Page 2 of Exit Lane
The ceremony is eternal, but not long enough. Our parents are waving from row 5, zooming in with their ancient iPhones, dabbing tears. A reminder that the moisture pooling in my own eyes is genetic hardwiring. After lunch, Carter and I both continue to cry in the Joseph’s parking lot while our dads pretend to make small talk ten feet away and our moms hover, patting each other’s shoulders and digging in their purses for another pack of tissues. Carter is headed toReno for a top-secret engineering job, and we’ve spent the last four months trying to pretend like the cross-country moves we’re making aren’t terrifying. That we have any idea how to navigate the world without each other. We hand each other our letters. “We’re so cheesy,” Carter jokes, stuffing my note in his pocket. “Obviously I can’t read this now. I’m really going to miss you. Promise me you won’t fall in love with some Upper East Side snob and never come back?”
I laugh and hug him hard. “It’s just for now. We’ll get married and have kids, and our kids will get married and have kids, and we’ll hardly remember this.” I say it in a joking tone, but he knows that I mean it. “Promise to save a spot for me on Fifty-First Street,” I add more earnestly.
The plan has always been simple: Carter would live at 441 Fifty-First Street, DesMoines, Iowa, his grandparents’ former address and the site of some of our best memories, and I would live in 443 Fifty-First Street next door. But for now, it’s Nevada and New York and a shared commitment to call each other every Sunday.
I pull my late grandma’s 1998 LeSabre out of the parking lot. The gas light flicks on, and the check engine light follows in short order. It’s fine. What matters is getting to the meeting spot on time. In all likelihood, punctuality is Sloane’s love language.
When I make the turn in front of the main library, I see them: Sloane, somehow still stoic despite tears streamingdown her face, hugging a woman almost a foot taller than her—dark blond, terrifying, with a cigarette dangling from her lip and anAnnie Halloutfit hanging off her frame. Sloane’s in chinos, ballet flats, and a navy-and-white striped boatneck. Are those... printed-out directions in her hand? Her friend looks familiar, maybe from an elective or Young Democrats or something. I squint as I approach and pull the visor down.
Now that I have a better view, I can tell that the friend is beautiful—actually, stunning—with features that look like they could slice right through me, though a little too androgynous for my personal taste. Sloane’s a gin and tonic after a long day of yard work. This woman—Marin—is a Negroni after a big meeting.Not that I’ve ever had a long day of yard work or a big meeting, I think. She intimidates me even from a distance, and yet her high cheekbones and arched eyebrows make my stomach tighten in a way I recognize. As I roll to a stop at the curb, I sit up straighter, checking for remnants of lunch in my teeth and tracking the way Marin’s weight shifts from her front foot to her back, how she lifts her chin while forcing a smile.
The two of them pull apart and walk toward the Buick, where I hand-crank the passenger window open. Sloane turns on a smile, a real one I think, as she angles her stretched-out arms in a sideways V like she’s unveiling a work of art. “Teddy, meet Marin.”
Sixteen hours. How bad could it be? I reach over to extend a hand out the window.
“Hi, Teddy,” she says, eyes narrowing. “Can you open the trunk?”
II
Marin
“Thanks for doing this,” Sloane says to Teddy while tossing me a Ziploc bag with my favorite yogurt-covered pretzels and the Altoids I chew whenever I’m restless. As he climbs out of the car, almost reluctantly, I take him in. His shirt collar is askew—I would fix it if I knew him—but his sneakers are clean, like he takes care of them. Teddy looks like most of the guys who have crushes on Sloane: charmingly unkempt light-brown hair; miraculously clear skin, despite a frat-boy diet; and a ’90s rom-com always-gets-the-girl air. I’ve observed countless Teddy types trip over themselves to get Sloane a drink in a sweaty basement or leave grocery-store carnations at our apartment door.
He seems relaxed, considering we’re both at the same precipice, and it unnerves me. The car suits him, which I consider mentioning as an insult but keep to myself. I can already hear Sloane’s “What could you possibly mean by that?” He gives the impression he fantasizes about three-car garages and coaching a Little League team. There’s a clear through line from his crush on her, the feat of American engineering he’s driving, and the handwritten note I spoton the dash. Teddy’s the dream my dad had for me as a little girl, a “happy wife, happy life” guy. He’s everything I’m trying to run away from, wrapped in a striped rugby shirt that fits him better than it should.
As Teddy climbs back into the car, I hug Sloane one last time. I promise to call the second I get to my new home on East Eighty-Third Street—a parquet-floored two-bedroom apartment partitioned to accommodate my cousin, two of her theater friends, and now me. “There’s no crying in baseball, Mar,” she whispers, wiping the tears from both of our eyes. Our first Halloween together, we showed up to Donnelly’s in matching skirted baseball uniforms, an homage toA League of Their Own. It was the first time we’d used our fake IDs, and memories of this truly inconsequential milestone make my throat feel tight.
Destabilized, I try to focus on one inhale, one exhale. Losing Sloane, or losing my proximity to Sloane, feels like a small death. And despite how avoidant we’ve been about this topic, it’s been on my mind constantly.
I sink into the bucket seat, and she squeezes my hand. “Please take care of yourself. And try not to fall in love with Mr.All-American on the way to New York.” We turn to look at Teddy, who is spitting sunflower seeds into a red plastic cup. Sloane raises her brows and shuts my door. It’s going to be a long ride.
We pull out of the parking lot, waving longer than Sloane can see us, as if to say our goodbyes not just to her but to all of it, before we merge onto I-80 East.
“I figured we’d spend the night outside of Chicago andfinish the rest of the drive tomorrow,” Teddy says, his voice confident but quieter than I expect. He holds the wheel with one hand and props his head against the other, his elbow lodged on the windowsill. His certainty could read as arrogance, but I sense it’s just... him. I try to give him the benefit of the doubt, as someone whose directness also sometimes reads as conceitedness. The worn-in cotton of his purple-and-yellow rugby shirt tugs at his bicep, and my vantage point gives me a good angle on his jawline, sharp and angular. Maybe Sloane should reconsider his obvious affection for her.
“Works for me,” I respond, ready to daydream in peace for a few hours, ideally to some music. “Do you mind if I turn on the radio?”
His eyes crinkle. “The radio’s shot. The AC, too. I assumed Sloane told you.” Nothing slips Sloane Bachman’s mind, especially not details as damning as these. “Sorry, it’s not exactly luxury travel.” He smiles slightly, and his eyes land on me long enough for it to feel deliberate.
“I can rough it.” I reach for my mints and turn my body toward the window.
I pictured my arrival in New York triumphant, or at least with modern amenities. There’s nothing filmic about the situation I’ve found myself in, or the silence that’s growing louder by the minute.
I lean back in the seat, watching the office parks and megachurches blur by. In an instant, I’m an eight-year-old in Sunday school, accepting salvation at the altar for the fifteenth time. I’m a ten-year-old trailing behind my dad atBring Your Child to Work Day, carrying a pocketbook full of business cards he printed with my name. I’m eighteen and hiding my acceptance letters to UC Berkeley and Columbia, convinced that picking a college near my sister is the most important thing. All these Marins belong here, in Iowa. I’m ready for the start of a new self in New York, one without the grief or the impossible weight of always doing it right.
Around Geneseo, Illinois, I decide I’ve heard enough of Teddy’s sunflower seed spitting. The car’s sticky, and I can see sweat drops gathering on his collarbone. I can’t go on like this. “Let’s play a game,” I suggest with more enthusiasm than I actually feel. He looks at me, left arm draped out the open window. I catch a whiff of his scent—boy mixed with some cologne I can’t identify but don’t hate. Teddy’s attractive, I decide, if you’re into the life-of-the-party, whole milk, Iowa suburbs type. “Let’s go back and forth and tell each other what we know to be true about the other person.”
Teddy laughs, and it’s the loudest sound I’ve heard him make so far. “This feels like freshman orientation. But I’m in. You start.”
And suddenly, as he nods in my direction, it hits me. We’ve met before.
I sit up taller and run my eyes over him as my brain sifts through memories. The chill of football bleachers. The scent of corn during summers of detasseling. Teddy’s somewhere, his face just out of recollection. “Oh my god.” I laugh, a faint memory coming into focus in my mind. “You went to Valley High School, didn’t you?” Of course:Teddy McCarrel, whose little sister I played against in a tennis tournament senior year.
“Wait, are you from DesMoines?”
“I went to Sacred Heart. Plaid skirt and plastic babies for pro-life day.”
His laughter joins my own. “Is it true about those kids getting caught having sex in the confessional? That shit was lore at Valley.”
