Lisette stared at me. It was hard to meet her gaze, but at the same time I felt lighter. I had told my secret about Colin to someone, and she hadn’t recoiled in horror.
“And you think I won’t want to be friends with you if you’re in New York?”
I said nothing. My friendship with Jasmine and Lucas was affectionate but conditional on my presence. I may have assumed all friendships would be like that. And I wondered if my own fears were the problem. I didn’t tell Lucas or Jasmine the really dark stuff about my life. I had assumed all my friendships were conditional on my never being sad. “I’m a mess,” I said finally.
“You? I had to sleep on a stranger’s sofa this past month. A woman from Brooklyn had to take me in because I had nowhere to go.”
“She got lucky.”
“She was a rock star, actually. But she doesn’t respect me.”
“I do. I love you.” I smiled, tears in my eyes. “If you want me to, I will keep texting you. All the time.”
“I don’t need pity.”
“Do you pity me?” I asked.
“Only for kissing Paul. That must have been terrible.” Lisette grinned a little.
I laughed a little. “Well, maybe this way if he wants to work things out with Trish…”
“Please not that. She’s awful.” Lisette took a breath. “Okay. I forgive you. And more importantly, I should get back to work, probably.”
“Probably.”
“I said I was having a medical issue. That’s the real advantage of improv. It makes you a better liar.”
“Do you forgive me enough to hang out tomorrow?”
“This time. But I will expect constant updates on your New York City life to make it up to me.”
“You will hear about every stalled subway train and broken shoe.”
“You think that’s a threat, but that is exactly what I want. With photos.”
I didn’t have a veryproductive workday. I forced myself to finish a couple of articles that had deadlines and sent them to Kedar to review. Then I walked over to the windows and stared at the view: this breezy, beautiful city that tumbled down a hill to the coast. I had started to love it here, this practical, stark, beautiful island, full of people I loved.
Lisette turned up after work and threw her arms around me and held for a long moment.
“I should start to pack,” I said quietly. “But it won’t take me long. I managed to put my whole life into a couple of suitcases. Who knew?”
“Why isn’t Paul here?”
“I’m not strong enough. I’ll cry too much.”
“Does he know you’re in love with him?”
I took a breath. “It seems like the wrong thing to tell him right now.”
She nodded thoughtfully, still leaning against me.
That night,Laura and I talked about all the practicalities of her staying at my Brooklyn apartment. We were going to be flying on the same day, Sunday, with her arriving at close to 3 p.m. and me getting back at closer to eight at night. I explained howshe could get a key to my apartment from my doorman, so she’d have somewhere to sleep. She explained that her plan was to get Hannah settled and re-enrolled in her local Brooklyn school and then fly back to Atlanta to do the work of packing up all their lives while I watched Hannah.
“Nick is not happy with me,” Laura said, “and I didn’t want Hannah around if Nick and I started fighting.”
“Totally understandable.”
“I don’t want her mad at her dad, you know? Just because I’m not seeing eye to eye with him. I’m not even ruling out ever being with him again, I just…”
