Before We Were Strangers (22 page)

When I arrived at the office, I spotted Elizabeth in the office kitchen, near the coffeepot. “I thought you’re not supposed have caffeine when you’re pregnant?” I said.

“I’m allowed to have a cup,” she shot back as I brushed past her. I smirked and walked toward my cube. I could feel her walking behind me, her ballet flats shuffling against the carpet, kicking up electrical currents. She had a habit of dragging her feet.

I flipped on my computer and turned to see her standing behind me, waiting to acknowledge her. Her hair was sticking up, floating off her shoulders from the static electricity. I couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?”

“Your hair.” I pointed, like a five-year-old.

She scowled and wrapped her hair in a bun, grabbing a pencil off my desk to hold it in place.

“Thanks for getting a drink with Brad and picking up the tote last night.”

“Thanks for organizing my personal shit for me. Did you toss anything from the original box?”

“No, I could barely look inside of it. It was like a shrine to Grace.”

“Why were you so determined that I get all that stuff back, then?”

She shrugged. “I don’t know. I feel bad, I guess.”

“What exactly do you feel bad about?” I leaned back in my chair.

“Just . . . you know. How . . . I don’t know.”

“Tell me,” I urged with a smug grin. I couldn’t help but take pleasure as she struggled for words. She was clearly still envious of Grace.

“Just the way you put her on a pedestal and talked about her, like she was the one who got away.”

I leaned forward. “You’re not telling me everything—you’re doing that weird eyebrow thing that you do whenever you lie.”

“What weird eyebrow thing?”

“You wiggle one eyebrow, all crazylike. I don’t know how you do it. It’s like a creepy twitch.”

She self-consciously raised a hand to her brow. “It’s nothing that you don’t already know. I mean, we were so busy back then.”

“What are you talking about?”

Elizabeth’s eyes darted all over the room, like she was mapping out her exit strategy. She looked down at her overpriced shoes. “Grace called and left a message for you once, and . . . it was just . . .”

I stood. “What are you saying, Elizabeth?” I didn’t realize I was shouting until the room went completely silent. I could feel our colleagues peering around the walls of their cubicles at us.

“Shhh, Matt!” She leaned in. “Let me explain. It was while we were in South Africa.” She crossed her arms and lowered her voice. “You and I were already fucking. I didn’t know why she was calling.”

My mind raced to figure out the timeline. It would have been roughly two years after Grace and I last saw each other. After she disappeared.

“What did she say?” I asked, slowly.

“I don’t remember. It was so long ago. She was in Europe or something. She wanted to talk to you and see how you were doing. She left her address.”

Every nerve was on full alert. “What did you do, Elizabeth?”

“Nothing.”

She was acting so weird. Shifty. Like she still wasn’t telling me the whole truth.

“Just tell me what you did.”

She winced. “I wrote her a letter.”

“You didn’t . . .”

“I was in love with you, Matt. I wrote to her, but I was kind. I said that you had moved on, that she was part of your past, but that I wished her the best.”

My eyes were burning with fury. “What else did you do? For the love of God, Elizabeth, I’m about to make a headline out of us, and I’m not a violent man. You know that.”

She started crying. “I was in love with you,” she repeated.

I was stunned. I always thought Grace ran off. She hadn’t left me so much as a note—no address, no phone number. I had been devastated, always believing that she had been the one who left me.

“If you were in love with me, why didn’t you give me the choice?”

Brad walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her. “What’s going on? What are you saying to her? She’s pregnant, man; what’s wrong with you?”

My chest was heaving. “Leave. Both of you.”

Elizabeth turned into Brad’s arms and started to cry against his chest. Brad glared at me and led her away,
shaking his head, like I was the one who had done something awful.

Ever since I’d seen Grace on the subway, I’d been replaying everything that happened to us fifteen years ago, how the last conversation we’d had seemed so typical, just six week before I was supposed to fly home, back into her arms, back into the routine we’d set for ourselves during that year of heaven.

After work, I picked up the roll of film I had dropped off earlier. It was a Friday, and I had nothing better to do than go to my mostly empty loft and digest the news that Grace had tried to get in touch with me years ago. I sat on the couch near the big floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street.

Next to me, on the end table, was one small lamp; in my lap, the developed photos. The first three were blurry, but the fourth caught me off guard. It was a picture of me and Grace in our pajamas, standing in front of the blurry traffic lines. Our faces were slightly out of focus, but I could see that we were looking right at each other.
That night we went to that diner in Brooklyn.

Every other photo was of Grace: in the lounge, in the park, sleeping in my bed, dancing in my dorm. All of her, captured in color.

I laid out each photo on my coffee table and stared at them as I thought back, reliving all the memories with her.
Did I tell her I loved her? Did I know I loved her? What happened?

It was eight thirty and I hadn’t eaten all day. I was sick, disgusted by what Elizabeth had done. It all started to make sense—the way Grace had acted, so guarded on the phone. She had tried to reach out to me.

I hopped onto my computer and did a reverse phone number search. I found the name G. Porter on West Broadway.
She was married?
Even though I had been married, too, the realization stung. I Googled “Grace Porter musician nyc” and found a link to the high school where she taught music. I clicked through several more links and found out her department was having a special performance that night at the high school gymnasium, but it had started an hour before.

Without even looking in the mirror, I was out the front door. I just couldn’t leave things at an awkward phone call.

Once I arrived at the school, I took the stairs two at a time down to the gymnasium. I could hear the sound of applause, and I prayed I wasn’t too late. There was no one manning the double doors, so I slipped through and stood in the back, my eyes scanning the room for Grace, but all I saw were four chairs arranged at the far end of the gymnasium—three occupied, one empty. The crowd quieted as a man approached a podium set up off to the side of the incomplete quartet.

“Ms. Porter has something very special she would like to share with you all.” My timing was perfect, if not fifteen years too late. “This is indeed a treat, and a rare performance, so let’s put our hands together for her talented quartet.”

Grace approached the podium, and I couldn’t catch my breath. What I had loved about her all those years ago was still there: her unique mannerisms; how unaware she was of her beauty; her hair, still long and blonde, draped over one shoulder; her lips, a full, natural pink. Even at this distance, I could see her spectacular green eyes. She was dressed from head to toe in black—a high-necked sweater and pants, so striking against her light skin and hair.

She tapped the microphone and smiled as the thumping sound echoed off the walls. “Sorry about that.” Then a giggle.
Jesus, how I missed that sound.
“Thank you for coming out tonight. I don’t usually perform with the students, but we have something very special to share with you. Our first and second chair violinists, Lydia and Cara, and our first chair violist, Kelsey, will be performing with the New York Philharmonic next weekend.” The crowd erupted in cheers and whistles. Grace looked back at the three girls, who smiled at her, poised with their instruments. “This is a very proud moment for me, so tonight I would like to join them in a performance of ‘Viva La Vida’ by Coldplay. I hope you enjoy.”

Still my modern girl
.

Grace walked to the farthest chair on the right and placed the cello between her legs. With her head down, she began the count. She had always played for herself, and as I watched her now, I could see that nothing had changed. I didn’t have to see her eyes to know they were closed, the way they always were when she played near the window in our old dorm.

I watched, enraptured, my eyes never leaving Grace as the song filled the gymnasium. At the end, right before the last pass of the bow, she looked up at the ceiling and smiled. The crowd went wild, the place shaking with thunderous applause.

I waited through the rest of the performances, starving, tired, and wondering if it was all in vain. The crowd cleared out a little after ten thirty, and I waited, my eyes still trained on her. Finally, she made her way toward the double doors, where I had stood the entire time. When I made eye contact
with her, I could tell she had known I was there all along. She walked toward me with purpose.

“Hi.” Her voice was light and friendly, thank God.

“Hi. That was a great performance.”

“Yeah, those girls . . . lots of talent there.”

“No you, you’re so . . . you play so”—I swallowed—“beautifully.” I was a bumbling fool.

She smiled but her eyes were appraising me. “Thank you.”

“I know it’s late, but . . . would you like to get a drink?” She started to answer but I cut her off. “I know that phone call was awkward. I just want to talk to you in person. To”—I waved my hand around—“clear the air.”

“ ‘Clear the air’?” She was testing the words.

“Well, catch up. And yeah, clear the air, I guess.”

“It’s been fifteen years, Matt.” She laughed. “I don’t know if ‘clearing the air’ is possible.”

“Grace, listen, I think some things might’ve happened that I didn’t fully understand at the time, and—”

“There’s a little dive around the corner. I can’t stay out late though. I have something in the morning.”

I smiled at her gratefully. “Okay, no problem. Just one drink.”

God, I was desperate.

“Let’s head out, then. This way.”

We walked side by side down the dark street. “You look really fantastic, Grace. I thought so as soon as I saw you the other day on the subway.”

“Wasn’t that so weird? It was like the universe was teasing us; we saw each other just a second too late.” I hadn’t thought of it that way. I loved her mind. “I mean, apparently
we live a few blocks from each other but we’ve never run into each other. It’s kind of strange.”

“Actually, I just moved into that apartment when I came back to New York last year.”

“Where were you before that?”

“I moved to the Upper West Side five years ago, but then I left for L.A. for a little while. After my divorce from Elizabeth was finalized, I came back to New York. That was about a year ago. I’m renting the loft on Wooster now.”

I watched Grace’s reaction carefully, but all she said was, “I see.”

Inside the dark bar, Grace selected a small table, hung her bag over the back of a chair, and pointed to the jukebox in the corner. “I’m gonna pick out a song. It’s too quiet in here for a bar.” Her mood seemed lighter. I thought about how she couldn’t handle being indoors without music. She was fine outside, listening to nature, but when she was inside, she always had to have music on.

“Can I order you a drink?”

“A glass of red wine would be great.”

I had to constantly remind myself not to reminisce in my head and to just be in the moment. There was a lot to say, after all. When I returned with our drinks, she was sitting, elbows propped on the table, her chin resting on top of her clasped hands. “You look great too, Matt. I wanted to say that earlier. You haven’t aged much at all.”

“Thanks.”

“I like the long hair, and this . . .” She brushed my beard with her fingertips. I closed my eyes for a second too long. “So, you were in L.A.?”

I tried to control my breathing, to stop myself from
breaking down and crying. I was totally overwhelmed in her presence.

A sad song came on with a droning male voice. “Who is this?” I asked as I took a sip of my beer.

“It’s The National. But, Matt, you said you wanted to talk, so let’s talk. You went to L.A. after your divorce: did you stay with your mom? How’s she doing? I think about her from time to time.”

“I went before I got divorced, actually. To take care of my mom. She passed away while I was there.”

Grace’s eyes filled with tears. “Oh, Matt. I’m so sorry. She was such a wonderful woman.”

My throat tightened. “It was ovarian cancer. Elizabeth thought Alexander should’ve stepped up, but he was too busy trying to make partner at the firm. My mother was dying and her sons were fighting over who should take care of her. So stupid.” I looked away. “My marriage was already on the rocks. Elizabeth was desperately trying to get pregnant, but I was thousands of miles away, across the country. I think, on some level, she thought I was trying to avoid her. I just thought she was being selfish. We were both angry and hurting, I guess.”

She nodded. “What happened after that?”

“While I was in L.A., watching my mother wither away, Elizabeth started having an affair with my friend and our co-worker Brad, a producer at
National Geographic.
Eight years of marriage—poof.” I made an exploding motion with my hands.

“Eight years? I thought . . .” She hesitated.

“What?”

“Never mind. I’m really sorry, Matt. I don’t know what to say.”

“You can tell me this: why did you leave?”

“Leave when?”

“Why didn’t you leave a note or a message when you went off to Europe? You just left.”

She looked confused. “What do you mean? I waited. You never called me.”

“No, I couldn’t. I couldn’t make any more calls. The only person I talked to was my mom because I could call her collect. I was out of cash. We got stuck in a village with a broken vehicle and hundreds of miles of rain forest around us. I just figured you’d understand.”