Christine looks around, trying to remember what it was like when this space felt joyful. She felt so goddamn lucky when she got this apartment. A godsend. Inexpensive, great location. Sure, the traffic sound was a little intense at first, but that faded in time. The first time she saw the apartment, she was awestruck. The crisp white walls and clean countertops. Enough room for a bed and clothing and maybe even a few knickknacks. It would be tight, she had thought, but manageable. And the upside was she would be living in New York freaking City. I mean, what could beat that?
She had all these fantasies about life here before she actually moved in. All the friends she would make and adventures she would have with those new connections. Life in the city felt like it would be objectively sexy and enviable. This was what she had wanted for so long, as she suffocated in her tiny Long Island existence.
Now those ideas seem so far away, like a vision board peeking out of a torn, forgotten box in the dark, dank corner of a basement. She remembers writing about this life in her journal, curlicue, uneven script outlined with small imperfect hearts. Christine manifested this life and now, she wished she knew of some spell to reverse it all.
She spent most of her time trying to wash the grease smell out of her tight curls with cheap shampoo and carefully blowing cigarette smoke out the crack in the window overlooking the fire escape. Thinking about this depressing reality, she pats her pocket, hearing the telltale crinkle of a nearly empty box of Marlboro Lights. She keeps telling herself that she’ll quit while knowing she won’t, actually. This disgusting habit is pretty unaffordable at this point given her paltry salary and expenses, but it’s the only thing that seems to quell her anxiety these days.
Walking over to the edge of her bed, she doesn’t bother removing her shoes- that delicate courtesy extinguished the first day she found an unidentifiable creature crawling around her kitchenette. She intends to sit but quickly finds herself reclining, arms crossed over her chest and eyes closed.
Was life with Dan so bad? He was kind of boring, but there was something calming about his presence in her life. Maybe she had ruined the best thing she had in search of something that wasn’t really what she envisioned it to be. She had a visceral memory of their last night together. Was she romanticizing it all now, now that she was so unhappy?
No, she wasn’t.
He passionately waxed over the peppery arugula he had placed atop the pizza they picked up from the place on the corner.
It’s just the perfect addition, he had said, you know? And then he had pressed his warm lips to her forehead. She recalls the scent of him- garlic, sweat and aftershave. Manly. He smelled like a man. Christine had placed her hand on his shirt to playfully swat him away, and remembers the soft, worn cotton of the Hanes t-shirt he preferred to wear. She knows she was already miserable and planning her escape, but when she thinks about it now, there was something perfect in the memory. Something she now craves like that last cigarette she had no doubt crushed in her descent.
Electricity zaps her brain and her eyes fly open. She sprints across the room and grabs her overstuffed leather purse as she runs out the door.
Forty-five minutes, one ice cold fountain Diet Coke, and a pack of peanut M&Ms later, and Christine finds herself on the Long Island Railroad heading towards Long Beach. A piece of looseleaf is spread across her lap and she is using her fingers to gently smooth out the creases. She had written this note in the hopes that it would be some kind of cathartic experience, and now it feels like a Holy Grail. This would be the thing, when delivered, that would save her from the lonely hell that is currently her life.
She flips her left hand over to see the writing, now smeared, written on the back. Dan’s address. She remembered that it was walking distance to the train. Or close enough, at least. Leaning forward, she tries to see her reflection in the plastic window separating the cars. She licks her right palm and pats down the frizz erupting by her part. Christine wishes that she looked better in this moment, but she feels okay, enough. Plus, Dan always thought she looked great, no matter what. Either way, she wore her shortest cut-offs and tightest tank, so that should balance out her Vitamin D deficient complexion and rancid undereye bags.
The walk to his apartment isn’t nearly the short jaunt she imagined it would be, and her legs are sore with the effort by the time she arrives at his building, tired from lack of sleep and too many shifts at the restaurant.
There is a bleach smell in the hallway that feels clean in a way that Christine hasn’t in a really long time. When she arrives at Dan’s door, she knocks until her knuckles are tender from the effort. Dan? she calls, thinking he might just be in the bathroom or taking a nap. With no response, she does the absurd and unthinkable and turns the doorknob. She wants to cry with relief when the door opens and she steps through the threshold, breathing in his familiar scent in combination with something faintly sweet, like a vanilla candle.
Dan? she calls again.
Nothing. She walks around the apartment, running her fingers over objects all too familiar to her. The Giants throw blanket and second-hand coffee table with cuts in the wood on the side. Sports Illustrated issues carelessly tossed in broken basket next to the couch she had fallen asleep on more times than she could count.
Dan? she tries again.
Nothing. Her voice echoes in the eerie silence. A noise catches her attention, and she looks out the window to her left, watching as a jogger passed by.
That’s it, she thinks. He must be taking a walk. She takes one more deep breath and walks out the door and heads towards the boardwalk. Repositioning her purse on her shoulder, Christine pulls the neatly refolded note out of her pocket and clutches it between her fingers. She is determined to find Dan. He has to be here somewhere.
Feeling reinvigorated already, Christine picks up her pace, the strain of her exhausted legs no longer plaguing her. This is the perfect idea. She would find Dan and he would save her, like he always had, and life would be back to the way she had hated and now, wanted more than anything.
Taking a deep breath, she allows the salty, muggy air to fill her nostrils. I will be saved, she thought, over and over again, as if a mantra. A new mantra. A reason to go on.
Hearing the telltale bump of bike tires on the wooden slats beneath her feet, Christine looks up. She almost passes out from relief when she recognizes Dan’s stocky frame atop a black and red bicycle coming towards her. Her feeling of liberation is so immense, so palpable, that she almost misses the woman riding directly next to him. With him. Dan is riding bicycles with a woman. She barely has time to process this thought as they sail past her. Dan had looked straight through her as if encountering a ghost.
She practically stumbles towards the bench to the left of her, now ready to acknowledge the one-piece swimsuit tossed over the chair in the apartment, and the wedge heels neatly placed on the welcome mat by the door.
Christine tosses the note into the wire trash bin and sinks down into the bench, feeling hysteria bubbling up from her guts.
What a fucking loon, you are, she whispers to herself, what an absolute fucking loon.
Laughing, she rises from the bench and walks back towards the train station.
Later that night, when Tina asks her what she had done on her day off, she responds in the only way she can: Oh, I went to the beach.
x
L.
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