“Look,” I say, “I still care about her. Of course I do. It just all seems a little weird to me. That she meets some guy that no one else really knows. She just takes off, doesn’t even say goodbye. No one has heard her actual voice or seen her in person for nearly a year.”
I realize that I’m leaning across the table, talking a little too fast, too loud. I catch myself, breathe, pull back. I can tell she’s hearing me even though she looks uneasy.
“What about her mother?” I say.
Emily blows out a breath. “That woman,” she says. “She’s useless at the best of times.”
That’s true. Anisa’s mother was the biggest part of her problems. A drunk. Alternately neglectful, then clingy. She actually came on to me the night Anisa introduced us. We laughed about it, because what else could you do with that? Anisa’s father died when she was a toddler. This shitty childhood was why Anisa was empty inside, always looking to be filled—by her work, by her relationships. It also made her a victim to shitty men—like me. And probably this guy Parker.
“Or Brendan?” I toss it out there, earning another eye roll.
“Anisa hasn’t talked to her brother in, like, five years. The last I heard, he was in jail. Cooking meth or something totally fucked like that.”
Yeah, her family is crap.
To be honest, that’s why I’m worried. She has no mooring. No place where she’s safe. It could have been me. I could have been that port in the storm of her life. We could have built a foundation where she was loved and cared for, where we could both grow. That was what I wanted. I just blew it, massively. Worse than the anger is the regret. I really hope I didn’t hurt her that night I wound up in jail. I guess I could ask Emily. But a big part of me doesn’t want to know if I’m the kind of man who could put his hands on a woman he loves in anger. Dr. Black and I talk about this too. Have you ever hurt anyone before, Will? Dr. Black wanted to know. Have you ever hit a woman?
No, I told him, never. And that’s the truth.
I’m sorry, Anisa.
“Neither of them has seen her, talked to her?” I say. The silence between us has grown long.
“I don’t know, Will,” Emily says. When the waitress brings my cappuccino, she asks for the bill.
We sit a moment. The coffee is too hot to sip. I blow at the foam.
“It just all seems a little strange to me,” I say, trying to catch her eyes. “Something’s not right.”
Emily shrugs, stares at her phone. “It looks pretty right to me. Her face—she’s glowing. Read her words; she sounds grounded and wise. She looks healthy and strong.”
She points the screen back in my direction. There’s her beautiful body, a lean, arching silhouette against the rising sun. Did Parker take that photo?
“In fact,” Emily says, wistful, “she might be better than she ever has been.”
The room seems dingy suddenly, overcrowded. There’s a garish smear of Emily’s lipstick on the pale mug. The woman behind me is coughing fitfully. The table between us wobbles.
This is my point. The world. The real world is fraught with imperfections. It’s messy and complicated, often uncomfortable, awkward, painful, dull. It’s not curated and filtered for consumption.
“But that’s social media,” I say. “It’s not . . . true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“No.” Again, too emphatic, a little too loud.
Emily’s eyes widen, just for a millisecond. Then she stows her phone, clutches the bag to her middle. She dips her head and shifts. I think she’s going to scurry out without another word. You can be frighteningly intense, Will. Anisa used to say this all the time. Scale it back.
“I’m sorry,” I say, to soften the awkward tension.
“What’s true,” she says after a breath, “is that she left us.”
It’s almost a whisper, like she’s trying not to cry.
“Not just you, Will, but all of us, and this life we were living together. And that sucks.”
The woman behind me. She will not stop coughing.
Emily goes on over the din. “But if she wanted us to be a part of whatever new version of herself she’s creating, she’d call or visit or invite us to her goddamn tiny house in the woods.”
Now it is Emily’s turn to take a moment to calm herself. I will say this about Anisa. The people who love her, really love her. They care. They want her in their lives. I wonder if she knows this.
“We may not like it,” she continues. “It may hurt. But that doesn’t make it less true.”
I nod, trying to give the impression that I’m not just waiting for my turn to talk.
“But that’s my point,” I say, jumping in when she’s done. “I can see why she’d ghost me. I screwed up. I was jealous, possessive, a total dick. I drove her away. Then I basically stalked her, okay? I . . . menaced her. She was so afraid of me that she called the police and took out a restraining order. I lost it, tried to kill myself. She was right to move on from me.”
I’m reaching for Emily, but she’s pulling away. I often feel like this—reaching, trying to make my point, my case, while others draw back.
“But what if—stay with me—she didn’t leave her life, all her friends, by her own choice?”
Emily gives me a confused, uncomfortable squint, looks toward the door again.
“I mean—what if something’s wrong? Like—really wrong.”
When our eyes meet again, there’s naked pity there. Emily has seen me at my worst. I wondered why she would agree to meet me. Why she’s helping me with my career. She knows how bad it got with Anisa, that my life is in shambles. I see now that she just feels sorry for me. She’s the rare nice person in the world who wants to help someone who is clearly struggling.
“Will, she’s finally happy. Maybe she’ll reach out to us again when she feels more, I don’t know, solid in her new life.”
I issue a laugh that sounds more bitter than I intended. “Not to me, I’m guessing.”
She stands, pulls a twenty from her pocket, and puts it on the table for the check that hasn’t come. I should offer to pay. After all, I invited her. But the truth is, I can’t afford it. Ashamed, I let her leave the wrinkled bill and lift my cup in thanks.
“Will? Just—” She shakes her head. “Just let her be.”
She leaves, and I’m alone. The normal state of things. Pity party.
Under the menu, I spy the black corner of a Moleskine. I grab it and run out onto the street after her. But she’s nowhere to be seen.
I text her.
She doesn’t answer.
She’ll probably ghost me now too. When I open the notebook, its pages are filled with her notes and poetry. The voyeur in me experiences a dark thrill. What would I learn about sweet Emily in these pages? Not that I’d rifle through her private thoughts. I snap it closed quickly, tuck it under my arm.
I walk home, not even wanting to spend money on the subway. It’s a hike, nearly ninety blocks. But it’s okay; I like to ramble through the city, watch the neighborhoods change, see the haves and have-nots mingle, hear buses hiss, listen to horns bleating, observe the endless construction of ever-taller gleaming towers for the megarich, while steam rises from manholes, nuts roast in sugar, and wood burns in someone’s fireplace, putting the scent of smoke in the air.