Page 2 of The Plus-One List

I love them all so much, and I miss them all so much, and I love all the ones I haven’t even met yet, and, somehow, I miss them too.

Rachel once asked me if I’d ever thought about loving a human that way. A human man in a romantic way, she clarified before I could tell her I love her that way. I laughed, and it must have been a different kind of laugh because she looked a little worried. I told her I didn’t need a human man in my life. I’ve got plenty of four-legged males to look after.

Dating also requires two things I’m no good at. 1. Meeting new people. 2. Talking.

Rachel knows my diagnosis better than anyone—well, besides my therapist. I can recite it by rote at this point. Generalized anxiety disorder, likely stemming from a combination of early childhood trauma due to the sudden death of my parents at age two, plus differences in my brain chemistry and function. Symptoms: persistent worrying, overthinking, perceiving situations as threats even when they aren’t, fear of making the wrong decision … blah blah blah. So, yeah. Even taking a daily SSRI and using the breathing exercises my therapist has taught me, I’m still a mess when it comes to interacting with people. From my limited experience, men aren’t all that crazy about hanging out with someone who can’t go to Sunday brunch without having a panic attack.

Besides, Rachel is the only soulmate I need. We’ve known each other since we were in first grade—I was the weird kid with the dead parents, and Rachel was the weird kid in foster care. Things like father–daughter dances or making family trees in art class didn’t apply to us. My family tree had one little Lenny leaf on it. Rachel used to pretend she was related to a whole bunch of famous people—Marilyn Monroe, Denzel Washington, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

Even when she moved to a new foster family in a different district during high school, we stayed close. Rachel outshines everyone in every room she walks into. She’s gorgeous—slender yet curvy with light brown skin and thick dark hair, her lips always painted a bright scarlet, her wardrobe meticulously curated. The polar opposite of me: Short. Wild brown curls. Small features. Hesitant smile. No makeup. Partial to overalls and nineties band tees.

We’re going to grow old together and live in adjoining rooms at some old folks’ home in Yonkers and learn how to play Mah Jong. And there will be dogs. There will always be dogs.

As I’m getting up to change Charleston’s diaper, my phone starts to ring. More tears fill my eyes as I see Rachel’s name and contact photo appear on the screen. I used a selfie of us having a picnic in Central Park, Rachel holding up a bottle of Prosecco and making a funny face, her tongue sticking out and her eyes crossed.

I take a deep breath before answering, preparing myself to break the news, but before I even get out a hello, she cuts me off.

“EL!” she shouts, so loud I have to hold the phone away from my ear. “Eloise Madigan Whitechapel, do I have NEWS for YOU!”

Rachel does this sometimes when she gets excited, emphasizing certain words in a way that makes them feel like cymbals crashing together.

A sudden shiver of trepidation runs up my spine, though I can’t say why.

“Okay,” I say, my voice barely a whisper. When Rachel gets loud, I get soft.

“Diego and I are ENGAGED!” This is followed by a series of shrieks and squeals and maybe some other words, but the world has muted around me. I feel an out of body sensation, like I’m floating above this scene, like the hands holding my phone are no longer my own.

Engaged? I knew it was kind of serious with Diego—this has certainly been her longest relationship to date. And Rachel and I are in our thirties now. I guess getting engaged is a normal thing for people our age to do.

But she’s my Rachel. She’s my best friend who I can call in the middle of the night if I’m spiraling, or who knows she can only drag me out for margaritas on Mondays when El Taco Loco isn’t crowded, or who purchased specific Halloween outfits for all my dogs and then threw a party for them at my apartment with only the two of us because she knows how anxious parties make me.

She’s my soulmate.

Not Diego’s.

But … now she is Diego’s. She’ll be his wife. Wives are more important than friends. I’ll be second, forever now.

“El?” Rachel says, quieter this time, like she’s finally hearing my silence. The way she always does. She always hears what I don’t say.

For the second time today, my heart breaks in two.

But this is Rachel, and I won’t ever ruin her happiness, even if it feels like it threatens my own. So I hitch a smile on my face and take a breath.

“Congratulations!”

2Agustín

Five Months Later

I am not supposed to be here.

I try to keep my leg from bouncing as the man sitting across the desk from me adjusts his glasses, his eyes fixed on his laptop screen and the article I wrote.

A series of fortunate yet unfortunate events has led me to this moment—somehow, after only five months of living in New York, I’ve landed in the sleek, professional offices of The New Yorker.

The window behind Neil Rasmussen, senior editor, lets in the bright May sunlight, the Hudson River sparkling as it curves around the lower tip of Manhattan and stretches north. This is the first really warm day I’ve experienced since moving here in January. I thought March was supposed to be when spring started, but it turns out the weather stays pretty cold all through April. My mom was so worried I would freeze to death in my tiny apartment in Bushwick that she sent me a care package with assorted gloves, mittens, scarves, and one extremely wooly hat complete with a giant pompom. In Mexico City, where I’m from, it never drops below six degrees. That’s Celsius. I really don’t understand the resistance to Celsius here. Same goes for the metric system.

But it turned out I loved the cold! I loved the snow, and the gray skies, and the wind that chapped my skin, and the slush that formed in huge puddles around streetcorners. I love everything about New York. It’s the place I’ve dreamed of living ever since my abuelo moved here when I was just a little kid to help support our family.