You’ll Find Me in Manhattan

I cleared my throat and excused myself. Grabbing my cell phone, I headed out into the hallway and walked out of earshot. My mind spinning in a thousand different directions, I grabbed a seat on one of the small benches in the hall. Remembering Alex didn’t have class until later this afternoon, I hit the speed-dial and waited for him to pick up. He picked up on the second ring. I could hear the bustle of the city in the background.

“Hey, babe,” I pushed out in a breathy voice. “Are you busy right now?”

“Just got off the train to meet Michael for a cup of coffee, but I have a little bit before then. Is everything alright?”

Everything most certainly was not alright, but where did I begin? I decided to start with something that Alex could actually help me with.

“I am feeling overwhelmed with the wedding planning,” I confessed, feeling my shoulders sink.

“What’s overwhelming about it?” he asked. “We haven’t even started yet.”

“That’s why I’m overwhelmed,” I explained. “It’s getting kind of late in the game. I think this weekend we should start looking at venues, maybe we can start with a few downtown places like the Mondrian Hotel in SoHo and Bridgewaters in the South Street Seaport? And maybe we can finalize the decision of whether or not we want to wait until after graduation to get married?”

“Absolutely, baby,” he said calmly, and I immediately felt better for having called him. “But unfortunately I think Bridgewaters may have closed.”

“That was kind of my first choice,” I sighed. I pulled a piece of my brown hair up to my eyes and studied it. I had better get it cut now so I didn’t have to get another haircut before the wedding. “Okay, I’ll make a few calls and have some venues lined up for us this weekend.”

“It is going to be okay, sweetheart. And just know this; I cannot wait to marry you.”

As soon as he said that, I felt a warm rush throughout me. As stressful as it was, this wasn’t going to be like last year. I wasn’t going to freak out and push him away.

“I can’t wait to marry you either,” I uttered. I felt a warm rush dance around my chest. “I love you. Thank you for talking to me.”

Alex laughed. “You don’t ever have to thank me for talking to you!”

I checked the clock on the wall and peeled myself off the bench. “I had better get in there before Dr. Greenfield fires me.”

“He’s not going to fire you,” Alex replied in a sing-song tone. “But, yes, get back to work and I’ll see you tonight. You can tell me all about how the study is going.”

“Do I have to?” I teased.

“Bye, darling,” he laughed.

I hung up the phone and smiled. Thank goodness for Alex. I made a mental note that after we’d picked a wedding venue, we really needed to sit down and decide which doctoral programs we’d be applying to. I let out another sigh and tucked my cell into my back pocket.

As soon as I let go of it, my phone started vibrating. I grunted while quickly checking to see who it was. I had to look at the phone twice just to make sure I was reading it correctly. It was a text from my mother, who has never texted in her life.

She wrote, “Olivia, we need to talk in person. Meet me at the King Cole Bar at six o’clock.”

You have got to be kidding me. Why would I haul all of the way uptown just to talk to her when she’d been an absentee parent for years? Shaking my head, I took a few more steps closer to the computer lab. A moment later my phone buzzed again. This time, she had my full attention.

“It’s important, Olivia. It’s about Alex.”

Five – Amalia

On Thursday, I finally had a day off from Dr. Greenfield’s lab, but unfortunately it didn’t mean I had a day off from class. When the spring semester started back up last February, it became clear that getting the classes you wanted was nearly impossible. Now that we were in our final year, we didn’t get to choose anything.

Thankfully, working in the research lab counted as a course, which meant I was only taking two classes this semester, Family Studies on Tuesdays and Gender and Contemporary Issues. Gender and Contemporary Issues was today at one o’clock and lasted until three o’clock. Although I wasn’t thrilled with the required courses I had to take, this was the first time at NYU that I didn’t have class either first thing in the morning or at six o’clock at night.

I finished packing my bag and headed into my bathroom to spruce myself up a bit, saying a silent thank you every time I remembered what it was like to have two roommates. I really loved living alone.

I was meeting Olivia for lunch at twelve, and then we were going straight to class together. Michael was also in this class, so I needed to look good. Even after knowing him for two years, I still got nervous every time I was around him.

Class with Michael was sometimes a little awkward. We didn’t always sit directly next to each other, although we always sat in the same row with Olivia and Alex. I couldn’t pinpoint what exactly caused my discomfort, but I couldn’t help but compare myself to Olivia and Alex. They always looked like a couple. Even when they were sitting together in complete silence, there was this undeniable connection between the two of them. I wondered what people thought when they saw Michael and me sitting together. Or if they even noticed at all.

I swept the final coat of mascara over my lashes and rifled through my closet until I found a new lightweight jacket I had just bought from a boutique in the Village. I didn’t make a ton of money working at the school, but I made enough to buy something for myself every once in a while. I pulled off the tags and slipped my arms through the tan-colored coat sleeves. Grabbing my iPod, I dashed to the door and slammed it shut behind me.

As I was walked toward the subway terminal, I felt my cell phone vibrate through my purse. I decided I had better check it in case it was Olivia cancelling our plans. But it wasn’t from Olivia: it was from Hayden. My heart fell into my stomach and I begin to read the message.

“Hey, Amalia. I just wanted to see how you were. It’s been a while since I last spoke to you. I was hoping we could get together for a drink. Maybe we could try to be friends? Let me know when you’re available.”

I stood at the top of the subway terminal re-reading the message. A group of men on their way to work loudly cleared their throats behind me to get through. “Sorry,” I mumbled, stepping aside to let them pass. I had no idea how to respond, or if I even should. I shook my head and put my cell phone back in my purse, resolving to deal with Hayden’s message later.

One subway ride later, I was at Artichoke, one of my favorite pizza places in the city. Unfortunately, most of my appetite had been destroyed by anxiety. Olivia was already standing outside of the restaurant waiting for me, passively looking at something on her phone and smoking a cigarette.

“Is it just me, or is the subway becoming more disgusting with each passing day?” I muttered with a grimace. I didn’t want to talk to Olivia about Hayden’s message until I could fully process what it meant. Did I want to be friends with him? More importantly, why would he want to be friends with me after the way I treated him?

“It’s even worse when you’re coming from Brooklyn,” she slipped her cell into the back pocket of her jeans and flicked the cigarette on the ground. She looked down at it for a second and pursed her lips.

She had a sullen look on her face and her eyes were glassy. But before I could open my mouth to ask her what was wrong she started back up.

“Maybe I should try to quit smoking before the wedding.”

“Finally!” I shook my head. “Think of it as the first step towards saving up for your honeymoon.”

She let out a chuckle but it sounded a bit broken. Something was definitely wrong.

The host showed us to our seats and we settled into a small booth. Before we could even place our drink orders, Olivia began to grill me about my and Michael’s date.

“I asked him to be my date to your wedding,” I smiled. I could feel myself blushing and reached for a glass of water. Thinking about Michael as my wedding date was an instant mood boost. He would easily be the most handsome guy there.

“You do know we haven’t even set a date yet?” she replied in a mocking tone, without looking up from her menu.

“I know, and he still said yes!” I lightly tapped my hands on the table to get her attention.

“I’ll have him usher you down the aisle,” she offered, her gaze still on the menu. “Since he’s going to be a groomsman. Oh, and Alex and I are going to look at some venues this weekend, so we should know a date soon enough.”

For someone who was getting a dream wedding, she certainly didn’t seem very happy about it. I wondered if she and Alex had gotten into some kind of squabble.

I twisted a curl around in my finger and let out a soft sigh. For a moment I let myself image would it would be like to have a wedding of my own, even though I was in no rush to get married. I let the fantasy dance around my head. I envisioned a small wedding on a beach somewhere like the Virgin Islands. I would be wearing a short, but elegant, wedding dress, with a bouquet of brightly colored flowers. Michael in a crisp, linen suit, looking more perfect than ever.

Apparently Olivia noticed me day-dreaming because the next thing I saw was her snapping her fingers in front of my face. “Earth to Amalia. We’re splitting the pizza with the artichokes on it?” she cocked her head to the side.

“Obviously,” I said in a mocking tone. “So back to my date, we went out to dinner and it was wonderful.” I let out a dramatic sigh. I felt like a love-sick teenager and had no doubt in my mind that I was coming off as one too.

She seemed to consider this.

“What was the best part?” she leaned closer to me, her charm bracelets clanking on the table.

“Going back to his apartment and not feeling like I was doing anything wrong when I spent the night,” I laughed nervously as I remembered the days of sneaking around. “And then having coffee with him in the morning before I left. I felt like we were a real couple.”

“But you’re not, are you?” she asked, looking me straight in the eyes. “I mean, you’re not in a committed relationship.”

“No, not yet,” I swirled my straw around in my water glass. “But I’m sure it’s just a matter of time.” It bothered me that she had to point that out so declaratively.

“Are you still in love with him?” she continued, with wide eyes.

I chewed on my bottom lip. “I don’t know if I ever really stopped being in love with him. Even when I was with Hayden, who I cared about so much, I never completely stopped thinking about Michael. It was as if my feelings for him were simply put on hold, like they were in remission, but never completely eradicated.” I felt guilty for saying that after how wonderfully Hayden treated me. He had even told me he loved me, but I never felt sure enough about our relationship to say it back.

Olivia nodded and looked as if she was thinking this information over. “Does that mean you wouldn’t hook up with anyone else? Even though the two of you are just dating?”

I quickly shook my head. I couldn’t tell whether she was trying to drag me down into her bad mood or not, but her demeanor was definitely starting to get on my nerves.

“No,” I leaned my chin on my palm of my hand and scrunched up my face at the thought of being with another guy. “I wouldn’t want to do anything to jeopardize being with him.”

“Do you think he would?” she asked, softening a bit.

I opened my mouth to answer, but then closed it. I just sat there for a moment, trying to form a sentence. The idea of Michael sleeping with someone else was extremely painful, even though we weren’t in a committed relationship.

“I don’t know,” was all I could muster up. A wave of jealousy rolled through my chest and stomach at the idea of Michael even kissing another girl. I shook my head, telling myself not to think that way.

“I’m sorry,” Olivia said flatly. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

I wasn’t sure why, but the question continued to bounce around in my mind. Would he continue to date other girls? Or were we trying to work toward something together?

“I’m alright,” I lied, forcing a smile on my face. I ran my hands over my forehead and then through my hair. “What about you, Olivia? Are you alright?” I asked softly?

She just nodded and gave me a crooked smile.

“We should order because we’re going to be late to class,” I closed my menu.

“Sure,” she said, cocking her head to the side. I could tell what she was thinking, and what that look meant. Pity. And I hated being pitied.

The next morning I woke up early and decided to take an impromptu stroll at around eight-thirty over to the farmer’s market set up in Union Square. Being that the Union Square subway entrance was one of the easiest ways to transfer to any line in the city, the neighborhood was always busy. This morning, however, 14th street was downright packed. I thought about turning back for a moment, but then I remembered the contents of my refrigerator were low, and I could really use some fresh fruit.

As I browsed a stand boasting the best apples in the city, I got a funny feeling. Like someone was watching me. I paid the cashier for a few apples and then turned around to see if I was going crazy. I wasn’t. Two stands over, next to a woman selling artisan jam, stood Cassandra. She was mulling over a purchase as she looked up and caught my eye. I froze. This was the second time I had seen her out in the wild. I still had no intention of walking over to her. The last thing I said to her was that she owed me an apology. I’m still waiting for one.

We both just stood there for a moment, watching each other. It was obvious she was on her way to work. She was wearing a light-blue, knee-length dress with nude pumps. I had donned sweat pants and an old David Bowie t-shirt. I felt a pang of sadness as I remembered how close we were just a little over a year ago. I missed her. As I watched her gaze leave mine, her hand reach into her purse, and hand the woman cash in exchange for the jam, it dawned on me that she really didn’t miss me. She didn’t look back at me after that, she just took off. I watched her strut to the corner of 13th and Broadway so she could more easily hail a cab to work.

I took a deep breath and a few warm tears hit my cheeks. I didn’t know what to think. How could someone change so much in such a short amount of time? And then I thought of my ex-boyfriend, Nicholas. Hadn’t something similar happened to him? I wiped the tears away, but they just kept coming. Was something in the water here? How was it that two people who were such a huge part of my life, could just morph into completely different individuals and utterly not care if they ever saw or spoke to me again. Granted, I was the one who had broken things off with Nick the second time around. But that was after he turned into a power-hungry snob. I bit my bottom lip and wondered if the same thing was happening to Cassandra.

I finally stopped crying long enough to check the time on my phone. I had a “good morning” text from Michael that allowed my trembling lips to smile. I texted him back, popped on my headphones, and walked back to my neighborhood with my apples in tow.

Six – Olivia

“So what did you think of that last venue we looked at?” Alex crossed over to me from the kitchen. He plopped down on the sofa and started to untie his suede John Varvatos shoes. We had spent the entire day looking at venues.

I took a deep breath and started cracking my knuckles out of stress. We had just gotten off the train and walked all the way from the subway exit back to Alex’s apartment. We were both beat.

The truth was, I loved the last place we looked at. The Mondrian Hotel down in SoHo offered a beautiful entryway with a garden-like atmosphere and French-style decorating all throughout the hotel. The downside? It was two hundred and fifty dollars a head for a Saturday wedding, and only a bit cheaper for a Friday night at two twenty five.

What Alex didn’t know was that I had met my mother at the King Cole Bar the other day to talk about him. For the most part, I don’t give much weight to my mother’s opinions. But when she told me over a glass of wine that she “swore” she saw Alex out with another girl, I couldn’t ignore it.

“I thought it was gorgeous,” I said through a sigh, my mother’s smug face popping into my mind. “Perfect in fact.”

Alex straightened up on the couch and offered me a smile. “Then why do you look so sad, baby?”

The reason I looked so sad was clear. After I told my mother that she was wrong, that she couldn’t have possibly seen something that was more than a friendly hello with a fellow classmate, she pulled out her phone and showed me a picture.

I couldn’t see who the girl was, because she was facing the other way. From what I could tell she was wearing heels and had long, red hair. But what I could clearly see was Alex’s face. The two of them were embraced in a hug and, from what I could tell, it was around our school.

“He’s cheating on you,” she had said, in between sips of her Bordeaux.

I shook my head at her. “You’re wrong. I know there’s an explanation.”

But deep down I didn’t know for sure that Alex wouldn’t cheat on me. I believed anyone was capable of doing anything. And my mother planting seeds of doubt in my mind only made me feel worse. Taking the phone out of her hand, I texted the picture to my phone and told her I had to leave.

Now, with Alex still waiting for an answer as to why I looked so sad, I realized I wasn’t ready to talk to him about it yet.

“Because this wedding is going to end up costing upwards of fifty grand by the time all is said and done.” I immediately craved a cigarette. I instinctively reached for my pack in my purse, and then bit my bottom lip in frustration when I remembered that I was trying to quit and hadn’t bought a new pack this morning. “And that’s not including what our honeymoon is going to cost. At this point we’d be lucky to afford a motel at the Jersey shore.”

Alex let out a chuckle and wrapped his strong arms around me. As soon as his body pressed onto mine, I felt myself relax. The truth was, I wanted a big wedding. I wanted the white dress, the long aisle to float down, the candles, the flowers, the band, and, most of all, to celebrate it with everyone I cared about. But at the end of the day, I would gladly trade all of those novelties for a small ceremony at an upstate bed and breakfast if it meant I got to be with Alex. I felt a small wave of insecurity as I wondered if he felt the same way. If he would be happy with that.

As long as that was still what he wanted.

I turned to face him, feeling the warmth of his comforting smile. We’d come a long way in these past two years. First our relationship had started out as a secret that only he and I knew about. Then, last year, I essentially freaked out and felt like I didn’t know what I wanted. I was confused, but the truth was, deep in my heart of hearts, there’s only one guy I ever truly loved. And that was my husband-to-be. I pushed the thoughts of him hugging some other girl into the back of my mind and reminded myself that Alex was a good person.

“Olivia,” he picked up my left hand and softly kissed it. “We will set a budget for this wedding, and try as hard as we possibly can not to go over it. Don’t worry about the honeymoon either. I already started saving money the moment you said yes to marrying me.”

I looked at him with raised eyebrows.

Alex let out a soft chuckle. “Okay, I know what you’re thinking. Trust-fund baby had to save money? Well, actually, yes. I was paying off my tuition for NYU as I went. I never took out student loans. But after I bought the engagement ring, I realized I was going to have to. So, yes, I will have a bit of debt from NYU when I graduate. But I will gladly spend the next twenty years paying it off if it means I get to marry you.”

“Your debt would only be for our final year, right?” I asked. I was touched by Alex’s sacrifice. He was already paying for most of the wedding himself. My father had generously offered to kick in about six thousand dollars, but two thousand of it had already gone to my dress, leaving us with just about enough money to pay a florist. I gave Alex a tight-lipped smile. It was a weird feeling, to have both appreciation and anxiety at the same time.

“Baby, thank you so much for taking on this financial burden,” I uttered. “I feel very guilty about it, and wish I could do more. Honestly, guilt isn’t even the word. Anxiety is.” I felt my hands begin to shake. “I don’t have any savings.”

“Olivia, you have to calm down a bit. About the wedding, about school, about what doctoral program you’re going to end up in when we graduate. All of it. Because if you don’t, you’re going to miss it.”

“Miss what?” I asked, genuinely confused by his statement.

“Everything,” he said with a straight face. Planning your wedding is supposed to be a happy and enjoyable time in your life. Sure, there are common stressors that every couple goes through. But I don’t want you to look back five, or ten, years from now and wish you had appreciated it more. We’re only going to get to do this once.” He looked away for a moment and chewed on his bottom lip. “At least I only plan on doing this once.”

That’s when I realized what I was doing to Alex. My anxiety and obsession over everything working out perfectly was making him feel insecure. A fresh wave of guilt hit me and I immediately reached for his hands.

“I am doing this once,” I said in a measured tone. “Only once. You are the person I want to marry and this is not cold feet, or doubts about you. And I am so sorry if it came across that way.” I squeezed his hand a little tighter. “Till death do us part. Not divorce!”

“So, then let’s go with the Mondrian!” he exclaimed. “I mean, it’s gorgeous, it’s in the city, the food is fantastic, and it’s a hotel, so all of our out-of-town guests will have a place to stay. Also, they did have an opening on the day you wanted.”

I bolted up from the couch and snatched my cell phone off the coffee table.

“What are you doing?” he widened his eyes. Probably the sexiest thing he did, without knowing it.

“I’m calling them,” I said through an over-sized grin. “I’m done obsessing about this. You’re right. They have the date we want, they have the space, they have everything. I am calling them right now and booking our wedding for July of next year. One month after graduation and at least a month before we have to start any doctoral programs. It’s going to be wonderful.”

Alex stood up next to me and leaned in for a soft, buttery kiss. I stood up on my toes to reach him and he bent down slightly to lift me up. He held me in his arms for a moment and then said, “Don’t call them. I want to be the one to do it. Is that alright?”

I nodded and he loosened his grip and slowly lowered me down until my toes reached the hardwood floors. He kissed me on the forehead and then made a beeline for his cell phone, which was sitting on the counter top in the kitchen. Phone still in hand, I scrolled through my contacts until I found Amalia’s number and started to compose a text message.

Hey, Maid-of-Honor! Not sure what your plans are for after graduation. Hopefully you’re not planning on taking off to Abu Dhabi, or something, because I need you here in June.

Save the date, girl. I’m getting married Saturday, July 15th!

Seven – Amalia

What does one wear to a fancy, black-tie wedding in downtown Manhattan? I touched my finger to my lips as I scanned the fridge for a bottle of water. This would be a perfect job for Cassandra.