In Some Other World, Maybe: A Novel (25 page)

Kristen said nothing about the story of how Sharon broke up with her boyfriend and was supposed to move in with her but didn’t.

After they’d sent Scott to his own apartment across the hall, the two women
did
end up in Sharon’s bed together. It wasn’t so they could make out, Sharon’s couch just sagged uncomfortably in the middle.

“We should send Scott a picture,” Kristen joked. “He’s kind of cute.”

Tall, gangly, and blond, Kristen looked almost nothing like her, and Sharon wondered if it was a look Scott would like. Wondered if she minded.

“So it’s your turn to come visit next,” Kristen said the next morning at passenger drop-off.

Sharon nodded over the lump in her throat. But she still didn’t think she’d be going back to New York.

*   *   *

With Scott busy doing surgical residenty things one Thursday night, Sharon decided to check out the
E&E
show that Julie’s
Living
article had reminded her she’d forgotten about.

Like all QT shows,
E&E: Rising
’s cast was young and otherworldly attractive, and the special effects weren’t particularly good. But it was relatively true to the comics, and the guy playing Captain Rowen was even better than Michael Douglas had been in the movies.

It had been nearly two years since Sharon had thought about her widely rejected manuscript or writing fiction in general. But as the
E&E
characters hopped from world to world, where things were slightly to extremely different, she began to conjure up a story: a too-pretty young man who doesn’t do his own laundry falls in love with a girl in the West Village. And maybe he and the girl break up, but he gets to go on and do other things. Sharon didn’t even consciously realize it was about Chase Fisher.

That’s how it started.

A sentence here and there, the odd paragraph when she had the time. It wasn’t something she did when she was supposed to be writing features at
Cincy Beat
, not something she told Scott or anyone else about. Six months in she had nearly two hundred pages.

Still, she didn’t think she’d be going back to New York.

*   *   *

In Sharon’s second spring in the chopped-up house on Mcmillan, Scott went to Chicago to take the medical boards. When he got back, he knocked on her door with a bottle of champagne.

“Do I have to start calling you doctor now?” Sharon asked.

“I’ve been a doctor since finishing med school, but, yes, I now insist.”

She called him “Dr. Underwood” as they got tipsy on the Perrier-Jouët in her apartment and all through celebratory filet mignon and lobster at The Precinct Steakhouse.

“So I got a fellowship at Weill Cornell in New York,” he said. “You should come, too, keep me company.”

He may or may not have been kidding, but they both knew it wasn’t going to happen.

“I’m gonna miss you,” he said.

“Me, too.” (In fact Sharon’s heart would legitimately hurt the first time she saw the new tenant in Scott’s apartment—an apple-shaped law student, who often blared classical music—fiddling with her keys across the hall.)

“You know, we could have been an amazing couple,” he said.

And Sharon knew that, too. “In an alternate universe, I’m sure we are.”

When he left three weeks later, she would give him Kristen’s contact info and silently promise that she would be happy if the two of them fell in love and got married in some over-the-top affair at the Plaza. But that night, after dinner, she held Scott’s hand as the two of them bumbled home drunk on red meat and red wine. Kissing him full on the mouth in the hall separating their two apartments, she felt exactly what it would be like to invite him in—a surge of lava and butterflies.

Sharon still didn’t think that she would return to New York.

*   *   *

And she continued to think that as she had Sunday dinners with her parents, read bestsellers with Laurel’s book club, got promoted to features editor when Alice left for a gig at
Cincinnati
magazine, and completed three hundred pages of the novel about the man that Chase Fisher never got to be.

But then one day, when she’s in the
Cincy Beat
office finishing a piece on upcoming movies filming in Cincinnati, the music writer two workstations over rocks back in his chair to ask Sharon a question. “You know anyone at
The New York Eye
? Looks like they’re hiring.
”

The petroleum jelly covering lifts, and it’s all so clear. Scanning
The Eye
’s Happenings section with Kristen their first semester at NYU. Passing around a copy and sharing three-dollar soy burgers at Dojo on Fourteenth Street with the other MFAs. Chase bringing home copies of the tabloid on his walk back from work:
“I know you like it better than the
Voice
.”

And then it hits. A tingling in her nose, a mounting pressure in her bones, an overwhelming
need
to return.

Sharon waits until she’s back in her apartment in the old carved-up house on Mcmillan (Vivaldi floating in from the law student’s unit next door) before she checks the job posting on Mediabistro.
The Eye
is looking for a features editor/writer for their expanding Web presence. They probably want someone much younger, someone to work for nearly nothing in the impossibly expensive city.

Feeling the gravitational pull of the crooked floor in her bedroom, Sharon writes her cover letter and sends it off with her clips.

“I’m going to be in New York next week, if that works for you,” she tells the editor who calls to ask if she’d be able to come in for an interview. She doesn’t bother inquiring if they have the budget to fly her out, assumes they won’t.

By the time Sharon books her flight and calls Kristen to see if she can stay in Astoria for a few days, she knows that, whether or not she gets the position, she’s moving back to New York.

Tears and embraces with Laurel Young-Griffin.

Comped cupcakes and cheap wine at the
Cincy Beat
office.

A ride to the airport with her parents, who seem genuinely sad to see her off.

“You’re always welcome to come back,” says her father, and she thanks him.

As they cross the Suspension Bridge (like the Brooklyn Bridge) into Kentucky, Sharon wonders, if the cables snapped and the car plunged into the Ohio River, would they paddle to the Cincinnati side even though Covington is closer? Wonders if you always swim home. And if that means that eventually she’ll come back to this city she’s realized isn’t half bad.

Kisses good-bye, baggage checked, and the security line (extra scrutiny because she has no return trip booked). A straight shot from CVG to LGA, baggage claim, the taxi line, and the worn leather of a cab’s backseat.

As they head toward Astoria, Sharon glimpses the city skyline, and it
does
feel familiar. But when the crown of the Chrysler Building comes into view, she’s once again floored and amazed.

That, too, feels like home.

9   would you tell me if you were?

LOS ANGELES

Adam Zoellner is “TV’s Sexiest Bad Guy.”

This title is being bestowed upon him by
Living
magazine in its upcoming “100 Sexy People” issue. While most of the other selected sexies are too busy doing sexy things to speak with the poor man’s
Us Weekly
, Adam’s new publicist (aka Phoebe’s friend Evie Saperstein, who opened her own firm in LA) has spun the honor into a two-page feature in
Living
. Adam is in the back of a Town Car on his way to meet a reporter at The Ivy, with Evie beside him going over what
not
to say.

“Don’t spend a ton of time on Phoebe.” Evie brushes Goth sophisticate burgundy hair from her face. “She’s hot enough that we can totally sell your wedding pics, but no point in breaking all those precious fangirl hearts until it’s official. Say you’re in a long-term relationship and very happy, blah, blah, but you like to keep it private.”

“Sure.” Adam nods, whipping up a mental image of what it
would
be like if he and Phoebe got married. For Valentine’s Day he’d given her a very big sapphire ring, and they’d had fun joking about which of their friends would get wasted and hook up if they had a giant wedding in Big Sur or a vineyard in Napa. But then he was back in Vancouver while Phoebe continued her mission to take
every
class at UCLA, volunteer a billion hours at an inner-city health clinic, and (despite his numerous offers to support her) bartend at Rosebud. “So I just say enough to dispel the gay rumors?”

“Gay rumors are a good thing,” Evie says, sans any shred of irony. “Why limit the number of people jerking off to you?”

That Adam even has a publicist is ridiculous. But Evie had been appalled when Phoebe told her that, after two years on a hit show and stellar reviews for the
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
remake, Adam was still letting the network handle his press. “Everyone knows you’re the only one on
E&E
who’s got a career afterward,” Evie had said in her backhanded-compliment way that Adam is actually starting to find appealing.

“She’ll ask what qualities you like in a woman,” Evie is saying. “The answer is always ‘sense of humor.’ And you prefer curvy to too skinny.”

“I’m not an idiot,” Adam says; Evie doesn’t confirm or deny this.

“Oh, and talk about your mom—the hardworking single-parent thing always plays well.”

The driver makes the turn from Beverly to North Robertson, and the white umbrellas on the restaurant’s terrace come into view. A young woman with a blond ponytail walks to the door, and Evie informs Adam she’s Julie from the magazine.

“I know you think it’s dumb, but have fun.” Evie touches Adam’s arm lightly in a more earnest way than her faux-tough persona usually allows. “This is actually a pretty big deal.”

*   *   *

The Sexy Issue hits stands the first week in July, and Adam’s phone rings off the hook with acquaintances he hasn’t talked to in years. While
E&E: Rising
might be the highest-rated show in the QT Network’s six-year history, a lot more people apparently follow the exploits of Jennifer Aniston and Angelina Jolie in
Living
.

As much as Adam didn’t become an actor for this, it’s, well, amusing when Evie tells him her assistant has dealt with no less than six pairs of panties when going through his mail. Even more exciting, his agent claims important insiders are starting to take notice. Within days Adam is on the short list to play Brick Pollitt in a remake of
Cat on a Hot Tin Roof
starring Scarlett Johansson as Maggie.

It’s all going swimmingly until Phoebe comes home to their high-rise condo in the Wilshire Corridor (his first big splurge when the show got picked up) and ominously announces she has to talk to him.

Adam’s stomach twists, and it seems astonishing that a few minutes earlier, he’d been excited to take her to the new Mario Batali place for dinner.

There
had
been a bit of readjustment when he returned after wrapping season three—Adam suspects it was similar to soldiers returning from deployments (if soldiers were paid significantly more and all the blood was corn syrup)—but lately Adam had thought he and Phoebe were actually really happy together.

“What’s up?” He tries to sound normal. Next to him Kraken raises his furry head, sensing the change of energy in the room.

“You got a letter and Evie didn’t know what to make of it, so she asked me.” Phoebe bites her lip. “I’m not sure I handled it right.”

So not what he was expecting her to say, Adam just looks at her for a few seconds. Finally asks, “What, like a threat?”

“No, it was from a guy in Atlanta.” She pauses. “He thinks he’s your father—”

Cutting her off, Adam explains it’s probably someone looking for money.

“That’s what I thought initially.” Phoebe’s voice is shaky, and it’s obvious she wants to break eye contact. “But he sent old pictures of him and your mom, and … he looks a lot like you.”

“Pictures can be doctor—”

“I did a little research; he’s, like, a big corporate lawyer. I don’t think it’s about money.” She takes a breath. “So I called him—”

“You did this behind my back?” He’s on his feet, chilled with anger, grabbing keys and a leather jacket he probably doesn’t need. Kraken follows, nails clacking on the hardwood.

“I wanted to check him out before I told you.”

Phoebe reaches for his arm, but he shakes her off, needs to get away before he says anything he’ll regret. Because in the seven years he’s known her, he’s rarely been this coiled, this ready to explode.

“Sweetie, wait…”

He’s in the elevator headed twenty-four stories down to the garage before she can finish her sentence. With no actual destination in mind, he gets behind the wheel of the sleek black sports car (his
second
big splurge when the show got picked up).

He’d been two years old when his mother moved back to her parents’ house in Coral Cove, and since that first moment when she’d set him up in her childhood bedroom, there’d been whispered speculation about his paternity. Busybody parents of the children from school: “Should I let Jimmy spend the night? Who knows what kind of morals Anna Zoellner has?” All those teachers who adored him, chattering in the teacher’s lounge: “Look how well he turned out, considering.” Girls he dated who mistakenly thought his mysterious origins made him tortured and/or poetic. He grew up doing everything right, silently challenging all those gossips to say anything to him directly. Most people, he learned, were cowards.

Because his mother never volunteered the information, Adam never asked. Not in second grade, when Mrs. Victor handed out Xeroxed copies of a family tree and he left his paternal side completely blank. Not in the genetics unit of eighth-grade biology, when Adam realized his detached earlobes—different from his mother’s and grandparents’—must have been a trait of his father’s. Not even after the father-son minigolf tournament junior year, when he and his grandfather finished third, and on the drive home Grandpa brought up the fact that he’d been Adam’s partner. “I know Anna doesn’t talk about it much,” his grandfather had said, “but I’m sure you have questions.”