Page 28 of The Unraveling

“Just a taste of the good life, love,” she says, leaning forward. “Now get ready, because tomorrow we are getting your things out of that flat of Jordan’s, and you’re starting your new life.”

Chapter Nine

Arabella insists on coming with me to get my things from Jordan’s flat. I appreciate her coming, as I feel a little afraid I’ll collapse in a puddle and refuse to leave if I’m on my own.

I’ve been looking for a good time to go over there, and I know that tonight he has a show at Whitechapel Gallery, so he won’t be home. I was supposed to be at this show with him. We’d planned to go to this restaurant called Brick Lane after the show for Indian food.

I try to stop thinking about it as I turn the ancient key in the doorknob and let us in.

All around the place, I see our ghosts. Me, standing at the kitchen sink rinsing out wineglasses when he came up behind me and kissed my neck and we let the water run. The times on the couch when we fell asleep watching some old Buñuel movie. The shower with its low pressure that we never minded because we were so often in there together, skin to skin, keeping each other warm.

The way my heels used to be in a pile by the door from kicking them off after arriving home late at night. Or the way my lipstick would leave a print on the rocks glass. Or—wait.

“Oh my god,” I say, feeling suddenly weak in the knees.

“What is it?” asks Arabella.

There are shoes by the door. There is a glass with lipstick. But they’re not mine.

I tell Arabella that those things aren’t mine and she immediately picks up the glass from the coffee table and throws it into the empty fireplace.

“Arabella!”

“What? Fuck him!”

“No, no, just—we’re not breaking things, just let me think.”

“Fine, okay, I’m sorry, darling, I’m sorry, men just make me so fucking mad! How dare he move on so quickly without you? And who knows how many women? Is it worse if it is just one?”

“Okay, you’re making it worse now, I’m not even there yet.”

She does a zip-lip gesture. “I’m done. Lo siento, lo siento.”

“Todo bien,” I say with an eye roll. “Let’s just get my stuff and get the hell out of here.”

I go to the bedroom and get my big black Samsonite suitcase and throw all my clothes and dance wear into it without being neat. In the bathroom, I throw all my perfume and makeup and everything into the Longchamp backpack I brought, freezing when I see a toothbrush by the sink that isn’t mine and that isn’t Jordan’s.

There are a few pairs of shoes of mine in the closet, which I indicate to Arabella, and she puts them into an old leather bag I’ve had my whole life. She finds my Canada Goose jacket and shoves it in.

And that’s pretty much all there is to get.

I look around.

“Aw, no, not these sad eyes,” says Arabella, coming over to me and swiping hair out of my lashes. “No, baby, no sadness.”

Tears fill my eyes as I shut them hard, thinking of the women’s shoes by the door. He’s moved on.

“It’s just…we weren’t here for long. In this flat. But somehow, I had thought I really might have this place to come home to. I lived out of a suitcase as a kid and now I am again. As a child I was either at my mom’s house or at my grandmother’s house. Then ballet.”

“It’s the life we chose, right?”

“Yeah, but. Still. For how long?”

She laughs, which surprises me. “Look, baby.” She holds my face in her hands. “One day, you’re going to have a home with all your kids or dogs or birds or whatever you want then—”

“Birds?” I laugh, the tears properly coming now.

“Who knows? But then you’re going to remember this time of running around, and you’re going to miss it. Try to miss it now. Maybe you can love it that way.”

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