Page 36 of The Getaway List
Chapter Eleven
“Lunner,” says Mariella slowly. “As in—lunch and dinner. Combined.”
I hold my phone to my ear, narrowing my eyes. “I’m ninety-nine percent certain that’s not a thing.”
“I’m the New Yorker here. You dare question my authority?”
In the brief time I’ve spent in this city I’ve kept an open mind. It’s a requirement of the job, when you’re anonymously delivering everything from a tub of faux-bacon bits (the recipient was positively thrilled) to several pints of Ben & Jerry’s (the guy nearly started bawling in gratitude at the sight of them) to a bouquet with a note that read “Sorry about the unholy things I did to your wedding cake” (I did not stick around long enough to find out). But I draw the line at “lunner.”
“Best tater tots in the city,” Mariella adds.
Incidentally I may be redrawing some lines. “What time?”
At four o’clock I meet Mariella, Luca, and Jesse on the curb outside of a kitschy, retro restaurant with the walls all plastered with magazines and ad prints from the 1950s, Christmas lights in various degrees of broken and functional, and a jukebox with a BROKEN sign on it that looks like it’s been there possibly since the day I was born.
“This is the sickest dive I’ve ever seen,” says Jesse, which is a bold statement from someone who grew up in a Virginia town where the closest thing we have to a dive is Shake Shack.
He fits right in, though, with his acid-wash denim vest and purple shirt, the same combination of worn out and overtly colorful as the surroundings. He immediately plants himself on one of the shiny padded stools and gives it a whirl.
“Where’s your other half?” asks Jesse.
“Tom took on some scheduled afternoon deliveries, but he’ll catch up with us later,” I explain.
“You were right, Mariella,” says Luca. His eyes are skimming the walls up and down, wide with glee. “Tons of cool story inspiration.”
“What can I say, ace?” Mariella leans back on one of the dinged-up neon tables. “Stick with me and you’ll never get bored.”
Luca’s eyes settle on Mariella with the full magnitude of his broad grin, and for once I catch her blushing. “Well, I’m pretty sure I knew that the minute we met,” says Luca.
Mariella unsuccessfully tries to bite down a broad smile of her own and that’s all the confirmation I need to know that this was probably where Mariella invited Luca before he suggested opening it up to the group. It’s a good find, too—Luca hasn’t stumbled on his big-ticket idea yet, so he’s started collecting writing prompts to “keep himself in the headspace,” as he told the group chat. He’s been sending me quirky short stories all week, and judging from the number of newspaper clippings from old celebrity dramas and vintage advertisements plastered to the walls of this place, he’ll have more than enough to draw from for more.
“That reminds me,” says Luca, unceremoniously dumping two large books on scriptwriting and novel plotting in my lap. “I’m finished with these for now, if you want to borrow them.”
I don’t have the heart to tell Luca that as far as writing goes, I’m still staring into the abyss of a blank Google doc. Some of it is the same issue as before—I feel like a zookeeper just uncaged all these ideas I’ve had locked up in my head, and they’re all running in different directions. Old fanfic ideas and new original ones. Time travel. Fantasy worlds. This new world of the city constantly shifting in front of me.
But a small but not dismissible part of it is another issue entirely. A thought that is running in a very deliberate and singular direction, one that always, always leads to Tom.
Because the thing about living with Tom is finding out the edges of him that I either didn’t know when we were kids, or have developed since. Little tics, like how for some reason he always yawns loud enough to wake the dead ten seconds after getting into the shower, or how he’ll absentmindedly tap the G key on his laptop keyboard when he’s lost in thought. New habits, like making handmade pasta with some gadget his mom bought and forgot about, or staying up late into the night with his reading glasses on, poring over fantasy novels at his desk.
And knowing those things about him comes with even more surprise knowledge. Like that ten seconds after Tom steps out of the shower, his very well-toned stomach and broad shoulders are on full and dripping display in the apartment hallway. Or how he’ll tap the G key long enough that the rest of him will get restless and he’ll give his exaggeratedly long catlike stretch on the couch, his warm limbs grazing mine. Like how he’ll bite into that pasta and make that content “this thing I am eating is delicious” noise he’s always made lower in his throat, a rumble that feels like it’s stirring me from across the room.
Like how the other night I had a very, very vivid dream about walking into Tom’s room, swiveling his desk chair toward me until he was blinking at me from behind those ridiculously endearing glasses, then kissing him so resolutely that I woke up with a sharp gasp and an embarrassing amount of sweat.
So yes. Sometimes it’s hard to focus on writing. But that is surely a temporary technical difficulty, one that Luca’s books will distract me from until it’s fixed.
It’s less likely to distract me from the absence of Vanessa, who seems to be as out of touch as my own mom. I just assumed that Tom was catching up with her while we were apart during the day—at least I did until the landline in Tom’s apartment rang last night. I was certain it would be Vanessa checking in on us, and was already coming up with a way to extricate myself so they could have a moment alone, but Tom laughed and told me his mom never calls when she’s on set. Sure enough, it was a fruit-basket delivery from one of the producers of Vanessa’s latest released film, which apparently was up for some kind of scriptwriting award.
We were halfway into eating a giant pineapple shaped like a butterfly when I asked Tom point-blank, “Does your mom even know I’m here?”
“I hope so,” said Tom, and I thought he was kidding until he added, “I texted her and left a voice mail. I’ve debated carrier pigeon just to be extra sure. So she probably knows, but maybe doesn’t?”
I blinked at his tone, at the alarming ease in it.
“Does she just not pick up the phone?”
Tom shrugged. “If I really need to get in touch with her I can call her assistant. But I’d only do that if there was an actual emergency.”
I’ve known since I got to the city that Vanessa wasn’t exactly gunning for Mom of the Year, but until then I didn’t realize just how disconnected she was. For all my mom’s grandstanding, I knew if I called her right now she’d pick up on the first ring.
