How to Be a Grown-up (34 page)

And I shrugged.

Because she got me, finally—the one who was, like, forty.

As I rolled into our building an hour later with a locksmith and dared the staff to call the police, it dawned on me that Blake was right all those months ago. I had been waiting, but not for rescue. I’d been waiting for something, someone to make the life I’d built feel legit. I’d been scanning the horizon for endorsement. And I thought being chosen by Blake Turner was as close as a girl could get.

Now there he was, standing in our foyer in his boxers, the man who had unchosen me. “You’re going to have to fix that,” he greeted me, pointing at the hole in the door. “I have a guest coming.”

“A guest?” I dropped my bag at my feet, the dislodged lock on top of it.

“I put an ad on Airbnb. I’m going to share with Wynn for a while.” He held up the pad where he was making notes. “Just while I get myself together.”

“No.” I crossed my arms, shaking my head, letting that “no” fill up my whole body. “Not only would that give me grounds to sue you for sole custody. But, no. No rotating cast of strangers sleeping down the hall from my kids.”

“
Our
kids.”

“Have you noticed how everything is ours when it suits you, yours when that’s more convenient?” I asked, hearing it plainly for the first time myself.

“Rory, you can’t just—”

“Blake,” I cut him off. “For the last nine months, you’ve thrown me for one loop after another while I accommodated and accommodated and accommodated. I’ve explained the unexplainable, accepted the unacceptable, and pulled a career out of the fucking ether. I’ve learned the scoring system in karate, solved new math, and fixed doll furniture with gum. I’ve stood through three-hour soccer matches in the rain with the flu, sent work e-mails while cleaning vomit out of grout, and gotten Wynn into middle school. And all of it,
all of it
, I have done without you.”

“You’re capable, Rory,” he sneered, his eyes flashing. “I get it.”

“But
I
didn’t. The tasks required to keep our family running, the things that take stupid amounts of time and energy and figuring out—nobody claps, nobody reads about them in
Entertainment Weekly
.”

“Okay, look—”

“Nope. Can’t. No more looking. You chose to end our marriage. That’s it. That’s the choice you get. Now
I
choose how it goes down.”

“Rory.”

“This is my apartment. My name’s on the lease.
My
name. And I’m going to live here, with our children, until I find the perfect place for them. Then, and only then, will we move out. You have a day to get yourself a room somewhere and start over or whatever the hell you are doing and then I am coming home. Are we clear?”

“You know this couldn’t be a worse time for me.”

“Oh, Blake.” I looked into his eyes. “You still don’t get it, do you? You got fired. And that’s a heartbreaking blow. But you did not invent this experience.” I took a deep breath. With or without his ring, I had a family, a career, the ability to love deeply and be loved back. “And neither did I.”

Although I know we didn’t move out until weeks later, in my memory, when I closed the severed door on him that afternoon, that’s when I left.

Epilogue

The Friday before Labor Day weekend, Manhattan slims down; the lucky head to their country houses, the lucky-adjacent stay with family and friends who own them, and the lucky-aspiring quadruple up in shares nearby.

This year I’m a different kind of lucky.

“Small chocolate cone, please,” I order, anticipating walking up Sixth Avenue and eating an ice cream without looking down the whole time to see if someone is wearing theirs.

As I got dressed this morning in my new apartment, I was so keenly aware of how good it feels to be coming out of months where my focus shrunk to everything I was losing. Now I’m solely grateful for everything I have: the kids most nights, and a two bedroom in Morningside Heights with a sunken living room and views of the George Washington Bridge. I have air in my lungs and a heart that is finding a steady rhythm again.

I also have my furniture line back. Once JeuneBug stabilized, I asked the new executive director of Stellar, and she had to say yes.

So, have I really missed those two weeks up in Woodstock? No, I have not.

It’s given me the freedom to work long hours. And since I was wrapping up my work at JeuneBug
and
overseeing the launch of Rory M Designs, it was much appreciated.

We already have orders from Beverly Hills to Savannah; now the focus is on quality control and production costs. I never could have imagined I would enjoy the business side of a business so much. Maybe it’s because this company is finally something wholly mine or, I’m willing to concede, something from my time with Taylor seeped into me indelibly. RM Designs is a paper-free office, and not only can I now force-rank a deck for optimal ad click-rev with the best of them, but Taylor is still the person I channel when I’m facing the buyers—and it works. I heard she’s developing an app that helps you pick a plastic surgeon. I truly hope, for her peace of mind, that it’s a hit.

JeuneBug closed for the holiday weekend at lunchtime. They had a little farewell party for me (Cushbars for everyone!) and, after hugging Ginger and Merrill good-bye, I found myself walking uptown, knowing, and denying, where I was headed.

The kids are at Val’s through Monday night. At first Blake was reluctant to join them because he can’t legally sublet on Airbnb if he’s not in residence and the Turners still live in fear of losing their rent control status.

Oh
, I think as I finish my ice cream cone and cross Forty-Seventh Street,
it’s so nice not to be a Turner anymore.

Once his J. J. Abrams lawyer was gone, Blake was consigned to return to mediation, where we finished working out what was best for the kids (Airbnb
only
when they’re not in residence; half the revenue goes to their support). Blake is still committed to eking out an acting career, apparently content to share a bathroom and refrigerator with a changing cast of adults, happy to live out of his childhood bedroom, happy to be whatever character he’s prepping for that week. Lately I wonder if I was trying so hard to make a three-dimensional life with someone who would have been perfectly happy with two. I guess the point is that I wouldn’t have been.

I still get that electrical storm feeling when I see him, but it’s not one of need so much as poignancy. And when the car pulls out with the kids waving good-bye and I’m not in it, I still have to walk for a while and breathe through the plunger suck of sadness. But I’m learning it abates within hours instead of days. I hear at some point the hours will be minutes and eventually, to paraphrase Toni Morrison, it will just be the weather.

But I also know that on this anniversary of sorts, I need to have a destination.

Fanning the top of my sundress from where it clings to my chest, I cross from the shaded side of the street to stand under the sun-washed stretch of sidewalk in front of Josh’s office building. I’ve written him a thousand e-mails in my head, but this wasn’t something I was going to write. So I’m just going to go in and have the guard call up. Just like that. Just . . . go.

I smooth down my skirt. Blot the sweat off my forehead. Fix my ponytail. And stand there.

“Rory?”

I look up and all at once there he is, in a khaki suit and tanned. Lighting strikes below my belly button.

“How are you?” He gives me a quick hug. I smell a second of him.

“I’m good,” I say. “How are you?”

“Sweltering.”

“Yes,” I say nodding, sweating, smiling.

“Are you on your way . . . ?” He looks uncertain.

“To see you.” God, I am ridiculously nervous. He seems surprised and then a little frozen. “I’m sure you guys are heading out for the weekend, but I was wondering if you have a minute—”

“I was just grabbing a soda, actually.” He nods to indicate the deli across the street.

“Can I walk with you?” I ask.

“Please,” he says and we turn, waiting for the cars to stop.

“Josh—”

“No,” he warns, pulling me back as a taxi races past. “Okay, now.” He motions that it’s safe to cross and I follow him into the store and down the narrow linoleum aisle to the refrigerators. He pulls out a bottle of Mexican Coke. “The one thing they do not stock in the machines upstairs. Want one?”

“Please.”

He reaches into the case.

“I’m just going to talk at you for a second,” I say quickly while he’s not looking at me. “While we’re here and it’s cold.”

“Rory, you don’t have to—”

“No, I do. I’m so sorry that I never reached out. I mean, you stayed with my son for hours. That was such a graceless moment in my life and, honestly, I didn’t know if it would be appropriate to call and say thank you.”

He lifts his eyes from the bottles to me and I can barely look in them. The energy between us is as I remembered it and there’s nothing to be done about that. “I don’t know if we should even be talking or if it’s weird or gross for me to say any of this out loud—”

“Rory—”

“But there’ve been so many endings in my life lately, and as I was tallying things up, I just didn’t want the last time I talked to you to be while I was standing in a hospital room holding my ex-husband’s hand. You deserve better than that. What you were to me deserves better than that.”

“Were?”

“You did a really great thing that you didn’t have to do. And I know it’s not cool for us to be friends anymore, but I just needed you to know that you were a bright spot in a very, very dark year. And that’s how I’m going to remember you, okay?”

He looks down at me, into me, and I want to do things right here up against that chilled door that you cannot do to another woman’s husband. That I wouldn’t.

I start to back away.

He clears his throat. “Where do you live now?”

“Morningside Heights,” I answer. “It’s a bit of a trek, but it’s leafy.”

He nods before saying, “I live on Second and Seventy-Third.”

“What,” I ask stunned. “You sold that apartment? But it was gorgeous—”

“No, I mean, we’re—I’m—separated. Still getting used to saying that.” He shifts and I feel my heart do the same on its axis.

“Oh. Oh! I’m so sorry. And here I’m only offering you a soda. I should be buying you the hard stuff.”

We can’t take our eyes off each other.

“Would you prefer a cocktail?” I venture.

He shakes his head.

“A beer?”

“No.”

God, I’m misreading this.

“I’d prefer,” he says in a low voice, “to kiss you.” He steps in and leans down. “We can do that?” he asks so close his lips are almost grazing mine. “Can’t we?”

“Yes,” I whisper, rising to meet him. “We can.”

At my age it’s so nice to know that just when it feels like all your firsts are behind you, you couldn’t be more wrong.

Acknowledgments

Emma wishes to thank:

My mother, Joan, who broke her finger, found her glasses, and packed up the car more than any girl should have to. And never once lost her sense of humor.

My godmother, Carolyn, for teaching her, and by proxy me, how to pull up one’s socks. My godfather, Jacoby, who made Being a Grown-Up seem a lovely and worthwhile pursuit. And to you both, for doing the same for Being Married.

My father, John, for being right about life coming down to who has the best stories to tell. And my stepmother, Janet, for loving him as much in the silence as the telling.

My husband, Joel, for keeping the Body of Work torch—and my heart—lit, no matter the weather.

And finally Nicki for each of our girls, including Lola. Especially Lola.

After the near million words we’ve strung together, it turns out none do justice to my feelings for you.

You are my one true one.

Nicola wishes to thank:

Emma, my love, you have walked in lockstep with me for fifteen years, and together we have co-created ten wonderful children. We have had success beyond our wildest dreams, failures that put us in great company, and met Madonna. We’ve hidden in bathrooms together, taken turns making amazing social gaffes, and gotten better all the while. 25 to 40. Man, we have grown up together. And raised each other. Since the day we met you have been on an inspiring quest to become the best version of yourself, and I have been privileged to have a front row seat. So if this is a senior yearbook of sorts, let me end by saying . . .
because I knew you I have been changed for good.