“Ten! Nine! Eight!”
Thomas’s house is as meticulously decorated as a furniture magazine or one of those Pinterest pages where even the drink coasters are decorated. The snowflakes in the candle centerpiece are so realistic I didn’t touch them, for fear they’d melt.
In one of the band’s now rare outings, Thomas told us that Iris has a new passion for resins, transforming a room in their house into an art studio where she does strange experiments with silicone molds and chemical agents worthy of a meth lab.
“Seven! Six! Five!”
I watch my friends, glued to the TV tuned to Times Square, watching the big ball come down to announce the arrival of the new year. I study Levi’s curious eyes, and I realize that in just a year, so much has happened that fifty years could have passed. I would not be surprised if tomorrow morning I woke up and found myself, almost eighty years old, sitting on the porch enjoying my retirement.
I’m happy because we’ve finally freed ourselves from the weight of the lies we carried with us from our past. We’ve taken back the freedom they denied us. Still, I feel restless, looking for something I can’t even identify.
“Four! Three!”
At twenty-eight, I have four houses, more money than I could spend in a lifetime, a career that, despite everything, is going well, and friends who show their affection for me constantly.
Yet I’m here, in this room, looking at the centerpiece and wondering how the hell Iris created such a complicated thing, instead of enjoying the excitement of an old year ending and a new one beginning. The anticipation for a new beginning isn’t there, like in other years, with a pleasant squeeze in my stomach.
“Two! One!”
I shift my gaze from the smiling faces of my friends to the silver balloons covering the floor. The red confetti sticking under our shoes. The bread crumbs from the appetizers fallen on the floor from the huge table still covered with dishes of leftovers from our dinner.
The grapes, the lentils, the donut-shaped cake, the beans are all dishes traditionally meant to bring luck, money, prosperity for the new year. But I don’t know where to start eating them because I already have all these things. What’s the point of wanting more if it doesn’t take away this restless feeling I’ve had for a while?
“Happy New Year!”
The cry draws my attention to my friends who exchange greetings with smiling faces and happiness in their eyes. Damian grabs Lilly by the ass and pulls her in for a kiss that looks like a prelude to a fiery night rather than a New Year’s greeting. Evan hugs Levi, who makes a disgusted grimace when Michael takes Faith’s face in his hands and delicately touches his lips to hers. Thomas kisses Iris before leaving her in Emily’s clutches, looking at her with a lover’s eyes.
Everyone has someone to turn to for the first thought of the year while I’m here, standing still, watching the happiness that swirls around me, never reaching me.
I grab the heavy sweater from the back of my chair and head down the hallway leading to the backyard. When I set foot outside, the icy air hits my face and I put my hands in my pockets to avoid freezing. Shivering with cold and cursing myself for not wearing a jacket, I look up at a dark cloudless sky and breathe. The air freezes my chest, and I close my eyes.
Beyond the wall surrounding the backyard, the city is in full swing. People shouting, music coming from some open window, someone else blowing those annoying trumpets that seem to materialize in massive amounts on the shop shelves during the holiday season. I suppose that’s the price to pay when in Manhattan, where it’s forbidden to have fireworks.
I don’t smell gunpowder on national holidays anymore, and I miss it a bit because it reminds me of those few moments of my childhood when I was really happy, when we allowed ourselves to be children for one day.
“Everyone’s wondering where you ended up.”
I turn to Evan, who joined me out here. His lips form a smile, but his gray eyes scrutinize me, trying to read my thoughts.
“Really? Or did you come here to make sure I didn’t run away?”
Evan shakes his head and looks away. He is freezing inside his elegant coat and scarf, and when he snorts, trying to hold back a little laugh, the white cloud of breath creates an almost ethereal halo on his face illuminated only by the streetlamps.
He shrugs his shoulders and glances at me before looking again at the grass beneath his feet. “They’re still in that honeymoon phase, where they only have eyes for their lovers. You’ll see, sooner or later, it will pass, and you’ll go back to going out with them like before. They’ll be your old friends again.”
A disconsolate half-laugh slips out before I can hold it back. “Don’t you feel like an idiot when they invite you out, and then show up with their woman and flirt all evening, or talk about how perfect life is as a couple? I don’t know what excuse to use anymore to say no to their invitations.”
Evan smiles and nods. “I usually say I have work to finish.”
“Yes, I can’t use that excuse. They are my job.”
Evan chuckles.
“It’s not that I can’t stand their conversations. It’s just that I feel like I have nothing in common anymore… We’re not in harmony anymore, and I miss those moments a little. I miss arguing over the pigsty tour bus or teasing Michael about his one-night stands. I miss talking about music, concerts, what we do for a living. Am I ungrateful? They’re my friends. I adore their women, I should be happy for them, and instead, I’m here complaining.”
I study the wrinkles that form on his forehead when he furrows it in a serious expression. “You’re not ungrateful. You’re just the last of your friends to have a partner, and that sucks. I think it’s almost an unwritten rule that, at a certain age, one at a time, your friends fall in love and you’re still alone, looking like an idiot. But they’ll come back to their senses and start to act normal again. You may not go around partying like you used to, but you’ll come back to sharing the same interests.”
I breathe in and hold my breath. I stopped looking for a woman. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, but every time I’m interested in someone, after a few dates, my enthusiasm diminishes.
Most of the women I meet want to know about the rock star lifestyle. All the conversations focus on my career, on the crazy experiences they expect me to have, but my life’s not like that. I find myself telling my bandmates’ stories instead because I’m not a rock star. I’m just a guy who likes to make music for a living. That’s it. But they don’t care, they don’t want to get to know me better. They want to know about my celebrity lifestyle.
The thing I crave most is finding a woman I feel good with, who likes a simple life, away from the spotlight, drama, from complicated things that keep you up at night. But I stopped looking for her.
“You mean the ‘curse of the last single?’ They could make a movie about it.”
Evan looks at me with a smile, then looks at his red, freezing hands. “Do you think going on tour would make you feel happier?”
A sound something like a roar comes out of my chest. “Yes, please! I need to go back to playing live, not just in the studio for the new album.”
Evan smiles and nods but says nothing more. “Shall we go back in? It’s freezing out here.” He turns around and climbs the stairs without giving me time to answer.
“We were looking for you!” announces Michael when we return to the dining room where everyone has taken a seat at the table and is swallowing grapes.
I sit down, grab a lucky grape, and put it in my mouth.
“Can you tell us why you’re so mysterious today?” Thomas asks Michael what we were all wondering this afternoon when we came here to help them set up for tonight.
My best friend looks at Faith, who lowers her head and blushes, unable to hold back a smile. That simple gesture makes my blood freeze in my veins because I know what’s coming. I know what he has to announce. When they returned from their trip to Mexico, she had an engagement ring on her finger. We toasted, congratulated the woman who managed to convert Michael to marriage. The tender way he caresses Faith’s hand now, Levi biting his lips to keep his mouth shut, can only mean one bit of news.
My stomach twists in a grip that hurts. The grape I just ate struggles to make it past the lump forming in my throat. I wish I had a remote control to press “pause” and compose myself before the news about to come out devastates my chest with an explosion. I should be happy, Michael’s my best friend. I want him to be happy, and at the same time, I want to stop this moment before our friendship changes forever.
“Faith is pregnant.”
Three simple words I can’t stop. Fifteen letters, violent as a slap. The silence that follows seems to last for hours, then Lilly’s ecstatic squeal starts the noise of chairs screeching on the floor, friends congratulating, hugging, patting each other on the back.
I do my part, getting up from my chair, putting a smile on my face I hope will appear sincere as I walk the six feet separating me from Michael with the slow pace of a funeral march.
He has teary eyes, the idiot grin of someone who’s deliriously happy. He embraces me with so much enthusiasm I’m sure he couldn’t wait to share this moment with us, his family.
I wish I was on another planet. I hug him back with almost no conviction, and when it takes him a while to let me go, I’m so uncomfortable I want to push him away. Almost. I stay there with a fake smile on my face and the words that struggle to get out of my lips. “Congratulations. I’m happy for you.”
And I really am. My rational part is happy. It’s my heart that can’t keep up with all the emotions running through my chest, and it stays there, frozen, waiting to feel that happiness. The only feeling I can sense is guilt for betraying my friendship with Michael.
Damian comes over with his usual impetuousness, wraps his arm around Michael’s neck, and drags him away, almost suffocating him. I turn around, walk to the closet by the front door, grab my jacket, scarf, cap, and gloves, and put them on one at a time, with a slowness that isn’t me.
“Are you okay?” Evan’s voice brings me to reality, but I don’t turn to him this time. I’m afraid he’ll read on my face all the shame I’m feeling right now.
“Yes, I’m just tired, and I need to go home.”
“I’ll tell the others.”
He doesn’t try to stop me, to make me talk, to reason, to tell me that I should slap a damn smile on my face and stay for my friend. Evan’s like that. He protects us and fixes our messes when we can’t. I nod and open the door without even saying goodbye. When I close it, the weight that lifts from my chest lightens my step and gets me home faster.
