Expiration Dates: A Novel (14 page)

I sat down on the stone steps. All at once, it felt too hard to stand. Like gravity was pulling me down, pulling me toward the center—folded in two, where I belonged. “I'm sick,” I said.

Hugo's gaze softened, but he didn't say anything, not right away, then: “And I'm guessing it's not the flu.”

I laughed. I didn't mean to. It came out in a short burst of air. “No,” I said. “Not that. I have a heart condition.”

I had told so few people the truth in my life, but I had said those words so frequently. To new doctors, to nurses drawing blood, to teachers, administrators, once, to the postman about a particularly heavy Amazon box. But I had never told someone I might love.

“Daphne,” he said. “Like from when you were young? What kind of heart condition?”

“I had a sudden cardiac arrest when I was twenty. The kind that most people don't survive.”

“Jesus.”

“I was in and out of the hospital for two years after. I have a congenital heart disease, which means it was there since birth, I just didn't know it. My heart doesn't work very well.”

He pointed to my chest. “Your scar,” he said.

I nodded.

“I just had a stent put in my heart,” I said. “That's why I was at
the hospital. I have no idea what the future holds, Hugo, but for the past eight years, it hasn't looked very good.”

Hugo looked at me. Not in horror, exactly, but in bewilderment. Like I was a stranger. Like he was trying to remember my full name. I felt my hands go numb and cold.

“Why didn't you tell me?”

I shook my head. “I had no idea how to say what I just did to you.”

Hugo nodded. “I'm sorry,” he said. “Shit. Daphne.” He shifted his body weight from one foot to the other. He looked at me, then up at my door.

I felt him wanting to run, and that suggestion of movement, that longing to disengage, broke my fucking heart.

“I don't know what to say.”

The almighty Hugo was speechless, because he couldn't deal with this. Of course he couldn't. It's too big for anyone; that's why I tell no one.

Three months.

I felt the fluttering in my chest, the emotion rising from my shitty, fucked-up heart to my throat.

“I think this has to end,” I told him.

Hugo snapped his gaze to mine. “No way,” he said. “Did I say that? That is not what I want. I'm just trying to wrap my head around—”

“It's fine,” I said. “You should go.”

“Daphne, stop. Let's talk about this. You just came at me with a lot of information. I want to talk about it. I want to understand.”

“Hugo,” I said, “there's nothing to talk about.”

He fought me on it. He said he just needed some time, that
he wanted to figure out how to be there for me, with me. But as much as I was afraid of losing him, the thought of him being with me out of pity was impossible. I couldn't bear that I'd have him and always know, somewhere, that he had signed up for someone healthy, and what he got was me.

“Why are you doing this?” Hugo asked me. “We're just getting started.”

“Because our time is up,” I said. I made a move to stand, Hugo came closer to me.

“Bullshit,” he said. “Says who?”

I do not know what prompted what happened next. I do not know if I was delirious or devastated or just hopped up on medication, but I told him. The thing I had never shared with a single other person on earth. Not my parents, not Kendra, not Irina, not the postman. I told him about the papers.

“I get pieces of paper that tell me exactly how long I'll spend with a man, and our paper said three months. We've been together for three months today.”

He was quiet for a long time. I thought he was going to tell me I was crazy, or worse, try to humor me.
Can I see them? Whose handwriting?
But instead, for the first time since he'd gotten there, he sat down on the stone step next to me. He ran a hand over his forehead and kept it there.

“Christ,” he said.

I felt something tighten in my chest, down deep into the muscle. The heart doesn't often hurt. The illness comes out in other ways. In the blue tint of hands and lips, in the shortness of breath, in the swelling of my legs, in the brain fog, too. And close, in the chest. But the heart itself rarely hurts. You rarely feel it at all.

“I wish I would have known,” he said.

“What?”

“That it was finite for you.”

I swallowed. I wanted to cry, but I thought if I did I might never stop.

“No,” I said. “Trust me. It's better to not know it's coming.”

Hugo smiled at me, but it was sad, worn. “Spoken like someone who has never experienced the alternative.”

I tell Jake I'll move in with him the following week. My lease is up at the end of the month, and suddenly life is comprised of comparing moving company quotes and going through my closet, deciding how many hooded sweatshirts and cross-body bags one woman can own.

“I cleared out half the closet for you,” Jake says when I'm over that Saturday night. He's pouring me a glass of sparkling water, and we're waiting for a Mozza pizza delivery. I'm snacking on some of Mrs. Madden's most recent batch of cookies, curled up on the couch.

“I'm probably going to need two-thirds,” I say. “I'm putting a lot in storage, but I have an alarming number of shoes.”

Jake laughs.

“I like your shoes. Come here. I want to show you something.”

He holds out a hand to me and pulls me up off the couch.

“I was comfortable,” I say, already unfurling myself.

“It'll be worth it, I promise.”

Jake leads me into the second bedroom. When I see what he's done, I'm speechless. Usually there's a couch and some exercise gear in there—and a television on a console against the main wall. All of that is gone. Instead, there are built-in shelving units, a beautiful mahogany desk, and a CB2 gold-and-oatmeal office chair. A maroon velvet love seat replaces the oversize couch.

“I wanted you to have somewhere that was just your own,” he says. “I know you value your space, so I wanted you to have it here, too. Just because we're living together doesn't mean you have to stop being who you are.”

I don't know what to say. He's transformed this space for me. I am overwhelmed by this gesture, the incredible man before me.

“Jake,” I say. “This is amazing.”

Jake takes my hand and leads me to the love seat. He strokes my fingers.

“I want you to know that this is serious for me. Not in a scary way, just—I really want to be with you. And to make all the commitments you can make to another person.”

I peer at him. “Are you proposing to me?”

He's silent for a moment. “No,” he says. “But I hope I will, someday.”

I swallow. It's everything I want to hear, of course. It's everything any girl would want to hear. He's generous and kind, and he's transformed his antiseptic man cave into a room of my very own.

“If there's something holding you back, you can tell me,” he says. “In fact, now would be the time.”

“What do you mean?”

Jake looks at me. He runs a hand from my shoulder down
to my wrist and then holds my hand there. “Sometimes I feel like you have this other life I know nothing about. When you're not here you're just—I can feel it, you're floating above us. And I want to be let in, into your whole life. All of it. I realize this is very bad movie dialogue. I see that. Wow, yeah, you can feel when it's cringy—What I'm trying to say is, I want your honesty. I can handle your honesty.”

I take a breath. And then I prepare to tell him the thing I have avoided for so long. The thing I have only ever told one other man, a very long time ago.

“I love you,” I say. I look into his eyes and see the spark there, the relief and joy those words illicit in him. I say it again. “I love you, Jake.”

He smiles. He takes my face in his hands. “I really like hearing that,” he says. “You have no idea how much.”

I have to tell him.”

Hugo and I are seated at Verve Coffee on Melrose, Murph's leash tied to my chair. It's a fancy coffee house that in New York would be a postage stamp and here takes up half a block. We're at a table outside, on the deck. I have a specialty iced tea—some flavor called Huckleberry—and Hugo's sipping from an iced espresso.

“Yeah,” he says. “You should, shouldn't you?”

I nod.

Hugo and I forwent our Sunday farmers market and instead got coffee. It's late for him, well past ten in the morning. It has been months since we've been alone together, and it feels good to be in his presence. I still get the same feeling of confidence from him I always do, and right now, I need it.

“What's holding you back?” Hugo asks. “You already told the guy you're moving in with him. Didn't he build you a bedroom?”

“It's an office.”

“Whatever.”

I sip from my iced tea. I'm wearing a white T-shirt, denim shorts, and sandals and I'm still hot. It's eighty degrees in the middle of March. The sun is shining. Everywhere people are emerging in bare legs and broad smiles as if summer is upon us.

Hugo has on a gray T-shirt and shorts. A baseball cap hides his forehead. He taps a foot under the table.

“What's holding me back?” I ask.

I look at Hugo and raise my eyebrows. It takes him a moment to get it, and when he does, he shakes his head. “Come on,” he says. “That's not fair.”

“It's the only history I have with this particular revelation.”

“Yeah, OK. But was I an asshole about it? That's not how I remember it.”

“We broke up.”

“Daphne, please. You broke up with me.” Hugo sets down his drink. “I'll give you that I was caught off guard. You kept secrets from me, and it threw me for a loop. I felt like I didn't know you; it fucked me up momentarily.”

“You weren't scared by the fact that I kept secrets. You were scared by the secret.”

Hugo looks at me point-blank. “I was scared by it all. Your heart, your ability to hide shit from me, the fact that you clearly didn't trust me.” He sighs. “But if you want someone who isn't going to be afraid, you already have him. We're talking about this like we don't already know how he's going to react. It's obvious, Daph.”

I press the icy cup between my palms. “What is?”

“Jake is the guy who is not going to be afraid. He's not going to fuck it up. He's not going to say the wrong thing, or run, or be an asshole. He loves you. He's going to look you straight in the eye and say he's all in.”

I swipe a bead of condensation onto my pinky finger. “How can you be so sure? This is a huge deal. He lost his wife—”

“I've seen how he looks at you,” Hugo cuts me off. “And it's just who he is. You know that, and I know that. The man is built for being a safety net.”

“He's not a safety net,” I say.

“It's not negative, Daph. I'm just saying he's going to show up for you.”

I think about Jake on the love seat, asking me to confess myself, my literal heart.

“I think you're right.”

“I know I am.”

Hugo downs the rest of his drink. He sets it on the table with some force. “So just tell him and live happily ever after.”

“That simple?”

He shrugs. “Why not?”

I run my teeth over my bottom lip. “Maybe ever after is only a few years. Maybe it's just a few months.”

Hugo crosses his arms. When he looks at me, his gaze is dead center. “You have to stop believing the worst in everyone. Fuck, Daphne. You have to stop believing the worst in yourself.”

I feel my throat constrict, the stinging behind my eyes. “Am I a terrible person? Seriously, Hugo, am I going to hell for this?”

I know what I expect him to say. I expect him to tell me that of course I'm going to hell, but who cares, because he'll be right
there with me. But instead Hugo shakes his head and then closes his eyes into a smile.

When he opens them, he leans forward, toward me. The stools are low, and the round table is small. I can feel his knee knock into my shin.

“No,” he says. His voice is calm, steady. “You're not a terrible person. You deserve to be happy, Daphne. Just let yourself be happy.”

He keeps looking at me with this sincerity that I've never seen before from him.

“Is that what you want?” I ask. The words just tumble out, before I can stop them. They surprise me. They don't seem to surprise Hugo.

He exhales. “Honestly, Daph,” he says. “This isn't about me. If you're looking for an excuse to run, you won't find it here. I'm not going to give you that.”

I blink at him. “When did you become so mature?” I ask.

He sits back. He picks up his coffee. “I guess a lot really can happen in five years.”

Jake takes it exactly as Hugo said he would. He is kind and understanding and supportive. He makes me tea and strokes my hand and tells me that he isn't afraid. Of course he's not. He's Jake.

“I just don't understand why you didn't tell me sooner,” he says.

“I've never told anyone,” I tell him.

He pauses for a moment. “Not even Hugo?”

“He found out when I got sick again.”

He disregards that news quickly. It's not about that. “I'm very sorry you've been dealt this,” he says. “But I also want you to know that I love all of who you are.”

“It's OK if you have questions.”

“I do, and also, they're not changing anything.”

He wants to know details. He wants to know about my full history and the schedule of testing. He wants to come to the appointments now.
We are in this together.

“You're not alone,” he tells me. He says it more than once.

I pack up the Gardner Street apartment—all the messy details of nearly a decade of life. Old vases and plates and piles of records. All of it comes with me, most of it to a storage unit in Hollywood and some to my parents' house.

“Are you sure you don't want the bookcase?” my mother asks me.

Jake carries it in and sets it down in their living room.

“No room, Mom.”

“It is a nice one, but, yes, sadly we're at capacity.” Jake takes the corner of his shirt up and wipes his face.

“I'm getting water!” my mother says.

She runs out of the room, and I follow her. Jake goes to the car for another box.

“It's a lot of stuff,” she says, watching him out the window. “You won't miss it?”

“I shouldn't even have it,” I say. “I didn't have room for it to begin with.”

She tucks an arm around my waist. “I love your things. They are who you are.”

I watch Jake grab an old lamp with a hula dancer for a base. My mom sees, too.

“Well, maybe not all of them.”

She pours me a glass of water and then fills one for Jake. “Here, take it to him.”

“Thanks, Mama.”

She smiles. “You haven't called me that in a long time.”

“I know.”

She takes my face in her hands. Her fingers are cold from the water. “I like what I see,” she says.

“Me?”

“You're doing good. Happy. And if you're happy, that's everything in the world to me.”

“He's a good guy,” I say.

My mother motions me out of the kitchen; Jake is back at the door, struggling with a nightstand.

“You're not so bad yourself,” she says.

I move into Wilshire Corridor the last week of March. Mrs. Madden drops off cookies and brisket to celebrate my arrival.

“Your own Brisket Brigade,” Jake tells me. “And you didn't even have to die first.”

He looks at me, wide-eyed, and then we both start laughing—rolling, belly-hearty sobs. Jake grabs on to the wall to steady himself.

It's easy to tell Kendra then, too. Or, it's easier. My voice still shakes, and I still don't make direct eye contact, but it's not as hard as I thought it would be. People want to be there.

I unpack my mismatched dishware into Jake's kitchen, and my oversize towels into the bathroom. Murphy claims the spot by the window that gets the most sun.

Jake watches me set my trinkets—an ashtray from a trip to Portland, a Chinese famille rose porcelain box I bought on 1stDibs—on the coffee table, the mantel, any surface I can cover.

“You weren't kidding,” Jake notes, handing me a glass of water. “You have a lot of stuff.”

“Online shopping is easy to do from anywhere.”

Jake nods. “Well, in that case,” he says, “bring on the tchotchke!”

Three weeks after we get settled into what is now our apartment—after I cram what I can into the office den and fill the living room with way too many lamps, Jake and I leave the dogs at home and drive out to Malibu to have dinner at Moonshadows on the water. We're well into spring now, and the sun is setting later and later. As we drive out to the beach, the ocean on the left-hand side, I'm met with a revealing gratitude for this place, this city I call home.

When we arrive for dinner at 6:00 p.m., the sun is still high in the sky. Moonshadows hangs over the water—a glass-encased restaurant with a deck along the ocean. We get a table outside, right at the edge, so close that when the waves come in, we can feel the sea spray. I slip an old cashmere cardigan around my shoulders.

We order oysters and champagne and watch as the sky fades from brilliant blue to hazy shades of pink and lavender and tangerine. The beauty of the water, the proximity to this much nature, is so peaceful.

“Hey,” Jake says. “I wanted to ask you something.”

I know as soon as he says it. I have known for weeks, now. From when he told me he wanted to go to dinner in Malibu—the advance of the plan, the odd formality of deciding what and where we were eating, the fact that he confirmed I was still up for it on three separate occasions. But as I see him sitting across from me I realize it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter that I knew,
that I anticipated this, that I saw it coming. Nothing, exactly, can prepare you for when these moments arrive.

“Yes?”

Jake is wearing a white button-down and light jeans. He has on loafers, a gift from my father. His freckles are fully in bloom. He looks charming and handsome—his long ears and curved nose and bright blue eyes. All the little details of significance, of someone significant.

He takes my hand from across the table. My stomach clenches, thinking he might get down on one knee, but he doesn't. He just holds my fingers in his palms—delicately and carefully.

“I love you,” he says. “And I told you before I'm not really in the business of casual. I hope I've proven to you that I want to be here, and that I am.”

I think about Jake getting me water every night before bed. I think about him putting my towel in the dryer if he knows I'm going to take a morning shower. Driving to my monthly bloodwork, now. All these small ways he shows he cares.

“Yes,” I say.

He smiles at me. The smile of assurance, warmth. It's a smile of certainty. “Daphne,” he says, “will you marry me?”

There is only one answer to this question.

“Yes.”

Jake's face flushes with relief and pride and the purest joy, so exquisite I want to bottle that, this look on his face.

All my life I believed that it was the person who mattered, that once you met “the one” you'd enter through a magical door where it was all on the table. I see him holding it, now. I see everything he has to offer inside. I see a life.

He puts a small box on the table. I peel open the top. Inside is an emerald with a pave diamond band. It's modern, beautiful, and a little bit badass. It's perfect for me, honestly. Now that it's here, I can't imagine anything else.

“I love it,” I say.

Jake smiles. “Kendra helped me pick it out.”

He plucks the ring out of the box. I hold out my hand.

“Here.”

It fits exactly right. I lift it up to the deepening sky, right over the horizon. The emerald catches the last brilliant rays of the disappearing sun.