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“No. I mean talk.” My voice cracks on the last word. I wriggle out of his stronghold, scoot backward and lean safely against the rear windshield. I reach for my jeans and struggle back inside them.
His left eye opens, focuses on me, and then his right follows. “What’s wrong?”
I’m not sure how to start. This conversation is going to be awful. Plus, I think I might be sitting on the rear wiper. “I want the TRSN job.”
His shakes his head, full of supposed sympathy. “I know you do, babe. But you’ll find a new job here.”
He’s not getting it. “You don’t understand. I’m going to take it.”
He continues shaking his head, not understanding. “That’s not practical. How are you going to plan the wedding from New York? And what’s the point of starting a job somewhere else when we’re going to settle here?”
Was he always this dense? “That’s what I’m trying to tell you. I don’t want to settle here.” I look longingly at my sparkling finger. “Can’t you move with me?” I squeak.
He’s shaking his head faster now, jaw clenching tighter by the half second. “You know I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t,” I say.
“Gabby, family is important to me. I’m not moving across the country. Be fair. I’m sure you’ll find a good job in Arizona. I love you, Gabs, and I feel awful, but I can’t.”
“But I already made plans…. I quit my job. Yesterday was my last day. I start my new job on Monday! Why couldn’t you have proposed before I quit?”
“Gabby, I needed a minute to figure it all out. Last month life was good, and then suddenly everything was happening so fast, and you were moving and it wasn’t until after I realized that you were really going that I knew how much I need you here.”
“But I need to be there.” How to say it…? I decide one fast, full vomit is best. He’s tough. He’ll get over it, me, eventually. “Cam, I’m taking the job. I’m moving to New York. I’m sorry.”
He swallows. Hard. I watch his Adam’s apple sneak up his throat and then sliver back down. His eyes tear up and he closes them, and then opens them again. “But…what about us? The job is more important than me?”
Holy shit. Cam? Crying? We’ve been together for three years and I’ve never seen him shed a tear. I feel as if I’m hacking his arm off with a chain saw. I can’t believe that I am capable of causing him pain. “You know this has always been my dream,” I choke out. Which is true. It has! On our first dinner date, I’d told him I wanted to move to New York. That I wouldn’t stay in Arizona forever.
A fat tear rolls down his sweet cheek. “I thought you had a new dream.”
“I have to think about my career.” My voice cracks. “I could never have an opportunity like that here.”
“You have an amazing job here.”
“Had,” I remind him.
“Have, had. Whatever. You can get a new one.”
“It’s not the same. Here I’m a big fish in a small pond.”
“There’s nothing wrong with that. You’d rather be a small fish?”
I shake my head. “You’re asking me to give up my dream.”
“Don’t make me out to be the bad guy.”
We’re both silent, attempting to regroup our thoughts, aka ammunition. Something I would be much better at with an empty bladder and a cup of coffee. I realize I’m too drained and hungover and tired for more talk. “I love you. But I’m moving to New York.”
“Then we’re not getting married.”
I slip off the ring and deposit it into his palm.
“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” he says. “You’re so obsessed with that stupid Melanie Diamond scandal that you don’t even know what you’re doing.”
This isn’t about that, I want to say, but don’t. Because it kind of is. “Maybe,” I say. “But it’s my call.”
Instead of looking at me, he’s looking at my—now his—ring. And then he says, “I’ll take you home.” As his voice breaks, my heart breaks along with it.
“Endless Love” is playing on the radio when Cam pulls up in front of my apartment building. It’s so embarrassingly inappropriate for the moment that I almost laugh. He doesn’t put the car into park. Just steps on the brake.
“Well, goodbye,” he says.
I see that his tears are gone. See? He’s over me already. “I’ll call you when I get there,” I say. “I love you, Cam. But I have to do this. For me.” I open my purse and rifle through my junk for my keys. Shit. Where are they?
He shakes his head. “They’re in the pocket of your jean jacket.”
I feel inside my pocket. Oh. “Thanks.”
A long sigh escapes Cam’s lips. And then he says, “I hope it’s worth it.”
I hope it is, too. I open the door, squeezing my keys between my fingers, and slither out before I start crying and change my mind.
Crap. The bookshelf in my bedroom. As soon as I step into my room, I realize he was supposed to take it back. I don’t want to take any furniture to New York, and I don’t want to just give it to Lila along with everything else. It’s not right. Cam gave it to me, he should get it back. Although maybe she’ll use it. She’s an accountant and is turning my room into her home office. Anyway, I should give Cam the choice.
Maybe I’ll leave him a message. I pick up the phone. I pause in mid-dial. I can’t call Cam. Calling him would be torturing him unnecessarily. It would be torturing myself, listening to his soft voice on the phone.
I finished most of my packing over the week so I would have every last second free to spend with Cam. Which leaves me with nothing to do for the day. My mom is in Florida and Lila is working. Lila is always working or reading romance novels in bed. Honestly, that girl has no social life. Even in college she was always studying or reading away. As long as I’ve known her, she’s never had a boyfriend. She’s had flings—at least four times I saw her bring home some random guy, but she always kicked him out before her day started. Musn’t mess with her daily schedule. Anyway, no Lila. I’d call Melanie but she decided to take a spur of the moment road trip to L.A. She’s impulsive that way.
I have officially nothing to do. Which makes me reflect on my pitiful absence of friends. What kind of a life did I even have here?
Maybe I’ll call Heather and check in. I scramble through my pack of papers for her number and dial. Heather will be my roommate in the “two-bedroom, postwar, good-size rooms, hardwood floors, very generous storage space” that I’m renting. I found it on craigslist.com and my fingers are tightly crossed that my temporary roommate, twenty-something nonsmoking Fashion Institute of Technology student, Heather Munro from Long Island, isn’t psycho.
After three rings, a voice yells, “I’m not hanging out with you and your little couple brigade, okay? Stop bothering me!” Heather?
Groan. Maybe I should have been crossing my toes, as well. “Um, hi, Heather, it’s Gabby. Gabby Wolf? Is this a bad time?”
Pause. “Oh God, I’m sorry. My friend Diane is driving me insane. She doesn’t understand why I don’t want to come over and watch her wedding video with her three other bridesmaids and their fiancés. I mean, come on! I’d rather slit my eyeball with a steak knife.”
“Listen, I’m just calling because—” I stop midsentence. Is moving in with Steak-Knife Heather really my best move? I will be earning a whopping $125,000. Maybe I should stay in a motel until I can find my own place. New York has motels, right?
“Because what? Don’t tell me you’re going to bail. I just turned down someone else because you said you’re coming. I’m not giving you your deposit back, so you can forget it,” she huffs.
Steak knives aside, she does have a point about the deposit. Besides, New Yorkers aren’t like the rest of us, right? They’re supposed to be eccentric. Interesting. “No, I’m not reneging. I just want to confirm with you that I’m arriving tomorrow at 3:30. Will you be home?”
Long pause. “That’s a relief. Although…tomorrow? I don’t know if I can be home.”
“Oh. Okay. Um, well, I have to get in.”
She sighs. Loudly. “I suppose I can leave the keys with the doorman.”
“All right. See you tomorrow. Oh, did my new bed come? It was supposed to arrive today.”
“No, not yet.” She hangs up. Apparently, my new roommate is not of an easygoing persuasion. I will have to remember not to borrow her butter without asking.
I spend the rest of the day on the couch, flipping through the news channels, slowly refolding my clothes and re-squeezing them into my suitcases, and letting the excitement build and boil inside me. I catch myself singing “New York, New York” and doing a YMCA-like dance around the apartment.
“Hi, guys,” Lila says from the door at around four.
“It’s just me,” I tell her, flipping the channel from CNN to TRSN.
I know I have at least ten minutes before she’ll join me on the couch. The first thing she does every day when she gets home is change out of her suit and into her bathrobe and slippers. Then she scrubs her hands, carefully takes off her makeup, washes her face, ties her shoulder-length blond hair into a ponytail on top of her head, takes her many skin vitamins, moisturizes, stops in the kitchen for a glass of water, and then comes into the living room. She works seven-day workweeks and is very into her routine.
“Where’s Cam?” she asks, post-routine, getting comfy on her white velvety couch. “Doesn’t he want to spend every second of your last day with you?”
“We broke up.”
Her jaw drops. “You didn’t! What happened? He wasn’t into the long distance?”
“Kind of. You see, he proposed—”
“What?” she shrieks and throws a pillow at me. “And you said no?”
I recount the whole story, and she stays quiet throughout. Lila has always been a very good listener. She has this way of never making me feel judged. She’s a very soothing person. Like chicken soup without the salt. Almost bland, but in a good way. But Lila also thinks Cam is the best boyfriend ever. She constantly tells me how lucky I am. “Don’t you think it was wrong of him to give me an ultimatum?” I ask. “Stay or go? Why does he get everything and I have to give something up?”
“I suppose,” she says, nodding.
“I had no choice,” I say.
“I don’t know about that. You had to give something up and you did. Cam.”
Gave up Cam? Is that what I did?
She sees the expression of despair on my face and pats my knee. “You’ll be fine. Really. You were never sure if Cam was right for you anyway.”
I wonder if this is true. I didn’t want Cam to be Mr. Right because I was planning on moving. But is he? Was he?
“Finish packing and I’ll order us some dinner. Pizza?”
We order, we eat, we watch TV. We rehash the whole Cam thing. The phone doesn’t ring all night. My dad lives in L.A., although he’s currently working in Australia, and while my mom lives here, she’s working in Florida these days. There must be someone to call to say goodbye to. Although, my social life has mostly revolved around Cam and his family for the past year. Calling them to say farewell might be a little…awkward. There’s Bernie, my old news director, but he’s still a bit pissed off with me for quitting.
After Lila and I exchange tearful goodbyes, I retreat to my room. Before I climb into bed, I pull down the curtain. Okay, fine, it’s not really a curtain but a dark gray sheet that Cam found at his parents’ house and helped me staple to the ceiling to keep out the light. He nailed a hook above the window so I could pull it up during the day. I’m not going to bother removing it in the morning—I’m sure Lila will get around to putting up real blinds eventually. Then I check my Hello Kitty alarm clock (I have to remember to pack this in the morning—it was a gift from my dad when I was eight). It’s eleven-thirty in the evening. The alarm is set for six-thirty, since my flight is at nine. Cam was supposed to take me to the airport. I guess I’ll be calling a cab.
First I hit the radio button to make sure that the volume is on. “Like a Virgin” blasts in my ear. Then I realize I’m cold and sneak back into the living room, rummage through one of my two suitcases and find Cam’s J. Crew cotton long-sleeved shirt that he left here months ago (I wear it when I want to feel warm and toasty), and slip it on to punish myself. Back in the bedroom, his smell wafts over me as I turn off the light. I wrap myself in my pink top sheet that I have to remember to pack in the morning.
Did I set the alarm properly? What if I set it for 6:30 p.m. instead of a.m.?
I sit up and check—6:30 a.m. In six and a half hours. I’m never going to fall asleep. I bet Cam can’t fall asleep either. He’s not a good sleeper when he’s stressed. When he’s working on a case, he tosses and turns and flips his pillow. Bet that’s what he’s doing now.
Poor Cam.
I will not cry. No, I will not—I will n—I wipe the tears off my cheeks with the back of my hand. What a baby.
How could I have broken the heart of the one person who has loved me so fiercely over the past few years? Why do I think moving to New York will be good for me? What if I’m a failure? What if I never meet another man who will love me as much as Cam does? What if no other man ever asks me to marry him, and I become bitter and bitchy and start to hate all couples and throw up at the sight of any hand holding or Valentine’s Day cards?
I check the alarm. Again. I close my eyes and start to drift into a sad, desperate sleep. Cam…love you…changed my mind…
Blackness.
I wake to an intense headache. Like forks bashing into my forehead and both temples. To go along with the pain, swirls of green hot light burn behind my eyelids.
What the hell? Did I roll off my bed in my sleep? Did my lamp fall on my head?
I open my eyes slowly, intense sunlight spearing my pupils. The pain instantly dissipates. No one is attacking me. But I can’t believe how bright it is in here. Weird, actually. Then I realize why. This morning, of all mornings, the staples holding my makeshift curtain must have finally given out. How appropriate.
What the—
I blink my eyes. Once, twice. Three times. I do not believe what I see.
I’m back in the desert. In the truck. Wrapped in the itchy green blanket.
In Cam’s arms.
2
The Gabby Horror Engagement Show
I am going insane. That must be it. Obviously, the only explanation. How did I go to sleep in my empty bedroom, yet wake up in Cam’s truck?
Unless I’m dreaming. Yes, that makes sense. I’m still asleep. The truck and the desert are just an illusion. How weird is that? Normally a desert isn’t a mirage—normally you’d see a mirage in a desert.
When I put on one of Cam’s J. Crew shirts, his scent tortured me into hallucinations about what could have—would have—been.
What will be.
In my dreamworld, I snuggle up close to him. Mmm…feels so nice. That’s it. I’m going to wake up and call him. Cancel my move. Get married. He’ll take me back. Of course he will! I’m entitled to twenty-four hours to change my mind, am I not? I must wake up and call him immediately. Now. Wake up. Come on, you can do it! Wake up!
I have to pee. I hate when I have to pee in dreams. That means I have to pee in real life. I’m always concerned that I will pee all over my bed.
Now open your damn eyes! What’s wrong with you, you lazy ass?
Cam elbows me in the chin.
This dream feels awfully real. I tenderly stroke my injured face and check out my surroundings. My very authentic-looking surroundings. I sit up in my dream, in the hope that it will wake me up in real life. But instead, I am simply sitting up. In Cam’s truck.
I must admit, this is the most realistic dream I’ve ever had. I pinch my leg. It hurts. And the air feels so real. I take a deep breath and look up at the sea of blue. The Arizona sky always makes me feel as if the horizon goes on forever. To my left are the Superstition Mountains. They look like mounds of dirt, or children’s sandcastles, against the blue. My surroundings are too alive for this to be a dream.
My heart races. Which it doesn’t normally do when I’m asleep, at least, not that I’m aware of.
