I thought telling my girls about all this would be embarrassing. But I’m not embarrassed. I am so furious I’m shaking.
Sadie puts her arm around me in front of a school on Hudson Street, stepping aside to let a couple walking their dog pass us. “Do you want to sit? There are some good brownstone stoops on Tenth Street.”
“No, I’m okay. I want to keep walking. Walking helps. Walking and talking with you guys.”
We cross Christopher Street in silence. I can see the Hudson River way at the end of the street, the last colors of sunset fading from the sky. I take a few deep breaths, forcing myself to be in the Now, in this moment when I’m revealing my darkest secret to the girls who are becoming my best friends.
“He got smacked down with fines so huge my mom has to leave our house,” I continue. “The bank is seizing it. And I thought having a credit card confiscated was the worst.”
“So he’s . . .” Sadie searches for the right words. “Is he going to jail?”
“No. His slick lawyer has even slicker connections. But he did have to pay a huge chunk of cash, which was basically all the money he had. Which is why there’s nothing left to support me now.”
No more unlimited credit card. No more ATM card, either. My parents’ joint account was closed. My college fund is protected, but my mom can’t afford to send me anything extra. I wouldn’t want to take money from her, anyway. She has to sell a bunch of stuff, like furniture and jewelry and dresses, things that are killing her to part with. Apparently when you’re married, you are legally responsible for the other person’s financial indiscretions. It doesn’t matter if you didn’t know what they were doing behind your back. So my mom is responsible for paying part of the fines for a crime she didn’t even know my dad was committing. How stupid is that? And she has to pay with money she earned from her own catering business. She can’t even keep the money she saved from her own job.
“That’s so sad about your mom,” Sadie says. “You said she has to move out . . . so your dad has to move out, too, right?”
“Are you ready for this?” I warn them. “My dad is moving in with another woman. And her kids.”
“What?!” Sadie and Rosanna yell.
“Oh yeah. He’s starting a shiny new family and discarding me like some old dishrag. He’s actually been seeing this woman for years. I’m sure he couldn’t wait for an excuse to leave. I hear she scored a sick estate in Beverly Hills with the money she got from her ex-husband. Guess cheating paid off for her. Not so much for my mom.”
I had been clamoring for my dad’s attention my whole life. Now I understand why he has never really been there for me. His standard solution to whatever Darcy problem emerged was to throw money at it. He believed that if he threw his money hard enough, the problem would go away.
Now he’s out of ammunition.
My dad never focused on me or my mom because his attention was someplace else the whole time. We were only his starter family. Mom doesn’t think he would have left us for this other woman if he didn’t get found out. She thinks that if he were going to leave us by choice, he would have done it years ago. But Mom didn’t give him a choice when she found out about the tax fraud and then found out about the other woman. It was like all her worst fears were confirmed at once.
“I had a feeling there was someone else,” she confided when we were talking on the phone last week. She called me when I got home from a double shift where I had to close.
“How did you know?” I asked in a whisper. I was in bed on top of the covers, a sweaty mess since we were cutting back on the electricity bill by not running the air conditioner at night. Rosanna was thrilled I’d adopted her sweat-and-save technique. That was before she knew I didn’t have much of a choice. The hot breeze blowing through my windows was doing nothing to cool me off.
“I didn’t know for sure,” Mom said. “I could never find proof that she was out there. It was just a feeling I’d had for a while. Then there it was. The proof I’d been looking for. I was going through our bills after his fraud was exposed, and I found a separate credit card statement I knew nothing about. Apparently that’s the card he used when he was . . . with her.”
I could not believe what I was hearing. My father was a manwhore. He was charging all this stuff on the low for this other woman—hotels, extravagant dinners, flowers, drinks at hipster bars like he was twenty-five instead of old. It occurred to me that he was having a midlife crisis. Or maybe he had a brain tumor. But no. He was just an asshole.
Mom’s voice was trembling. “How dare he have a secret credit card on top of stealing from his own family—stealing my money—and tearing us apart? He used to take me out to the places he takes her. He used to buy me flowers. He treated me like the woman he was in love with. But all that stopped a long time ago. Now I know why.” She took a sip of something. I pictured a big glass of red wine. My parents had a huge wine collection. No doubt Mom needed a big old drink . . . or ten. She was probably doing her best to drink up their collection before it was confiscated along with everything else. “I shouldn’t be telling you all this.”
“No, it’s okay,” I said. “Tell me anything you want.”
“I might be a little tipsy.”
“Mom. I’m here. I’m listening.”
She took another sip. “You know how sometimes you think it’s you? At first I thought it was me, that something was wrong with me. Or that this is what happens after a while with marriages. I mean, how long can romance be sustained? It goes out the window pretty quickly. I thought maybe I wasn’t trying hard enough to keep him interested.”
Um. Maybe she had a point about too much information.
“But it wasn’t about me,” she continued. “It was all about her. He was exhausted around me from working so hard to keep her happy.” Mom made a bitter snorting sound. “Every time I asked him to take me out in the exact ways he was taking her out, he said he was too tired. Or he had to work late. Or that wasn’t his scene anymore. So now we’re getting divorced, my savings are gone, and you had to get a job. How’s that for a twist?”
Mom was right. I never saw any of it coming. Neither of us did.
We walk along a few blocks of West 10th Street. The air is rich with savory cooking smells from Rosemary’s. Every table outside is taken. A cute black bulldog is sprawled on the sidewalk next to one of the tables, his leash looped around his owner’s chair. He has a doggy dish of water next to him. His tongue flops out as he looks up at us.
“I’m so sorry you’re going through all this,” Sadie tells me. “Is there anything we can do to help?”
“Thanks, but I’m okay. I just wanted you guys to know what was going on.” There’s more that I’m still keeping to myself, though. The harsh truth is, I have no idea if I’m going to make enough to support myself this year. We might be keeping our apartment for freshman year, but we won’t find out until later this month. I won’t be able to stay if I can’t afford the rent. Rosanna has financial aid and Sadie’s parents help her out, but what do I have? I will have to cut way back on my Java Stop hours when classes start. There is a scary chance I might have to move to like a borough. Which means I really should break out a map and find out what’s near lower Manhattan. Or upper Manhattan might work. That night Logan re-created our first three dates and we rode up to Inwood on his motorcycle, I was surprised by how green and spacious that whole area was. Rents are supposed to be way cheaper up there. The farther you move from the Village/Tribeca area or the bottom half of Central Park, the cheaper rents become. But if I can’t swing staying in Manhattan, I am not at all looking forward to living past the last stop on the Z train. And what if I need to get new roommates? The thought of leaving Sadie and Rosanna is so sad I can’t even.
Up ahead is some venue with crowds standing around a roped-off entrance. I can’t tell what this place is. Maybe a hotel? From the limos out front and heavy security, it’s obvious they are having an exclusive event with famous types. Guys in black suits wit
h earpieces are everywhere. Just as we’re coming up on the entrance, flashes of paparazzi cameras start popping in a frenzy. Some celeb who just got out of a car must be surrounded by handlers. Paps are holding their huge cameras above the crowd, trying for a killer shot. The prey gets ushered inside so swiftly we can’t see who it is. Normally I would ask one of the gawkers who that was. But tonight I don’t even care. It’s amazing how your priorities can change in the blink of an eye.
I remember that fight Rosanna and I had the night she blew up at me over being a slob. I said the only problems in life are the ones we create. Now I see how stupid I was. My dad having an affair had nothing to do with me. His tax fraud had nothing to do with me. But now I’m the one left to pick up the pieces. I’m the one scrambling to get by. At least summer session ended this week and I can work extra shifts before fall semester starts. My college fund is protected because it’s legally in my name, so thankfully my tuition is covered. But I have to find a way to pay for everything else.
Sadie says that every negative situation has a positive side. I guess the positive side of my life being turned upside down is that I’m being forced to figure out how to survive on my own. But refraining from buying cute bags and dresses and shoes has not been an easy adjustment. Same with not being able to treat friends. And I wasn’t expecting my first job to be some minimum-wage deal entirely unrelated to my future career. Although I guess handling characters like Bossy Guy and Overdressed Lady is good public relations training . . .
This life thing just got real.
CHAPTER 3
ROSANNA
THE WHOOSH OF AIR AGAINST my face.
Motorboats putting along the river.
Snippets of classical music coming from somewhere on the grass as a woman does Tai Chi.
A single basketball bouncing on the court.
These are the sounds of running along the Hudson River. They have become familiar to me, sounds I rely on as part of my new routine. I love these early morning runs by myself. D was right. This is the best time to run, when the air is fresh and the park is empty.
Running when you are not a natural runner comes with a set of steep challenges. It feels like every part of my body is fighting against gravity. The sharp stitch in my side. How my lungs feel like they are going to explode. Parts of me I didn’t even know were jiggly jiggle. Every step is this huge effort to propel my body up and forward. My body prefers to be grounded. But if I want to be a runner, I have to push myself to do better.
Sometimes it feels like I have to work harder than other people. Even to do something simple like running.
The runners I pass every morning have become as familiar as the sounds of Hudson River Park. You have to be serious about fitness if you’re dragging your tired butt out of bed this early in the morning. It helps that I’m a morning person. But what forces me out of bed early is my desire to be like the real runners I see out here every morning. First of all, they are in ridiculous shape. You know you’re doing something right when other people can see a bunch of your muscles flexing when you run. I don’t want to be the tall, gawky girl fighting gravity. I want to be a graceful, buoyant girl gliding along like the pros.
Initially I wanted to get good at running for D. The first time he took me running was really frustrating. I felt like I was going to throw up after like thirty seconds. There was this shade of disappointment over his eyes when I had to stop and he turned to look back at me, checking to see if I was okay. D is so good to me. The least I could do was get good enough at an activity we could do together. At first my goal was to run with him like a normal person. But now running is more about me. I want to be a runner to feel good about myself. And I have gotten better at it. Now I can run one whole mile before I start slowing down. I can feel myself getting stronger, healthier. My body isn’t fighting as hard as it used to. I am acclimating, making smoother motions, bouncing up higher against the downward force.
I have also discovered a kind of mental clarity that comes when I start my day by running. Normally I’m a wreck. My mind starts shooting worries into my mental bulletin board with an industrial electric stapler the second I wake up. But running soothes me. It lets me be right where I am, almost as if everything stressing me disappears for half an hour. I can be free when I run. I can be the Shiny New Rosanna I came here to be.
Darcy likes to talk about being in the Now, and maybe this is what she means. Clearing your mind to just be in the moment and appreciate where you are.
I cross the highway and swing down Charles Lane. Before I run home and get ready for camp, I take a minute to look around me. To completely absorb my surroundings. I am here in New York City. That extraordinary reality hits me all over again. After dreaming of living here for so long, sometimes I’m still shocked that any of this is happening. That I am making it happen.
The rush of my shiny new life has me floating on a natural high all day. When D opens his apartment door that night, the rush hits me stronger than ever.
“Hi!” I can tell my smile is radiating. My smiles typically do not radiate. Incessant worrying tends to limit the radiance of a smile.
“Hi!” D laughs. “You’re in a good mood.”
“Life is good.” I kiss him on my way in, taking off my battered old black flats and putting my bag on a bench near the door.
“Do you want some water?” D asks. He goes behind the long, sleek island of his open kitchen, taking two glasses out of a cabinet.
“With crushed ice, please.”
D gives me a look like, duh. How lucky is he to have a refrigerator that makes crushed ice? Rich people really do live in a whole other world.
I sit down on a stool at the island. D puts my glass of water with crushed ice in front of me. He adds a wedge of watermelon to the rim of the glass.
“So why is life good today?” D sits at the island across from me with a glass of water that doesn’t have watermelon.
“Running makes me happy,” I share.
“That’s awesome. I was hoping it would, but I wasn’t sure you’d ever get into it.”
“Oh, it’s on. Early morning running is my thing.”
“I can’t believe you’ve been cheating on me with running,” D teases. We run together some mornings, and some mornings I run alone.
“I can almost run like a normal person now. But it’s more than just the running. It’s like . . . everything is falling into place. I was looking around this morning at how sparkly the sunlight was on the river, listening to the birds chirping, and just absorbing everything around me. It was incredible.” I sound like Sadie. Maybe her optimism is finally gaining on my cynicism. “Did you ever have one of those days when everything clicks?”
D smiles. “Oh! That reminds me!” He dashes to the back of his apartment. Then he comes right back with his cell phone. He yells, “Surprise!” and hands it to me.
I look at the screen. It’s blank. “Did you want to show me something?” I say. “I don’t think it’s on.”
“No, it’s for you.”
“What is?”
“My phone. I’m giving you my old one. I just got the new version.”
Whoa. “I can’t take your phone.”
“You have to,” D insists. “I’m giving it to you.”
“But how can I . . .” I almost ask how I can afford it. From what Sadie told me when I asked about her phone, the bills aren’t cheap.
“There’s this obscure carrier that charges a low monthly rate,” D explains so I don’t have to ask. “You’re good to go on my plan until the end of the month. Then you can transfer to a plan with them. See . . .” He taps the screen a few times until a memo list comes up. “I put their info here for you.”
My throat gets tight. D has already been extremely generous in treating me to things I can’t afford. Now he’s giving me his phone? It’s like he’s too good to be true.
“This is . . . thank you.” I can’t even string together a coherent sentence.
“You??
?re okay with having a cell phone, right?”
“Yeah.” I put the phone down on the counter and reach up to hug him, pressing my cheek against his chest. “Thank you so much. For everything.”
The second I admitted to D why I didn’t have a cell phone, I wanted to take it back. I worried that it was too much too soon, especially after telling him I was molested. But he turned out to be cool with my background. He didn’t make me feel ashamed of growing up in a family so poor we couldn’t afford a lot of things other people considered givens, like smartphones and cable and senior trips. I can’t believe I was questioning whether he was the right person for me. He has been so supportive and understanding about everything.
“Here.” D picks up the phone and reaches out his hand for mine, leading me over to his couch. If couch is the correct term to describe a fifteen-foot sectional sofa. “Let me show you some features.” He sits right next to me, pressing his leg against mine. My leg tingles with electric sparks.
On his phone, D switches the music playing on his overhead sound system to the Ethan Cross station. He knows Ethan Cross has been my husband since eighth grade and he’s okay with that. I mean, he even supports my fantasy husbands. D shows me how I can track my health stats when I’m running, how to keep track of my expenses in an accounting app I will definitely be using, and how to update my contacts. Although I have mixed feelings about conforming to society in such a predictable way, not having a cell phone was getting harder to manage every day. People do have a point when they ask what I would do if there’s an emergency. My answer used to be that I would borrow someone’s phone. But as a person who always has a Plan D (as a backup to Plans A, B, and C), I am hyperaware that anything could happen at any time. And not in a good way.
Except for this. Right here. Us. D knows who I used to be. He knows the past version of myself I am beginning to reinvent and he still wants to be with me. I can’t remember the last time I was this happy.
“Any other questions?” D asks after he’s shown me the essentials.