found out he’s twenty-four years old. And he brought me my own slice of pizza. I feel like the prettiest girl in all of high school.”
He laughed, his eyes glittering. “You said you were chubby in high school, right? Chubby High School Lindsay would be cheering this hot bitch on.” He leaned against the door. “Chubby Lindsay would have eaten a whole pie.”
“All right, all right.” I spun slowly in my chair. “I can’t even believe I went out with someone so young.”
“It was just pizza. Does he know your age?”
“No, and now that I haven’t mentioned it yet, I feel like it’s this dirty secret.” I laughed. “Do I have my graduation year on LinkedIn? He must never know.”
“He’s probably into the fact that you’re older and wiser.” Damien considered. “But he clearly isn’t just in it for the sex, because you hung out midday. This is fascinating. Maybe the youngs have, like, circled back to playing the long game.”
“I’ll take what I can get.”
“How did you meet this kid?”
“I just stopped into…my doctor switched floors and I accidentally wound up at the wrong suite number,” I said evenly. Was I getting good at this? “I asked for directions and we ended up chatting for a minute. So wild.”
He nodded approvingly. “Okay, so what would Fat High School Lindsay say?”
“Hey, wasn’t I Chubby Lindsay a minute ago?”
“Adorable either way. Oh, speaking of being fat kids together, are we getting dinner before the show tonight?”
“The show?”
“Alvin Ailey. Don’t tell me it’s not on your calendar.”
Oh, Christ. “I didn’t forget! Just…I mean I did right now, but I’m in. It’s at Lincoln Center, right?” Damien loves modern dance and always gets us pairs of plush seats at the major companies’ shows, Cedar Lake, Martha Graham, Paul Taylor. (Except for that brief period in 2016 after Damien dated a Paul Taylor dancer, then broke up with him on the basis of bad conversation and disappointingly uncalisthenic sex; Paul Taylor had been unmentionable for two whole seasons.) We get dressed up—nothing annoys Damien like attendees in jeans and sneakers—and sit together, enthralled, watching athletes spin their art.
“Yep, Lincoln Center.” Damien headed for the door. “I’ll get us dinner reservations in the neighborhood. I can tell you forgot, Linds. Put on some lipstick.”
* * *
As we walked to the 1 train, weaving around the after-work mobs, Damien chattered away about his Labor Day plans, the final Fire Island trip. A part of me was grateful that he was over the Edie drama—he was an unchanged figure in the murk of swirling unknowns. I didn’t want to tell another soul about Alex, about what he’d probably done, because saying it might make it true. The secret was like a storm cloud, growing larger under my skin.
At dinner, too, I tried to be upbeat, tried to keep up my end of the conversation and remark at appropriate times. Greg had been another dead end, but out of it had come a few feel-good minutes with Josh, time that reminded me that there’s a here and now. And if I was really going to close the book on Edie, I had to come back online, to an era when we weren’t guzzling shots and bumming cigarettes and dancing with strangers and always moving just a little faster than real life, jerky and frenetic like early motion pictures. Maybe Edie didn’t need me revisiting her final hours. Maybe I didn’t need to know whether I had made it to the concert or what’d happened after I’d opened her door and turned off my camera. Maybe the past really had passed.
But at the theater, the first act was lyrical and slow, not enough to keep my mind from wandering. The troupe spun and rolled in perfect, languid unison, and I found myself combing through the case files again, impressions rising like balloons: Kevin waiting at the ER, Sarah fumbling with her cell phone, Anthony reaching through the blood to feel for Edie’s pulse. Me, drunk and blank-faced, opening a window to let in the heat as my taxi wove its way through the night.
The second dance was more my speed, with a pulsing drumbeat and spastic motion. My eyes settled on a corps member shorter than the others, with red hair and pale creamy skin; from back here, she reminded me of Edie, graceful and quick. I let my eyes relax and watched the dancers braid themselves together, now sideways, then a small explosion and limbs sticking