Page 82 of Maybe in Another Life

“I think I’ve been jumping from place to place thinking that I’m supposed to find the perfect life for myself, that it’s out there somewhere and I have to find it. And it has to bejust so. You know?”

“I know that you’ve always been searching for something, yeah,” Gabby says. “I always assumed you’d know it when you found it.”

“I don’t know, I’m starting to think maybe you just pick a place and stay there. You pick a career and do it. You pick a person and commit to him.”

“I think as long as you’re happy and you’re doing something good with your life, it really doesn’t matter whether you went out and found the perfect thing or you chose what you knew you could make work for you.”

“Doesn’t it scare you?” I ask her. “To think that you might have gone in the wrong direction? And missed the life you were destined for?”

Gabby thinks about it, taking my question seriously. “Not really,” she says.

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. I guess because life’s short? And you just kind of have to get on with it.”

“So should I move to London or not?” I ask her.

She smiles. “Oh, I see where this is going. If you want to go to London, you should. But that’s as much as you’ll get from me. I don’t want you to go. I want you to stay here. It rains a lot there. You know, for what it’s worth.”

I laugh at her. “OK, fair enough. We have a bigger problem than London anyway.”

“We do?”

“We’re lost,” I say.

Gabby looks left and then right. She can see what I see. All the hallways look the same. We’re in no-man’s-land.

“We’re not near the vending machines?” she asks.

“Hell if I know,” I say. “I have no idea where we are.”

“OK,” she says, taking hold of my chair. “Let’s try to get ourselves out of this mess.”

Gabby insisted on going to work today. I tried to persuade her to stay home, not to put extra pressure on herself, but she said that the only way she could feel remotely normal was to go to work.

Ethan called me twice yesterday, and I didn’t call him back. I texted him telling him that I couldn’t talk. I fell asleep last night knowing I’d have to face him today. I mean, if I keep avoiding him, he’ll know something is up.

So I woke up this morning, resolved to work this out. I called Ethan and asked if he was free tonight. He told me to come by his place at around seven.

Which means I have the rest of the day to call Michael.I want to have answers for Ethan’s questions when he asks. Iwant to have all of my ducks in a row. And this is a big duck.

I take a shower. I take Charlemagne for a walk. I stare at my computer, reading the Internet for what feels like hours. When it’s six o’clock in New York, when I know Michael will be leaving work, I pick up my phone. I sit down on my bed and dial.

It rings.

And rings.

And rings.

And then it goes to voice mail.

On some level, I’m relieved. Because I don’t want to have to have this conversation at all.

“Hi, Michael. It’s Hannah. Call me back when you have a minute. We have something we need to talk about. OK, ’bye.”

I throw myself backward onto the bed. My pulse is racing. I start thinking of what I’ll do if he never calls me back. I start imagining that maybe he will make this decisionforme. Maybe I’ll call him a few times, leave a few messages, and he will just never call back. And I will know that I tried to do the right thing but was unable to. I could live with that.

My phone rings.

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