The Break(70)

The yellow and white lines blur as we pick up speed. I keep going until I exit into the Meatpacking District, passing retail shops with window lights illuminating beautiful things.

I take Washington Street to the parking garage and swing inside, hoping there won’t be a line of cars waiting. There isn’t. The attendant takes my keys and I thank him and gather my baby and our bag and then I’m booking down the street, Lila against me. I race past Horatio Street and Jane Street and turn left on West Eleventh, sprinting to the townhouse on my right. The muscles in my legs are like water as I try to climb the front steps. I pound the door and ring the bell over and over. When the big oak door finally swings open I say, “Help me.”

Sylvie’s fingers rest against the wooden doorframe. She looks so calm, like this has happened before. “Rowan,” she says softly, “what can I do for you?”

“I remember,” I say.

She stares at me, her dark eyes bright.

“I remember a little boy,” I say, the words metallic in my mouth, choking me as they burst free. “My little boy.”

“Come in, Rowan,” she says, and I do.





FORTY


June. Three months ago. August 4th.


My God. I’m here. Right inside Gabe’s apartment building. It’s old-fashioned and gorgeous, with a gold ceiling and a decadent chandelier from an era when movie stars slipped in and out of New York buildings and had love affairs and no one was on social media. There had to have been more secrets back then. Or at least, more secrets kept.

I scan the lobby and die a small death when I see a doorman positioned off to the side. My heart pounds, my fingers are tight against the script. What if he just takes it from me and brings it to Gabe himself? Isn’t that how doormen work?

“Good afternoon,” says the man.

I try to force a smile. I want to see Gabe so badly it feels like a physical presence, like I could put my hands inside myself and rip it out and show someone the thing throbbing in my palm. And it makes me so shameful that I can feel this way about someone who isn’t available. At Louisa’s, when we were hugging, I felt so sure that I’d figured it all out, and now I’m coveting a married man. But it’s okay, I think, to have a little crush, to want to be near someone. Right? I’m not going to act on it. It’s just that hole I keep talking about. It felt full at Louisa’s, and now here it is again, empty and waiting.

“Um, hi,” I say to the doorman. “I’m June Waters.” I sound fake even to myself. How will I ever make it here?

“How can I help you?” asks the doorman. He scans me, and then grins so appreciatively I’m sure his face will split in two. Ew.

“I’m here to see Gabe O’Sullivan.” There we go: that wasn’t a lie. I am here to see Gabe O’Sullivan and give him a package.

“Is he expecting you?” the doorman asks. I really should just leave the script with the doorman. I know I should, but I don’t. I can’t make myself say the words.

“Um,” I say again, stalling. Is Gabe expecting me? I don’t know—but probably not. Louisa told him she’d have the script messengered to him, which would mean either any random low-level person like me or a messenger service.

“Yes,” I lie, and I find myself warming up to it—to being someone else. Someone Gabe’s expecting to see. “He’s expecting me.”

“Then just a moment,” the doorman says. He lifts a phone receiver that looks like it’s from the nineties and presses a few buttons. “I’ve got June here for you,” he says into the receiver, like he and I are old friends on a first-name basis, even though he probably just forgot my last name. I kick myself for not picking something more memorable than Waters. Wasn’t that the whole point?

The moments I stand there waiting for whatever Gabe decides on the other end of the line are agony. Is he going to ask me to go up to his apartment? Is he going to come down here to the lobby? Is he going to tell me to just leave the script with the doorman?

I tap my sneakered foot, wishing I’d worn something different today. The doorman is still staring at me. He stares at me while I wait one beat and then two; he stares at me while he listens to Gabe, while I turn away and count cracks in the floor near my feet. I wish he wouldn’t look at me like this, but I have no control over the wrong stares. It’s kind of awful, isn’t it? How you can want the stare of someone so very much—and then feel sick to your stomach when it’s the wrong man.

“Gabe will be right down,” the doorman says.

Gabe will be right down.

I turn away and let my eyes settle on a framed black-and-white photograph of a woman wearing a cap-sleeved leotard and smoking a cigarette. It takes up nearly the entire wall. Beneath it sits a plush velvet bench with gold armrests that swirl like vines. The floor beneath me is brown-and-white checkerboard tile. This building feels like a different world.

The elevator doors open and then there’s Gabe, walking toward me. He’s smiling, and the words rakish grin trail through my brain, and I realize I never really understood that phrase until this moment.

“June,” he says softly, not even acknowledging the doorman.

My insides do something strange, and I feel unsteady on my feet. I swear to God I don’t know the last time I felt like this. Maybe once or twice when I was a teenager, but not since. I clear my throat.