“Happy to do it,” he says. He seems unhurried, but I look at my watch and say, “Well, I’d better get on the road.”
Cynthia has already resumed her position in the passenger seat ofhis truck, but Carl waits for me to get settled and start my car before he makes a U-turn that orients him back up the hill.
“Godspeed!” he calls and gives an efficient wave as we pass each other, headed back to our respective lives.
Chapter 5
It takes me six hours to reach Manhattan, thanks to Sunday-evening traffic. Dylan and I have plans to meet at my apartment so we can order ramen and watch brain-numbing reality shows. I’m looking forward to a quiet night before the week begins, but when I walk through the door, I see there are a bunch of people in my living room. Two of them are my roommates; one of them is Dylan; and the others are people I vaguely recognize but can’t name.
“Criiiiickeeeeet!” A tipsy Olivia greets me with over-the-top enthusiasm, as if I’ve been gone for two months rather than two nights. She, Tasha, and I live in a basement-level apartment on Canal Street. Our bedrooms have no windows, but we all agreed that natural light is a luxury, not a necessity. It’s something you get in New York once you’ve really made it, along with a dishwasher and a washer/dryer. At twenty-six, we’re not there yet.
“Hi, guys,” I call, retreating to my bedroom. Dylan follows me, and as I put my things down, he pulls me toward him and kisses me, then lingers. I know that means he wants to have sex, but right now, I feel incapable of summoning any kind of enthusiasm. I start unpacking, and he gets the message.
“How was the drive?”
“Long.”
“How’s your dad?”
I don’t know how to answer this question. My father is himself, but he’s changing. He’s alive, but he’s dying. The ground is shifting,but in slow motion. There’s nothing we can do about it, even if we wanted to. I’m tired, so I just say, “He’s fine.”
“Good.” Dylan is satisfied with my answer and eager to rejoin the crowd in the living room, now that he knows I’m not in the mood to hook up.
“I wish you had come with me so you could have finally met him,” I say.
“I met him that one time on Zoom,” says Dylan, sounding defensive. “And he wouldn’t have remembered me anyway, right?”
I feel every sinew in my body stiffen. I want to say,He doesn’t remember me either, but that’s not a reason to discount him.Does he really think the only reason to interact with someone is to have them acknowledge and validate you? It strikes me as an exceedingly myopic way to view relationships, a sad way of keeping social score. But maybe I’m being too harsh. Dylan’s parents are in their late fifties and brimming with health. I can’t expect him to know what I’m going through. I barely even know what I’m going through myself. So I try to give him the benefit of the doubt. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”
“And you know I had to work all weekend,” he continues, but now, I wish he would stop talking and just order us some ramen.
Dylan works in ad sales, and when we met just over a year ago, I was attracted to how disarmingly normal he seemed. He was smart but not arrogant, ambitious but not grandiose, affectionate but not smothering. But lately, something has shifted. He spends more and more time on social media, and on multiple occasions, he has asked me to film him doing viral TikTok dances. I thought he was joking at first, but now I realize that he is actually attempting to become an influencer. He seems confident about his new career direction, even though he has no clear income stream. I didn’t see this coming, and although people are allowed to change, sometimes that change is hard to watch. These days, Dylan seems to calibrate his efforts based on whether they will produce an image or a video that will generate likes, shares, or his favorite accolade: fire emojis. Maybe that’s why he is so ambivalent about getting to know my father. Alzheimer’s isn’t exactly share-worthy.
Dylan is talking about a meme he finds particularly compelling, and I tune him out, pulling my chin-length hair into a low, stumpy ponytail. My brown roots are growing out, and the rest of it, which I bleached six months ago, has taken on a hay-like quality. I was happy when my new hair felt like a possible reinvention, but now I have no idea what to do with it, so I do nothing. My mother once told me I was too passive, but I prefer to think of myself as patient. Some problems solve themselves if you simply wait a while.
“Cricket!” I hear someone yell from the living room, and I follow the call. There are beer bottles all over the place, and something red and sticky has congealed on one corner of the coffee table. I flop down at the end of the stained couch, and someone offers me a vape, which I decline.
“My parents are so embarrassing,” says a girl I don’t know as she scrolls on her phone. “My dad just asked me if I know any nepo babies…”
Another of the unknowns tries to one-up her by saying, “Well, my dad is coming to town next week and he insists on taking a carriage ride in Central Park. Like, firstly, that’s unethical. Secondly, it’s for tourists. Thirdly, it’scoldout…”
I want to shake her and say, “Just do it. Indulge him while you have time. You’ll regret it if you don’t.” But I don’t even know her name, let alone her situation. And more importantly: the advice I want to give her is really the advice I want to give myself. I don’t actually want a carriage ride in Central Park, but I wish I could complain about my father making me do something like that. I wish he had the capacity to come into the city and embarrass me. I wish he could retain where I live, what I do, who I am. I wish he weren’t disappearing.
Olivia stands up and grabs my hand. “We’re going to Silicon Sally’s. You’re coming.”
“There’s no way. I’m exhausted.” Silicon Sally’s is a cocktail bar that specializes in artisanal moonshine. I hate it there. Olivia leans back with all her body weight to pull me up, but she’s tiny, and I don’t budge. “I just drove six hours, guys.”
They all make noises of protest, but eventually I convince them I’mserious about staying in. As they grab their phones and throw on their jackets, Dylan looks at me. I can tell he wants to go out, despite our plans to watch trashy TV. And the ramen is still unordered.
“Go,” I say.
“You sure? You don’t want me to stay with you?” It’s not a genuine offer; just a gesture so he cansayhe offered. But if I accept, he’ll sulk for the rest of the night.
“You should go,” I say. “I’m going to pass out soon, anyway.”
He gives me a perfunctory kiss and then follows the others as they stream out. The door closes behind them, and I listen as their footsteps echo in the concrete stairwell before spilling out onto the street. Even six months ago, I would have happily followed them to the bar—or maybe led the charge. But lately, I’m finding that I rarely want to do what they do on any given night. Our interests are diverging, and it leaves me with a lonely feeling. Everyone always talks about finding “your people,” “your tribe,” “your chosen family.” I don’t mean to be ungrateful; I like my friends, and we keep each other entertained. But lately, I feel like more of a lone wolf—or maybe I’m just running with the wrong pack.
I rinse out a few bottles and take them over to the recycling bin, which is predictably full, so I place them on the floor with the rest of the overflow. My roommates have left three scented candles burning, and I blow them out, one by one. I have a vague feeling that, when it comes to my life, not only am I sitting on the sidelines, but I’m playing the wrong game altogether. As I look around at the leftover mess from the weekend, I think:I’m ready to be something other than young.
