“Okay,” I say, “I get that. Why don’t I go pick up the U-Haul while you start packing. I’ll help you move back into your apartment, and then we can get Vinioso’s takeout.”
Vinioso’s is an incredible red sauce joint by her place. Back when we were first dating, we spent many a night slurping up their spaghetti pomodoro over wine and delightful conversation. It seems like a fitting place to say goodbye.
“That sounds perfect,” she says.
When I get back with the U-Haul, we spend the afternoon packing. Oddly, it’s one of the happiest days we’ve had together in months. We laugh and make jokes and when she tries to pack up a pillow embroidered with a golden retriever, I demand she let me keep it.
“You despise it!” she protests.
“Stockholm syndrome. I can’t live without it.”
“Well in that case, she’s yours.”
By five, we’ve loaded the truck and driven to her apartment. Carrying up her bags and the handful of boxes with her stuff—mostly workout gear, photos, and books—takes less than twenty minutes.
We call in our order to Vinioso’s and I don my mask to walk the few blocks to pick it up. I get a small pitcher of grab-and-go Manhattans as well—Sarah doesn’t drink that much, and I have to drive the U-Haul back, but I figure one parting cocktail is a festive way to say goodbye.
When I return to her apartment, Frank Sinatra is playing—Frank was always playing at Vin’s, back when it was safe to eat inside—and the table is set with a tablecloth and candles.
We exchange our favorite memories of our time together while we eat. We speculate on how our friends and families will react to the news—and hope they won’t be sad for us, because we know we’re making the right decision. As I eat tiramisu and she eats limoncello sorbetto, she takes the ring off her finger and slides it across the table.
“You should take this back,” she says. “You can probably return it. I still have the box.”
I can’t imagine the sadness of going back to Tiffany and trying to return an engagement ring any more than I can imagine giving it to another woman. I bought it because I knew it would make her—specifically her, my Sarah Louise—happy. And it did.
The ring was never the problem.
“Please keep it. I want you to have it.”
She smiles sadly and slips it over her right ring finger. “Thank you.”
We both stand, and an awkward moment passes.
“Sarah Louise Taylor,” I finally say, “I wish you the happiest imaginable life.”
She squeezes me in a tight hug. “You too, Seth.”
When I finally get home it’s 10:00 p.m. and I’m emotionally exhausted. I put on cashmere sweats Sarah bought me and open my laptop. I figure I should start drafting an email to my family explaining what happened, even if it takes me a few days to send it.
I know if I try to call them, I’ll break down, and they’ll worry.
I know my brother, in particular, will be thinking I told you so. He never believed that Sarah was right for me, and warned me I was, once again, plunging into a serious relationship more out of a desire to be partnered than out of actual attraction to the specific person. We had a huge fight about it and didn’t speak for three weeks. But he was correct. As always.
Instead of drafting my sad announcement, I scroll through a couple of work emails I don’t have the emotional capacity to deal with and notice a message from my old college friend Mike Anatolian.
From: michael_c_anatolian@netmail.co
To: sethrubes@mail.me
Date: Sun, June 21, 2020 at 4:06pm
Subject: Favor?
Hey there bud!
How are you faring with the pandy? Hope to God all is well with you and Sarah and the fam.
Wondering if you can do me a favor … my little sister is going to be a senior at NYU next year and she’s freaking out about summer internships. She’s a film major and had an internship lined up at a production company for the summer, but they’ve shut down due to Covid, and she’s panicking. Long shot, but are you still in touch with that girl you hooked up with at your reunion? Becks is trying to find something she can do remotely in the film industry and I thought a screenwriter would have some intern tasks she could do from New York.
No worries if that’s awkward, just thought I’d ask since I don’t run into too many artistes in finance.
Anyway, how the hell are you?
Suddenly, at the thought of emailing Molly, I am a lot the fuck better.
CHAPTER 21 Molly
I am an inveterate loner. Total introvert. Taurus to my core.
Sitting in my house solo for a week and not talking to anyone except via text was, for many years, my dearest dream.
That was before solitary confinement became my enforced reality.
As it turns out, all that alone time that’s so nice when it’s a break from social engagements and meetings becomes something like torture without those things to break it up. My house, formerly my sanctuary, has begun to feel like a prison.
The novelty of catching up with friends online has faded. No, I don’t want to play virtual poker with six people from college. No, I do not want to join another online movie club. No, I don’t want to go on a blind date via Zoom.
I want to take meetings, where I can do a stressful song and dance to sell my writerly prowess to producers who don’t care about my craft or singular voice. I want to go on a date, where I can make out with a stranger over craft cocktails. I want to go to a restaurant, where I can eat food served to me by an overly friendly human who keeps interrupting my conversation to ask how everything is tasting. I want to go to a spa with my friends, where we can be naked and oblivious to germs and gossip about mutual acquaintances.
