He chuckles deeply. “Maybe I will. For now, Lulu, turn your phone off for the weekend.”
I make a show of hitting the power off button. They clap their approval, then Mariana leans a little closer to Cameron, their shoulders nearly touching. “If you’re good to me, I’ll let you drive once we’re in the Hamptons.”
“Please, go on. Define good to you.”
“No bitching about my driving is what’s good to me.”
“I would never do that. Also, have I mentioned what great taste you have in music?”
“Oh, you are smart.” Mariana turns the engine on and checks her mirrors. “All systems go for a weekend getaway. We need to make this girl un-sad.”
A pinch of sadness fills my eyes as I kiss her cheek then his. “You guys are the best.”
And they are—as soon as I told them I needed to escape for the weekend, Cameron booked a beach rental in the Hamptons, and Mariana offered to drive. That’s what friends are for.
A lump rises in my throat as she pulls into traffic. It’s a knot of emotion for my friends.
For the foundation of my new life in New York.
My starting over.
But before we leave the city, there’s one thing I need to do.
I tap Mariana’s shoulder before she cranks the music too loud. “Can we make a pit stop first?”
“We’re not stopping for H&H bagels. It’s hell there on a Saturday morning.”
Cameron rubs his belly. “H&H bagels are the bomb, Mariana. Right along with Puccini.”
As she slows at a light, he grabs his phone, suddenly transfixed by a message, I presume.
Mariana glances at me in the rearview mirror. “Looks like someone has a little online lover.”
He doesn’t respond, simply taps away with a goofy grin on his face.
“And who is making you smile like that? Is this grandma or your real mystery woman?” I ask.
He looks up, a glint in his eyes. “Perhaps it’s the real one.”
“Are you ever going to tell us about her?”
“Maybe I’m saving the story for the beach.”
“My ears are waiting,” I say, then tell Mariana where to make the pit stop.
Last night I wrote a letter to Leo. It’s safely tucked in my purse. A few minutes later, Mariana pulls up to Leo’s building, and I ask the doorman to let me leave the letter under Leo’s door. He obliges.
Afterward, I scurry back to the car, and we cruise along the highway out to the Hamptons, singing to Mariana’s road-trip mix—Def Leppard’s “Photograph,” The Eagles’ “Life in the Fast Lane,” Rihanna’s “Shut Up and Drive”—singing until we're hoarse, until our voices are shot, and then singing some more.
Then we make up words when Mariana finds some Puccini to blast.
The music isn’t enough to make me stop missing Leo. It's not enough to make me stop loving him. But singing songs at the top of my lungs with my two closest friends is enough to remind me what I have here in New York.
I have my family, I have my home, I have my shop, and I have my friends.
I’d really like to add Leo to the mix, but right now, with the sun shining brightly, the road unfurling, and the beach mere miles away, I’d say four out of five isn’t too bad.
I close my eyes and imagine Leo opening the letter. Well, it’s actually a postcard. A picture of Roy Lichtenstein’s The Kiss.
Dear Leo,
You asked if you were freaking me out. Let me assure you—I’m not freaked out in the least. Nor am I analyzing every little thing that has happened over the years. I think love is a gift, whether it comes quickly or has been burning across time.
I didn’t expect to fall for you. I didn’t think I’d feel this way, and I certainly never set out for us to happen. But we happened. And I do love you. I feel the love completely, in a wildly hopeful, incandescently happy way.
I suppose some things don’t change. I believe in the poetry of love, and I believe in hope.
I hope madly that you’ll see me the way I see myself—I’m not anyone’s girl. I’m my girl.
And I want to be yours, fully and without reservation.
That’s the only way.
Love,
Lulu
37LEO
