Page 8 of Exit Lane
“Ah, of course. A desert apocalypse short film.”
“Her best friend, remember her? The tall one you gave a lift to after graduation? She’s still in the city too, apparently.”
My lips turn up toward a smile, but I force them down.Remember her? Grave understatement.Most of the time, though, I wish I didn’t. Hearing Carter casually mention a person who’s been trapped in my head for so long lands me right in my body. Like she’s real again. I feel the pull of my jacket across my shoulders. I tug my ear. I cough.
It’s been three years since I dropped her off on the Upper East Side, and I’ve never been able to forget about Marin Voss for very long. Sometimes, when I’m drunk enough, I still get off thinking about that night outside of Chicago. Nothing happened—or almost nothing happened—but the memory remains crystal clear, ready to be conjured. “Marin,” I say, stopping outside of the bar.
“Did you ever see her after the road trip?”
“She was pretty adamant about that drive being the start and end of our friendship.” My tone’s more defensive than I mean for it to sound. Carter knows me better than anyone, and this is a dead giveaway.
“Ah. It was like that.”
“Carter.”
“Ok, well, she has some big job now just like you have some big job now. And you’re both still there.”
“We have so much in common.”
“I’m just saying.”
“Listen, I gotta go, but next time, you’ll tell me more about what you’re ‘just saying’ to Sloane.”
He laughs. “See you soon.”
My usual crew of former classmates and plus-ones wavesfrom the booth in the corner. After doing close readings of contracts for five hours, I welcome this release with people who’ve been heads-down on the same type of thing and have zero interest in talking about it.
I give cheek kisses to the women and awkward half hugs to the men. “Anyone need anything?”
Cleo, who I know from my first internship, squeezes my elbow. “When you’re back, remind me to tell you about someone else I want to set you up with. If you’ll give me a second chance at matchmaking.”
“Of course,” I say, but my heart isn’t in it. It never is. I like meeting new people, but by the third date, it almost always becomes clear there isn’t much there. I try to remind myself that it takes time—and that feeling connected to someone doesn’t just happen. But I either get too depressed about the prospect of talking about what TV shows we’re watching and end it early or accept inertia, let a relationship take hold, and wait to be broken up with a few months later for “being distant.”
As I stand at the bar and wait for my beer, I try to shake the malaise that’s come over me during the last half hour.You’re here to catch up with friends. Don’t get like this.I grab a black napkin and fold it once, twice. When my eyes scan toward the booth, they snag on the back of a head I’d recognize anywhere. I tell myself it’s someone else, that there’s no reason she’d be at a linoleum-floored downtown bar playing Merle Haggard. But then she turns to face a beautiful woman in a leather jacket, and I see her T-shirt: “Sacred Heart Girls Get On Their Knees.”
VI
Marin
It’s hard to argue with Gabby as I lean into a pool stance with one hand on a whiskey soda and one eye on the cue ball. Josie’s is electric. And sticky. And she herself is stunning, backlit by the streetlights outside the window and smiling at me. As I lean in for a kiss, I hear my name. “Marin?”
My instinctual response to that voice: delight. That’s before I have time to start a list of a hundred reasons why it can’t be him. Because there’s no way he stayed in the city after school. I’m sure he moved back to Iowa and has sent out save the dates for a wedding at the DesMoines Botanical Garden in late spring. As my rational brain makes its case, Teddy McCarrel steps in front of me and skims his fingers along the green felt of the table.
It’s like I’m seeing him in Technicolor after years of black and white. His posture. The hints of copper in his brown hair. Just the sight of his hands makes me embarrassed to remember all the times I’ve thought about his tongue brushing against mine while I’ve touched myself. I might have gotten off at the thought of him as recentlyas last week. That kiss, the wave goodbye from the curb, all of it lives staunchly in the past tense. When I think about him, about those two days, it’s like the memory is encased in a museum—untouchable, protected, and precious. Teddy is a relic to me, and to see him here, in present tense, throws off my balance. I shift from heel to toe in my loafers, and the flutter I feel in my stomach makes me realize it’s been three years since I last felt this sensation.
I watch him reach toward me in what we both expect to be a bear hug, but he changes his mind with his arms extended and places his hand on my shoulder. The weight of him there is somehow more intimate than the press of our bodies would have been. It takes me back to the bucket seats, the manual windows, the busted radio, the fears shared. His hair’s a little longer, and he seems right at home in New York, something I could have never guessed for the bright-eyed boy who dropped me off uptown. But I’m not the same as I was then either. I’ve been back to Iowa a few times—weddings, holidays, my grandma’s funeral. Every ticket to DSM a step backward and every return flight to JFK a reminder that my real life is here, where I’ve become the version of myself I dreamed of ever since my dad died. I’m ironclad. I can take care of myself. I don’t need more than I have. And now Teddy, appearing in front of me, reminds me of all the ways he makes me feel otherwise.
“Hi, Teddy.” I lean my pool stick upright, reaching a hand out to shake his. I’m feigning formality, but really, I want to feel the press of his palm against mine. Gabby watches with amusement.
“It’s been so long,” he says, his eyes tracing the planes of my face. “Or... how are you?”
I think about the way we left things—the way I left things—and how as much as I’ve lingered on my memories of Teddy, it never occurred to me that I would ever see him again. At twenty-two, I was too naive to know that New York could feel like a small town. The sort of place where you run into the guy you have sex dreams about at a bar you’ve never been to before. But I’m older now, and somehow, I still hadn’t thought to imagine this.
“Oh, hi, I’m Teddy.” As he reaches out to shake Gabby’s hand, I brace for the interaction to reverberate with awkwardness. But I’m not giving Teddy enough credit for what seems to be his spiritual gift: charging through uncomfortable conversations with a disarming smile and the kind of casual confidence that puts him at ease in any social situation. I forgot how attractive it is.
He clears his throat and turns back toward me. “Where in the city are you these days?” It’s a safe question, one you can ask a colleague.
“Nearby,” I offer, unwilling to give specifics. I was planning on ordering in and getting laid. But here I am cagily introducing my not-quite girlfriend to my not-quite friend.
