I offer to get a hotel, but she refuses. At least I negotiate that her and David go to dinner without me to celebrate, which she begrudgingly accepts.
While they’re gone, I find the journal I kept for Hannah the year we weren’t speaking tucked into their bookshelf. There’s a coffee stain on the cover and its pages are warped like it’s been reread frequently. The discovery makes me feel even sadder to leave her.
Theo leaves voicemails I don’t listen to, I only read the transcription before deleting them. I can’t bear to hear his voice.
After the voicemails come the deliveries. First, he sends a spread from Zabar’s; the next day, my favorite cookies from Levain. On the third he sends a messenger with the suitcases I left at his apartment. Each comes with a note that says: please call me xx.
Then, on the fourth day, he sends Clementine.
David is beet red after he answers the door and leads her to the sofa where we’re halfway through The Holiday. “Erm, someone’s here to see you,” David stammers.
My first thought is, Wow, the hits keep on coming. First Theo rejected me, now he sent his ex-lover to do his dirty work. My second thought is that she looks fantastic. She’s wearing a fuchsia sweater with giant balloon sleeves and a pair of acid-wash mom jeans. It’s an outfit no one can pull off outside of a fashion magazine, but, of course, it works on her.
“Oooh! I love this film,” she says by way of greeting.
Before I can come up with a withering response to call her out for showing up here uninvited, she’s settling into the spot on the couch between me and Hannah and pulling her legs up underneath her to sit crisscross applesauce like this is totally normal and she’s here for movie night.
“Clementine . . . uh, what are you doing here?” Hannah asks before she can commandeer one of our blankets.
“Theo said you had some kind of podcast emergency and I’m here to help.”
“You want to be on my podcast?” Hannah repeats, her voice dripping with shock.
“Sure. If you want me, I mean,” Clementine replies.
Hannah looks between me and Clementine like she can’t decide what to do. “And that’s the only reason you’re here?” I jump in, sure Theo must have an ulterior motive.
Clementine looks slightly guilty. “If you’re asking if I heard about your thing, I wasn’t going to say anything, but I heard the broad strokes. Honestly, try not to be too torn up over it. You know Theo, he can’t handle anything real. That boy is the ultimate Peter Pan. I told him I’m on your side.”
“Uh, thanks . . . ,” I say, my head still spinning from this turn of events.
“Welcome to the club, by the way. Of people Theo binned, I mean. Trust me, I’ve been there. I think we probably have enough for a football club by this point. There might even be a professional footballer or two in our ranks if the rumors are true.”
A nervous laugh escapes Hannah.
“Do you mind if we finish the movie, then, before we do the podcast thingy?” Clementine asks.
“Fine by me,” I say.
* * *
? ? ?
?New Year’s is a somber affair. David makes more pasta—this time with lobster in a white wine and butter sauce with lots of garlic and burst cherry tomatoes—and opens a bottle of Krug, but the champagne makes me think of Theo and that makes the pasta feel like glue in my throat. At midnight, Hannah and David kiss while I stare straight ahead at the TV and watch Ryan Seacrest announce the dawn of 2019.
“It’s a clean slate.” Hannah squeezes my thigh and I nod back at her, not wanting to correct her that my current slate feels more barren than clean.
On January 2, we say our goodbyes in the front hallway. Saying goodbye to Hannah feels inconceivable. How do you say goodbye to part of you? It’s absurd to imagine saying goodbye to your elbow and leaving it at home while you head off into the wider world to go grocery shopping or have a first date or visit the Taj Mahal. Hannah is my elbow, this weird knobby part of me that feels impossible to leave behind. Not in a cerebral way, but in a very physical way.
I still haven’t accepted the fact that she won’t pop out from behind a magazine kiosk while I’m deplaning at LAX and yell, “Just kidding!”
But at the same time, I’m relieved to go. I’ve been a storm cloud darkening her and David’s apartment in what should be a celebratory time. “You’ll text me when you land?” Hannah asks.
“I promise.”
“And you know you can call anytime. And I’ll see you in February.” The other night she impulse bought a flight to LA the first weekend in February while David will be out of town on an annual ski trip with his brothers.
“I know.” I pull her in for a hug. “And thank you for letting me crash here the last week.”
“You don’t have to thank me,” she says. “That’s what family is for.”
We stand toe to toe, and I’m unsure how to leave her. “I love you,” I tell her.
“I love you, too. Forever.” She offers me her pinky to swear on it. We lock pinkies and take turns kissing our fists to seal the promise.
* * *
? ? ?
?My desire to be done with New York has turned me into one of those awful people who hover near the gate before boarding, like it will get them to their destination faster. The only thing I have to look forward to is the chocolate chip muffin in my backpack that I’m saving for the plane.
A man comes running up the concourse and everyone turns to stare because someone running in an airport is fairly alarming. Sure, he could be running to make a tight connection, but he could also be running away from something awful or on his way to do something awful. Airports always put me on edge.
I don’t have a good view of what’s happening because I’m buried in the scrum of people crowding the gate. I crane my neck to assess the potential threat and catch snippets of a man doubled over at the Jamba Juice kiosk beside our gate. All I can see is a mop of dark, curly hair. He has his hands on his knees as he heaves deep inhales trying to catch his breath.
When he rights himself and begins scanning the gate area, I catch green eyes.
Theo?
He’s in a heather-gray T-shirt and a pair of jeans, looking more disheveled than I’ve ever seen him.
When he spots me, relief cascades over his features. “Finn!” he shouts.
I feel the urge to pull up the collar of my coat and hide. Pretend it’s not me. He jostles his way to where I’m standing in a not-quite-line waiting for them to finish boarding comfort plus and move on to main cabin. A man behind me grumbles to his wife that Theo is cutting, and she shushes him.
“Hi,” Theo says. “Can we talk?”
I don’t want to talk. I’m five minutes away from being on this plane and closing the chapter on my life in New York. A failure on pretty much all fronts. The last thing I want to do is rehash my rejection in a crowded public space.
The gate agent calls, “Main cabin one,” and the not-quite-line surges forward.
“What are you doing here?” I only have to stall the time it takes for the fifteen people in front of me to scan their boarding passes and then I’ll be gone. I decide I’ll get a Bloody Mary once we take off to purge whatever conversation he’s trying to have from my brain. I think I’ll ask for an extra mini bottle of vodka.