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And that’s that. I’m all done with my chores and planning, other than the appointment I’ve got later today with a real estate agent recommended by Tessa. So, with nothing else to do before my meeting, why not spend some time watching the final cassette? Maybe even the whole cassette collection again, if the mood strikes me. With Auggie in California and Tessa busy being a mommy and wife and running her empire, I’ve got nothing but time on my hands until my meeting. What betterway to help me feel less lonely and blue on my last day in Seattle than watching Althea makingLloydfeel less lonely and blue?
I quickly wolf down my tacos while scrolling mindlessly on my phone, and then wash my greasy fingers in the kitchen sink before returning to the card table. Without further ado, I pop in the newly unstuck cassette into the working camera, and eagerly press the play button.
A clip of Althea playing Lloyd’s piano and singing to him pops up. Nothing new there, although it’s a pleasure to watch. I always love hearing Althea sing and play.
Abruptly, the scene cuts out and a new one begins. As I watch the next clip, a feeling of panic crashes into me.
No.
This can’t be happening.
No, no, no.
The clip is only a couple minutes long. But it rocks my world. When it’s over, the screen turns blue. And when I fast-forward on visual mode to the end of the cassette, there’s nothing else to see. The rest of the cassette is blank.
Panting, I rewind to the beginning of the second clip and watch it again. And after my second viewing, I feel even more panicky and anxious. No wonder Lloyd insisted on Althea making that video about the peephole!Because he foresaw doing this very thing, even back then.
“Oh, god,” I blurt, suddenly remembering the current location of that box of Lloyd’s documents we brought back from the storage facility. This very morning during my cleaning binge, I tossed that box into the large recycling dumpster downstairs. I scanned its contents a few days after bringing the box home and easily surmised it was filled with a bunch of random, pointless stuff—bills, old letters, receipts, handwritten lists, blank forms, medical records. And then, when we got the new camera and confirmed Lloyd wasn’t a pervy creep like we initially thought,I never looked at the documents again. Is that box still downstairs? God, I hope so, because now that I’ve seen this last video of Lloyd’s, I need retrieve it,pronto.
I race downstairs, panting like I’ve just finished a cycle class. And thank God, the box is still in the recycle bin and within fairly easy reach, in theory.IfI’m willing to dumpster dive to get it.Which I am. In fact, without a second thought, I do what should be an unthinkable thing: I climb into the dumpster to retrieve the damned box.
Luckily, the dumpster is filled with mostly recyclables, which aren’t too messy or slimy; at least, when compared to the contents of the adjacent, smelly trash dumpster. Which means, by the time I’m dropping the box onto the ground below me and then inelegantly hurling myself over the edge to follow it out, I’m not covered in anything too vomit-inducing, goopy, or skeevy. Obviously, I’ll take a shower, immediately, when I get back upstairs to my place. But right now, I’m too eager to find that needle in a haystack not to crouch down, right here and now, and immediately sift through the box’s contents.
It takes me about twenty minutes to find the specific sheet of paper I’m looking for, but find it, I do. And when I hold it in my trembling hand and read it, over and over again, there’s no denying its meaning. I run a search on my phone—and the answer I’m seeking is clear-cut. Undeniable. I run another search, this one slightly different than the first; and again, the result is the same. The answer is clear-cut. Which means, whatever happens next, is entirely up to me.
Still sitting on the ground next to the recycle bin, I stare into space for a long moment, trying to figure out what to do. But I need more time to think. More time to reflect.
Breathing hard, I grab my phone again, and this time, push the button to call to Tessa’s recommended real estate agent.
“Hi, Charlotte,” the woman says in greeting. “Are we still on for two?”
“No, sorry. Something’s come up and I’m going to have to cancel.”
“These things happen. Would you like to reschedule?”
“No, I’m leaving tomorrow for a week in Dallas, and then going to New York to start a new job after that. I’ll get settled and be in touch. At this point, I think we’re going to have to play it by ear.”
31
AUGGIE
Landed in Seattle. In Uber now.
That’s the message I just now posted in my family group chat—the group populated by my mother, her fiancé, Henry, my brother, Max, and his wife, Marnie. We had a great time this past week together at Max and Marnie’s house overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Spending time with family, and especially those two kids, was the perfect way to try keep my mind off Charlotte. To try to stop missing her desperately. To yearn for her painfully. It didn’t work, course. Not at all. But it was worth a try.
As it turned out, even five days with family in a beautiful location, time spent playing princesses with my niece and making my nephew belly laugh, time spent sitting around a firepit at nights with the best people in the world, didn’t do a damned thing to make my mind and heart forget about the woman I love but can’t have.
I know I did the right thing, though. Standing on that sidewalk with Charlotte in front of our hotel, I knew, if I wentupstairs with her and slid into bed with her, if I touched and kissed her and smelled her hair, I’d wind up begging her not to take that amazing job. At the very least, I’d beg her to try a long-distance relationship with me. And I didn’t want to do that to her. Not when she had her dream job, literally, in the palm of her hand. I love her too much not to insist on her putting her dreams first. And so, that’s what I did, as painful as it was. My mother always says, “If you love someone, set them free.” So, that’s exactly what I did.
Knowing I did the right thing doesn’t mean I’m not fucking miserable about it, though. Especially when Idon’t alwaysknow I did the right thing. In fact, more than half the time, I’m finding myself wondering if maybe I fucked up. What would have happened if I told Charlotte I loved her in front of that hotel?So what if she didn’t say it back to me, like I was so fearful of in that moment.So what?As it stands now, I’d prefer to have been definitively rejected to this state of torturous limbo, one in which I can’t stop wondering “What if?”
My Uber stops in front of Ryan and Tessa’s gorgeous home—the paradise where I got to have the best week of my life with Charlotte. I thank the driver and get out of the car, feeling excited to pick up my Lucky Charm. As lonely as I’ve been, that little furball is going to be a balm for my aching soul.
I knock on Tessa and Ryan’s front door, and Tessa appears in the doorway. She hugs me in greeting and welcomes me inside, and we catch up in the entryway for several minutes.
“Have you heard from Charlotte lately?” I ask, trying to sound casual. Like I’m not physically aching to hear the tiniest shred of news about her. Charlotte and I have exchanged some texts this past week, but it was superficial stuff. Not even in the same stratosphere as kinds of conversations we had while living next-door to each other.
“She’s putting in long days of training,” Charlotte says. “Learning the ropes at the new airline. She said it’s all the same stuff she already knows; she just needs to learn howtheylike things done.”
