftieth? They’re not married, judging by their lack of rings, and there’s something about the hesitancy in the woman’s posture that has me guessing it’s their first date.

I soon discover I’m right. Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You, Babe” drifts through the restaurant, mingling with the myriad conversations humming around us, but at this distance, it’s impossible not to overhear this couple’s every word. Sipping my ice water, I pretend to study my phone while I listen.

As far as first dates go, it seems to be off to a good start. He’s brought her a bouquet of fresh white lilies, which she’s propped on the booth next to me. Plastic wrap crinkles every time her elbow brushes them. They ask each other all the typical first-date questions: where are you from, what do you do, what do you like to do…

At one point she laughs at a story he tells her about falling off a trampoline in the third grade and breaking his pinkie finger. “Oh, Devin. You didn’t.” She covers his hand with hers on top of the table, obscuring the crooked finger, and my stomach hardens into a ball. When’s the last time I experienced such a sweet, simple gesture of affection? The smile he gifts her is so radiant it’s blinding.

He tells her about his family. How his mother runs a flower shop in Cleveland—Blooms & Baubles—but how he wants to work for his dad, a developer on the south side, and help deliver the business into the future. She says she’s always wanted to move to Cleveland.

He does most of the talking, charming her with story after story, and a life unfolds before me—rich, complex, and beautiful in its meaning and uncertainties. He talks about high school and his love of soccer and baseball and long bike rides through the Metroparks. She listens intently, but prompts him with follow-up questions and measured laughter.