Like a Love Story(97)

Stephen has asked Judy and Art to speak together. I’m sure this was intentional, that he wanted to make sure they had to work together, remember together, grieve together. Their friendship mattered to him, and it probably matters even more now that he’s gone. “Hey, everyone,” Judy says. “I’m Judy, Stephen’s niece. You know, the girl he named after Judy Garland. No pressure there.” There are loud cheers from the crowd. She and Art speak of Stephen’s love, his mentorship, his guidance. At the end of the speech, they read Stephen’s notecard about love. “The most important four-letter word in our history will always be love,” Judy says, before Art finishes with “That’s what we are fighting for. That’s who we are. Love is our legacy.”

After the speeches, there is more music. More dancing. All his favorites are on the mix. Bette and Barbra and Grace Jones and George Michael and Diana. Then Madonna’s “Keep It Together” comes on, and it feels like he’s playing it just for us. Judy pulls me and Art and Annabel to the dance floor. Mr. and Mrs. Bowman join us. Jimmy shimmies to the middle of our circle, spinning with abandon. I wave Tara and Massimo over, and Tara puts her arms around me, swaying with me. My sister, the first person who accepted me. I realize how much I love her. Even my mom and Abbas and Saadi reluctantly join the circle. We all dance. Family, new friends, old friends, keeping people together forever and ever.

The night ends. We give hugs, we say our goodbyes.

I tell my family I’m going to stay behind with Judy and Art. Before my mom leaves, she gives me a long hug and whispers in my ear, “I’m sorry for your loss.” Then she lets me go but keeps searching my eyes for something. She places a hand on my cheek. “I love you,” she says.

“I love you, too,” I whisper. I hug her once more, because I need to. And because she deserves my love and acceptance and patience, just like I deserve hers.

And then there is me, and Art, and Judy. The three of us. We decide to go get ice cream. We sit on the stoop of a downtown tarot card reader, tasting the sweetness, saying nothing for a long time. Through the window of the building, the tarot card reader waves to us. I wish she would tell me my future, flip over a card that will ease all the fear inside me. But I don’t step inside. This is not a time for crystal balls, or a time to think about the future. It’s a moment to honor the past.

Judy puts her head on my shoulder. Art is on the other side of her. When he finishes his ice cream, he puts his head on her lap, and she runs her hands through his hair tenderly. We’re so connected, and yet something inside us has shifted, just as something in this universe has shifted. When someone leaves this planet, they take so much with them. So much energy. So much connective tissue.

“Let’s walk,” Art says, and we do. I hold his left hand. Judy holds his right. It’s not until I see the river again that I realize he has led us directly west, to the very edge of this island. Art looks out, not at the water, but out past it. I watch him gaze at the horizon, like he’s trying to see what is beyond it.





Judy


It’s been almost two weeks since Stephen died. Life has felt like a blur ever since. My mother’s tears, endless. Art’s decision to leave, unbelievable. I sometimes think I dreamed it all, but I didn’t. It’s real, too real.

“I want you both to come with me,” Art said as he stared out at the Hudson River. “We belong together, the three of us. Let’s start over in San Francisco.” I brushed him off. I thought he was just looking for an easy way to escape the pain of grief. I told him it isn’t that easy. “Maybe it is that easy,” Art said. “How do we know until we try? We’d be like the three heroines of How to Marry a Millionaire, living in a pad together. Except instead of marrying millionaires, we’d be changing the world.”

I went along with the joke. I said that if we were going to be like the heroines of that movie, I’d be Lauren Bacall. Art said he’d obviously be Marilyn, which meant Reza would be Betty Grable. And Reza asked who Betty Grable is. And we managed to laugh through our tears.

But there were more tears in store for us. And more anger. With every day that passed, Art became more resolved. At first, he decided he would go to Berkeley in the fall. Then he announced he wouldn’t go to Berkeley at all. He wouldn’t go to college, because that would mean taking more money from his dad, and he was done with him.

I guess I always knew he had to escape his parents’ world to forge his own path. I just didn’t realize his parents’ world encompassed the entire East Coast, and I didn’t think that once he made this decision, he would choose to leave so soon. “I need to go before I change my mind,” he told me.

Now the day of his departure has arrived. Reza and I wait for Art in the lobby of his parents’ apartment building. “How’d it go?” I ask when he emerges holding a small carry-on suitcase.

“As good as it could have,” he says. “My dad wished me luck and told me never to ask for money.” He shakes his head as he says this, but then his face softens and his eyes well up. “And my mom cried. A lot.”

“I’m so sorry,” I say, my heart breaking a little. “Your parents love you. I know they do.”

“It’s just, their love comes with a lot of conditions,” he says. “Anyway, it’s not them I’ll miss most. It’s you guys.”