and of course I knew all along it was Mrs Cooper, the chemistry teacher, dressed up in a belly dancer’s outfit. There’s absolutely no way I would ever be like Robyn and believe in something silly like, for example, a legend about eternal love. Just because I’m Googling it doesn’t mean that I’m starting to have these completely insane thoughts about it coming true.
I type, ‘Legend of the Bridge of Sighs,’ and hit return. A page opens up:
Local Venetian legend tells that lovers who exchange a kiss as they pass beneath the Bridge of Sighs by gondola at sunset while the bells of St Mark’s are ringing will be guaranteed everlasting love and nothing will break them apart. For the rest of eternity they will never be parted.
Because, like I said, it’s just insane. Ridiculous. Completely bananas. Hurriedly clicking off the page, I have a quick peek at Facebook to see if Adam has replied to my message, but instead all I notice is Nate. He’s still there on my homepage! He’s still my Facebook friend! I stare at his photograph with a mixture of disbelief and incredulity.
Feeling a seed of panic, I frantically hit my keyboard.
Delete! Delete! Delete!
‘It’s like I can’t break up with him.’
Fast-forward to the weekend and I’m in a nail bar the size of a letterbox, in Chinatown. It’s Saturday afternoon, and together with Robyn and Kate, I’m ensconced in a massage chair, having my hands and feet attended to by two tiny Vietnamese ladies, who are furiously filing, clipping, cutting and scrubbing, while chattering away nineteen to the dozen.
This is my first time, but apparently this is a weekly ritual for every self-respecting female New Yorker. That probably explains the shocked reaction my nails received when I arrived. Do-it-yourself mani-pedis might suffice back in London, but in Manhattan it’s a totally different story.
‘What do you mean, you can’t break up with him?’ says Kate, not looking up from her BlackBerry, on which she’s managing to type a work email with her free hand.
‘I mean I can’t get rid of him. He’s everywhere I look.’
‘Manhattan’s a small place. Just ignore him,’ she responds flatly.
‘It’s not that easy,’ I try explainin—€€t ig Slaig.
‘Yes, it is. I’m always bumping into my rival CEO from Lloyds Carter. Last night I even saw him at the doctor’s.’
One of the Vietnamese women doing her nails slaps Kate’s hand away from her BlackBerry. Frowning, Kate swaps hands and keeps typing with her thumb.
‘No, it’s more than that—’ I break off. ‘What were you doing at the doctor’s?’
‘Oh, I was with Jeff. He still hasn’t kicked that bug. They think he might have some kind of virus.’
‘What do you mean, it’s more than that?’ asks Robyn, glancing up from the book she’s reading, Cosmic Thinking Made Easy. She’s having tiny glittery flowers applied to each of her toenails.
‘Well, it’s not just about bumping into him. It’s about all these little things that keep happening.’
‘Such as?’ Robyn studies me with interest.
‘Such as I can’t defriend him on Facebook,’ I grumble with annoyance. It’s been three days now and every time I log on, I’m greeted with his status update and profile picture.
‘What is it with everyone and this Facebook crap?’ Kate suddenly looks up from her BlackBerry. ‘I don’t have time for Facebook, yet I keep getting emails from friends saying they want to poke me!’ She rolls her eyes in annoyance.
‘I told you already. It’s the power of the universe holding you together,’ chimes Robyn, as if it’s perfectly obvious.
Kate looks at her with open-mouthed scorn.
‘It’s true,’ Robyn says indignantly. ‘It’s the legend of the Bridge of Sighs. Nothing can break them apart.’
‘Have you been on the crystals again?’ snorts my sister.
‘It’s true!’
‘What a load of codswallop!’
‘I don’t know what that word means,’ replies Robyn, her face flushing, ‘but you know, you really need to open your mind.’
‘I’m very open-minded, thank you very much. I’m just not insane,’ retorts Kate dismissively. ‘It’s not the universe keeping them together – it’s Nate! It’s so obvious. He’s trying to get back together with Lucy!’
I glance between my sister and my roommate h
And me?
I’m somewhere in the middle. I swap corners. I go back and forth. I mean, Kate’s right, she must be, and yet . . .
My mind throws up a memory of my conversation with Nate in the restaurant when we first got back together. The discovery that for all those years we’d been at the same events, it was almost as if something