by Jane Green
She puts earbuds in on the train, and listens to podcasts from BBC Radio 4, all of them sweeping her back to a land she had been so determined to leave behind for the bigger, brighter lights of America, a land that now feels like the only place she will find solace and refuge.
Even the voices are comforting. The English accents over the BBC are lulling her into a sea of daydreams. Was this a terrible mistake, moving to America? What if she packed up everything and went home? What would she do back there? Where would she live? Who would she see?
Emma has largely grown away from the friends she had when she was younger. They are Facebook friends now, which are not the same as real friendships at all. She scrolls through her news feed on a daily basis, curious to know what people are up to, what they look like, but with no desire to sit down with any of them in person.
Would she go back to London, perhaps? Brave her way through the crowds, the unfamiliar people? The last time she was there, for work, she found herself in restaurant after restaurant, café after café in the West End, surrounded by people who looked familiar, people she thought she ought to know, but didn’t. It made her feel strangely displaced. In her old neighborhood in New York City, she ran into at least three people she knew every time she left her apartment. She realized then that London wasn’t home. Not any longer.
Where else in the U.K. might you go as a thirty-something single woman? If not London, where? Brighton? These days, it seems to have become spectacularly trendy. She didn’t know Brighton, only remembered visiting the pier with her grandparents when she was very young.
If she were to go back to England, her parents would want her back in Somerset. But could she live in the English countryside? Wouldn’t she die of loneliness?
She wouldn’t belong anymore, she thinks. She has been away too long. Maybe, for now, as comforting as England sounds, she just needs to focus on getting through the day. Maybe she shouldn’t worry about the future. Maybe she should just focus on what she could do today to distract herself from thinking about last night.
At Grand Central Station, she walks around the main concourse like a tourist, head tipped back, looking—really looking—at the ceiling for the first time. She wanders through the passageway leading out to Lexington Avenue, stopping at all the stands, trying on jewelry, examining small artworks, buying a pair of delicate crystal earrings. All around her, people are rushing back and forth; she thinks how this used to be her, always rushing. She had always wanted to stop at these stands and look more closely at what they were selling; she just never had the time.
Her thoughts are all over the place . . . remembering when she used to work and had no time . . . wondering what will she do without Dominic . . . trying on earrings and thinking they would look lovely with the blue sundress, the blue sundress she wore last week when she and Dominic went to the farmer’s market . . . oh, how she misses him . . . should she go to a museum? . . . Dominic . . . she’s going to be a tourist for the day . . . please God let it not be over.
Tears spring in her eyes each time Dominic’s name enters her head, but she refuses to give in to the deep sadness she feels, made worse by sheer exhaustion. Distraction has always been the best way Emma has known to avoid fear and sorrow, so she walks out of Grand Central and strides through the streets with no particular direction, until she finds herself outside the Guggenheim.
She enters the museum and spirals down from the top, stopping to take in the Calder mobile, the Klee paintings, the Kandinsky gallery. The art isn’t soothing in the way she had hoped. Every time she stops to look at a picture, she finds her mind wandering back to the evening before.
Back to Central Park—perhaps a walk will stop the thoughts crowding her mind. But the hordes of nannies and their charges only make her think of Jesse. She has grown so attached to him, despite the ups and downs of their connection. Seeing all these babies and small children only fills her with sorrow at not being able to continue to be part of his life.
She walks up Madison Avenue, window shopping. Expensive designer labels have never really been her thing. She indulged in them when she was working for the bank, only because she had to look the part, had to have the labels everyone else had. She would have been quite happy dressed head to toe from Zara, but everyone at work compared labels all the time, and the label you wore meant something.
She remembers the day just after she first moved to New York, when a female colleague complimented her on her shoes.
“Thank you,” she had said, delighted. “They were only thirty dollars from Nine West.” She thought she was sharing her bargain of the month with a friend who would be impressed with the deal, but instead she saw a look of disdain pass over her colleague’s eyes.
“Oh,” the other woman had said. “I thought they were Lanvin.”
Emma went out the next day and bought the Lanvin pumps, an eerily close approximation of what she already owned. She bought the Hermès belts and scarves that everyone else wore, the Dior suits and dresses. She dressed in a way that was well beyond her years.
Her biggest clothing splurge was a Chanel jacket. She was accompanying a colleague to Chanel, intimidated at the quiet luxury of the store, and at what she perceived to be the condescension of the sales assistants. Although afterward she realized how nice they had been, that it was her own feelings of inadequacy that had made her so quick to judge them.
Her friend tried on a suit, and while Emma was waiting, she had slipped on a jacket. It was black and white, classic bouclé, with intricate trim of beads and ruffles. It was quite beautiful, if unlike anything she would ever wear.
Two sales assistants gasped and said it was the most perfect fit they had ever seen. Emma’s colleague came out and said Emma absolutely had to have it.
“I don’t think I’d ever wear it,” Emma had protested.
“That’s the kind of jacket you can wear to a gala, or throw over a T-shirt and jeans. Trust me. You’ll live in it.”
“Okay. Sold!” Emma had laughed, until she handed over her credit card, and picked up the sales slip. The jacket had cost thousands and thousands of dollars. She blanched as she picked up the pen to sign the receipt with a shaking hand. It had never occurred to her to ask the price of the jacket. A few hundred dollars, she had presumed, because it was Chanel. A stretch, perhaps, but one could manage it. But a few thousand? She was too embarrassed to back out.
She did wear it, once, after which it sat in her closet for the next year. Eventually she sold it through a high-end consignment shop, making back a fraction of what it had cost her.
The thought of wearing it now is enough to make her laugh. Thank God she is out of that world, she thinks. Thank God she doesn’t have to “label up” in order to fit in, or mask her insecurity about being perceived as good enough.
She walks up Madison past all of the stores she used to know so well: Chanel, Hermès, Stella McCartney, Dior. Their windows are filled with gorgeous chiffons and silks, thick cashmere sweaters for the fall, exquisite leather purses as soft as butter. Emma couldn’t care less. During these past few months in Westport she has loved pulling on a simple cotton dress, slipping on shorts and a T-shirt, living in flip-flops or sandals.
Everything about living there has been perfect, until she risked the life she was finally building for herself by getting involved with someone.
She stops at a small café, goes inside, sits down on the banquette against the wall to order an iced coffee. It is after lunch now, but she has no appetite. She hasn’t eaten anything all day, but the thought of food makes her feel queasy.
She doesn’t want to go home, but she needs to sleep. She supposes she could stay in a hotel for the night. She’s not quite ready to hear what Dominic has to say; not quite ready for it to be over. She recognizes that part of her wanting to stay away is also a hope that he will be shocked by her absence. If he thinks she has disappeared, will he reconsider whate
ver decision he might have made?
She feels childish thinking that way, but still, reflexively, she glances at her phone, even though she’s switched it off. It would be too painful for her to check it every fifteen minutes, hoping for a call, a text.
The silence has been the most difficult thing of all. Dominic didn’t come over and apologize after their awkward good-bye. He didn’t wake up in the night, missing her, sending her a text. He left her on her own, all night long.
The phone starts whispering, begging her to turn it on. She stares at the black screen, her fingers moving, darting back and forth to the on button, sheer force of willpower eventually leading her to slip it back into her bag.
“They’re terrible things, those mobile phones, aren’t they?” says a voice next to her. It is a voice that is instantly recognizable, a voice that belongs to a typically patrician Upper East Side Lady-Who-Lunches, the kind who thrived in a bygone era. Emma turns to see an elderly woman, with silver hair extravagantly coiffed and waved in a way it doubtless has been since the sixties. Her arthritic curled fingers are weighed down by heavily jeweled chunky rings that Emma feels certain are real, or at the very least copies of real ones that are stored in a safe-deposit box.
There is a small dachshund on the seat next to her, wearing a smart quilted vest. The woman is wearing a Hermès scarf around her neck, a cream suit with large gold buttons, and neon-green Nike sneakers.
Emma doesn’t respond to her comment about cell phones, merely smiles and nods in a way that she hopes will convey the message that she isn’t in the mood for talking. She offers a tight smile before rooting around in her handbag, wishing for a magazine or book to show she is too busy immersed in other things to talk. But there is nothing there. No book or magazine has miraculously materialized in her bag in the last three minutes.
Emma sighs, taking a sip of her coffee, resolving to drink it quickly and leave, knowing that she is about to be pulled into a conversation with a stranger when the very last thing she wants to do is talk to anyone at all.
“I can’t decide which one to use,” says the woman, not taking the hint. “My iPhone, my iPad, or my BlackBerry.”
Emma turns to look at the woman with an unwitting smile on her face. She has to be in her eighties. Emma’s own mother, in her sixties, has very little idea how to use any of the new technology. In fact, her mother has only just made the transition from a flip phone because Emma’s father has been complaining about how long it takes her to send a text, her fingers hovering over each number as she tries to figure it out. Emma smiles to herself now, remembering hearing from her dad that someone had downloaded Candy Crush on her mother’s phone. Apparently now she’s addicted, and plays it for hours every night in bed.
Her companion in the café has opened her purse and draws out her three different devices. Okay, Emma thinks to herself, I give up. I can drink an iced coffee in peace some other time.
“That looks terribly complicated,” she says. “Are you sure you need all of those things?”
“Not really,” the woman replies. “The iPad is easiest for me to watch things on. I use the iPhone as my phone and calendar. But the BlackBerry is the easiest one for me to type on, and I do a lot of typing for my blog.”
Emma’s smile is now genuine. “You have a blog? That’s wonderful. What do you blog about?”
“It’s Confessions of an Old WASP. Or C.O.W.” She chuckles a little. “I have quite a following, you know. Eight thousand unique hits a week.”
“That’s amazing. What do you write about?”
“My life. Often I reminisce about how it was in the old days, compared to now. I write about what happens each day, the things that make me stop and think, the people I talk to.”
“Like me? Should I be worried?”
She leans forward. “It depends on whether you reveal anything interesting or not.”
“How am I doing so far?”
“Very dull.” She smiles. “But we’ve only just started. Clearly, you’re not from here. I’ve always loved English accents. How long have you been in New York and would you ever go back home?”
“I’ve been here for almost five years, and I love it. I have loved it. I was here in Manhattan for most of that time but I’ve just moved out to the suburbs.”
“Which suburbs? Westchester?”
“No. Connecticut. Westport.”
“Why, that’s lovely! I had great friends many years ago who had a wonderful house on, oh, what was it called . . . on the water. Grand mansions.”
“Beachside Avenue?”
“Yes, that was it. Delightful people. They used to have dreamy parties in the summer on their grand lawn. It was extraordinarily Great Gatsby–ish, and terribly glamorous. Goodness. I hadn’t thought about them for years. I think, my dear, you may have just given me my next column. Who throws parties like that anymore? People should!”
“I think people probably do throw parties still, they just aren’t as elegant as they used to be,” says Emma. “I’m the wrong person to ask, though. I’ve only recently moved there and I hardly know anyone. The only parties I’ve been to are barbecues at my boyfr—” She stops. She doesn’t know whether he is her boyfriend. “My landlord’s house. And they’re not very glamorous.”
The woman peers at Emma. “I’m Cece,” she says.
“Emma. It’s lovely to meet you.”
“Emma. What a classic English name. Lovely. So . . . parties. Are the parties at your landlord’s or your boyfriend’s? I presume you started to say boyfriend. Or are they indeed one and the same thing?”
Emma swallows the lump that unexpectedly rises in her throat.
“Oh, my dear.” Cece sits back. “I am so sorry. I didn’t mean to say anything to upset you.”
“It’s fine,” says Emma, although it clearly isn’t. She blinks the tears away. “It really is. My landlord was my boyfriend. At least, I thought he was, but something happened last night and it seems to be over.” She blinks again. “I’m so sorry.” She laughs tremulously, wiping her eyes with a paper napkin. “I didn’t mean to get emotional on you.”
“Forgive me if I’m intruding with this question,” says Cece. “But sometimes it is far easier to talk to a stranger than a friend. What happened last night? It may help to talk about it.”
So Emma does. She tells this lovely older woman about the evening, and about Dominic: how they are from such different worlds but have found something lovely and special together, something that neither one of them expected, something that has made her feel safe and happy for the first time in her life.
She tells her about wanting to say I love you, how Dominic finally said it last night. She describes the both of them unexpectedly seeing his ex, the mother of his child, how he reacted, how he didn’t talk to her for the rest of the evening.
She tells her how she spent the night alone, expecting to hear from him, expecting him to come to her side, apologize. She is only in the city today because she can’t bear to hear that their relationship is over. She knew from the way the color drained from his face last night, from his silence afterward, that he is still in love with Stacy. That he has always been in love with Stacy. And while she has no idea whether Stacy is back temporarily or whether she is back for good, Emma cannot settle for being second best.
When she is finished, Cece pats her hand. “My dear,” she says. “What a story, and what a difficult night you have had. I suspect you are exhausted. When we are tired, everything seems so very much worse. May I tell you what I think, because I do have some thoughts?”
Emma nods.
“I think the greatest gifts we can give each other in a relationship are the gifts of kindness and communication. It seems that Dominic was unkind last night to not share with you what he was thinking, but he is a man, and most men are, as we know, somewhat limited. It may be that what you saw as unkindness w
as merely thoughtlessness. He was clearly discombobulated at seeing the mother of his child after so many years, but it may not be, as you have assumed, that he is still in love with her. It could be any number of things that upset him, and until you ask him, you won’t know.
“In my experience, it is always better to confront these things. If you were to go home and ask him to explain, I’m quite sure he would give you clarification. I don’t mean to offend you, Emma. I hardly know you, but it seems to me that you have created a drama in your head that may have nothing to do with reality.”
“You don’t think it’s over, then?” It is the first time all day that Emma has allowed herself even a glimmer of hope.
“I don’t know. But neither do you. And you won’t know until you’ve spoken to him.”
Emma is quiet for a long time. She stares at the woman, and notices for the first time, beneath her designer labels and big jewelry, what she hadn’t noticed before: a kindness in her eyes. And more than that, she notices that the woman meets her gaze directly, that she is paying attention, seeing Emma, and listening. Emma takes a deep breath. Perhaps she should have guessed that this woman would surprise her when she noticed the sneakers on her feet. “You’re right,” says Emma. “Thank you.” Then she hesitates. “You’re not going to write about this, are you?”
“I probably will,” says Cece. “But not in a way where anything about you would be recognizable. What if I were to describe you as a delightful South African lady I met downtown who had recently moved to Rye? Would that be all right with you?”
“It would be fine,” says Emma, smiling.
She leaves with Cece’s business card and a promise to read her blog and get in touch. Next time Emma’s in the city, says Cece, she will take her out for lunch.
The simple human connection she’s made with someone older and wiser has lifted her spirits. When Emma finally settles herself on the train heading back to Connecticut, she pulls out her phone and turns it back on with her heart pounding, praying for something from Dominic.
