The Seven Year Slip

WHEN I WOKE UP, the bed beside me was empty, and Iwan had left a note on the counter that read:

Fresh coffee in the pot. — I

He must have already left to see about that dishwashing gig again—I hadn’t even heard him get up. After we finished the bottle of wine the night before, we went to bed, fingers laced together and foreheads pressed against each other’s, the moonlight sharp and silver, painting soft lines across our bodies, and we talked some more. About his sister, about his grandfather’s dream restaurant, about my parents and their soft, routine way of life. He asked about the scar slashed through my eyebrow, and I asked about his tattoos—the bunch of cilantro on his arm for his grandpa (they both had that gene where it tasted like soap); initials on his torso, mysterious and faded; a whisk behind his ear because he thought it was funny, among others. We talked about where I’d traveled, where he’d never been.

“You’ve never eaten at a Waffle House?” he’d asked, aghast.

“My aunt and I passed a few on the road trip we took that one time, but . . . no? Why, am I missing something?”

“WaHos are the best. They never close, and when they do? You know a natural disaster’s on its way, so you better get the fuck out of there. Their hash browns are either the best things in the world or so soggy they’re soup. It’s only the greatest modern tavern experience in the world.”

“That can’t be true.”

“I promise,” he replied firmly, “nothing is quite like a Waffle House at two in the morning.”

I wondered, vaguely, as I slipped on my blouse, where the closest Waffle House was to me. Would I get amazing hash browns, or greasy soup? Would I find him there, haunting the booths? It made me wonder where he was, really, right now. Seven years later.

“I’ll see you later,” I told the apartment as I grabbed my purse and keys, and left. Earl was at the front desk reading another James Patterson, and he tipped his hat to me as I hurried out the door.

Now that I was out of the apartment, the city pushed on around me, ever moving forward, and it was so discombobulating at first.

In my aunt’s apartment, it almost felt like time stood still.

I was so lost in my own thoughts, between my aunt’s apartment and Strauss & Adder, I didn’t notice Drew and Fiona in the elevator beside me until Fiona said, looking a bit bedraggled, “You look like sunshine and unicorn farts.”

I patted my flyaway bangs down. “I do?”

Drew said, “You’re beaming with it.”

“It’s irritating,” Fiona added, jabbing the close-door button before more people could jam their way into the elevator. It was already ten strong, and we were scrunched near the back.

My cheeks went pink as I thought about Iwan. And Iwan’s mouth. The way he tasted. “I spent all weekend painting, that’s all.” Not quite a lie.

“Ooh, painting what?” Drew asked.

“That new New York City travel guide that Kate worked on?” I said.

“Oh! I saw one on the freebie shelf. You took it? What did you paint first?”

“Bow Bridge,” I replied, and studied the two of them. They looked like the walking dead. “I take it you two didn’t have a good weekend?”

“Understatement of the year,” Drew muttered, looking at the ceiling. “We spent all weekend getting the baby corner ready. And by we, I mean I did. This one ‘supervised.’ ” She put the word in air quotes.

“You did great, sweetie,” Fiona replied and kissed her cheek.

The elevator opened on our floor, and we fought our way to the front and out into the lobby. Drew split off to her desk while Fiona and I went to the kitchen to fix our morning coffees. It was only when Drew was out of sight that Fiona stepped closer to me and whispered, “I was worried about you!”

I gave her a strange look. “Worried? Why?”

She sighed in exasperation and grabbed a coffee cup from the dishwasher. “You didn’t respond to any of my texts this weekend!”

I stared at her, and then it clicked. “Oh—oh, you know my aunt’s apartment gets bad reception.”

She scrunched her nose. “I didn’t realize that bad . . .”

I took my phone out of my purse, and lo and behold, I had quite a few messages from Fiona—a photo of her and Drew putting up a forest-themed nursery and getting angry with the IKEA crib. “Oh. Oh, I’m so sorry! I didn’t even look at my phone. That’s a lovely color.”

She didn’t look like she believed me as she popped a decaffeinated coffee pod into the coffee maker. “It is . . . ?”

“Absolutely—”

“Good morning!” Rhonda breezed into the kitchen, the smell of her perfume strong and her heels loud. “We have a meeting!” she singsonged. “Best not be late!” And she gave me a meaningful look. Right—because starting now, I was on trial. If I wanted to prove myself to Rhonda, that I could fill her shoes, I needed to be at the top of my game. And I would be. This was what I wanted, after all.

Couldn’t screw this up.

Fiona eyed Rhonda as she left with her morning breakfast blend, and whispered, “She’s in a good mood . . . it makes me suspicious.”

“She’s usually in a good mood,” I replied, and Fiona gave me a deadpan look. “What? She is. Better go before that changes.”

“Wait—I’m not done interrogating you!”

“You can later,” I promised, and quickly fixed myself a cup of coffee, dumped my purse by my desk, and grabbed my notebook and pen before rushing down the hall and into the meeting room.

When we all took our seats, Rhonda jumped at the chance to begin. “I just had the loveliest weekend, and I really hope all of you did, too! Which brings me to my first order of business . . .” She started with marketing design—checking up on the state of ads, whether that new video that would play in front of Entertainment Weekly was done, whether they’d fixed the typo in one of the Google ads, etcetera.

I thought about googling Iwan to see if he still worked at that French restaurant, whichever restaurant that was. Maybe I could surprise him. Maybe he’d be sous by now. Maybe he’d won awards.

Or—maybe—he’d gone back home.

“. . . Clementine? Did you hear me?”

I sat a little taller in my swivel chair, mortified that I’d been in my own head. “I-I’m sorry. What?”

Rhonda gave me a curious look. “I asked about the media placements for Mallory Grey’s books. We don’t want her bumping into that last Ann Nichols novel from Falcon House.”

“Right, yes.” I glanced down at my notes and tried to push Iwan out of my head. The rest of the meeting was just a quick rundown of the week’s work. The books that launched on Tuesday, the campaigns we had going for them, the promotions we needed to focus on, the updates on book clubs . . . but in the back of my mind, the question persisted—

Where was he now?