I thought about it. My weekends consisted of hanging out at my parents’ cabin in the Adirondacks, going to see my therapist, and continually analyzing the slow decline I was still on. I needed to shave the beard, but I argued my case anyway.
“It’s cool now to have a beard,” I said to Devin, whose back was to me. “You know that whole No-Shave November thing?”
He turned back around. “It doesn’t mean a beard like that. And November is November. One month.”
“I’ll shave it, I guess. What are you doing anyway?”
“Looking at Laya’s Facebook page.”
I squinted. “Still going for that? Her complete indifference toward you, and, oh, her wedding ring wasn’t enough to deter you?”
Devin didn’t look at me. “Have you been living in a hole, man?”
“Kind of. Why do you say that?”
Lowering his voice, he said, “Steve told me all about her. She was married. It was like a whirlwind romance thing. Jim wasn’t too happy.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know where you’re going with this.”
“She married Cameron Bennett,” he said, opening his eyes wide.
“Doesn’t ring a bell.”
“Dude, he’s that extreme sports guy who died a while back shooting a Red Bull commercial.”
“Really? Jeez. Poor Laya. So, when she was in here . . . ”
He nodded. “Yeah, he was already gone. She quit everything and came back to New York. She’s kind of a mess now. Steve said she’s living in one of Jim’s rentals in the city.”
“She did seem kind of, I don’t know, despondent. I wonder why Jim never said anything.”
“I think she saw the whole thing. That’s what Steve said.”
“Why’d you wait until now to tell me? I would have said something to Jim about it. Given my condolences or something.”
“Jim wasn’t too keen on the marriage. Not that he wanted the guy to die, but I think, like any dad, he wanted his daughter to be with someone who didn’t have the high potential for death in his workplace. Some residual fear from losing his wife so early.”
“Why are you looking at her Facebook page? You actually think she’d want to move on this soon?”
“No, this is the craziest part. Steve told me she sits in her apartment posting messages on Cameron’s Facebook page like he’s still alive. Jim’s pretty distraught and I feel bad for her, but I’m like fascinated by the whole thing.”
“What, like she’s in denial?”
“No, like totally delusional,” Devin said.
“What is she posting?” He rolled his chair out of the way, revealing the screen.
I bent over and read her post.
LAYA BENNETT to CAMERON BENNETT
Cam, do you remember the day we met? You told me I had magical eyes. You brought flowers to my work every day for a month while your arm healed. You said I fixed you. Where are you? Come back to me. I miss you. Three. Two. One. See ya.
“That’s so fucking depressing.”
“On some of these posts, Cameron’s mom and sister are begging Laya to stop. It’s painful to read.”
I shrugged. “I guess if they don’t want to see the posts, they can just stay off Facebook.”
“This whole thing is so bizarre.”
“It’s sad, is what it is,” I said, staring at Laya’s profile picture. She was posing next to the sign on the top of Mount Whitney with who I assumed was Cameron. “Is that him?”
“Yeah. Look at the way he looks at her. That’s how I’d look at her, too.”
“Devin, she’s a grieving widow in denial.”
He smirked. “She won’t be forever.”
“I’m going to pretend you didn’t say that.”
She was looking right at the camera, glowing and happy, and Cameron was looking at her with pride.
“I wonder what she thought of his lifestyle?” I bent and looked at the screen again. “Did they want kids?”
“No clue.”
She was a natural beauty. I couldn’t take my eyes off her photo. Standing there, staring at her profile picture, I tried to recall my entire exchange with Laya that day in the office. I couldn’t understand why Jim and Steve acted as though nothing had happened.
On the subway ride home that night I thought about her. I was itching to read her posts. I wondered if she was all alone in her apartment. When I pictured her sitting in the dark, my heart sank. Her story had almost immediately put things into perspective for me. Here I was walking the earth, healthy, with a loving family, loyal friends, and a decent job, yet I had spent months whining and complaining inside my head about everything. I was playing Kill Your Loved Ones, while this poor woman was grieving her husband.
When I got home that night, I searched for Cameron’s Facebook account. It was public. I was able to read everything and Laya had posted again.
LAYA BENNETT to CAMERON BENNETT
Cam, remember when we went wakeboarding at the Colorado River and I didn’t know I was supposed to let go of the rope when I fell? You were screaming from the back of the boat for me to let go and then you buckled over laughing while I swallowed about seventeen gallons of water? Why didn’t Sven just stop the boat? Anyway, that was funny. We should go back there this summer. Three, two, one . . . see ya.
No one liked or replied to her post.
My finger sat on the cursor for an hour trying to think of how I could contact her, or if it was even appropriate to contact her, considering I was giving Devin shit for basically the same thing. I thought about the day I met her and how sweet and polite she was, even as she tried to hide all that sadness. I wanted to reach out to her, but I didn’t know how. Besides, I was no one to her. Did she even remember me?
My desk at home was empty other than my computer and a picture of me and Melissa from our high school years. She had it printed and framed, then left it on my desk without telling me. Probably to annoy me since I had a relatively severe case of teenage acne and her skin had always been flawless. Melissa was consistently able to provide that certain level of comic relief to bring me out of my head. Which was exactly what I needed now. I couldn’t spend the whole night thinking about Laya Bennett.
I dialed Mel’s number.
“Save me and send doughnuts in a discreet package” is how she answered the phone.
“I doubt Kenny would care if you ate a doughnut, Mel.”
“You’d be surprised. What’s up? What are you obsessing over now?”
“Hypothetically, let’s say you wanted to contact someone on Facebook—”
“Are you sleuthing, Micah?”
“What is sleuthing?”
“Like spying on someone’s social media.”
“Looking at social media doesn’t require spying.” I took a deep breath. “There’s a woman I want to get in touch with, and I just wondered if sending a private message . . . you know what? Never mind. It’s a bad idea.”
“Most of your ideas are bad.”
“I love you, too, bye.”
“Call me when you decide to climb out of the black hole you’re living in. Kenny grew a new strain of pot and he wants you to try it.”
I sighed. “I don’t even smoke pot.”
“He said it’ll energize your chakras.”
“I’m hanging up now.”
“Stop, Micah, just come out this weekend. You never come to visit me.”
“I’m gonna go out to Mom and Dad’s cabin. I decided just now. I need to get out of the city.”
“Awesome! I’ll meet you there,” she said.
I really just wanted to be alone and get away from Jeff and the guys, but I figured spending the weekend with Melissa heckling me every other minute would be a nice distraction.
“All right. I’ll be out there early Saturday.”
“Perfect, see you then, dork,” she said before hanging up.
In the morning I made coffee and sat on my countertop, staring out the kitchen window onto a large, empty
courtyard. I still couldn’t get Laya off my mind. Some force pulled me back to my room and to my computer where I clicked on Facebook again and found a new post from Laya.
LAYA BENNETT to CAMERON BENNETT
Remember how my dad bought us tickets to see the Stones at the Garden and you were bummed because you wanted to stay in LA and see The National at the Greek? Well, I wish I would have told you then, I would have rather seen the The National, too. Three, two, one . . . see ya.
My fingers were moving of their own accord when I bought two tickets to see The National in Forest Hills on October 5. It was the following Thursday and I paid nine hundred dollars for the front row. What am I doing? I printed, left the tickets on my desk, and headed into work.
Once in the office, I tried to focus on work but found it impossible. I stared at the blank drafting table, wondering whether I should message Laya and ask her to the concert, to get her out of the house. But that was too coincidental. She’d get freaked out since it’d be clear that I was reading her posts. Stalker, said an inside voice that sounded suspiciously like Melissa’s. Then how else would I slip the ticket to Laya?
I had to distract myself so I dove back into the Glossette model. I just needed to put the finishing touches on it. My hands were sticky with glue from placing sixty tiny trees around the very ugly miniature building.
“You have glue in that beard,” Freedrick said as he walked by.
I don’t care. Everyone called it “that beard” like it wasn’t attached to my face. Like it had its own identity.
With sticky hands, a coffee-stained dress shirt on, and a sour look on my face, I took the model into Steve’s office.
“What’s that?” he said, sitting in his giant leather chair, his feet perched on the desk. Doing nothing—which wasn’t surprising.
“It’s your design for the Glossette building.”
“It looks like an elementary school project.” He arched his eyebrows. From the distance he was at, there was no way he could have actually gotten a good look at it.
Trying to contain the anger boiling over in me, I said, “I spent a lot of time on it, Steve, and—”
“Start over.”
“But I followed your design and the blueprints to a T.”
He looked around the room like he was bored before getting up and walking toward the door. “Make a new design then,” he said.
“Steve, hold on. I want credit for my work.”
“You’ll get the credit, Mr. Harvard.” He pointed to the model I’d spent hours on and said, “We can’t take that to the clients.”
If Steve wasn’t five inches shorter than me, with baby-boy arms and a beer belly, I would have smashed the model on top of his head. Instead I followed him out of the room, bent the model in half, and shoved it into the trash. As he was walking down the hall away from me, I made a point of saying, just loud enough for everyone to hear, “If it’s my design and my work, I want the credit.” I was tired of doing other people’s shit.
“Okay, Micah, do the work, then . . . and shave that damn beard!” he spat back. Now I was determined to go completely ZZ Top.
Later that night, in my room, while drawing sketches for the new Glossette building, my eyes kept darting over to the concert ticket receipt sitting on the corner of my desk. The only way this could work was if she didn’t know that I was leaving it for her. I had to give it to her, but not directly. I tapped my pencil against my chin.
Devin said she was living at one of Jim’s properties. Maybe I could leave it in her mailbox or on her mat. But I wasn’t about to stroll into Jim’s office the next day and ask him which property.
Maybe Mel could help me find Laya’s address. She’d always been good with the internet—well, at least better than me. No, Micah, another one of your bad ideas.
* * *
SATURDAY AROUND ELEVEN in the morning, I met Mel at our parents’ twin-birch cottage overlooking Indian Lake in the Adirondacks. She was standing at the end of our long private dock with her head cocked to the side, staring at me as I came toward her. “What, did you walk here?” she said. She was wearing a giant wool sweater over our father’s wading overalls and our mother’s rubber boots.
I sat next to her and inhaled the crisp, cold air, free of the smog and dumpster smell I was used to in the city. “I had to borrow Jeff’s car. I left at six this morning. Why are you wearing that?”
She shook her head—and ignored my question. “It’s almost exactly the same distance from my house and I left at six. I’ve been waiting for you for an hour.”
We never hugged; outward expressions of love were unnecessary for us. “Well, you must’ve driven a hundred miles an hour in that old Subaru Forester of yours. Again, why are you wearing that shit?”
She clapped her hands together and said, “We’re going fishin’, little brother.”
“I just wanted to relax. And I thought you were a vegetarian.”
“That’s Kenny, not me. And fishing is relaxing.”
“Okay, fine, but you’ll never win. I still hold the record here.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you’re talking about that stupid little one-pound trout you caught when you were twelve, I hate to break this to you, but Dad made you hold it forward in the picture to make it look bigger.”
“Whatever you say, game on. Let’s go!”
Inside the tiny cabin with its stone fireplace framed by two creepy iron sconces, I studied the picture sitting on the mantel. Okay, it was a tiny fish . . . and I was holding it forward to make it look bigger. While Mel packed a lunch, I put my dad’s boots on and set up his tackle box and poles.
“Just so you know, I’m not going to tie your line, or spend all day baiting your hooks every time you cast into the trees!” I yelled to Mel.
“I just spit in your peanut butter and jelly sandwich,” she replied.
Moments later I was rowing our small white boat out to the middle of the lake while Melissa thumbed through a fishing guide.
“You studying?”
“I hardly brought any food, so you better hope we catch something besides pulmonary influenza,” she said, shivering.
“That’s a myth. You don’t get the flu from being cold.”
“Let’s not talk to each other for a while.”
“Sounds like a dream.”
An hour into fishing, the score was tied zero to zero. Mosquitoes landed and lifted off the water surface. A few birds dove toward the lake before taking flight again, their search for food unavailing. My teeth were starting to chatter, but I embraced the cold. It made my thoughts feel more focused, and I realized, as I was waiting for a bite, that Laya hadn’t crossed my mind in a while.
“We’re never going to catch anything,” Melissa whined.
“It’s only been an hour.”
“Tell me about the girl you’re stalking on the internet.” Did she read my mind?
“No, and I’m not stalking anyone.”
Melissa casted her line again and it got caught on the back of my jacket just below my neck. “Shit,” she said as she tugged on it, trying to free it from my clothing.
“Oh my god, you’re the worst! Stop yanking on it; you’re going to rip my ear off.” The boat was dangerously rocking back and forth, and our yells interrupted a family of ducks floating nearby.
Forgetting her question about Laya, Melissa gave up. “We’re not going to get anything here. Let’s go.” As I tried to pull her hook out of my coat, my sister grabbed the oars and started rowing us back to shore.
We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening reading and ignoring each other until Melissa finally said, “You can talk to me. Tell me about the Facebook thing.”
I was wearing my dad’s dusty argyle smoking jacket and had an empty pipe hanging out of the side of my mouth. Melissa was eating peach preserves straight from the jar and sitting in an old rocker near the fireplace.
“This is how my life will be. How terrifying,” I pondered aloud.
; “You look like Dad,” she said. “That pipe is ridiculous.”
“Well, you look like Mom . . . this is freaking me out.”
“I’m kidding; get over it. Though I do spot some gray in that beard.” That beard. I took the pipe out of my mouth, wondering if I should divulge any information about Laya to Melissa. Again, as if she could read my mind, she said, “Go after what you want and get it.”
“I’m going to,” I said in all seriousness.
“Just don’t spend all your money and blow our inheritance before Mom and Dad kick the bucket.”
“Thank you, Melissa, for always knowing exactly the right words to say. I’m going to bed.”
“ ’Night,” she said, smirking.
Melissa left early the next morning, and I spent most of the day sketching designs in the cabin. Without internet service, it’s pretty hard to sleuth anyone. I was grateful for it and thought maybe I should live out my days in the old cabin on the lake. But the more time I spent away from the computer, the further I was getting from Laya and her thoughts—from getting to know her.
5. Time and Space
LAYA
When I left California, I told everyone I was going to complete my fellowship at The Hospital for Special Surgery in New York because I wanted to be closer to home. I never even applied. Even Dad bought the story, as if I’d be able to function normally. He kept telling me I was always stronger than he was. My psychiatrist actually gave me a grief timeline. Like in three months, I’d stop replaying the image of Cameron dying over and over in my head.
Three months flew by and I still thought I saw Cameron on every corner, in every grocery store line, and at every subway station. I got a lot of advice on how to grieve from everyone I knew, as if they understood. Some random Thursday I got drunk and walked seven blocks to a hypnotist. He said he was going to erase the memory of Cameron dying. Like the movie Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind with Kate Winslet, I would just magically forget Cameron ever existed. It didn’t work.
Sitting around my dusty and dark apartment scattered with medical journals and unopened boxes, I cried every night. I forced myself to eat saltines and drink chicken broth like I had a perpetual flu. That’s how grief felt, like a sickness.
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