The Art of Goodbye

  Dedication

  FOR CRICKET, MY NEWEST HEROINE

  Contents

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Begin Reading

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Where I Belong

  Letter to Reader

  Chapter 1

  Back Ad

  About the Author

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Prologue

  I USED TO OBSESS OVER Kate Middleton. She was my ultimate Celebrity Muse.

  I wanted to know how she—a commoner—convinced Prince William, the world’s most eligible royal, to fall in love with her.

  I dedicated hours to decoding how she makes off-the-rack Zara look like it’s Prada Couture. That takes serious magic. Believe me, I tried it during the recession.

  And I Googled what shampoo Kate uses until I found the end of the Internet. Does anyone know that answer? The royals must lock that secret up along with the crown jewels.

  I even dreamed up a freaky-Friday type switch where I’d become Kate for a day. I’d have high tea, curtsey constantly, and dazzle the paparazzi.

  I wanted Kate’s life. More specifically, I wanted to be her.

  But then I learned something that changed everything.

  Kate Middleton had never visited New York City.

  Unbelievable, right? But it’s a true fact. I checked three different websites, only one of which was Wikipedia.

  After I learned that, it became impossible to remain envious of Kate and her life. I realized she should be the one wanting to switch places with me for a day.

  I’ve been to Buckingham Palace—twice—and without a doubt, New York City is more exquisite.

  So listen up, Kate. You can keep your ripped-from-the-fairy-tales life, because as certain as I am that I’d be a fantastic princess, I can’t imagine a life without New York.

  But when Manhattan has been both your home and your heart for the past eighteen years, how in the world do you ever say goodbye?

  To: vladlena@gmail.com, waverlydotts@gmail.com

  Cc: kitsykidd@gmail.com

  From: cornellcorrinne@gmail.com

  Subject: Most.Epic.Last.Night.Ever.

  “Parting is such sweet sorrow.”

  —William Shakespeare

  To my girls,

  Tomorrow is our last night together before I head off to Cornell. As you all well know, I’ve been planning this evening since June, and it’s going to be legendary. Below is a copy of my itinerary. There’s very little wiggle room, so please be in the correct places at the assigned times. (Think of it as theater—you don’t want to miss your curtain call.)

  Remember: it’s how you say goodbye that counts the most.

  Corrinne’s Last Night:

  5 p.m.: Obligatory Corcoran Family Time (Ugh!)

  6 p.m.: Group Meet at The Archive for Rooftails (Yeah!)

  8 p.m.: Corrinne and Benson’s Farewell Dinner at Le Cirque

  11 p.m.: Group Meet at Terminal 5 for Hipster Hat Trick Set

  2 a.m.: Group Continues Party at the Jane Hotel

  5 a.m.: Brooklyn Bridge Kiss (This is just me and Benson, obvs, but isn’t this the most romantic idea ever?)

  XO,

  Your Corrinne

  PS. Kitsy, I wish you were going to be here!

  5:32 p.m. Morton Square, West Village, NYC.

  “CORRINNE!” MOM YELLS THROUGH MY bedroom door. “Stop staring at yourself and come spend some quality time with your brother and parents.”

  I take one last look in the full-length mirror, then step over my suitcases and out into the living room.

  Maria, our housekeeper, unplugs the vacuum and holds her hand over heart. “Mi corazón,” she says. “You look so grown-up.”

  I smooth my cobalt-blue Diane von Furstenberg silk dress. “Thanks,” I say. “I spent every lunch break at my internship agonizing over what I should wear tonight until I discovered this. It’s on point without looking like I tried too hard, which is my fashion signature.”

  My friend Waverly has a theory that people remember you in one of two outfits: what you wore the first day of high school or what you wore the last time they saw you. When you won’t be with your friends again until winter break, you better dress perfectly on your last night because that’s how you’ll be frozen in everyone’s minds.

  My mom gives me an up-down eye stare from the couch. “You look nice,” she finally says.

  Nice is not how I want to be remembered, especially not after I spent the entire summer planning the perfect swan song down to the specific nail polish I would wear.

  Good as gold.

  I check my iPhone’s clock. I need to make this fast. Tonight is about saying goodbye to my boyfriend, my friends, and, of course, my city. There’s no time to fight with my mom over her backhanded compliments. I’ve spent enough time over the past eighteen years doing that, and I would rather part ways on friendly terms.

  My dad, who’s proudly wearing a “Cornell Parent” sweatshirt (embarrassing!), pats a spot on our couch next to my little brother, Tripp. “Come sit with your family before you skip off into the concrete jungle.”

  Maria pulls me in close. “I can’t believe my little chiquita is off to college. I’m so proud of you.”

  “I’ll miss you,” I tell Maria, who’s worked for my family ever since I can remember.

  She whispers back: “I won’t be there to keep your room clean, so remember that Lysol is your friend.”

  I laugh and hug Maria one more time before she heads out.

  Snuggling into the couch with my family, I look out on the Hudson River and watch a yellow ferry zip across to Jersey City. “I’m definitely going to miss this view,” I say. “My dorm room probably looks out to a parking lot or something equally tragic. Didn’t someone write some long, depressing novel about how sad a room without a view is? That novel’s about to become my life.”

  Sometimes, I think it’d be easier to leave for college if I hadn’t grown up somewhere so fantastic. For most people, going off to college is an escape, but for me, it feels like a major downgrade.

  “It’s not going to be the same without you,” Tripp says, patting my knee. “I actually liked having you home for the summer. Life’s easier on me when you and your antics are here to distract our parents.”

  “Thanks,” I say, reaching over and tussling Tripp’s sun-streaked hair. (Skateboarding has some redeeming qualities.)

  I wag my finger at him. “If you’re nice to me for the next few minutes, I promise to sneak you into some ridiculous parties during Family Weekend. Just don’t tell Mom and Dad,” I say, winking.

  My dad laughs and my mom rolls her eyes.

  Tripp loudly clears his throat, which has finally stopped crackling from puberty. “Excuse me, Corrinne, but I believe you need to have friends to be invited to parties. Simple algebra. A plus B equals C.”

  Puberty turned him into such a smart aleck. He’s starting to remind me of myself at that age, which is terrifying. Good luck to my parents.

  “Tripp, I have a friend there already,” I argue. “My horse, Sweetbread. Hello, she’s the whole reason I’m going to middle-of-nowhere-Cornell.”

  I had always planned on going to a college in New York City, but the Cornell equestrian coach recruited Sweetbread and me as if he were trying to get the final rose on The Bachelor. Finally, I relented. . . . For the sake of a horse and my favorite sport, dressage, I’m moving to Ithaca, which is four hours upstate and the capital of nowhere. My parents are thrilled because Cornell is an Ivy League school, and they think I’m finally fulfilling my “potential.”

  Hopefully, their excitement will transfer into a larger spending allowance.

/>   My mom turns toward me. “Did Nellie Lutsen ever call you back? I just love that name; it’s so Little House on the Prairie.” She runs her fingers through her blowout. “I can’t believe we’ll be meeting her tomorrow.”

  Lately, my mom has this annoying tendency to say “we” about college when it’s really just “me” who’s going alone.

  “No, Nellie never called back,” I say. “She better realize she’s lucky to have me as a roommate. I essentially have a master’s in dorm room feng shui after spending two and a half years at boarding school.”

  Nellie is going to be my roommate at Cornell. She’s from Indianapolis, which is, like, the capital of race car driving or something Midwest like that. She’s not on Facebook or Vine (I know, weird!), and we’ve talked on the phone for only three minutes. It was enough time for her to veto my matching Horchow bedspread plan . . . and enough time for me to realize we probably aren’t going to be best friends.

  Or, friends at all.

  In fact, it could be days—or even weeks—before I have any friends again, which is one of the reasons I want to make tonight count. I’ve been the new kid before. Hello, the six months I lived in Broken Spoke, Texas, with my grandparents during the recession!

  I know from personal experience that settling in takes time.

  “Quack, quack, quack,” my iPhone timer squawks. I press cancel and stand up.

  I shrug. “Apologies to my darling family, but I’m on a schedule, and this alarm is keeping me on track,” I say.

  “What’s the big hurry?” Tripp asks, stretching out on the couch.

  I swing my purse over my shoulder and breathe in. “Tripp, I’ve had seventy-four days of summer to figure out my big goodbye. And now I’m down to twelve hours. That’s seven hundred and twenty minutes to say farewell to everything—and everyone—that has made me me for the last eighteen years. So I love you, kid, but I’ve got to be going.”

  Family might be forever, but the last night before college is not.

  I check myself out one last time in the hall mirror.

  “Whoa! Serious hormone and anxiety alert. Are you going zany because of that boy Benson?” Tripp pipes up from the couch.

  I look at him in the mirror’s reflection. “Benson is eighteen, so I wouldn’t call him a boy, and no, we aren’t even going to stay together. He’s going to Pepperdine in California, which is as far away from Ithaca as London.”

  I switch my gold cuff to my left wrist to create better symmetry with my hair’s side part. “I’d only do that type of long distance for Prince Harry, and even that’s a stretch because I’m on the fence about both redheads and age gaps greater than ten years.”

  The truth is that while I’ll be sad to leave the comfort of having a boyfriend, I’m already mostly over Benson. Only one boy has ever been able to drive me crazy, and it isn’t him.

  But I’ve promised myself not to think of that boy all night, even if he’s still lurking in this city somewhere.

  I spin around to face Tripp. “I want to get on with my epic night in peace. Is that too much to ask, dear brother?”

  Tripp laughs. “Epic and peace don’t go together, Miss Ivy League. That’s basically an oxymoron.”

  I turn around and wave my hand at him. “Whatever, moron,” I say playfully, and head for the door.

  “Wait!” My mom scoots past me and opens our front closet. “We bought you a going-away present.”

  I sigh. “Even though I’m now sixty seconds behind schedule, I suppose I can stay around for a present,” I tease.

  From the closet, my mom pulls out a large framed photograph of the Hudson River. I can tell right away that it was taken from our window—it’s our exact view.

  “We know that you’re nostalgic about leaving New York City,” my dad says. “So we figured you could take a little bit of home with you. It’s by your favorite photographer—Kitsy.”

  I admire the photo and swallow hard—I’m not usually sentimental about familial matters, but something about this genuinely touches me.

  But alas, being emotional is not penciled in, and I don’t have any extra time to redo my mascara, so I pull it together.

  “I love it. I thought my going-away gift would pearls or a gemstone—you know, something actually valuable—but this is even better.”

  My mom gives me a side hug. “Wow. You really are growing up,” she says.

  I let her hold me for a few more seconds than normal before pulling away.

  “Tick, tock,” I say, pretending to look at a watch. “I’ve got to jet, but I’ll see you all tomorrow for the road trip. I’ll be the one with the bags under her eyes and the pounding hangover. Probably not the best look for my first day, but priorities.” I wave. “First impressions aren’t half as important as parting ones. Ta-ta.”

  I shut the front door behind me and lean my back against it.

  Is this really the start of goodbye?

  6:08 p.m. The Archive Building, West Village, NYC.

  HOLY HOLLY GOLIGHTLY! I’M TOTALLY winded from all these stairs, and there’s no way I’m making my entrance while I’m this verklempt. I stop and rest before climbing the rest of the steps to the rooftop.

  Finally, I’m standing on the sprawling rooftop of Waverly’s new apartment building, The Archive.

  The Archive is a historic, redbrick building. It’s around twenty-stories high, and its roof towers over most of the West Village’s smaller dwellings. Waverly just moved here into her very own studio loft, and I can now totally understand why she picked this building instead of living in the dorms: it’s not only a mecca for young celebrities, but this rooftop is also a flawless party platform.

  I gawk at the unobstructed view of the Empire State Building and the Chrysler Building like I’m a tourist, not a native New Yorker.

  There’s so much to New York that I haven’t even seen, despite growing up here.

  Am I unstable to leave all of this behind? Is going off to Ithaca some sort of quarter-life crisis?

  Maybe I should’ve consulted a shrink on this one.

  Waverly, dressed in a black kimono-type dress and gold heels, saunters over and points at the view. “See, Corrinne, I told you being on top is best. Dear Waverly is always right.”

  I laugh. While I spent my summer interning (aka running the Keurig coffee machine) at Town & Country, Waverly used the summer to launch her own advice blog. She has received some decent publicity for her candor. The only downside to it all is that Waverly now refers to herself as Dear Waverly.

  Constantly.

  I give her outfit the once-over. “I can tell you’re already dressing very downtown,” I say, referring her all-black ensemble. “You look very Vogue.”

  Waverly hands me a champagne flute.

  “When you live below Fourteenth Street . . .” Waverly pauses. “Leave the pearls behind and do as they do,” she finishes.

  She looks around at the view. “This is the perfect area for a blogger-slash-college student, even though my mom vows she’ll never visit. She has such a Madison Avenue outlook on the city and she’s not into me being a first-generation downtowner.”

  The Dotts have been an Upper East Side family since the Revolution, and having a downtown-residing daughter is giving Mrs. Dotts a heart attack.

  “You can visit your mom every day when you go uptown to Columbia for classes.”

  “True,” Waverly says. “But I doubt I will. I’m digging my roots into Bleecker,” she says, naming one of my favorite streets.

  I sigh. “I’m going to miss Bleecker,” I say. “What am I going to do without Murray’s Cheese and Amy’s Bread?”

  Waverly gives my hand a small squeeze.

  “I’m sure the dorm food will be fantastic—and not at all fattening,” she says, and then bursts out laughing.

  She holds her hand against my cheek. “Corrinne, are you regretting your decision to follow a horse to Cornell?” She shrugs. “I get that Kate Middleton followed a prince to uni as the Brits call
it, but an animal, Corrinne? Really? We could’ve done Columbia together.”

  I laugh. “It’s not any horse. It’s my Sweetbread, and I promise I’m going to move back here after college.” I sigh. “I guess part of me thought it would be a good idea to do something different than the city.”

  “We just lived in Connecticut for three school years,” Waverly says, referring to our time at Kent. “If I never see a strip mall or TGI Fridays again, I’d be thrilled. And I’ll probably be struck dead for saying this because people are so cultish about it, but Target is overrated. It’s a Wal-Mart with wider aisles.” She points toward herself. “My identity rests in being a city girl, and I’m finally home for good.”

  I playfully stomp my heel into the ground. “Hey, I’m a Manhattanite, too!” I argue. “Nowhere has ever felt as home as the city and my friends.”

  I look at my iPhone. “Speaking of which, where are Vladlena and Benson?” I ask. “It’s just me, you, and a bottle of champagne. I’m not complaining exactly, but I have a timetable.”

  Waverly nods. “Oh yes, everyone knows about your agenda. I only hope you’re not putting too much pressure on one night. We’re going to have plenty more. You’re acting a bit fatalistic.”

  I put my hand on my hip. “Thanks, Daria Downer, for that rousing pep talk. I know we’ll have more nights together, but you know that everything changes after high school.” I lean against the railing. “We’re standing at a threshold, and I want to enjoy my last night before it’s all different.”

  “So this has nothing to do with Bub—” Waverly starts to say.

  “There they are!” I interrupt Waverly, waving. I know the direction she’s steering, and I don’t want to sail there—not tonight.

  I point toward Vladlena and Benson, who are coming up the stairs. Vladlena is barefoot and carrying four-inch heels in her hand. Smart. My nude pumps are already pinching my toes, and this is only the first stop.

  “We’re here, we’re here,” Vladlena says, approaching me and kissing both my cheeks.

  Benson swoops in and spins me around. One of the perks of a tall, lacrosse-playing boyfriend.

  As I specifically requested, he’s wearing his baby-blue slacks, a white button down, and a royal-blue blazer. The monochromatic palette brings out his tan. Plus, we coordinate. In fact, our whole lives harmonize. We both grew up in Manhattan, but we didn’t meet until boarding school.