Abi looked at Rachel with puzzlement and then relief. No doubt she was happy to have someone to travel with her.
“I have to go settle things at work,” Rachel said once she’d explained the phone call to Abi. “I need to be back in the classroom on Monday, and my NEA rep wants to meet me for coffee tomorrow afternoon to prepare a strategy. Especially now that Gillian’s breathing down my neck.”
“But we were going to go out and see the city today! And tomorrow!”
“Well, I have to find Barney,” Abi said, her eyes pleading with mine. If her gaze were translated to words it would be something along the lines of,It’s been real. It’s been fun. It’s been real fun, but I have got to get back to my house because my skin is crawling from having been away from home too long and, to top it all off, my dog is missing. I told you bad things happened when I leave my house.
“Okay,” I said, swallowing my disappointment. I’d wanted so much for the three of us to have the perfect trip, but it seemed as though everything I said or did made things worse.
We were supposed to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art that afternoon, but I had to send my regrets to Deborah instead. She seemed to think that we were all hungover.
I offered to go with Abi and Rachel to the airport, but they declined, and it did seem silly to ride in a taxi all the way to LaGuardia and backjust to say goodbye outside security. Instead, I wandered downstairs. Our hotel was off Times Square, so I figured I might as well explore.
Mistake.
Times Square was a crush of human beings, many of whom wanted something from me: a picture, a donation, for me to take a flyer. All the signs glowed and flashed, and the whole effect was too much. I retreated to my hotel and ordered room service, not even caring that the glass of wine I ordered cost as much as my hamburger.
Once I put the phone down, I realized my heart was pounding.
You’re being ridiculous, Vivian.
Or was I?
I couldn’t remember the last time I’d gone on a trip by myself. Everything had been okay as long as Abi and Rachel were with me. I’d felt the safety of being in numbers. But now?
Now I was spectacularly alone, and I was going to have to figure out how to manage on my own because my husband had decided to take up with my friend’s sister.
Assuming Rachel was still my friend.
Vivian, don’t be silly. She’s upset, but she knows it was a mistake.
I paced the suite; its ornate decor now felt overbearing without anyone else to ooh and aah with me. Unlike an ordinary hotel room, it also had so many places where people could hide. I walked around the room, checking each closet and making sure no one was under the bed or hiding behind the shower curtain.
Great, now you’re thinking like Abi.
A doorbell rang, and I jumped out of my skin before I realized that it wasmydoorbell, probably signifying thatmysupper had arrived. Sure enough, a quick look through the peephole showed a hotel worker with a tray on wheels, the kind with a silver dome on top and ... candles?
I opened the door, and he rolled the tray in.
“Ma’am, we went ahead and upgraded you to a carafe of wine.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said.
We blinked at each other for a few seconds before I remembered I had to sign the ticket and add a tip. That accomplished, he left. I locked the door behind him.
As I ate a cheeseburger and drank a red wine Rachel would’ve shaken her head at, I tried to remember the last time I’d gone somewhere by myself.
I couldn’t.
I couldn’t think of a place I’d gone by myself since marrying Mitch. Obviously, I got groceries and went to Target and took Dylan to doctor’s appointments and baseball practices, but where had I last gone just for me? At times I’d slept alone in our house because Mitch had been gone on a trip. But in twenty-five years, I couldn’t think of a single hotel room I’d slept in by myself.
How had that happened?
You lost yourself to his needs and Dylan’s, that’s how.
“Well,” I said to the empty room. “Tonight, you’re going to earn your Independent Woman Badge, and I vow that you will not go this long without taking a trip for yourself ever again.”
An easy vow to make since I was off to California in a week.
