Page 12 of First-Time Caller
“She’s asleep,” Lucie says gently. I sit in my creaky, broken chair and listen to the sounds in between. The ones that scratch out pictures in front of me. Socked feet against a comforter. A car rumbling by. Wind at the windows and a creak of a floorboard.
For a second, I can hear the shape of her smile. A half moon in the dark.
“Do you think you’ll try dating again? Now that you know Maya wants you to?”
“I don’t know,” Lucie says. “It’s not up to Maya. Even if she means well, I don’t know if I want to crack open that part of myself.”
“What do you want?” I ask. “In a perfect world, would you stay on your couch? WatchingDeadliest Catch?”
“Probably,” she says, a smile in her voice. “But maybe . . . maybe there would be someone with me.” She pauses and I hold my breath. “Maybe I am lonely.”
It’s not the words she says, but how she says them. Quiet. Embarrassed. Like somehow it’s her fault she hasn’t found what she’s looking for yet.
I hum. “I think we’re all a little lonely.”
“Are you?” she asks right away. “Lonely?”
I tilt my head to the side and twist back and forth in my chair. After Jackson left me at the shop the other morning, I sat at that table for another hour, watching people come and go. I had nowhere else to be and it was nice to be surrounded by chatter and warmth. The bellowing from the barista behind the counter and the smell of coffee and books.
“Yeah,” I rasp, staring hard at my cup of coffee. I dig a knuckle into my cheek. “Yeah, I guess sometimes I do get lonely.”
My heartbeat thuds in my ears, a little too fast. I scratch roughly at the back of my head and clear my throat. I need to drag this conversation somewhere else. Somewhere that doesn’t feel like pressing the tender part of a bruise.
“What would make you want to try again? Dating.”
She makes a short huffing sound on the other end of the line. “I don’t really want to try.”
My smile tumbles headfirst into a rough laugh. I swear, it feels like I’ve forgotten how to do it. “That’s all right,” I tell her, still grinning like an idiot alone in the booth. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”
“No, that’s not what I mean. I don’t want totry. All I do is try. All day long, I’m trying and I’m so tired. Why can’t this be the one thing I don’t have to try at? Why can’t it be a thing that just . . . happens? I don’t want—I don’t want to think about what I should say or how I should act or . . . or have talking points in the notes app of my phone for a dinner date at a restaurant that I don’t really like. I want to feel something when I connect with someone. I want sparks. The good kind, you know? I want to laugh and mean it. I want goose bumps. I want to wonder what my date is thinking about and hope it might be me. I want . . . I want the magic.”
“Magic?” I try to find the part of myself that isn’t so damn rattled by every word coming out of this woman’s mouth. “You’re one of those, huh?”
“One of what?”
“A romantic,” I say. “Sparks. Soulmates. Happily ever after. A shiny gold thread tied between two hearts.”
She scoffs. “You host a show about romance and you’re telling me you’re not a romantic?”
“I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. I think I used to be, but that part of me feels fractured. Wobbly. Broken down by a thousand and one callers who have fallen out of love. Who never had it in the first place. Love and romance seem like a fairy tale now, something we tell kids to help them sleep better at night. Something we tell ourselves too.
“Well, whatever you are, don’t laugh at me about what I am,” she grumbles.
I straighten in my seat. “I’m not laughing,” I tell her. “I promise. I wouldn’t.”
She exhales and I relax. I let my gaze drift to the small window at the top of the booth, the one that looks out over Baltimore. Buildings tower like sleeping giants in the dark. Tiny pinpricks of light dance in the harbor. The Natty Boh Tower winks to life on the other end of the city, a warm red glow over the rooftops.
And somewhere out there, Lucie is sitting on her kid’s bed. Talking to me.
“It’s all right if you think I’m being ridiculous. That’s not exactly a new sentiment,” she says, voice tired. “When the whole world tells you you’re silly for wanting the things you want, you start to believe them. You start to think you’re not worth it. That if the things you’re waiting for do exist, they’re not for someone like you.” She sighs, a small, hopeless sound that twists through my headphones. “But what’s wrong with being a romantic? I can be a confident, independent woman and still want someone to hold my hand. To ask about my day. It’s a good thing to want passion and excitement and care. Attention and affection. I don’t want to settle for anything less than that. And I think I’ve just figured out—I think that’s why I’ve been sitting on my couch. That’s why I’m home all the time. Because I’m tired. I’m tired of trying so hard at something that comes so easily for everyone else. I stopped dating because it wasn’t working for me and I think I hoped that another option might materialize. Nothing in my life has ever panned out the way I planned for it. And that’s okay. But I don’t want a relationship to be something I cross off my checklist, or something I do because I feel like I have to. I don’t want to be with someone if they’re not giving me something I don’t already have. I don’t want to waste my time on things that don’t feel like everything I’ve always wanted for myself.”
“You want a guarantee.”
“No,” she says quietly. “I want goose bumps. I want to be wanted. All this time and I—I haven’t given up. I guess I’m just waiting for it to find me.”
I swallow, curl my hand around my mug, and squeeze. “Maybe you should have my job,” I finally manage around a throat that feels too tight.
Lucie laughs, bold and bright. I want to yank out the headphone jack and fill the studio with it.
