Drew continued to look at Milly, as though she were staring deeper and deeper into her soul. Milly didn’t like what she was feeling. She kept searching Drew’s face for clues to the Drew she had known. But all she could see was a glossy, superior stranger — the kind of woman, the kind of entitled mother, taking up too much space, whom she would resent if she passed on the street.
Drew’s face softened and she took Milly’s hand. “Come inside and sit with us, Millipede,” she said softly. “Please.”
It made Milly profoundly uncomfortable to be pleaded with like that. “I really don’t feel well. I haven’t — I haven’t been feeling well.”
“I know,” Drew said, still holding her hand. “Please come and sit with us.”
Milly let Drew lead her forward. They were still holding hands. They walked a few paces, but a tidal wave of ooze was engulfing Milly. She stopped on the sidewalk and wept. She found her way into Drew’s arms and wept on the shoulder of her silk blouse.
“It’s all gone wrong,” Milly said.
“Oh, sweetie,” Drew said over and over, stroking her hair. Milly could hear street conversations swirling around them, then that pocket of silence as passersby realized something was amiss. It was one thing for a woman to cry on the street late on a drunken Saturday night, Milly knew, but she wasn’t supposed to cry on a bright and cheery Sunday morning.
“Is she okay?” Milly heard a woman’s voice.
“It’s okay,” Drew said. “I’m with her.”
Milly kept on crying. She was horrified at herself, but she also didn’t really care anymore.
Finally, Milly laughed. “Okay, all done!” she said.
“Come sit with us, Mills. Have something to eat. Have you eaten yet?”
Milly shook her head no. Drew led her into the restaurant. There was such a high-pitched, desperate din in the crowded room: mimosa-swilling youth and frantic waiters, everyone’s shouts clanging off the pressed-tin ceiling and brasserie mirrors that lined the walls. Like a little girl, Milly let Drew pull her across the room toward the table where Christian was daubing mushy food into the tiny, pursed mouths of two baby girls, one of them wailing away, who sat side by side in high chairs wearing tiny calico pinafore dresses that Milly guessed cost $300 each.
“I caught her!” Drew exclaimed triumphantly.
Christian stood up and took Milly in a long, tight hug. “You are a sight for sore eyes,” he said. “And never, never again do we go this long apart. Deal?”
Milly laughed, self-conscious about looking like a holy freak from her crying jag. “You’ve obviously been busy,” she said, gesturing at the little wriggly calico bundles, one’s hair tuft slightly darker than the other’s.
Christian picked up the one who was wailing. “This,” he said, handing her to Milly, “is Erika. And Erika, this is your Auntie Milly.”
“Auntie Milly, oh, no!” Milly exclaimed, trying to settle the baby in her arms comfortably. “That’s a spinster if ever there was one.”
“Sexy, fabulous, brilliant Auntie Mills,” Drew corrected. “A New York bohemian and a painter. Like Auntie Mame!”
“Now you’re setting the bar too high,” Milly said, sitting down. Erika kept on wailing. “Oh, come on now, shh, shh,” she said, smoothing back her tuft, “come on now, it’s okay.” Milly rocked her a bit until she quieted down. Her adorable face — like a ball of dough with two eyes, a nose, and a mouth pressed into it — went slack, dreamlike.
“Now you know why I dragged you in here!” Drew exclaimed.
So there it was, thought Milly. She and Drew were back on. After brunch and a walk, Drew sent Christian back to Brooklyn with the girls in a double stroller and she and Milly sat in a café to have a tea. There was a moment when Drew was looking up at the waitress to order her tea, one leg crossed over the other, and it occurred to Milly that she hadn’t seen Drew in so long, she’d forgotten how beautiful she was.
When the waitress left, Drew leaned forward, crossing her arms on the table. “So you’re still at the Christodora? It’s yours?”
“It’s not mine,” Milly said. “Two years ago, his lawyer told me I had the option of staying there indefinitely, at least for the coming year or two, as long as I paid the maintenance. But it’s getting hard to pay. I think I’ll be moving into my parents’ place soon.”
“Would you ever consider moving to L.A.?” Drew asked. “Even just for half the year? Nobody should have to live through winter here.”
Milly laughed. “The winters here now are practically as warm as in L.A.!”
Drew’s eyes widened. “Everybody tells me that,” she says. “I guess I just haven’t really experienced it. That must be awfully weird, right?”
“It’s beyond weird. It’s so creepy. The world is falling apart. I’m glad we’re not long for it.”
“Millipede!” Drew exclaimed. “You are fifty, not eighty. Please take a break from here and come to L.A. and stay with us so I can introduce you to some guys. Or some girls. Just some fun dates for you!”
Milly recoiled. “Oh God, no, please!”
“Boaz!” Drew persisted. “You have to meet a guy named Boaz. Please, please come.”
“What about my father?”
“Can’t you leave him with a nurse for even a week?”
Milly didn’t like that idea. No doubt the minute she landed in L.A., the nurse would ping her to say that her father was back in the hospital. “I don’t know,” she said.
Drew just shrugged. “The invite’s open,” she said.
“Thank you,” Milly said before falling silent a moment. She was itching to ask Drew something but trying to hold on to enough pride not to ask her. Finally she couldn’t stand it anymore. “Have you seen Mateo?”
“Umm,” Drew began, as though she were slowly turning to acknowledge the elephant in the room. “No, in fact. He knows he’s always welcome — he and his girlfriend. But other than a smiley face online once in a while, nothing.” Her mouth twisted ironically. “Mateo’s far too big for all of us now anyway. What about you?”
“Nothing,” Milly said quietly. “No contact.”
Drew absorbed this. “You do know. .?” she finally began.
“Know what?”
“That he’s going to be here in a few weeks? In New York. Working on a project for an underground park.”
This startled Milly. “No, I did not know that. How do you know it?”
“He posts it all over his feeds. He’s looking for a place to stay in New York.”
“Oh,” Milly said. “We’re not connected on there. All I see are a few pictures that aren’t private.”
The tea came, two separate little pots. Drew lightly traced the teapot handle with her finger. “Maybe now’s a good time to reach out to him.”
Even the thought of doing that filled Milly with humiliation. “I most certainly will not,” she said. “I vowed that day in L.A. he’d never hear from me again, if that’s what he wanted.”
Drew pursed her lips, looked down. “That kid pisses me off, Milly. Wait! Don’t get me started. It’s not my business.”
“It’s okay,” Milly said. “I know you know I’ve got a broken heart. That’s enough.”
Drew took Milly’s hand across the table.
Walking home, Milly felt lighter than she’d felt in a while. She wondered how she’d come to tell herself a bitter story about Drew in her head and let the past few years between them slip away. In the grocery, picking up a few things, she chatted longer than usual with the cashier lady before leaving.
Up in the apartment, she pulled up the vertical posts. Sure enough, she saw, he’d be working on the UnderPark, not ten minutes away from the Christodora. In the very same neighborhood he’d grown up in. After a week or two, Milly started wondering if he was in town yet. Then she read something on a vertical that made it clear he was in town. It appeared a reporter had actually gone up to him and asked him about his parents. And he’d said, “I think they needed a break from me.” And: “I really put them through it.”