“How can I make it clear to her I don’t want to end up in one of her chapters as the childless single friend she goes to visit in New York?”
He laughed. “Is she working on something?”
“She’s always working on something.”
“If you’re really worried about that, you could wait to bring that up until after you’ve seen her and you know for sure she’s working on something.”
Milly crossed her arms in her chair. “I just don’t want to feel like I’m being used as fodder.”
“Has she ever written about you before?”
“A little bit, in her first book. She was sweet about me.”
“Then why are you worried about it?”
Milly thought about this on the way home. She thought that she would definitely not go out to Brooklyn to see them. It didn’t seem fair that she’d have to be the one doing the traveling just because they had strollers and bags of diapers and that sort of thing. So instead she did some research online and found a brunch spot in the East Village that was right off the F train for them.
“Hi,” she wrote back. “Would love to see you guys. How about Four Figs Sunday at noon? Right off the F train in the old hood. I’ll make a reservation.”
A few hours later Drew pinged back: “Restaurant in Manhattan a bit tough for us with the kids. But we’ll rally! It’ll be an adventure. See you there. Can’t WAIT to see you! xxoo Drewpea.”
From that moment on, Milly was pretty much sick whenever she thought about it. She saw Drew’s post when they arrived in New York: “Grime! Shoving! Assholes! New York, I’m back and I’m loving it!” Oh, jeez. The pic of the four of them on the stoop outside Christian’s sister’s brownstone in Brooklyn. Saturday night at dinner, Milly told her dad she was meeting them the next day.
He looked vague, like he couldn’t remember from their last conversation exactly who Drew was, never mind that she’d had twins. “That sounds jolly,” he finally said.
“I don’t wanna go,” Milly told him flatly. “I’m sick about it.”
Her dad seemed to truly look at her for the first time in a long time. “Come here,” he said, beckoning Milly to lower her head toward him.
“What?”
“Lemme see that forehead.”
She bent forward and he kissed her there.
“What was that for?” she asked him.
“For being here for me,” he said. “And for what a beauty you are.”
Milly looked at her dad’s face. His nose had to have grown about twice its size in the past ten years. That’s what happens when you age, Milly thought. Your nose grows. She was disgusted at the thought of that happening to her, though unfortunately it was already happening. For the first time in a while, she let herself cry a little, her hand on her dad’s.
“Everyone’s gone, Dad,” she said.
He started in with his head nod, vaguely side to side, like his brain was going ticktock as he weighed that idea. “A lot of people are gone,” he finally said.
Milly stayed up reading dumb mysteries at her dad’s that night till three A.M. Finally she took half a pill to get to sleep. She woke up, feeling crappy, to the sound of the day nurse coming.
Back downtown, she showered and tried to put together something upbeat to wear. It was so rare when she cared that she hadn’t bought new clothes in about four years, but this particular morning, her choices seemed truly grim. She finally put on some jeans that once fit her like a glove but now actually were a bit slack around the waist, plus a red-and-yellow Mondrian-type blouse, the brightest thing she had, and some midnight-blue leather boots she once thought of as her “fun shoes.” She applied some eyeliner and lipstick for the first time since maybe her mother’s funeral and tried to do something presentable with her hair and a hairband.
Then she started walking toward the brunch spot, feeling increasingly nauseated. Truly nauseated. She thought it was the lack of sleep and the pill. It was an eighty-one-degree early April day and she started sweating, feeling the blouse stick to her back. She never walked across the neighborhood during Sunday brunch hours anymore. There was too much life, too much romance, too many couples, too much Sunday-morning post-sex dewiness and arm clutching going on, too many babies, and way, way too many loud teens talking that outer-space hip-hop talk that was completely indecipherable to her. At a certain corner she just stopped and put a hand to her forehead, and a gentleman behind her slammed into her and scowled at her irritably before hurrying on his way. She had pills in her bag but she’d be damned if she was going to take one.
She was barely lucid by the time she crossed the street and, through the big, old-timey front glass window of the restaurant, she saw them. The four of them. Christian, his hair half gray now, appearing to try to talk down the manager. And her, in her big dark L.A. sunglasses, soothing one of the babies in her arms as it—she, meaning the baby — wailed.
Milly put both hands to her lips. She hunched her shoulders very small. Then, slowly, she started backing up, then quickly turned, walking rigid and compact in the hopes that if she made herself very, very small, she could get away.
“Milly!”
It sounded like her, but Milly kept walking. Just get home, she told herself. Get back home.
“Milly! I saw you! Where are you going?”
Drew was going to catch right up to her; she wasn’t letting her off the hook. Milly just stopped in place without turning. And then suddenly there she was in front of Milly, out of breath. Milly hadn’t seen her in a few years. Sure, she had aged. She had some lines around the eyes that seemed deeper than the last time Milly saw her. And Milly noticed that Drew had a stain on the chest of her Pucci-type silk blouse, probably where one of the babies had been drooling on her. But otherwise she looked great. She looked like she still managed to do yoga every day, even if she didn’t. She had huge Dior sunglasses propped up on her head, and her toenails were painted a deep, velvety red against her raffia wedge sandals.
Drew took Milly by both arms. “Where are you going?” she asked, laughing, confused. “You saw us in the window, right? I mean,” and she laughed again, then pulled Milly close and kissed her. “Hello! It’s so good to see you!”
Milly just stared at her, blank, at a loss for what to say. Over Drew’s shoulder, Milly could see Christian stepping out of the restaurant with one of the wailing girls in his arms, walking her back and forth, trying to calm her.
“I suddenly felt so ill walking over here,” Milly finally said, “I thought I’d just better get home and text you I couldn’t come.”
Drew’s brow furrowed. “What?” she asked.
“I didn’t want to give one of the girls a bug. I haven’t felt well all weekend.”
“But we’re together now,” Drew said. “Don’t worry about the girls. Just come sit with us at least a half an hour and have a juice. I want you to see them. I’ve waited so long for you to see them.”
The brunchy-shoppy types were rushing past them, to and fro, through the bright, fake world of Sunday morning. “I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Milly said. Then, shocked to hear herself, she said: “I’ve really struggled with your having decided to do this in the first place.”
Drew started back. “Do what?” she asked. “You mean have kids?”
“You can’t undo it now,” Milly said.
Drew opened her mouth to speak, but said nothing. She took a step back from Milly and just looked at her, as though something was slowly dawning on her. “Oh my God,” she finally said. “Christian was right.”
This caught Milly off guard. “What do you mean, Christian was right?” she asked. “About what?”