The Art of Goodbye Page 2

  Once, someone asked us if we were twins. Minus the incestuous implications, I took that as a total compliment—to Benson, that is.

  Benson cups my chin in his palm. “It’s almost our expiration date,” he says. “Better eat me up.”

  Vladlena fake gags and Waverly rolls her eyes.

  Ever since we started going out in May, Benson and I have known that our expiration date would be when we both went off to college. In my opinion, it’s the healthiest way to look at high school relationships.

  Greek yogurt shouldn’t be the only thing that has a goodbye date.

  I give Benson a kiss on the lips. “We have until tomorrow,” I say.

  Waverly coughs loudly. “Lovebirds. It’s champagne time. We all know that Corrinne’s budgeted out every minute.”

  She points at the southwestern edge of the roof. “Let’s go sit over there,” she directs us. “There’s a good breeze, we can see the Statue of Liberty, and we can check out the progress on the Freedom Tower.”

  Benson takes the champagne bottle from the ice bucket. “I finally got ahold of my roommate, George, and he’s in the city tonight. He invited me—or, rather, all of us—to a party.”

  Benson’s roommate at Pepperdine is a friend of a friend, and he lives in Greenwich, Connecticut, which is only about forty-five minutes away.

  I put my hand over his. “You told him that you couldn’t, right?”

  I know I’m acting like a total Post-it note, which is what my friends and I call stage-three clingers, but I have a plan and it doesn’t involve hanging out with Benson’s new college friends. Tonight’s not about the future, it’s about the now—and the past.

  Benson shrugs. “I told him I’d see. It’d be sorta nice to know someone before college starts. News alert, Corrinne—not everyone is bringing a horse along in their luggage.”

  “Funny,” I say.

  While Benson isn’t overly possessive, I can tell he’s secretly jealous about my longest-standing relationship: my relationship with Sweetbread. Most guys are; it’s hard to compete with a dancing horse.

  Vladlena can probably tell how uncomfortable I’m feeling about Benson trying to highjack the night because she picks up her champagne flute. “To Corrinne’s last night. Let it be everything she wants it to be.”

  Perfect, I think. That’s what I want it to be.

  We all chime flutes. The clinking of glass is one of my favorite sounds in the world. It’s better than even applause.

  Vladlena crosses her tanned legs, the result of a summer spent in the Hamptons. She’s a friend from boarding school, but she’s originally from Russia. She’s heading to McGill University in Canada in a few weeks. “I hop countries like you hop boys,” she teased me.

  She leans forward: “I remember when I left Russia for Kent. My friends threw this huge party. It was my favoritest night.”

  Vladlena’s English is perfect, and she knows grammar’s obsessive-compulsive rules better than Waverly or me; favoritest is just one of our words.

  “Why?” I ask. “What made it favoritest?”

  “Nothing went as planned,” she explains. “But it was the last night before things started changing, so it’s an important memory. Symbolic. You always think back to your last moment with someone—way more than your first.”

  I clap my hands. “Exactly.”

  I’m glad that someone gets what I’m trying to do tonight.

  “Think about George’s party,” Benson says. He takes off his jacket and folds it over his arm. “Maybe we could swap out our stuffy dinner for it?”

  I glare at Benson. “Le Cirque is iconic—not stuffy.”

  Waverly winks. “Semantics, Corrinne.” She turns to Benson. “I’m always up for meeting new people—and by that, I mean guys. Just saying.”

  I evil-eye both of them.

  “What? I’m trying to build my brand,” she explains.

  I’m about to lay into them when I hear my phone ringing in my purse. (“We Can’t Stop” is the perfect ringtone for tonight.) I pull it out. Kitsy, it reads, and I see a picture of my best friend from Broken Spoke flash up the screen.

  “This is worth the interruption,” I say. I wag my finger at the group. “While I take this, please think how you’re making me feel, after everything I put into tonight.”

  Do people have no appreciation for hard work anymore? Isn’t that what our country was built on?

  “C’mon, Corrinne, it’s a night, not an algorithm,” Waverly says. “You’re acting very A Beautiful Mind about all of this.”

  When you’ve been friends with someone for fourteen years, they can say pretty much anything to you, because you’re more like siblings than friends.

  But she’s wrong. It’s more than a night. It’s the last night, the last chance, the last moments.

  I roll my eyes at Waverly, grab my phone, and move to the edge of the roof, near a railing.

  “Kitsy!” I squeal, answering her FaceTime call. “I can’t believe this is it. I leave tomorrow!”

  Kitsy smooths down her curly blonde hair. “Sorry! I’m all flustered; it’s so dry here, the trees are bribing the dogs.” She wipes a bead of sweat off her forehead. “I was outside all afternoon helping out the new Mockingbirdettes. I can’t believe I’m not officially one of them anymore.”

  The Mockingbirdettes are the cheer squad in Broken Spoke, and Kitsy used to be their captain. Some people—most New Yorkers, in fact—talk with their hands, just the way Kitsy talks with her pom-poms. But she’s leaving that behind when she starts art school at the University of Texas in Austin.

  “I know what you mean,” I say. “It’s weird to be in limbo and not really belong anywhere, but I’m sure everyone at UT will love you. Besides, Hands will be there, too.”

  Kitsy smiles and taps her screen. “I see you went with the Van Gogh blue dress. Perfect. So how’s it all going?”

  I pause and look over to where Vladlena, Benson, and Waverly are all laughing and drinking champagne as if tonight were just any night.

  “Benson is trying to change our plans, and Waverly’s acting boy-crazy. It doesn’t feel meaningful like I planned it to be.”

  Kitsy waves at me. “Hello, Pessimistic Penelope! The night’s just starting. Six p.m. is practically mid-morning to y’all New Yorkers.”

  I shrug. “I know. But it seems like Benson’s totally already over me. He actually suggested canceling dinner to hang out with some new Pepperdine friends.”

  Kitsy raises her perfectly groomed eyebrows. She really could be the next Estée Lauder.

  “What?” I ask.

  Kitsy inhales deeply, so I mentally prepare myself for one of Kitsy’s breathless monologues.

  “Corrinne. I say this only because I heart you so much, but are you sure you’re not talking about you being over Benson? That is, if you were ever actually sweet on him to begin with? I say this with love.”

  Kitsy met Benson when she visited me this summer and agreed he’s a Five, which means he’s cute, smart, athletic, nice-ish, and funny. But she also said, “You can put boots in the oven but it doesn’t make them biscuits,” which in Texan means that you’re trying to make something—in this case my relationship—into something it’s not.

  I sigh. “Kitsy, we’re not in Shakespearean love or anything, but I still want to have our romantic last night in the city. We’re doing Le Cirque and the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s my big send-off before I’m on my own.”

  Kitsy holds up her index finger. “One, you always have me, and two, that stuff is only romantic if you actually like the person. Otherwise it’s just a pretty backdrop to your loneliness.”

  Kitsy has a very artistic way of looking at the world. “Maybe you’re right,” I say. “But it’s on the agenda, and so I’m doing it. I’ll be looking back to this night when I’m ancient and thirty, and I want it to be memorable.” I shrug. “Besides, tonight’s my last night to officially be in control, and I’m not abandoning that.”

  Kitsy holds
up her index finger. “Hold on a second,” Kitsy says. “Hands is fixin’ to tell you good luck.”

  Hands, Kitsy’s on-and-off-again boyfriend, pops onto the screen.

  “You’ll love college,” Hands says. “Everyone says so. Remember not to showcase that spoiled city girl angle like you did when you first lived here, and you’ll have no problems.”

  I laugh. Hands is probably right. When I lived in Broken Spoke for six months, I didn’t exactly make the best first impression. Even more reason for me to be apprehensive about college.

  My grandma says that, like technology, I can take a while to warm up to.

  Kitsy jumps into the screen. “I’m back!” she exclaims. “Hey, I know you’re on a schedule, so I’ll let you go. But have a great night, Corrinne.”

  I wave at Kitsy.

  She holds up her hand. “Wait—try to remember, people usually fixate on what they didn’t do—not what they did.”

  I stick my tongue out at Kitsy. “If that’s your way of telling me to call Bubby, you’re going, as y’all Texans say, catawampus. After all, he’s the one living in my city, and he made his priorities clear at Broken Spoke prom. Tonight is about me, not some old boyfriend.”

  Kitsy nods dramatically. “Uh-huh,” she says. “Okay, we love you!”

  “Love you. If you see my grandparents, tell my grandma I’d love some cowboy bread in a care package.”

  Kitsy nods again and blows me an air kiss.

  I send one back before ending the call.

  Then I take three deep breaths and suck in the city air. Even my conversation with Kitsy didn’t go as I had hoped. Doesn’t anyone else get how important goodbyes are?

  I put on my best everything-is-fine smile, which I inherited from my mom, and I march over to the group. “What are you all laughing about?”

  “Vladlena was imitating her new roommate,” Benson says. “Canadians do mad weird things with their ‘o’ sounds.”

  I hold up my hand. “Hi. Can we put an embargo on talking about college? When we all get back for Christmas, it’s going to be college this, college that. Can we please put it off until then?”

  Waverly bites her lip. “What do you want to discuss instead? Maybe talking points should’ve been included on your agenda.”

  I point toward myself. “I want to talk about how much fun we’ve had together. How we’re going to miss each other. How we’re going to miss this,” I say, gesturing out at the city.

  “I still live here,” Waverly argues. “Personally, no offense to you all, but I think it’s pathological that people pick towns and states they’d normally have no interest in even visiting and go live there for college. I mean, Addison Carrington is going to school in Ohio, and says that there are Amish crossing signs near her school. Please explain that decision to me.”

  I cross my arms. “No more college talk.”

  I wish I had magical powers and I could freeze time. Maybe then I could get everyone to realize how fast everything around us is changing. Maybe then they would hold on tight to the now, like I’m trying to do.

  But nothing lately—starting with Broken Spoke’s prom—has gone the way I hoped.

  If just tonight could . . .

  “Quack, quack, quack,” goes my phone.

  I stand up and make a come-hither motion to Benson. “We need to get going. But first, I should probably go downstairs to the bathroom.” I check my phone again. “Forget it! There’s not time, so I’ll just have to wait.”

  I hold out my hand and pull Benson to his feet from a rocking chair.

  “Thanks for the rooftails, Waverly. I’ll see you girls at the concert!” I say. “Can’t believe Rider is playing at Terminal Five. Someone we know has, like, an actual career. When did we get so old?”

  Rider is originally from Broken Spoke, but he left school early to pursue his music career.

  “I don’t remember rock musician as an option at career day per se,” Waverly says. “But I’m not going to lie, I’m pretty impressed with how he climbed the haystacks out of that town.”

  She and Vladlena give me hugs.

  “Tonight will be great,” Vladlena whispers. “Just let it be.”

  Scheming, planning, and plotting are my strengths. Letting it be has never been part of my skill set.

  Letting it be is for hippies and the Beatles, not Corrinne Corcoran.

  I take Benson’s hand and lead him down the stairs. I try not to wish he were somebody else. Tonight is supposed to be about being in this moment—not wanting a different one.

  7:51 p.m. Lexington Avenue and Fifty-Second Street, NYC.

  THE TAXI SPEEDS UP FOR about six seconds before the driver slams on the brakes again.

  I plug my ears to block out the symphony of car and truck horns and look up at the stopped traffic ahead.

  “That’s it!” I put my hand on the door handle. “Let’s get out and walk,” I say. “We’re completely at a standstill.”

  My plan to sightsee all my favorite spots on the way to the restaurant slightly backfired when we hailed one of the few taxis without working AC and managed to hit gridlock all the way uptown.

  I’m sure I’ll soon miss being able to flag a ride with my hand and not have it be considered hitchhiking, but right now I’m so over relying on others to get around.

  And if I keep my grades up, I get to bring my pickup truck, Billie Jean the Second, to school second semester. She’s my favorite accessory because we’re such an unexpected combination. It’s the kind of pairing designers could only dream of because it doesn’t fit, yet it works.

  Benson pays the taxi driver, and we maneuver our way through the paralyzed traffic and onto the sidewalk.

  I march ahead, determined to not let this hiccup get us off track.

  “We should’ve taken the subway,” Benson calls out as he chases after me. “Everyone who grew up here knows that you don’t take a taxi on a Saturday night. Too much bridge and tunnel traffic.”

  I spin around. “If we took the subway, I wouldn’t have gotten to say goodbye to my favorite diner Bus Stop, the Flatiron Building, or Rockefeller Center.”

  “I’m sorry, Corrinne.” Benson grabs my hand. “I only meant that it would’ve been faster. And you do realize that those are places, and not people.”

  He lets go of my hand and walks up to a lamppost. “Goodbye, lamp.” He nods. “Yup, it’s pretty hard to say goodbye to inanimate objects.”

  I lock my jaw. “You simply don’t get it,” I say. “And please look for a green awning. I need to go to the bathroom now.”

  Benson pretends to use binoculars. “Mission Possible: Searching for Starbucks. Ten Four.”

  I pause and squeeze his hand. Maybe I’m being too hard on him.

  We’re still pretty much on schedule. My timer hasn’t even gone off yet. Not to mention, Benson is wearing a blazer in eighty degrees without complaint just because Le Cirque, my favorite restaurant, requires it. In fact, he always plays along, which a lot of guys wouldn’t.

  And, he’s silly and doesn’t take life so seriously, which is good, since we’re teenagers after all. I’ve dated guys who think of themselves as mini-adults, and it’s off-putting. Our culture is obsessed with youth for good reason.

  I smile at Benson. After all, I didn’t spend an hour doing my makeup to frown all night.

  “Hey, Benson, in a city of millions, isn’t it funny how we all use the same fifty bathrooms?”

  He throws his arms up as if he scored a touchdown. “Spotted: Starbucks. Across the street and two blocks up. I win!”

  At the stoplight, I dash across the street.

  “I’ll wait outside,” Benson says.

  I duck into Starbucks and brace myself for the line. The thing about Starbucks’ bathrooms is that there’s always a line.

  Which makes me think about college dorm bathrooms and having to wear shower shoes. Gross.

  Focus on tonight.

  Luckily, everyone seems to be more interested in their cof
fee milkshakes than in the bathroom. The sign says Occupied, but no one else is in line.

  The door swings open, and I’m about to go in when I hear “Corrinne?” coming from the previous occupant’s mouth.

  He’s wearing a navy suit and has a plastic press badge around his neck. We’re standing in a Starbucks two thousand miles away from where I last saw him, but it’s unmistakably him—Bubby, my ex-boyfriend from Broken Spoke.

  It’s not that I haven’t imagined running into him after I found out he was living in my city and interning at the New York Times. In fact, I’ve thought up about a dozen different scenarios where we’d bump into each other. However, none of them involved bathrooms.

  And in these made-up scenarios, it was never my very last night in the city.

  Confession: Sometimes I went three avenues and eight blocks out of way to walk by the Times’ offices.

  Fate-tempting is how I thought of it. But I never saw him, and I never quite figured what I would say if I did.

  We stand silent for a minute. Words jumble in my head like a crossword puzzle. Finally, Bubby laughs and shakes his head.

  “I didn’t figure you were the Starbucks type. I guessed you more for a cute coffee shop in the West Village with literati and macaroons. But I’m happy to run into you.” He pauses and stares me straight in the eyes. “Hey, do you want to grab a coffee?” He nods toward the barista and counter.

  “I’m just here for the bathroom.” I point at the open door.

  Bubby runs his fingers through his hair. In Broken Spoke, I rarely saw him out of a football jersey. Now, here he is in a suit, in my city.

  Is this what life after high school is like? Running into people you once knew all dressed up in grown-up costumes?

  I cross my arms. “Besides, we’ve obviously shown each other a few times that we don’t know each other as well as we thought.”

  That sounds harsh, but it’s true. Tonight isn’t about second chances; it’s about goodbye.