A Cosmic Kind of Love(14)
Fuck, I haven’t admitted that to anyone up here. It seems ridiculous to be anxious about it while I’ve got weeks to go, so much to experience and enjoy. But I can’t help it. I wonder what comes after this. I wonder how I ever move on from an experience like this. I worry that nothing is ever enough for my father. You get that, right? I know you get that.
Ah, well . . . I guess there are no answers right now. I have to focus on this current mission. But . . . I feel better for saying it out loud, for telling you. Maybe you’ll have some words of encouragement to keep me going, keep me living in the now. I miss you. I miss Aunt Richelle and even that crazy dog. I guess every day can’t be all sunshine and roses on the International Space Station—so to speak. But I’m okay. I’m always okay. This helped. Thanks, gorgeous. Talk soon.
—CAPTAIN CHRISTOPHER ORTIZ, VIDEO DIARY #6
At first, when my email bounced, I felt disappointed. I had so wanted to relieve myself of the guilt of having watched Christopher Ortiz’s video letters. However, when I got home that night after an unbelievable day that honestly made this week the most ridiculous week of my life, I saw it as an opportunity.
I realized I had felt so much better when I made the video confessing that I’d watched his video letters. It felt good to put that out there into the universe.
Maybe I didn’t need someone at the end of the video to still feel good about venting about my life. I felt like I couldn’t vent to my friends because no one seemed to take me seriously anymore. Althea did . . . but I was a little worried if I told her too much, she’d start to see me as a joke too.
I could treat the video like a kind of diary, sending it out into the internet as if it were going to reach Chris, while safe knowing that my private thoughts were still my own. Perhaps that was silly. I said all this into the camera as I sat before my laptop that evening to tell “Chris” about my week.
“It all started with Joe Ashley . . .” I continued into the camera. I went on to explain about my coat on the subway, the teens afterward, and George’s cruel breakup. I didn’t cry because I was still too angry for tears—I’d wasted three months on that jackass.
“But as if to prove him, and almost everyone else in my life, right—that I am a ridiculous person who has ridiculous things happen to them—my lunch break got really weird. . . .”
* * *
“I would come with you,” Althea said as I stopped at her cubicle in the main shared office space to ask if she wanted to join me for coat shopping, “but I have to work through lunch. Lia’s spot in New York Style magazine is under threat because Koy Event Management just booked an event for a Montenegrin royal, and they think that’s more exciting than what we’ve got going on.” My friend was one of our marketing coordinators, even though Althea eventually wanted to do what I did. She looked frazzled, and she never looked frazzled.
Concerned, I offered, “Want help? I could go coat shopping later.”
Althea gave me a soft look. “No, I got this. Amanda de la Cruz is just a little hard to get a hold of.”
“Amanda de la Cruz of New York Style magazine?”
“Yeah. She’s my contact, why?”
“Well, she hired us two years ago and owes us for talking a VIP client into another venue when they demanded the Rainbow Room on the same date as her wedding last year. A gentle reminder about that might just do the trick.”
“You’re a lifesaver, Hallie.” Althea was already tapping numbers on her landline phone. “Now go buy a coat . . . and one that won’t kill you this time.”
A few minutes later I was on Fifth Avenue, diving quickly in and out of stores, looking for a trench coat. What? I’d make sure I kept it closed whenever I got on and off the subway.
In all honesty, the hunt for the coat was as much to keep me distracted as it was a desperate need for the perfect spring outerwear. Now and then I’d get flashbacks of George breaking up with me, his horrible words echoing around and around in my head. And then I’d remember affectionate moments between us during the last three months, like snuggling with him after sex and talking to him about my parents’ divorce, and I’d cringe at the memories.
I hated that I’d made myself vulnerable to someone who thought so poorly of me.
It wasn’t the first time, obviously. I’d been broken up with before. But that didn’t make it any easier to stomach.
Forcing the memories out of my head, I zeroed in on my task. Fifteen minutes into the hunt, I walked into a store and was checking through the racks of their coat section when I spotted a camel trench draped over a coat sale rack like someone couldn’t be bothered to put it back in its rightful place.
My eyes lit up in delight.
“Please be my size, please be my size; please be on sale, please be on sale.” I reached for the coat, frowning at the lack of a tag. Someone had clearly snapped it off while trying it on.
Though somewhat reluctant to try on something that I maybe couldn’t afford, I slipped on the trench with its butter-soft fabric. It sat perfectly on my shoulders.
Yay!
Hurrying over to a full-length mirror at the shoe department, I twisted and turned, admiring myself in the coat that was almost identical to the one I’d lost.
Maybe my luck was turning.
“Where’s my coat?” I heard a frantic voice in the distance but paid only vague attention. I was too busy searching for a sales assistant who may or may not break my heart by telling me I couldn’t afford my new coat.