Before We Were Strangers Read online

  Best, Matt

  Two minutes later, my email pinged.

  Best? Really? You can’t say “love” after spending over a decade of your life with me?

  I didn’t respond. I was in a hurry. I needed to get back on the subway.

  2. Five Days After I Saw You

  MATT

  I took the damn F train, an hour-long ride to Brooklyn from Midtown and back every day, at lunch, hoping I would run into Grace again, but I never did.

  Things were bad at work. I had submitted a request to go into the field three months earlier but had been denied. Now I had to watch Elizabeth and Brad walk around in bliss as people congratulated them on the baby and Brad’s promotion, which came right after the announcement.

  Meanwhile, I was still rejecting any forward motion in my life. I was a stagnant puddle of shit. I had volunteered to go back on location to South America with a National Geographic film crew. New York just wasn’t the same anymore. It held no magic for me. The Amazonian jungle, with all of its wonderful and exotic diseases, seemed more appealing than taking orders from my ex-wife and her smug husband. But my request hadn’t been approved or denied. It just sat in a pile of other requests on Scott’s desk.

  I pondered the current state of my life while I stared at a blank wall in the office break room. Standing next to the water cooler, holding a half-empty paper cone, I tallied the insubstantial years I had spent with Elizabeth and wondered why. How had things gone so terribly wrong?

  “What are you doin’, man?” Scott’s voice came from the doorway.

  I turned and smiled. “Just thinking.”

  “You seem a little brighter.”

  “Actually, I was thinking about how I ended up thirty-six, divorced, and trapped in cubicle hell.”

  He walked to the coffeepot and poured a mug full then leaned against the counter. “You were a workaholic?” he offered.

  “That’s not why Elizabeth was unfaithful. She fell right into Brad’s skinny arms, and he works more than I do. Hell, Elizabeth works more than I do.”

  “Why are you dwelling on the past? Look at you. You’re tall. You have hair. And it looks like”—he waved his hand around at my stomach—“you might have abs?”

  “You checking me out?”

  “I’d kill for a head of hair like that.”

  Scott was the kind of guy who was bald by twenty-two. He’s been shaving it Mr. Clean–style since then.

  “What do women call that thing?” He pointed to the back of my head.

  “A bun?”

  “No, there’s, like, a sexier name for it. The ladies love that shit.”

  “They call it a man-bun.”

  He studied me. “Jesus, you’re a free man, Matt. Why aren’t you prowling the savannahs for new game? I can’t watch you mope around like this. I thought you were over Elizabeth?”

  I shut the break-room door. “I am. I was over Elizabeth a long time ago. It’s hard for me even to remember being into her. I got caught up in the fantasy of it, traveling with her, taking photos. Something was always missing, though. Maybe I did work too much. I mean, that’s all we talked about, that’s all we had in common. Now look where I am.”

  “What about Subway Girl?”

  “What about her?”

  “I don’t know. I thought you were gonna try to get in touch with her?”

  “Yeah. Maybe. Easier said than done.”

  “You just have to put yourself out there. Get on social media.”

  Will I find Grace there? I went back and forth between wanting to do everything I could to find her and feeling like it was totally pointless. She’d be with someone. She’d be someone’s wife. Someone better than me. I wanted to get away from everything reminding me that I still had nothing.

  “If you care so much, why haven’t you approved my request?” I asked.

  He scowled. I noticed how deep the line was between his eyebrows and it occurred to me that Scott and I were the same age . . . and he was getting old. “I don’t mean the actual savannahs, man. Running away isn’t going to solve your problems.”

  “Now you’re my shrink?”

  “No, I’m your friend. Remember when you asked for that desk job?”

  I walked toward the door. “Just consider it. Please, Scott.”

  Right before I left the room he said, “You’re chasing the wrong thing. It’s not gonna make you happy.”

  He was right, and I could admit that to myself, but not out loud. I thought if I could win an award again, get some recognition for my work, it would fill the black hole eating away at me. But deep down, I knew that wasn’t the solution.

  After work, I sat on a bus bench just outside the National Geographic building. I watched hordes of people trying to get home, racing down the crowded sidewalks of Midtown. I wondered if I could judge how lonely a person was based on how much of a hurry he or she was in. No one who has someone waiting for him at home would sit on a bus bench after a ten-hour workday and people-watch. I always carried an old Pentax camera from my college days in my messenger bag, but I hadn’t used it in years.

  I removed it from the case and starting clicking away as people flooded in and out of the subway, as they waited for buses, as they hailed cabs. I hoped that through the lens I would see her again, like I had years before. Her vibrant spirit; the way she could color a black-and-white photo with her magnetism alone. I had thought about Grace often over the years. Something as simple as a smell, like sugared pancakes at night, or the sound of a cello in Grand Central or Washington Square Park on a warm day, could transport me right back to that year in college. The year I spent falling in love with her.

  It was hard for me to see the beauty in New York anymore. Granted, much of the riffraff and grit was gone, at least in the East Village; it was cleaner and greener now, but that palpable energy I had felt in college was gone, too. For me, anyway.

  Time passes, life goes on, places change, people change. And still, I couldn’t get Grace off my mind after seeing her in the subway. Fifteen years is too long to be holding on to a few heart-pounding moments from college.

  3. Five Weeks After I Saw You

  MATT

  “Matt, I’m talking to you.”

  I looked up to see Elizabeth peering over the cubicle partition. “Huh?”

  “I said, do you want to get lunch with us and go through the new slides?”

  “Who’s ‘us’?”

  “Scott, Brad, and me.”

  “No.”

  “Matt . . .” she warned. “You have to be there.”

  “I’m busy, Elizabeth.” I was playing the Sudoku game printed on the brown paper bag from the deli where I buy my turkey sandwiches. “And, I’m eating. Can’t you see that?”

  “You’re supposed to eat in the break room. I can smell those onions down the hall.”

  “That’s because you’re pregnant,” I mumbled into my sandwich.

  She huffed and then turned and walked down the hallway, muttering something to herself.

  Scott came up to my cubicle a minute later. “We need to go over those slides, buddy.”

  “Can’t I just eat in peace? By the way, did you look over my request?”

  He grinned. “You get in touch with Subway Girl yet?”

  “I rode the subway to Brooklyn every day for a month and didn’t see her. I tried.”

  It was true, I had been looking for Grace. After work, I would go to all of our old haunts in the East Village; I even hung out in front of the NYU dorm rooms where we had lived. Nothing.

  “Hmm.” He scratched his chin. “With all the technology out there, you’re bound to find her. Maybe she wrote a Missed Connections ad. Did you look there?”

  I set my sandwich down. “What’s a ‘missed connections’ ad?”

  He walked into my cubicle. “Get up, let me sit there.” I rose from my chair. Scott sat down to pull up Craigslist on my computer, navigating over to the Missed Connections section. “It’s like when you see someone
in public and have a connection but don’t know how to reach them. You can post about the experience here and hope they find it.”

  “Why wouldn’t you just ask for their number when you see them?”

  “It’s one of those sensitive-guy, new-wave things. Like, if you don’t have the balls to approach someone but maybe there’s an attraction, you can post here. If they were feeling it too, they might see it and respond to your post. No harm, no foul. You write where it happened and what you were wearing and all that so the other person knows it’s you.”

  I was squinting at the screen, thinking it was a stupid idea. “Yeah, but I actually used to know Grace. I might have said hello if I had more than a second before the train pulled away.”

  He swiveled the chair around to face me. “Look, you’re not gonna find her on the subway. The odds are against you. Maybe she wrote one of these?”

  “I’ll look. Although, I’m pretty sure if she wanted to find me, she’d have no problem. My name hasn’t changed and I still work at the same place.”

  “You never know. Just read them.”

  I spent the entire afternoon reading posts like, I saw you in the park, you were wearing a powder blue jacket. We kept stealing glances at each other. If you like me, call me. Or, Where’d you go that night at SaGalls, you were talking about a cherry-drop martini and then you were gone. I thought you liked me. What’s up? And the-oh-so-common, I want to do nasty things to you. I thought you knew that when you were droppin’ it like it’s hot and grinding on my leg at ClubForty. Gimme a buzz.

  Grace wasn’t there, and I was relatively sure no one under the age of thirty could be found in the Missed Connections section. And then I read a post called “A Poem for Margaret.”

  Once there was a you and me

  We were lovers

  We were friends

  Before life changed

  Before we were strangers

  Do you still think of me?

  —Joe

  I couldn’t imagine twenty-year-olds named Joe and Margaret who spoke of the past in that manner. In an eerie way, it conveyed exactly what I felt for Grace, and I wondered for a moment if it was her. I called the number and a man answered.

  “Hello, is this Joe?” I asked.

  “Nope, that’s the third time someone has called today asking that. Joe sure is a popular guy, but he doesn’t live here.”

  “Thank you.”

  I hung up. Suddenly, the room darkened, with the exception of one set of fluorescent lights over my head and the desk lamp in my cubicle. From the hallway, Scott shouted, “I’ll leave that one on for you, Matt! Get to it.” He knew exactly what I was doing. Maybe Grace would find the post, maybe she wouldn’t. Either way, I had to write it—if for nothing else, my own peace of mind.

  To the Green-Eyed Lovebird:

  We met fifteen years ago, almost to the day, when I moved my stuff into the NYU dorm room next to yours at Senior House.

  You called us fast friends. I like to think it was more.

  We lived on nothing but the excitement of finding ourselves through music ( you were obsessed with Jeff Buckley ), photography ( I couldn’t stop taking pictures of you ), hanging out in Washington Square Park, and all the weird things we did to make money. I learned more about myself that year than any other.

  Yet, somehow, it all fell apart. We lost touch the summer after graduation, when I went to South America to work for National Geographic. When I came back, you were gone. A part of me still wonders if I pushed you too hard after the wedding . . .

  I didn’t see you again until a month ago. It was a Wednesday. You were rocking back on your heels, balancing on that thick yellow line that runs along the subway platform, waiting for the F train. I didn’t know it was you until it was too late, and then you were gone. Again. You said my name; I saw it on your lips. I tried to will the train to stop, just so I could say hello.

  After seeing you, all of the youthful feelings and memories came flooding back to me, and now I’ve spent the better part of a month wondering what your life is like. I might be totally out of my mind, but would you like to get a drink with me and catch up on the last decade and a half?

  M

  (212)-555-3004

  SECOND MOVEMENT:

  FIFTEEN YEARS AGO

  4. When I Met You

  MATT

  It was a Saturday when we met at Senior House. She was reading a magazine in the lounge while I struggled down the hall with my nineteen-year-old wooden desk. It was the one piece of home my mother had shipped from California, other than a single box, my camera equipment, and a duffel bag of clothes.

  When she glanced in my direction, I froze awkwardly, hoping she’d look past me as I balanced the desk with little finesse.

  No such luck.

  Instead, she stared right into my eyes, cocked her head to the side, and squinted. She looked as if she were trying to recall my name. We had never met, I was sure of that. No one could forget a face like hers.

  I remained still, transfixed, as I took her in. She had big, incandescent green eyes, alit with energy that demanded attention. Her mouth was moving and I was staring right at her, but I couldn’t hear a word she was saying; all I could think about was how uniquely beautiful she was. The eyebrows that framed her big, almond-shaped eyes were darker than her almost white-blonde hair, and her skin looked like it would taste sweet on the tongue.

  Oh my god, I’m thinking about what this girl’s skin tastes like?

  “Bueller?”

  “Huh?” I blinked.

  “I asked if I could give you a hand?” She smiled, piteously, and then pointed to the desk I had balanced on my knee.

  “Sure, yeah. Thanks.”

  Without hesitation, she tossed aside her magazine, grabbed one end of the desk, and began walking backward as I struggled to keep up.

  “I’m Grace, by the way.”

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, out of breath. The name suited her.

  “Do you have a name?”

  “One more,” I said, gesturing with a nod.

  “Your name is One More? That’s kind of unfortunate, but it does make me wonder how your parents came up with it.” She grinned.

  I let out a nervous laugh. She was stunningly beautiful but she was also kind of goofy. “I meant, we’re one room away.”

  “I know, silly. I’m still waiting on that name.”

  “Matt.”

  “So Matty One More,” she said after she stopped in front of my room. “What’s your major?”

  “Photography.”

  “Ah, so I must recognize you from Tisch?”

  “Nope. This is my first year.”

  She looked puzzled. I reminded her of someone. I was hoping it was someone she liked. After we set the desk down, I moved past her to unlock the door. With my head lowered, I spoke to my Vans. “Yeah, I transferred from USC.”

  “Really? I’ve never been to California. I can’t believe you left USC to come and slum it at Geezer House.”

  “It wasn’t my scene.” I turned around and leaned against the door before I opened it. Our eyes met for a few seconds too long, and we both looked away. “I had to get out of California for a bit.” I was nervous-talking but I didn’t want her to leave. “Do you want to come in and hang out while I unpack my stuff?”

  “Sure.”

  She propped the door open with a stack of books and then helped me as I carried the desk inside to place in the corner. She hopped on top of it and sat, legs crossed, like she was going to meditate or levitate. I looked around my room again for the second time that day. It came complete with the standard dorm furniture: one metal extra-long twin bed, a desk that I could use for my camera equipment, an old stereo on the floor that the last person had left behind, and one empty bookshelf. The large box I had brought contained some of my favorite records, books, CDs, and photos. My best work from USC was matted inside a leather portfolio. Grace immediately grabbed it and began flipping through the p
ages. There were two long, narrow windows that bathed the room in sunlight, illuminating Grace’s face perfectly. It was as if the light were coming from her.

  “Wow, this one is amazing. Is this your girlfriend?” She held up a photo of a gorgeous girl with devilish eyes, the curve of her naked body exposed.

  “No, she wasn’t my girlfriend. Just a friend.” This was true, but it was also true that she had mouthed Do you want to fuck me? right before I snapped the photo while my friend—and her boyfriend—watched us silently. Like I said, USC wasn’t my scene.

  “Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, it’s a great photo.”

  “Thanks. The light in here is fantastic. Maybe I can take a couple of you?”

  I saw her neck move as she swallowed. Her eyes widened and I realized she thought I wanted to photograph her naked. “Um, with your clothes on, of course.”

  Her expression lightened. “Sure, I’d be happy to.” She continued to stare at the photograph. “But I think I could model for you like this girl, if it’s done like this.” She turned her green eyes on me. “Maybe someday, after we’ve known each other for a while. You know, for the sake of art?” She smirked.

  I tried not to picture her naked. “Yeah, for the sake of art.” And a work of art she was. She wore a man’s white dress shirt, the sleeves rolled up to the elbow, with the top two buttons open. Her pink toenails caught my eye before my gaze moved up to the skin peeking out from a hole in the knee of her jeans. I watched as she began to braid her long blonde hair over her shoulder. I couldn’t take my eyes off of her and she noticed, but instead of saying something rude she just smiled.

  “So why did you call it Geezer House?” I asked as I turned to unpack the large box. I needed to distract myself so I’d stop staring at her.

  “Because it’s really fucking boring here. Seriously, I’ve been here a week and already I feel like my soul is dying.”

  I laughed at the dramatics. “That bad, huh?”

  “I haven’t played the cello once since I moved in; I’m afraid people will complain. Oh, by the way, you’ll have to let me know if my playing gets too loud for you. Just bang on the wall or something.”