Before long it was Thursday, March 20th, and I was turning twenty-three. I had a party planned for the weekend, but my two closest friends at work, Writers’ Room Alexis and Art Department Julia as you called them later, insisted that we have a drink on my birthday.
The three of us had become obsessed with Faces & Names that winter because of the fireplace and the couches. The temperature was hovering around forty, but we thought the bar might turn the fireplace on if we asked. We’d been there enough during the past few months, and the bartender liked us.
Julia had made me a paper birthday crown that she insisted I wear, and Alexis ordered all of us apple martinis. We sat on the couch in front of the fire, coming up with things to toast before each sip.
“To birthdays!” Alexis started.
“To Lucy!” Julia said.
“To friends!” I added.
Which devolved into: “To the photocopy machine not jamming today!” and “To bosses who call in sick!” and “To free lunches scrounged after fancy meetings!” and “To bars with fireplaces!” and “To apple martinis!”
The waitress came over to our couch with a tray that had three more martinis on it.
“Oh, we didn’t order those,” Julia said.
The waitress smiled. “You girls have a secret admirer.” She nodded toward the bar.
There you were.
For a moment I thought I was hallucinating.
You gave us a small wave.
“He said to say happy birthday to Lucy.”
Alexis’s jaw dropped. “You know him?” she said. “He’s hot!” Then she picked up one of the new martinis that the waitress had placed on the table in front of us. “To cute boys in bars who know your name and send over free drinks!” she toasted. After we all took a sip, she added, “Go thank him, birthday girl.”
I put the martini down, but changed my mind, taking it with me as I walked toward you, wobbling only slightly on my high heels.
“Thanks,” I said, sliding onto the stool on your left.
“Happy birthday,” you answered. “Nice crown.”
I laughed and slipped it off. “It might look better on you,” I said. “Want to try?”
You did, crushing your curls with the paper.
“Stunning,” I told you.
You smiled and put the crown on the bar in front of us.
“I almost didn’t recognize you,” you said. “You did something new to your hair.”
“Bangs,” I told you, pushing them to the side.
You stared at me like you did in your kitchen, seeing me from all angles. “Beautiful with or without bangs.” You slurred your words a little, and I realized that you were even drunker than I was. Which made me wonder why you were alone, lit at seven p.m. on a Thursday night.
“How are you?” I asked. “Is everything okay?”
You propped your elbow on the bar and leaned your cheek into your hand. “I don’t know,” you said. “Stephanie and I broke up again. I hate my job. And the U.S. invaded Iraq. Every time I see you, the world is falling apart.”
I didn’t know how to respond to that, the information about Stephanie or your assertion that the world was falling apart, so I took another sip of my martini.
You kept going. “Maybe the universe knew I needed to find you tonight. You’re like . . . Pegasus.”
“I’m a winged horse, like in The Iliad?” I asked you. “A male winged horse?”
“No,” you said. “You’re definitely female.”
I smiled. You continued talking.
“But Bellerophon never would have defeated the Chimera without Pegasus. Pegasus made him better,” you said. “He got to fly above everything—all of the pain, all of the hurt. And he became a great hero.”
I hadn’t understood that myth the same way. I’d read it as one about teamwork, about cooperation and partnership; I’d always liked how Pegasus had to give Bellerophon permission to ride him. But I could tell your interpretation was important to you. “Well, thank you for the compliment, I think. Though I might have preferred a comparison to Athena. Hera. Even a Gorgon.”
The corners of your mouth quirked up. “Not a Gorgon. No snakes on your head.”
I touched my hair. “You haven’t seen how I look first thing in the morning,” I said.
You looked at me like you wanted to.
“Did I ever tell you I was sorry?” you asked. “For what happened. With us. I’m not sorry that I kissed you, I mean. But”—you shrugged—“I’m sorry about what happened after. I was trying to do the right thing. With Stephanie. Life is—”
“Complicated,” I finished for you. “It’s okay. It’s forever ago now. And you did apologize. Twice.”
“I still think about you, Lucy,” you said, looking into your empty glass of whiskey. I wondered how many you’d had. “I think about that fork in the road, what would have happened if we’d taken it. Two roads diverged.”
Now I would laugh if you called us a road, but then it felt so romantic, you quoting Robert Frost to me.
I looked over at Alexis and Julia. They were watching us as they drank their martinis. You okay? Julia mouthed to me. I nodded. She tapped her watch and shrugged. I shrugged back. She nodded.
I looked at you. Gorgeous, fragile, wanting me. My birthday present from the universe, perhaps.
“The thing about roads,” I said, “is sometimes you happen upon them again. Sometimes you get another chance to travel down the same path.”
God, we were lame. Or maybe just young. So, so young.
You looked at me, then, right at me, your blue eyes glassy but still magnetic. “I’m going to kiss you,” you said, as you tipped toward me. And then you did, and it felt like a birthday wish come true.
“Will you come to my apartment tonight, Lucy?” you asked, as you tucked a rogue lock of hair behind my ear. “I don’t want to go home alone.”
I saw the sorrow in your eyes, the loneliness. And I wanted to make it better, to be your salve, your bandage, your antidote. I’ve always wanted to fix things for you. I still do. It’s my Achilles’ heel. Or perhaps my pomegranate seed. Like Persephone, it’s what keeps drawing me back.
I lifted your fingers to my lips and kissed them. “Yes,” I said, “I will.”
vii
Later we were lying in your bed, our bodies illuminated only by the city lights leaking in around your blinds. You were the outer spoon, your arm wrapped around me, your hand resting on my bare stomach. We were tired, satiated, and still a little drunk.
“I want to quit my job,” you whispered, as if the darkness made it safe to say it out loud.
“Okay,” I whispered back, sleepily. “You can quit your job.”
You rubbed your thumb along the underside of my breast.
“I want to do something meaningful,” you said, your breath warm against my neck. “Like you talked about.”
“Mm-hm,” I answered, half asleep.
“But I didn’t get it then.”
“Get what?” I mumbled.
“It’s not only about finding beauty,” you said, your words keeping me awake. “I want to photograph all of it—happiness, sadness, joy, destruction. I want to tell stories with my camera. You understand, right, Lucy? Stephanie didn’t. But you were there. You know how that changes your view of the world.”
I rolled over so we were facing each other and gave you a soft kiss. “Of course I understand,” I whispered, before sleep pulled me under.
But I didn’t really get what you meant or know how far it would take you. That it would bring you to here, to this moment. I was drunk and tired and finally in your arms, the way I’d imagined so many times. I would have agreed to anything you asked just then.
viii
You did quit your job, of course, to take photography classes. And we kept seeing each other, our physical connection getting even stronger the more time we spent together, finding solace, hope, strength, in each other’s embraces. We undressed in restaurant bathrooms because we couldn’t wait until we were home. We crushed each other against the sides of buildings, bricks digging into shoulders as our lips met. We took picnics to the park, complete with apple juice bottles full of white wine, and then lay together breathing in the scent of the dirt and the fresh-cut grass and each other.