would have every last second free to spend with Cam. Which leaves me with nothing to do for the day. My mom is in Florida and Lila is working. Lila is always working or reading romance novels in bed. Honestly, that girl has no social life. Even in college she was always studying or reading away. As long as I’ve known her, she’s never had a boyfriend. She’s had flings—at least four times I saw her bring home some random guy, but she always kicked him out before her day started. Musn’t mess with her daily schedule. Anyway, no Lila. I’d call Melanie but she decided to take a spur of the moment road trip to L.A. She’s impulsive that way.
I have officially nothing to do. Which makes me reflect on my pitiful absence of friends. What kind of a life did I even have here?
Maybe I’ll call Heather and check in. I scramble through my pack of papers for her number and dial. Heather will be my roommate in the “two-bedroom, postwar, good-size rooms, hardwood floors, very generous storage space” that I’m renting. I found it on craigslist.com and my fingers are tightly crossed that my temporary roommate, twenty-something nonsmoking Fashion Institute of Technology student, Heather Munro from Long Island, isn’t psycho.
After three rings, a voice yells, “I’m not hanging out with you and your little couple brigade, okay? Stop bothering me!” Heather?
Groan. Maybe I should have been crossing my toes, as well. “Um, hi, Heather, it’s Gabby. Gabby Wolf? Is this a bad time?”
Pause. “Oh God, I’m sorry. My friend Diane is driving me insane. She doesn’t understand why I don’t want to come over and watch her wedding video with her three other bridesmaids and their fiancés. I mean, come on! I’d rather slit my eyeball with a steak knife.”
“Listen, I’m just calling because—” I stop midsentence. Is moving in with Steak-Knife Heather really my best move? I will be earning a whopping $125,000. Maybe I should stay in a motel until I can find my own place. New York has motels, right?
“Because what? Don’t tell me you’re going to bail. I just turned down someone else because you said you’re coming. I’m not giving you your deposit back, so you can forget it,” she huffs.
Steak knives aside, she does have a point about the deposit. Besides, New Yorkers aren’t like the rest of us, right? They’re supposed to be eccentric. Interesting. “No, I’m not reneging. I just want to confirm with you that I’m arriving tomorrow at 3:30. Will you be home?”
Long pause. “That’s a relief. Although…tomorrow? I don’t know if I can be home.”
“Oh. Okay. Um, well, I have to get in.”
She sighs. Loudly. “I suppose I can leave the keys with the doorman.”
“All right. See you tomorrow. Oh, did my new bed come? It was supposed to arrive today.”
“No, not yet.” She hangs up. Apparently, my new roommate is not of an easygoing persuasion. I will have to remember not to borrow her butter without asking.
I spend the rest of the day on the couch, flipping through the news channels, slowly refolding my clothes and re-squeezing them into my suitcases, and letting the excitement build and boil inside me. I catch myself singing “New York, New York” and doing a YMCA-like dance around the apartment.
“Hi, guys,” Lila says from the door at around four.
“It’s just me,” I tell her, flipping the channel from CNN to TRSN.
I know I have at least ten minutes before she’ll join me on the couch. The first thing she does every day when she gets home is change out of her suit and into her bathrobe and slippers. Then she scrubs her hands, carefully takes off her makeup, washes her face, ties her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail on top of her head, takes her many skin vitamins, moisturizes, stops in the kitchen for a glass of water, and then comes into the living room. She works seven-day workweeks and is very into her routine.
“Where’s Cam?” she asks, post-routine, getting comfy on her white velvety couch. “Doesn’t he want to spend every second of your last day with you?”
“We broke up.”
Her jaw drops. “You didn’t! What happened? He wasn’t into the long distance?”
“Kind of. You see, he proposed—”
“What?” she shrieks and throws a pillow at me. “And you said no?”
I recount the whole story, and she stays quiet throughout. Lila has always been a very good listener. She has this way of never making me feel judged. She’s a very soothing person. Like chicken soup without the salt. Almost bland, but in a good way. But Lila also thinks Cam is the best boyfriend ever. She constantly tells me how lucky I am. “Don’t you think it was wrong of him to give me an ultimatum?” I ask. “Stay or go? Why does he get everything and I have to give something up?”
“I suppose,” she says, nodding.
“I had no choice,” I say.
“I don’t know about that. You had to give something up and you did. Cam.”
Gave up Cam? Is that what I did?
She sees the expression of despair on my face and pats my knee. “You’ll be fine. Really. You were never sure if Cam was right for you anyway.”
I wonder if this is true. I didn’t want Cam to be Mr. Right because I was planning on moving. But is he? Was he?
“Finish packing and I’ll order us some dinner. Pizza?”
We order, we eat, we watch TV. We rehash the whole Cam thing. The phone doesn’t ring all night. My dad lives in L.A., although he’s currently working in Australia, and while my mom lives here, she’s working in Florida these days. There must be someone to call to say goodbye to. Although, my social life has mostly revolved around Cam and his family for the past year. Calling them to say farewell might be a little…awkward. There’s Bernie, my old news director, but he’s still a bit pissed off with me for quitting.
After Lila and I exchange tearful goodbyes, I retreat to my room. Before I climb into bed, I pull down the curtain. Okay, fine, it’s not really a curtain but a dark gray sheet that Cam found at his parents’ house and helped me staple to the ceiling to keep out the light. He nailed a hook above the window so I could pull it up during the day. I’m not going to bother removing it in the morning—I’m sure Lila will get around to putting up real blinds eventually. Then I check my Hello Kitty alarm clock (I have to remember to pack this in the morning—it was a gift from my dad when I was eight). It’s eleven-thirty in the evening. The alarm is set for six-thirty, since my flight is at nine. Cam was supposed to take me to the airport. I guess I’ll be calling a cab.
First I hit the radio button to make sure that the volume is on. “Like a Virgin” blasts in my ear. Then I realize I’m cold and sneak back into the living room, rummage through one of my two suitcases and find Cam’s J. Crew cotton long-sleeved shirt that he left here months ago (I wear it when I want to feel warm and toasty), and slip it on to punish myself. Back in the bedroom, his smell wafts over me as I turn off the light. I wrap myself in my pink top sheet that I have to remember to pack in the morning.
Did I set the alarm properly? What if I set it for 6:30 p.m. instead of a.m.?
I sit up and check—6:30 a.m. In six and a half hours.
