Page 107 of Cut Off
“Okay.”
There’s a long quiet. I look at the city. The city looks back.
“How’s the hotel?” she says.
“Beige.”
“Huh?”
“Beige, beige. The artwork is a beige fern.”
“Sounds very neutral.”
She makes me laugh. We talk about nothing for a while—Maddie’s new sublet in Dickens, which has a window that doesn’t close all the way; Maddie’s plan to do her MFA applications by the end of the month; Maddie’s doomed flirtation with a guy she met at the coffee shop who also turnedout to be named Hunter, which we both agree is the universe telling her to take some time off.
She hasn’t started working at Jonah’s yet since they don’t need her right now with Eli at Gwen’s.
And selfishly, I’m glad. I don’t want her where I’m dreaming to be.
I don’t tell her about my phone, which has been sitting next to me on speakerphone the entire call, and which I have, between sentences, opened and closed on the same unsent message four times.
The unsent message is to him. Of course it is. The cursor blinks in the box. I have typed, and deleted, the following over the course of the day: hi; hey; how is he; tell Eli hi when you see him; hope you’re holding up okay.
I close it again.
“You should go to bed,” Maddie says, eventually. “You sound tired.”
“I am tired.”
“Drink some water.”
“Yes, mother.”
“Don’t call me mother.”
“Goodnight, Mad.”
“Goodnight, Zo. Hey.”
“Yeah.”
“I love you.”
“I love you too.”
We hang up. The room is quiet in the way hotel rooms are quiet, which is not really quiet at all because of HVAC, the slamming doors, and the elevator dinging somewhere down the hall. Plus the soft thrum of a city outside the glass.
I find the remote and turn on the TV, which is a late-night show with a man at a desk being charming. I leave it on lowand lie back on the comforter in my work clothes, blazer and all, and stare at the ceiling.
I never had to put the TV on for noise at Jonah’s house. The house had Eli flipping a page in the next room and Jonah rinsing a glass downstairs and the long, soft creak of the upstairs hallway that meant someone was coming to check on someone.
I close my eyes. The man at the desk is laughing at something on the TV.
Eventually, the tears come.
Tomorrow, I’ll try again. The segment. The newsroom. The plant. The name on the door.
Tonight, I’m devastated, exhausted, and lost in a city that doesn’t know my name.
