The Breakaway(50)

“Abby Stern. I can’t believe it!” He’d taken her by the shoulders to look at her. Then he’d hugged her, giving Abby a chance to feel the newly firm terrain of his chest, before holding her out at arm’s length again. “Look at you.” Abby felt her heart melting, an actual softening sensation beneath her ribs, because she knew that he wasn’t lying, or flattering her in an attempt to get her in bed. This was Mark, her first love. Once, he had known her better than almost anyone else in her life… and Mark had always thought she was beautiful. Best of all, he was, at that very moment, looking at her with the delighted regard she remembered from Camp Golden Hills; an expression that says How did I get lucky enough to get to be with you?

“Oh my God, what are you doing here?” said Abby. Her voice was embarrassingly loud, practically a squeal. What happened? she thought, and Where is the rest of you? She hoped those questions weren’t showing on her face, but Mark must have expected them, because he’d looked at himself and given kind of a rueful chuckle.

“I’ll tell you all about it if you’re free.”

“I can be free,” she said, her voice still a little breathy. “Want to get coffee?”

“Anything you like,” he’d said. “I’m all yours.”

When he’d seen the last of his patients, Mark got in his car, and Abby got on her bike, congratulating herself for the foresight and excellent taste she’d had as a thirteen-year-old. Thirty minutes later, she and Mark were at a table for two at La Colombe in Fishtown, drinking iced coffees (Mark’s black, Abby’s, with cream, plus a blueberry muffin on the side) at a table in the corner of the high-ceilinged room.

Abby discovered that Mark had almost gone to podiatry school at Temple—“You would have been so close!”—before deciding on California. He told her he had taken a job in a practice in Center City just three months before and had been looking for volunteer opportunities when he’d googled Gabi’s camp. She learned that he was single, that he and his graduate-school girlfriend had broken up (“amicably, for the most part”) after she’d taken a postdoc fellowship in Cleveland, and that Mark now lived in a two-bedroom apartment in a high-rise on Rittenhouse Square.

“Why Philadelphia?” she asked him.

“Why not?” he replied.

“I mean, I love it here, but I know it’s not for everyone.” Philadelphia was, currently, the poorest big city in America. Crime had been on the rise for the last few years, and it seemed like there were more homeless people than ever, huddled over grates in the winter, or panhandling at busy intersections or highway entrances. The opioid epidemic—as Mark had surely observed—was decimating users, and the previous summer, there’d been a shooting on South Street less than a mile from Abby’s house. More than once, Eileen had asked if Abby felt safe, if it wasn’t time to give up the apartment and come home. More than once, Abby had told her that the city was home.

Mark appeared to be considering the question. “I knew I didn’t want to live in New York—too big, too expensive, too close to home. But I did want a city. You know. Music. Museums. Culture.” He pretended to preen. “I have always seen myself as a patron of the arts.”

“There’s great restaurants, too,” said Abby. “Unless you’ve stopped eating completely.” She regretted her words as soon as she’d said them, and saw, on Mark’s face, some strange combination of pride and regret.

“I should probably tell you what happened,” he said.

“You don’t have to,” said Abby, low-voiced, even though by then she’d guessed.

Mark inhaled audibly, then lowered his voice.

“Roux-en-Y,” he’d said, gesturing at his midsection. “Gastric bypass surgery. I got it done when I was nineteen.” His handsome face got a little sad. “By then, I’d gained and lost hundreds of pounds. I could lose the weight but not keep it off.”

You and almost every other person who goes on a diet, Abby thought.

“I knew nothing else was ever going to work, long-term.”

Abby had murmured something sympathetic as her mind whirred and clicked. Did Mark hate fat people now that he wasn’t one? Did he have any interest in her now that he could probably have any woman he wanted?

While she was thinking, Mark was watching her face, looking at her in a way that made her skin feel flushed and her bones feel pleasantly liquid. “Look at you,” he’d said, his voice getting a little lower, a little rougher. “You look just the same. Prettiest girl at Camp Golden Hills.”

Abby had laughed, because she knew it wasn’t true. She was, more or less, the same size she’d been at sixteen, the last time Mark had seen her, but she had faint wrinkles at the corners of her eyes. Her hair wasn’t as shiny as it had once been, or as thick, and she had age spots along with her freckles. But Mark’s expression was serious, and his eyes never wavered as he’d reached across the table to take her hand.

“Are you doing anything Saturday?” he’d asked. “Maybe you could show me around.”

“I would love that,” she said. He’d squeezed her fingers, and she’d smiled at him. Later, Abby would think that their reunion had felt as frictionless as a door swinging open on freshly oiled hinges; like something preordained.