“You’re very welcome,” he said.
“Okay, well.” I started backing toward the door. “Bye, then.”
“Bye,” he said.
“Bye.” I lifted a hand as I got to the door, finally turning away.
“Chani,” he said.
Dammit, he was really good at saying my name.
“Yeah?” I twisted around quickly.
Too quickly to play it off as cool but I tried anyways.
“Yeah?” I asked again.
This time he did smile.
“Call me if you want to go to the premiere,” he said. “We’d have fun.”
GO FUG YOURSELF
THE FASHION AT THE SHARED HEARTS PREMIERE
True Blue
Matthias’s former co-star Gabe Parker attended to lend his support, though he didn’t come alone. Parker’s date was unknown, but her sparkly blue number was a delight to the senses. Wonder if she wore it to match with Parker’s favorite blue suit. As all Fuggirls know, the real way to show a man that you care is through your sartorial choices.
Chapter
7
The restaurant is still around, which is an accomplishment in itself. Even though I’ve driven by this place on multiple occasions since I moved back to L.A., I’ve childishly averted my eyes every time I passed the block. And I’ve certainly never gone inside.
I would think about that beer, though, and my mouth would water.
I park on a side street, and check three things before I get out of the car. I check that my shirt—with its once and forever wayward middle button—is neatly clasped. I check that my notebook is still in my bag. And I check my chin for the little black hair that I’m always plucking and yet still manages to find a way to grow back at the most inconvenient times.
It has decided not to join me today, and for that I’m grateful.
The interior of the pub is the same. Jarringly so.
I find myself looking for the waitress—Madison—when I walk through. Part of me expects to see her—and for her to still be pregnant. It’s ridiculous, I know, but the whole thing already feels surreal. It only becomes more surreal when I realize that even if Madison still works here, she’s now the mother of a ten-year-old.
The passage of time suddenly feels real and oppressive.
It’s been a year since I’ve moved back to L.A., and I keep waiting for it to feel like home again. Instead it feels like an old sweater I found in the back of my closet, one that I remember fitting perfectly, only when I put it on, it’s stiff and plasticky, permanently creased from being forgotten. I wonder, sometimes, if this is my penance for leaving L.A. for New York in the first place. Then I remember that Jews don’t believe in penance. Not like that, at least.
I duck into the bathroom before I head to the patio. I press my hands to the cold porcelain of the sink and tell myself that this is just another interview.
I’ve gotten good at lying to myself when it comes to Gabe.
The last time we met, we were young and brash and stupid. I remind myself that two people can experience the same exact thing in completely different ways. I remind myself that I now know better.
My phone buzzes.
It’s a text from Katie.
You can say yes, she writes.
She’d read a book recently about saying yes to things. To life. To opportunity. To everything.
“I like saying no,” I’d told her when she offered this advice the first time.
“Only because you don’t know how to say yes,” she’d countered.
Katie Dahn was someone who loved her mantras, celebrated the start of astrology seasons like people celebrated the start of baseball, and who I’d once seen swish mouthwash with her pinky raised.
She was the best friend I’d ever had.
“She’s a kook,” Jeremy had always said with affection. “She’s the kind of person who would accidentally join an MLM scheme and somehow manage to either make money or take it over from the inside.”
He wasn’t wrong.
Katie was the only thing that Jeremy and I had really fought about during the divorce. Jeremy argued that he should have first dibs because he’d met her in undergrad. That the only reason I knew her was because of him. I had countered that Katie was an adult woman who could make her own choices when it came to friendship.
Katie had promised that she could remain friends with both of us, but in the end, she came to L.A. with me. We lived in the same building, like we were college students in a dorm. I’d come home some days and find a bag of crystals on my doorstep, or a note reminding me that Mercury was in retrograde.