She smiles and sniffs back the last of her tears. “Do you know what my husband will say when I tell him I haven’t conceived?”
“No?” And I’m fairly certain I don’t want to know.
She puts on a low dismissive voice. “‘Try again then, if it makes you happy.’” She clears her throat. “And that will be the end of it. He won’t mention anything about this again, and neither will I.”
“Do you…will you try again?”
Carly looks down at her sparkly, diamond-covered princess gown. “What does all the beauty and money in the world matter, if I can’t get the one thing I want most?”
I don’t know whether she means a child or her husband’s love. She turns to me and smiles and I imagine she knows what I’m thinking.
“No. I don’t think I will. It’s time I gave up. On a baby and on my marriage.” She crumples the dress in her hands. “Ever since you first came to our meetings, I’ve known I need to change. If you can face the world on your own, find your own way, so can I.” She tilts her chin up. “So can I. No matter if it hurts.”
I rest my hand on her arm. I don’t have any Ian quotes to give her about plucky futures and gold pots at the end of rainbows. Her IVF cycle has failed and she’s decided to leave her husband. What sort of thing do you say to that?
Except. “Have you tried telling him you love him? Maybe you should before you leave?”
She gives me another photo-shoot worthy smile. “That, my darling, would take more guts than I have. I told you I was a masochist, trying so many cycles and failing, but even I have my limits.”
I sigh and look at the shattered pottery strewn over the tile floor. “Should we clean up before we go back out?”
Carly nods. “Thank you. I’d rather no one know that I rage-threw the privy flowers.”
It doesn’t take long to scrape the large chunks of pottery and the flowers into the trash. I sop up the water as best I can.
Before we exit the bathroom, Carly gives me a swift hug. “Thank you. And good luck Saturday.”
I wrinkle my brow, and then I remember, Saturday is my transfer. The big day.
It’s only been twenty minutes when I make it back to Josh, Brook and Hannah. They’re still talking about Grim and Jewel. It’s as if the world outside stood still while the world for Carly fell apart.
I look back at her. She’s on the platform again, standing next to her husband. Except this time I look more closely. And I see it. She watches him when he isn’t looking. She leans closer when he speaks. She loves him, and he has no idea.
Hannah and Brook have stopped asking Josh questions. He takes the opportunity to lean closer to me.
“How you doing?” he asks.
I lean into him. The music is getting louder as the night goes on. “I’m alright.”
“You were gone a while.” He looks down at me and his eyes grow cloudy, “I was about to come looking for you.”
“I guess I’m just getting worried about Saturday.”
He studies my face and his brow wrinkles. “Do you want to go?”
I look over at Hannah and Brook, they’re busy arguing about some new supplement. They’ve completely turned away from Josh and me. That’s good.
“Maybe we could get some pizza?” I ask.
A slow smile spreads over his face. “And dessert?”
I give him an answering smile. A funny little feeling grows my chest. “Do you realize we have expensive foods and desserts right here, but we’d rather have street food?”
“And…？”
“I’m just saying, I’m glad you know what makes you happy.”
“That I do,” he says. Then he grabs my arm and steers me out of the “underworld,” back up the stairs, through the glass and marble lobby. We grab our coats from the security guard and walk into the night streets of Tribeca.
“Which direction? I’ll go where you go,” Josh says.
I give him a funny look. Because the way he said it reminded me of Carly. She loves her husband, but won’t tell him, because she’s not that brave or that masochistic. I study Josh’s expression. Does he…？
He lifts his eyebrows. “Well? Where to?”
No, I decide. He doesn’t.
There’s no way Josh Lewenthal’s been carrying a torch for me all these years.
I point in a random direction down a likely street, and we walk into the night.
“We’re friends, right?” I ask, just to make sure.