He smiled at her with compassion. Maybe even attraction.
She relaxed a little bit.
“Let me mess around with these numbers,” he said, “and talk to my supervisor. I’ll call you this week.”
She leaned forward. “I don’t have a week.” A sudden dazzle of panic.
“I’ll do my best,” he said.
“Thank you,” Maya said standing, moving toward the door. “I would appreciate that.”
“Miss Marino?”
She turned.
“I’m going to do everything I can. But don’t get your hopes up.”
“Hope is the only thing I have,” she said. And it was. It would work out. They would give her the loan. She was sure of it. Then she’d just have to figure out how the hell to pay it back. But that was for another day.
That night she’d gone home and called Blue. It wasn’t pride that stopped her from asking Blue for the money. It was that she’d asked so many times before that she wasn’t sure Blue would say yes. And the thought of her saying no—she couldn’t even think about what that would do to her, how deep that rejection would cut.
“Everything all right?” Blue had asked.
“Why wouldn’t it be?” she’d said.
They’d chatted for a few minutes, and then Blue had mentioned that her mother put Nana’s house in Montauk on the market. Maya was surprised to find her eyes well with tears. But she’d loved that place and their vacations together there. Nana’s beach house was the last place they were innocent, the last place they’d been a family together. Just thinking about it summoned a sense of ease, the way being with your friends could feel like swimming a lazy backstroke beneath a warm embracing sun. How soft life had felt then, surrounded by her best people and a summer sea. No responsibilities. No burdens. No one trying to take the roof over her head. If only they could just go back to that...just for a little while. But then, they could, couldn’t they? Before the house sold. That’s what she’d realized. They should all go back. No, they needed to go back. One last hurrah! A chance to be wild and carefree like they used to be. To be a “framily” again. Man, she could really use that right now—to have her friends in her life. Really in it. Not just texts and calls, but together as one again. It could be like a do-over, a restart for all of them.
“So, listen, I have an idea...” She knew this would be a tough sell. She reminded Blue of the vow they’d made, of how long it had been since they were all together. She said that she’d been given a few days off—which wasn’t true, but she could just call in sick. The hospital would understand. Technically it really was in the best interest of her health.
“Yes, let’s do it,” Blue interrupted. “When do we leave?”
Maya had stared at the phone in perfect shock. “Does Thursday work for you?”
Right after that they’d called Hannah. Got the “no” they were expecting but hoping against. Maya still wasn’t sure what made her change her mind, but when she got a text from Hannah saying “What day are we leaving and what time are you guys picking me up?” she wasn’t about to question it.
Now Maya stood in the ER twenty minutes before her shift was over and said to Steve, “About that dollar.”
“Not happening.”
“Have you no pity? My blood sugar is plummeting.”
“I can probably score you a glucose tablet.”
“There’s no time,” she said, putting a dramatic hand to her forehead, letting her knees start to buckle.
He laughed and then sighed and pulled the bill from his wallet. There was a clear understanding as the money swapped hands that Steve would never see this dollar again, but Maya liked to think she paid it back with her sparkling personality.
“Hey, by the way,” she said, “remember that smokin’ twenty-one-year-old who came in last week with a scaphoid fracture? We recently bumped into each other. In my bedroom. Who knew what one could do with a cast?” She waggled her eyebrows and then, knowing the power of leaving an audience hanging, skipped off to the vending machine.
“When are you going to have a real relationship?” he called after her.
She turned, smiled. “What the hell is that?”
She returned with a bag of Fritos to find him sitting at the nurses’ station, doing a search on the computer. She stood next to him, peering over his shoulder, crunching loudly into his right ear to get his attention. “Do you think anyone will notice if I slip out early?”
“Yes,” he said.
She sighed, glanced at her watch. Sixteen minutes left in her shift. Sixteen minutes and eight hours until she was off to Montauk. She’d tried to convince Blue to take today off so they could get an earlier start, but her great powers of persuasion could only go so far.
Steve stood, stole a chip from her bag and went to check on a patient. She glanced at her watch again, its unmoving hands like prison bars.
Screw it.
She slipped past the nurses’ station, grabbed her purse from her locker and bolted for the door. She pulled out her phone, texted Blue with her designated arrival time. Together they would go get Hannah.
She stepped out into the dewy morning, shedding work and adulthood like a bad mood, eager to watch them shrink into the distance until finally she was at the beach, where the whole world would drop away the minute her feet hit sand. The beach would fix everything.
BLUE
Blue double-checked Maya’s designated arrival time and grabbed her duffel bag by the door. She paused, glanced back at her apartment, at the sleek contours of her furniture, the spare open space, the walls hung with paintings her interior designer had purchased at auction from Sotheby’s. The New York City skyline gathered around her windows, buildings of every height stacked deep, like a photo of a large family reunion.
The cleaning lady had come again that morning. Blue always had her come on the day she left for a trip. Part of it was so she’d have an immaculate place to return to, but ever since her father died and Nana moved into the home, there was also that creepy thought that if something happened to her, some unfortunate person would have to come and get her things in order. Who would it be? Surely not her mother. No chance she and her new husband would fly in from Paris. She’d probably just send flowers to the funeral home with an impersonal note. No, Blue was being unfair. Of course her mother would come! It would look terrible to her friends at the country club if she didn’t. Blue laughed darkly but then thought, Seriously, who would it be?
Maya and Hannah were the obvious. She hated the thought of them having to enter her place, how quiet and strange it would be without her in it. Maybe someone from work instead—ugh—one of the Wall Street bros on his lunch break, sorting through her personals while making deals on his cell. Or maybe her building manager.