When she called Peggy to ask her what she would think of her coming home, her mother burst into tears on the spot and asked her if she was sure.
“I’m sure, Mom,” she said, but the only thing she was sure of was that she needed someone to rent her apartment. Within a few days, shewas introduced to Omar’s cousin Vilmari, a journalist who’d just gotten a promotion atEl Diario NY. Vilmari had also just gotten divorced, a fact that she declared as though she’d won Beyoncé concert tickets. Luckily, Vilmari didn’t have much furniture or many household items, which meant Ellie could leave some bigger items behind. She boxed up most of her clothing and personal items, shipped it all to Los Angeles, and chucked the rest into the storage unit in the basement of her building. She ordered one last coffee from her favorite coffee shop and walked one more loop of Central Park, where she silently bade farewell to all her favorite landmarks, trees, and statues.
It was tougher to say goodbye to Ben. They definitely lived separate lives in the city, communicating via FaceTime even though they were usually only blocks away from each other. They were both busy with work and life, but there was also something awesome about being able to call each other up at the last minute and bring over a coffee or meet for a drink. He thought it was wildly reckless to drive a rental car all the way back to California instead of flying and bought her an extra pepper spray, plus a keychain shaped like a cat that doubled as knuckle spikes.
“I don’t know if you are having your very own, like, Miss-Americana-on-the-road experience, but remember that Route 66 is a tourist trap and even Thelma and Louise had the sense to travel together. Can’t you just drive up and down the PCH a few times to get your rocks off when you get back home?”
“I’m not driving Route 66 and Thelma and Louise were criminals—very beautiful criminals, but still criminals. I really want to do this. I am going to take normal highways, stay in brightly lit hotels, and only get gas when it’s daylight and there are security cameras.”
“Oh, good, so there will be video evidence of your abduction.”
“Ugh, you know you sound like Mom sometimes.”
“I can’t help it if half of me is small-town Pennsylvania. You’re lucky I didn’t send you off with a full plate of scrapple.”
“Or ham loaf. Don’t remind me. Speaking of the parents, I haven’t seen Dad hug you that hard since you fell off the swing set in the backyard and passed out when you were five.”
“He was appreciative is all.” Ben grinned. “He wanted to thank me for making the wedding beautiful.”
“I’m pretty sure I heard something along the lines of ‘I could not be more proud of the man you are’ right before ‘I love you,’ so I would say that’s a bit more than appreciative.”
“Maybe. I may have to come for a visit—I mean, now that you’re going to be there.”
“I’m sure he would love that.” She smiled and Ben glared at her before breaking into a laugh. “I love you. You’re the greatest brother ever, but I’ve got like two more minutes until this parking spot expires.” Ellie opened her arms to Ben, tears pricking her eyes. He hugged her tight, told her he loved her more, then watched her walk around to the driver’s side of her rental car and get in.
“This changes nothing, you know,” he said, leaning into the open passenger window. “We will talk all the time like we always do. I will bother you with details about everything I am doing like I always do.” He stood on the sidewalk next to her car as she set a bag of snacks on the passenger seat.
“And everyone, I hope!” Ellie began rolling the window up. “Speaking of—have you called Leo yet?”
“What?” said Ben, looking mock-horrified. Ellie blew her brother a kiss, closed the window, and drove away.
She really wasn’t worried about the drive, only the silence. A relative newbie to long road trips, she’d figured five days would be enough to make the trip if she could drive eight to ten hours per day, which meant she’d need to have at least fifty hours of audiobooks, podcasts, and catch-up phone calls to divert her thoughts from funneling into a vortex of career insecurity, ruminations about her parents’ relationship, culture shock, and a dose of good old-fashioned heartbreak.
That last concern was one she’d slammed directly into when her phone immediately connected to Bluetooth while she was trying to merge onto 495 from East 37th Street. The phone began blaring the last song she’d played on Spotify, which had been downloaded while she and Cris were still lying in her bed in Chiavari, and had played on a loop after he left. She’d let it sing her to sleep with the moon still visible from her window and the scent of jasmine from the street below.
She couldn’t risk trying to fumble with the phone in traffic and was forced to listen to three excruciating lines of the song. As soon as she could, Ellie pressed “stop,” removed the download, and vowed not to play any music on the entire trip. She ended up listening to three books and twelve episodes of theOlogiespodcast and had daily check-ins with Ben and Greta. Ben usually wanted visual confirmation that there were no murderers hiding in her back seat. Ellie usually replied that their parents should have sued the babysitter who used to let them watch old episodes ofThe Twilight Zonewhen they were kids. Greta tried to be light, regaling Ellie with stories of Matilde’s ballet lessons and Odetta’s penchant for sitting in the houseplants to pee, but Ellie could tell she was trying not to directly ask about Cris.
“I’m fine, you know,” she offered. She wanted Greta to know she didn’t have a problem talking about it because there was no “it.” “I’m actually grateful—not tohim.But I am feeling good about what’s coming next.”
“That’s great,ciccia,” Greta said as though one of her children was presenting her a drawing of a horse that looked like a gallbladder with legs. She knew she’d prove it to Greta eventually, and the best way to do that was to keep repeating that she was fine. So she did—to Greta, to Ben, to her parents when they called, to the interior of her car as she crossed another state line, to the kind police officer in Ohio who said he lovedGames Over, to the fireball sun setting into the plains in Nebraska, to the Gore Range of mountains in Colorado.I’m fine. I’m fine. I’m fine.In the end, she ended up making the trip in four days, but she’d never admit that it was because she couldn’t handle one more night in a quiet hotel room by herself.
At least she wouldn’t have to wonder what she was going to do with her time once she got back to Los Angeles. She knew that she needed structure to feel good and therefore one of Ellie’s most important conversations on the drive west was with Dean Huey Kim of Santa Monica College. She applied to teach Intro to Psychology and Intro to Statistics at SMC the night before, while dining on a combination of pickle-flavored popcorn and turkey jerky in her hotel room in Utah, so she was surprised to receive the call so quickly. She tried not to wince when he told her that, at first, he wasn’t sure if she was serious or attempting some kind of comedic bit for her show. It was probably not the first time she would have to convince people to trust her sincerity, so she knew she’d better get good at it. By the end of the call, she had the job and a schedule, plus now she knew she’d have time to dig in on researching a plan to get back into the match for clinical internship. Her shoulders dropped at least two inches during the drive from Sulphurdale all the way to San Bernardino. The only thing left to do was settle in with her mom.
Aside from the obvious moving-back-home-over-thirty agony, living with her newly single mom had few hiccups. It did take Ellie three weeks to convince her mother that she was not required to make dinner for her, despite her attempts to treat Ellie like she was a guest at a hybrid Airbnb and spa. Peggy had been going through an exploration of her personal dietary preferences in the absence of someone else’s tastes and was currently revisiting the nouvelle gastronomy known as 1980s Weight Watchers cuisine. Ellie quickly opted out of that journey. No matter how much love it was prepared with, no food was going to be made more palatable by shoving it into a hollowed-out raw tomato.
One afternoon in August, Ellie’s phone rang from somewhere in her bag as she pulled into the driveway and parked under the Meyer lemon tree. She found the phone—it was Omar—and swiped the screen to answer while maneuvering her tote bag out of the passenger seat.
“Hey, you! I am so glad you called! Tell me everything,” she said. Omar had just begun producing another show for a top podcast network, and Ellie was dying to know how it was going. The show’s host was a former ultrarunner who interviewed athletes from all over the world, no added snark or psychoanalyzing. He lived in Italy and all sessions were remote, which was a different way of doing things than Omar was used to.
“It’s actually pretty great. The host is one of the nicest guys in the business, seriously. I mean, it’s only been a couple of days, but so far, so good. He’s smart and professional. And he listens, which is a plus, you know?” He laughed.
“Are you trying to suggest that some of your old colleagues struggle to take direction? I’m insulted!” Ellie chuckled, but it still felt weird to joke about something that she had only recently been able to sleep through the night over. Now that Omar was okay, she could relax a bit.
“I’m not saying anything of the sort! You’re always going to be my favorite, El. We tookGames Overfrom nothing to top ten on the charts together. Nothing is going to beat that, I don’t care how much they are paying me. And they are overpaying me, seriously.”
“Okay, I was really worried about that.”
“I knew I was in good hands when your boy told me about the gig. He’s good people, too, I’ve decided.”
