Arianna returns to stroking my hair, and the smell crosses in front of my face, and that is all I need to start crying. Beckett hears me and starts his own wail, and I motion to Arianna to get him. I have a good cry in her bed while I’m waiting for them to return. She sits down on the bed and pops a warm bottle into his mouth. He watches me over the rim of it with interest, and I rub the bottom of his foot. It is incredibly smooth, like a stone that has been washed by the ocean for a thousand years.
“People make mistakes,” I try again. “He made mistakes but so did I.
I need to acknowledge that; I need to tell him, then either move on or go backwards and try to correct it. And knowing that he is still thinking of me while I am thinking of him makes me want to choose the latter. The former. I never get those words right. Which is the one that means that I want to go try to fix my mistake?”
“The latter.”
“Do I have your support?” I ask. “Will you be here for me with ice cream and tissues if it all goes to hell?”
“Of course we’ll be here,” she says, motioning a bit to Beckett to indicate that they’re both on my side.
The smell again, something so familiar though I can’t place it. It is like a former place you lived, something fresh from an oven, warmth.
“What am I smelling?” I ask.
Arianna sniffs the air and shakes her head. She sniffs her sweatshirt, her hair and the back of her hand. Finally, she holds out her wrist. “This? It’s formula. Beckett spit up on my hand last night.”
Knowing that it’s spit-up makes it ten times less romantic, but I shake that out of my mind in order to cling to the wave of drama I’ve been feeling since my birthday. There is something about having an almost-tangible reminder of time that lays the past bare. The fact is that somehow my life has gotten off course. I am supposed to be holding a child too and be happily ensconced in a relationship. And now that I’ve picked up a few life skills and a modicum of self-confidence, it’s up to me to get my life back on track even if that means showing up at Adam’s office and placing my own damn heart on his desk for him to do with what he will.
I go home to shower
and put on a navy blue cashmere sweater that I had hoped to be wearing when I bumped into him for the first time. He always loved the way it fit my body, and I agreed with him, though now, my body almost a year older and a little wider, it is different. Hopefully more like something new than like something strange.
I am having one-thousand doubts that I’m doing the right thing, but I squelch them, knowing full well that I will not feel at peace no matter which option I choose. Staying in the apartment or going. Calling him or showing up at his office.
I am terrified of the way my stomach is already lurching while I swing by the carryout kiosk on the corner, ordering a grilled cheese sandwich with avocado as a tongue-in-cheek ice breaker that I hope conveys immediately that I know he has been skulking around on my blog so we can get that part over with. The accusations, I mean. I hope to skip straight into the passionate love-making on the floor amid his legal briefs, his declarations of undying love, his promise to come home by
every night.
I take a cab instead of the subway, giving an enormous tip to the driver, as if that will bring good luck for my endeavors. I take the elevator up to the eighteenth floor, four below his office, and get off with a set of young magazine interns who must additionally be students at NYU, based on their conversation. The girls look so young, so confident. They make me want to place my arms around their shoulders and tuck them in close for a little older-sister advice session.
Or at least scare the shit out of them by explaining how life will really turn out so they stop looking so damn confident while I’m quaking in my boots.
I slip into the stairwell, which is cavernously silent. One year, when I wanted to surprise Adam with a birthday cake at work, I was told that the eighteenth floor has a back passage that connects the building’s two stairwells—the public one accessible to people like me, and the private one to be used by personnel traveling between floors for multilevel offices. I walk down through the narrow walkway, prepared to climb the last four flights in order to avoid having the receptionist at the law firm’s front desk notify Adam that I’m about to descend upon his office.
As I climb up the stairs, I rehearse everything I’m about to say aloud. I’ll begin with an apology. I’ll keep it simple. “I’m sorry,” I’ll tell him, my words hanging in the air between us until he accepts them. And then I’ll state all the things I’m sorry it took until now to learn: that I’m not the world’s best communicator but I’ve found my voice now. That I should have told him not just to spend more time at home, but
why
I wanted him there. That I missed him when I was sitting on the sofa by myself.
But now I have that passion he talked about, for my blog, my writing. I will understand his career demands, and he will understand mine. I’ll support him with meals and homemaking, not as a bribe or a submissive role, but because I am good at it. I’d like a chance to put into effect all of the things I’ve learned this year—not just about cooking, but how to make myself happy for the times I need to be alone. I want to tell him that I now understand how a person can lose themselves in work, have hours pass without them noticing. It has happened to me with the blog and the book. I couldn’t understand it until I experienced it myself—how work can sometimes be as satisfying as being with someone you love, and how you can derive your happiness, and your self-esteem, from both.
All of this will be told to him as directly and concisely as possible. As honestly as possible. And if my heart gets shredded in the process, if I leave not with the words I’m hoping to hear, but an answer that is unpalatable, I will still know that I did my best, I gave it my last effort.
I drink up the false bravado, swallow my placebo of confidence, and push open the heavy door down the hall from his office. They’ve replaced the carpeting, turning it from a threadbare navy blue to beige, and I glance at the door number to make sure that I have the right floor. The names on the nameplates are still the same. I pass by Gardner, Finnegan, and Sharpstein, all their doors thankfully closed. I pause outside of Goldman. The door is, luckily, open.
I peer inside, first trying to catch a glance at him. I do a double-take, because since the party, Adam has dyed his hair blond. And had it thinned out. And put on about forty pounds, judging by the heft of his shoulders. And become a short, goyishe, ham-sandwich-eating-at-your-desk man. With pictures of children on his desk, and a new wife beaming from the photo frames.
And a new last name of O’Connor.
I jump back, almost dropping the Styrofoam container of grilled cheese, even though it would hardly matter if Mr. O’Connor caught me sneaking around his door. I hadn’t counted on Adam switching offices in the past year, and this definitely throws a wrench in my surprise-it’s-your-ex-wife plan. I glance around at some of the doors in the area, searching for his name.
“Can I help you?” Mr. O’Connor’s secretary calls out from her desk.
Her eyes move from my Styrofoam box to my face and back. I lean in close to her desk to minimize being overheard.
“I’m looking for Adam Goldman. This was his old office. Do you know where they moved him?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t think anyone by that name works here,” she tells me.
“He’s a lawyer,” I try again. “Adam Goldman. Maybe he’s on a different floor?”
“That’s possible,” she admits. “I’m new here, and there are a lot of lawyers in this firm. Why don’t I look it up on the computer?”
“Thanks, that would really help,” I tell her.
I watch her face as she scans through the directory, and she finally shakes her head. “No, there’s no one named Adam Goldman.”
“Brockman and Young? I am on the right floor?” I question.
“Yes, this is Brockman and Young, but there’s no one who works here with that name.”
Seriously? Can this woman not spell Goldman? It’s times such as these that I wish I had a Blackberry so I could go on the Internet myself and check the firm’s website for his office number. I thank her and duck back towards the front desk, hoping that the receptionist doesn’t ask how I’ve come from the opposite direction. So much for a surprise attack.
There is also a new receptionist at the front desk, a blond Amazonian woman who looks like she’ll break my arms if I don’t answer who I’ve come to see in the building. I set my grilled cheese sandwich on the counter and attempt to look friendly.
“Hi, Lisa,” I say, checking her nameplate. “I’m here to see Adam Goldman, but I believe he has moved offices since my last visit.”
“We don’t have anyone here by that name.”
I’m finally beginning to believe them, but my mind can’t keep up with the news. If he’s not here, then where is he? Especially if he was here as of a few weeks ago. How is it that no one remembers him even if they’ve only been here for a few months? Have all the employees of Brockman and Young been clocked on the head?
It dawns on me that maybe law offices pretend the lawyer isn’t there so that people can’t deliver a subpoena. I’ve seen it on so many television shows that I can’t believe I’ve forgotten this fact. I am about to admit to Lisa why I’m there and how she can trust me with his office number when I hear someone calling my name.
Except it isn’t Adam.
It’s Rob Zuckerman of Bali-traveling fame. My first first date.
“Rachel!” he shouts and awkwardly gives me a hug, as if we’ve had several encounters rather than one date. “What are you doing here?”
“I came to visit a friend,” I lie. “But he’s not here. Anymore.”
“What have you been up to?” he asks. “I’ve been thinking about you. I wanted to get together again. It’s just so busy here. You know how it is. I don’t think I’ve been home before
in weeks. It’s brutal.”
“It sounds like it,” I agree.
“And when I’m home, I’m just tied to my Blackberry,” Rob says proudly, holding up the electronic device as if it were an Oscar statue rather than an instrument of communication.
As much as I can now understand Adam’s love for his job, that pulse of energy doesn’t translate well for Rob. Maybe it’s like the difference between being in love and wanting to be in love.
“What have you been doing?” Rob asks. “You know, I never heard back from you. Did you get my messages?”
“I didn’t,” I lie again, despite my desire to fill my day with stark honesty. “I’m so sorry. I wondered why I hadn’t heard from you. Well, now I know. I have to get my stupid phone fixed.”
“Well, maybe we could go out this weekend,” Rob says. “If you’re not busy working on your book.”
“I am, actually. I’m pretty busy working on something right now.”
“Well, maybe another time?” Rob says, looking at his Blackberry again. “I think I still have your number. Should I call you?”
“Yes,” I tell him. “Give me a call tonight, and we’ll make plans.”
It takes me until he gets a few steps down the hallway before I wonder how he knows that I’m writing a book. I’m about to call out to him, despite the evil looks coming from Lisa, who perhaps is harboring a secret crush on Rob Zuckerman, when he turns around and says, “Hey, did you see my comment this morning? I finally figured out how to add my name. I think I’m something like number four-hundred. Your blog sure is popular.”
I smile because if I don’t, I’m going to start crying. And I’d at least like to get to the elevator bay before that occurs.
Rob Zuckerman. Overworked lawyer. Brockman and Young. My name is plastered all over my blog.
I almost run down the hallway, Lisa be damned, to give Rob Zuckerman a piece of my mind for making me think he is Adam, even though that isn’t his fault, but I am too broken-hearted. I skip both the subway ride and the cab to walk the entire way home, dumping the uneaten sandwich in a cigarette ashtray in the lobby of the building.
Adam
doesn’t
read my blog
.
Adam has made no effort to keep up with my life. Adam doesn’t love me.
He doesn’t think about me or pine for me or want me back at all. He is dating Laura and probably blissfully stroking her cats right now.
Since this is
New York
, where people barely notice the torments of others—they’ll even step over a mugging victim who is bleeding to death in the intersection—I walk and cry at the same time, not even bothering to duck my head, but allowing all my grief to hang out around me, like an entourage of friends. People walk around me like blobs of oil floating through my vinegar. I promise myself that having
-hour mopes in a single month does not make it a habit.
When I get back to my apartment, I spend a good ten minutes allowing myself to truly wail, a scary sort of cry that even keeps my neighbor at bay though I am certainly waking her child from one of his numerous naps. I cry in that way that gives you a headache and makes your eyes puffy for days and sends you into a deep, headachy sleep.
And then I stop.
It isn’t a conscious decision, and I am certainly still just as sad as I have been since I stepped over the threshold into my apartment, but the crying stops, and I sit down at the computer to check my blog. Over seven-hundred people have posted since last night, thanking me for my honesty and admitting their fear of failure too. It seems to be a popular cause of low self-esteem. Seven-hundred-plus people, and none of them named Adam. Though, scrolling down through the four hundreds, I pause at Rob Zuckerman’s comment.