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He bowed his head. “The floor is yours.”
Why is he so nice?she wondered, and realized that if she was going to pour her heart out to a near stranger, she’d prefer it be a nice stranger.
But then, they weren’t really strangers anymore. The universe had made sure of that.
She took a breath.
“Okay. I made a wish that today would be perfect, and it came true, but not in the way I expected. Being unable to lie ismy perfect day. You were right about this honesty problem actually being a solution. Telling the truth all day has made me realize that I lie a lot, mostly to myself. Last night when you told me I was unhappy, you were right about that too, I just didn’t know it. But today has shown me in dozens of ways. By being honest, I’ve completely blown up my personal and professional lives, but both were for the better.”
She paused, and he didn’t interject. He also didn’t run away, so she kept going.
“And then there’s you. I’m sure you’ve noticed we seem to keep running into each other. I think you might also be right about this being a twenty-four-hour thing, so I’m here in case the honesty mandate expires, because I don’t know if I’ll have the guts to do this otherwise.”
He looked at her with the same intrigued wonder that he had before. As if he might be on the verge of laughing but desperately wanted to hear what she had to say at the same time.
She threw her faith in the power of her perfect-day wish, which had landed her standing in front of him once again, and spilled her heart.
“Today has been the strangest day of my life, but meeting you has been the best part. Even if I wasn’t being forced to be honest, I’d still want you to know that I just got out of a two-year relationship about four hours ago. I thought we were going to get married, but he was on a completely different page, and it made me realize the five-year plan I was living by was a lie—my own lie. I’m not ready to settle down and have kids and all the trappings of the life society tells women my age they’re supposed to want and have. Maybe someday, but not today. And all of that made me realize how much I’ve lost sight of what I want in a relationship. What I really want; not what is convenient or expected. Women are taught to put themselves second, to be the caregiver and bear the emotional labor with no complaint. And that’s not fair.”
She was fired up, now fully on board the train with no stops in sight.
“It’s like I’m not allowed to express what I want because that would make me needy or demanding, and I’m sick of the degrading language used to describe women when all we’re doing is standing up for ourselves. I want flowers for no reason, not because you’re sorry or it’s an occasion, spontaneous backrubs, weekends in bed, emotional availability. I want to be kissed in the rain, great sex—no, amazing sex. I want you to remember my mom’s birthday without me telling you, to make dinner when I’m too tired. I want you to listen to my problems without trying to solve them all. I don’t want you to read my mind; I want you to ask me what’s on my mind and care when I tell you. I want to know what’s on your mind. I want to make up as fiercely as we fight. I want to not be afraid of making mistakes because I know you’ll be there to help me fix them. I don’t want to take what’s between us for granted, but to treat it like it’s alive and needs tending. And I want a partner who wants all that too.”
She inhaled deeply after her long list and realized she didn’t even know she wanted most of those things. She also realized that somewhere along the line, she slipped into using you and we, and by some miracle, Adam didn’t look horrified.
She decided to quit while she was ahead.
“I don’t know if this will frighten you or welcome you, but it’s the truth, so I’m telling you. I really like you. And you’ve already seen more of me in one day than I showed the guy I thought I was going to marry in two years.” She dug in her tote for a pen and snatched a napkin off the bar. “This is my phone number,” she said, and scribbled it next to the time and place of her party. “I know it’s only been a day, and if I haven’t completely scared you away, I’d love it if you came to my birthday party tonight.” She slid the napkin across the bar, hoping he didn’t wad it up and throw it away.
He gave no indication that he was going to, but she didn’t stick around long enough to give him the opportunity to do it in front of her.
She shot him a quick smile, feeling more vulnerable and exposed than she had all day, and turned on her heel. In her mind, he followed her, pulled her into his arms, and kissed her in front of everyone like in the last scene of a movie. But she knew she’d given him an emotional buffet to digest—a literal list of demands after knowing him for under twenty-four hours—so he needed time. And he knew how to reach her and where to find her.
She stepped back into the afternoon sunlight and took a deep breath of Westside air.
What have I just done?she wondered as she climbed back into her car. Was that level of honesty a crime in the dating world? She was probably never going to see him again. Her napkin was probably already in the trash under a gutted lemon rind.
But at least she knew what she wanted. Maybe everyone should be that straightforward from the start when it came to dating, she thought. That would at least spare everyone the stress of pretending in order to get the other person to like them. And if you didn’t like what you saw, move along. She could get women to rally behind her cause, she was sure. But convincing the rest of the population to discuss such details before the first date would not go over well, she knew.
It was a good thing she wasn’t personally responsible for revolutionizing modern dating.
She slumped into the driver’s seat and felt the weight of the afternoon. She’d run around L.A. putting out and starting fires; yelling at and forming friendships with celebrities. She’d exposed a major scandal and hung her heart on the line. It felt like more work than she’d done in the past year combined. She would never make it through her own party without a serious recharge beforehand. All she wanted was to go home and sink into a hot bath until she pruned.
—
Lucy’s apartment looked the same as it had when she left that morning, but everything had changed. She entered the small space feeling like a new person. Maybe not entirely new, but much more in tune and aware. She set her bag on the dining table and considered what to do with Caleb’s apology flowers. She didn’t want them, but throwing them away felt like a waste. She decided to walk them down to the mail room for everyone in the complex to enjoy.
When she returned, she looked around at all the moving boxes that would need to be emptied and decided to save it for another day. She slipped off her flats and passed into her bedroom. There, she swapped her dress for her bathrobe and noted the absence of relief she normally felt when removing her uncomfortable undergarments because the undergarments she was wearing were in fact comfortable for once.
She plugged her phone in to charge on her nightstand then entered the bathroom where she quickly showered to wash the day from her hair. She then filled the tub for a bath, and for good measure, she dropped a lavender bath bomb in the water and left the room to steam. She made her way into her small kitchen to collect a glass of wine.
Her vision for pre-party prep had involved happy hour drinks and redoing her hair and makeup to some peppy soundtrack with a play-by-play for her Instagram Story. But maybe, she realized, that was how someone in her twenties prepared for a night out. Now that she had turned the page into her thirties, she wanted nothing more than to slip into a hot bath with a glass of wine and be alone for a few hours.
She laughed to herself that perhaps the bath and the wine and the candles she would surely light were signs she was in fact gracefully ascending into the next decade as she set out to do that morning, and she had to admit, she didn’t mind the shift.
She returned to a room swirling with steam and the smell of lavender. When she slipped into the water, her skin tingled and she instantly relaxed.
What a day.
