To Joanie: About to take off. Can’t believe I’m doing this. Pray I didn’t get it wrong, and this plane doesn’t crash instead.
To her mother: About to take off. Wish me luck! Thank you for EVERYTHING. I love you xx
Then she switched off her phone and she braced herself for an uneasy eight hours. Lorelai couldn’t believe she was doing this. It was the most spontaneous thing she had ever done. She was used to saying, ‘One day.’ Only those days never came – apart from this time. With the driving force of her mother and her best friend behind her, she’d booked herself on the earliest flight the following day. Yet, even though she knew this was a bit mad, never once had she questioned whether this was the right thing to do. Was this completely hare-brained and futile? Perhaps, but she had to try.
Lorelai replayed the conversation with Grayson in her head and sifted through all the memories she had of his smile, his eyes, his voice, and the way she had felt warm when she was with him. She remembered how she had pushed him away and ruined what could have been an incredible relationship, and a wave of sadness overwhelmed her. If she had known then what she knew now, would she have made different choices? Lorelai had behaved the way she had based on her knowledge at the time, but that didn’t quell the feeling of loss. She knew she would have to try to switch off her emotions when she saw Grayson. To not give in to the desire to plead with him to give her a second chance or to let her explain. He had already given her a second chance and she only had herself to blame for squandering it. This trip was about his safety, and that was that. She would have to put her feelings to one side. All that mattered now was saving Grayson.
Thanks to one of her mother’s over-the-counter sleeping pills, Lorelai slept for most of the flight, and was startled awake, groggy and confused, when the wheels hit the tarmac. As she stepped off the plane, her anxiety spiked again, and she knew this journey was far from over.
Lorelai spent the afternoon in the hotel. When she had arrived, she had looked out of the window and been blown away by the size of the city. The sky was a clear blue and the sun was out and trying its hardest to warm up the city but as she leaned against the glass she could feel the bite of the cold trying to getto her. Everyone that rushed past on the street below had their scarves pulled up over their noses and, despite wearing gloves, they rubbed their fingers together or shoved their hands to the bottom of their coat pockets. New York was like London on steroids. Everything was taller, wider, bigger and noisier. The people moved faster and talked louder. Lorelai found herself looking up and paying attention. She had a sense of ease in London that came from familiarity and knowing its ins and outs. New York wasn’t dissimilar to London in many ways but Lorelai didn’t know this city the way she knew London so it felt like a completely different world. Almost fairy-tale-like. She had only seen New York in TV shows and movies but it had always felt as fantastical to her as Wonderland or Oz. She marvelled at the sheer scale of it all. She never for one second thought she would get to see it first-hand but now that she was there in such strange and depressing circumstances, she felt guilty for enjoying it. She wasn’t here to sightsee.
She closed her curtains, had a shower and sat on the bed, wearing the hotel’s bathrobe, flicking through channels on the television, until it edged closer to Broadway’s showtime. She dressed simply in jeans, T-shirt, a jumper and a coat to shield her against the New York cold. Lorelai knew nothing about Grayson’s New York plans other than he planned to see a show on Broadway. She had no idea where he was staying and the only part of his itinerary Joanie had managed to glean from his sporadic posts was that he was seeing this show on this night. Her plan was to walk around Broadway, and try to spot him in the crowds as he left the theatre. Someone would be smiling down on her and she would find Grayson, tell him what she needed totell him and then come back to the hotel, and most likely weep. It wasn’t a great plan. In truth, it was an awful one but it was the only one she had. She couldn’t imagine Grayson being thrilled to see her after their last conversation, and she fully expected him to freak out about her following him to New York. That was stalker behaviour, she knew that, but what choice had she had if Grayson was ignoring her calls? Let him die? That wasn’t an option.
Lorelai left the hotel and the city rolled past her as she walked along in the bitter evening air. She mumbled her speech for Grayson to herself, knowing full well it would all fly straight out of her head as soon as she saw him. As soon as her heart started to race and she forgot how to breathe she would forget everything she had rehearsed and she would make yet another hash of things. But the bottom line was that she had to at least try to stop him from getting on that plane home.
By the time she reached the theatre, people were already starting to leave. Even though it was dark and getting late, the lights of the theatre were so bright they lit up the whole street. Lorelai had to squint against them in order to see the faces of the people leaving below them. From her spot across the street, everyone was a silhouette against the backdrop of glitz and glamour. A hundred people passed her before she could scan their faces and a bubble of panic rose up into her throat at the prospect of coming this far just to see Grayson and having already missed him. She suddenly realised with a sickening jolt that this was quite literally her one shot. Her one and only chance to stop his death. Frantically she darted across the road, was almost clipped by a yellow taxi and began to pace up and down the front ofthe theatre, moving through the bodies and looking through the doors to see if she could see him. There was no sign of him. She checked Joanie’s text message and made sure she definitely had the correct theatre, the right show and the right time. It all matched but he could have decided not to come. As Lorelai had begun to learn, one small decision could alter the rest of your life. If Grayson had decided not to come tonight because he wanted to go somewhere nice for dinner instead or if he simply decided to buy tickets for a different show, it was game over.
Dark spots began to appear in her vision and no matter how many times she tried to take a deep breath, her lungs just didn’t fill. Not enough air was getting in. She had blown it. And now Grayson was going to die.
Grayson is going to die.
Grayson is going to die.
Grayson is going to die.
Grayson is going—
‘Erm… excuse me, ma’am? Are you OK?’
Lorelai could hear the voice next to her but she couldn’t look up to see who was asking the question. The lights were too bright. She felt a hand on her shoulder.
‘Yes, I’m fine. Fine. I’m fine,’ she stuttered.
Lorelai pushed herself away from the crowd, staggering back across the road. As the noise of the audience dissolved a little, she felt her chest loosen slightly. She leaned against a cold brick wall and turned her face so that it pressed against one of her burning cheeks.
‘Damn it,’ she whimpered.
Lorelai was exhausted to the very core of her being. All ofthe worrying and the stress of trying to find Grayson, combined with what would happen if she didn’t, hit her all at once. She stood like that, leaning against the wall, cold and alone, for a long time, the words running through her mind on repeat.Grayson is going to die. Eventually she managed to get her breathing under control and her vision cleared but her legs still felt shaky underneath her. The theatre was almost empty by the time she found the courage to look again but she knew it would be. She had had a panic attack and had blown it when it mattered the most. Without thinking, she dragged her feet in the direction of Times Square. She would figure out what to do and where to go from there. She was too far away from her hotel, and she needed to find somewhere to sit and regroup now.
The crowd was heavy in Times Square, all the theatregoers rubbing shoulder to shoulder, moving like cattle towards the nearest bars. She found a solitary empty seat opposite a row of food trucks. She was sure she would be moved along when someone saw she wasn’t eating but she hoped by then she would have had enough time to figure out her plan of action. She sat down and dropped her head into her hands. She was freezing but her face was still hot, and there was a deep thumping building behind her eyes.
‘The show is so different in London!’ She heard the English accent before she had registered what it was saying. ‘Yeah, I honestly think I prefer it back at home. Mmm. Maybe that’s just because I’m used to it but I don’t know. It was good to experience it somewhere new.’
It couldn’t be…
Lorelai stood from her seat and whipped her head around,scanning Times Square in a feverish panic. Because that had been Grayson’s voice. She knew it. Lorelai knew his voice. Not only had she replayed his voicemail over and over again but every single conversation they had ever had was on a loop in her mind. She had been clinging on to every part of him, committing it to memory. There was no mistaking that voice. Lorelai stepped this way and that, thinking she could hear his voice again, but it drifted into nothingness each time.
Then, he appeared.
Grayson.
He was standing at the front of a queue of people by one of the food trucks. Each time the queue moved he would disappear for a moment, before reappearing again. He had his coat collar pulled up around his face and his phone tucked between his cheek and his shoulder as he reached over the counter for his order. Lorelai couldn’t move. She was rooted to the spot, just watching him. The way he behaved when he didn’t know someone was watching. The way he moved when he wasn’t on his best behaviour. This was who he was when he was alone – Grayson being Grayson. Not for the first time, she was struck by the beauty of him, the way he smiled kindly at strangers, and the confidence with which he moved. The world wasn’t ready to lose someone like Grayson. Lorelai wasn’t ready to lose Grayson. She was desperate to keep him alive, and even if it was over between them, Grayson deserved to live a long and happy life. Alive and apart was better than dead and gone.
Before Lorelai could figure out the best way to approach him, he began to walk in her direction. She could hear his conversation more clearly the closer he got, and his glorious face camefurther into focus and then… there it was. The moment he saw her. There was an unmistakable breathlessness, a singular second of happiness after the recognition before it turned to confusion. Grayson could have walked away, he could have turned on his heel and been swallowed up by the city, but instead, he walked right up to her.
‘Aden, I’m gonna have to call you back. Love you too. Bye.’
He slipped his phone into his pocket. Lorelai could see the rise and fall of his chest quicken. He blinked at her in disbelief and for the briefest of moments, a nanosecond that she would have missed had she not been looking at them, his lips lifted into a smile. And then it was gone. Lorelai knew one of them was going to have to say something but for just a moment she wanted to pretend that life was simple. As simple as meeting someone special, falling in love and living out a happily ever after. And death was a worry for long in the future when they were old and grey. For just the smallest amount of time she wanted to believe that the fairy tales and the movies she had held onto all her life could come true for her.
