Page 49 of I Dreamt That You Loved Me
But I’d chalked it up to a passing fancy when the following year she dated the punk rocker and channeled Nancy Spungen a la Sid and Nancy fame.
“Last summer I was offered an opportunity to study in Paris with an incredible choreographer,” she said, scooping up her bras and underwear from the top dresser drawer and dumping them into the suitcase. “On my way home, I met Gabriel so I turned down the offer because of a cute boy. How lame is that?”
I had no idea that she’d turned down an offer to study in Paris. “You never told me.” I tried to hide the hurt in my voice but couldn’t quite pull it off.
Annika turned to look at me. “I’m sorry,” she said softly, lowering herself to the floor next to me. “I never told anyone.”
I wasn’tjust anyone. I was her best friend and number one confidante, but I guess we were both keeping secrets. “Why not?”
“I was scared.” She smoothed her palms over her black leggings. “Scared of failing. Scared of moving to a foreign city where I barely speak the language…” She turned to me. “I’m not like you. You’ve always been so independent and so strong in your convictions.”
“That’s not always a good thing.”
“It’s better than being codependent,” she said. “My therapist encouraged me to figure out who I am and what I want before jumping into another relationship and literally making that my personality. And she’s right. It’s like…oh, my new boyfriend is into Satanic cult rituals. Sign me up.”
I scoffed. “I would never let you join a cult.”
She huffed out a laugh. “You know it’s true though. I try to change who I am to fit the narrative of what I thinktheywant.So I’m taking a hiatus from men and I’m going to Paris to find myself.”
I still didn’t understand why she couldn’t do that right here in New York, but I guess she felt the need for a fresh start, so I had to support her. “I think you’re being a little too hard on yourself. But if this is what you need, then I hope you find it. Go to Paris and have a love affair with yourself.”
Her eyes filled with tears. “I’m sorry I said all those things. I didn’t mean them. I know you would never do the things I accused you of.”
“I’m sorry too. I’m so sorry I lied.” I let out a shaky breath. “I never meant to hurt you and it kills me that I did.”
“Like I said, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and I understand why you didn’t tell me. If I had been in your shoes, I probably wouldn’t have said anything either,” she admitted. She pulled her backpack into her lap and fished out a pack of Marlboro Lights. “It was just a really crappy situation all around.”
Annika lit two cigarettes and handed one to me. I took a deep drag of nicotine and chemicals and blew smoke rings at the ceiling.
“I still can’t believe he’s your Notebook Boy,” she mused. “The first time I met him, I thought he was homeless.” She laughed. “He was talking to a man who I’m pretty sure really was homeless. So I tossed a twenty into his guitar case and left him the salad I’d just bought.” She could barely speak because she was laughing so hard.
I laughed too. “You never told me that part.”
“You were in Wonderland.”
When Annika met Gabriel, my mom and I were in London for my grandfather’s funeral. We spent most of that trip wandering through Highgate Cemetery in the rain and drinkinggin down at the local pub with a crew of octogenarian dart players.
Nigel Babington—eccentric artist, gambling addict, and raging alcoholic—was in his late forties when he had a one-night stand with a twenty-year-old model. He met her at a club in Chelsea, drank “copious amounts” of gin, and promptly forgot about her.
One year later, he found a baby on his doorstep and said,Welcome to Wonderland, Alice.
Outrageous birth stories run in the Babington family, apparently.
“But you should have seen his face,” Annika said, dissolving into fits of laughter. “He chased me all the way across Washington Square Park and threw the money back at me. He refused to accept a ‘pity donation.’ But what really incensed him was that I hadn’t even stuck around to listen.”
I could picture it all so vividly. Silver-haired Annika strolling through the park in her leggings and Capezios, tossing cash into a busker’s guitar case and going on her merry way like it was no big deal. To her, it wouldn’t have been. Money had never been an issue.
Annika grew up wealthy. She was raised in a sprawling apartment on Central Park West, summered in The Hamptons, and spent her spring breaks in St. Bart’s. A socialite slumming it on the Lower East Side.
“What about the salad?” I thought to ask.
“Oh, he kept the salad,” she said. “It had grilled chicken on it and he wasstarving.”
We both laughed and it felt so much like old times that I’d temporarily forgotten that she was moving to Paris.
No more Sunday brunches, late-night chats or epic adventures trying to move our flea market furniture up fiveflights of stairs. Stopping on every landing, holding our hand up and wheezing,I can’t go on. Not. Another. Step.
I had no idea how we’d managed to get that sofa all the way up here but as soon as we’d shoved it through the front door, we did a victory dance and high-fived each other then plopped onto the sofa, exhausted.
