I sound tragic, don’t I? I wasn’t, I’m pretty sure. By the time I was eight or nine, I had friends, and it was such a relief, having people who really seemed to like talking to me. In middle school, I joined everything, did the grunt-work jobs (always secretary, never president, equipment manager rather than star player). High school was the same; I was always Switzerland, staying friends with everyone, never taking sides.
I didn’t have a boyfriend. But I was great at giving advice to my friends who did have boyfriends, and I got a vicarious thrill every once in a while, approaching Seth to tell him that Lucy really liked him, and did he like her?
When Kate went off to NYU, my parents and I moved to Cambry-on-Hudson, and I made the most out of being the new girl. I’d learned long ago that being a superfriend was the way to make people like me back. Adore, and ye shall be adored.
Sean went from Harvard to Columbia Medical School, because he was a show-off. After NYU, Kate got an MFA in photography from Savannah College of Art and Design and immediately started working as a professional photographer. She was dazzling to me, so sophisticated and urbane, living in Brooklyn (I barely knew where that was back then, but it sounded so cool).
I went to a pretty nice college in New York City—well, it was Wagner College on Staten Island, in the shadow of the mighty skyline but technically still in New York City.
Unlike my siblings, I wasn’t driven to achieve or study anything in particular. College was wonderful, and I loved being away from home. My siblings were off leading their fabulous, very adult lives; Sean married Kiara, also a surgeon, specialized in some kind of brain surgery and did the occasional TED Talk. Kate lived in her brownstone, a world away, it seemed, though she had me over for dinner once in a while, always nice but a little unsure where I was concerned.
Then, junior year, I met Eric.
Wagner was a small school, but somehow, we didn’t know each other. He was an accounting major; I was studying philosophy, because doesn’t the world need more philosophers?
I saw Eric as we were moving back in on the first day of the new school year. His parents were saying goodbye, hugging him, and his mom was laughing and wiping tears. He kissed her on the cheek, hugged his dad, not the awkward thanks, gotta run hug of most boys our age, but a real hug, a loving hug.
And Eric was handsome. Dark hair, dark eyes, attractively dorky glasses, lanky build.
He looked up, saw me watching and smiled, and that was it. I fell in love.
It took two weeks for me to speak to him, which was getting awkward, since we lived in the same dorm that year. But one happy night, my key card wasn’t working, and I was patiently reinserting it for the fifteenth time when Eric came up behind me and said, “Want me to try, girl who doesn’t talk to me?”
I blushed.
He smiled. “Maybe we could grab a coffee,” he suggested, and my heart ricocheted around my chest.
We grabbed a coffee.
By the weekend, we were a couple. It took him all of two weeks to get me into bed; basically, the amount of time it took for the Pill to kick in. I couldn’t believe love had finally found me in the form of affable, well-liked, dorktastic Eric Fisher...my boyfriend!
And even more remarkable...he felt the same way about me.
We could talk all night. It was more important to talk than sleep. He was funny, and he was so nice that it took my breath away. I hadn’t met any boys like that. Boys who held the door and bought you cold medicine when you were sick and snagged a blueberry muffin from the dining hall just because you loved them.
With Eric, I finally belonged. Finally, I was special.
That summer, we both got internships in Manhattan, me with a tiny publishing house, him with a bank. His parents let us stay in their apartment on 102nd Street—the building was named The Broadmoor, which I thought was so sophisticated. I’d never lived in a building with a name before. The apartment had belonged to Eric’s maternal grandmother, and it was a tiny, unglamorous place with a bedroom so small it could fit only a double bed. The living room was also the kitchen, and our table could fit only two people, and even then, our knees had to touch.
Mr. and Mrs. Fisher approved of me, which in itself was dazzling. “Are you religious, sweetheart?” his mom had asked on our third dinner together.
“Not really, Mrs. Fisher. Don’t let the name O’Leary fool you,” I said. “I can’t remember the last time we went to church. Maybe when my cousin got married a few years ago?”
She beamed. “Call me Judy, honey.”
“Sorry about my mom,” Eric said, smiling at his mother. “She wants to make sure the kids will be raised Jewish.”
Kids! Raised! My knees thrilled with adrenaline and love.
After graduation, we stayed together. It was always we. “We should go to San Francisco,” Eric said late in our senior year, “though it would kill my mother. By the way, she wants to take you to Phantom again. I’m sorry.”
I adored him. He was smart, kind and thoughtful. He told great stories, making his happy, normal childhood seem utterly hilarious without ever mocking his parents. His devotion to me didn’t even flicker. That was another thing I loved about him. His constancy.
The difference between being someone’s friend, sister (or half sister, as the case was), daughter (or stepdaughter)...and being someone’s love was breathtaking. I felt like the most wonderful creature in the world.
Upon graduation, Eric and I got jobs in the city, making Judy just about cartwheel with joy (they lived in nearby Greenwich, Connecticut). My B+ average and philosophy major qualified me to be nothing, but I got a job as a receptionist at NBC. Eric got a position at the bank where he’d interned, and we moved back into The Broadmoor, much to the jealousy of our friends, who had to endure complicated commutes from Queens or Yonkers.
It was perfect. The thrill of our first real jobs, riding on the subway, getting pad Thai for dinner and watching TV, fooling around in our tiny bedroom...it was everything I imagined adult life should be.
I loved working at Rockefeller Center, liked seeing the celebrities going in and out. I liked dressing up for work in my retro-cute dresses or sweater sets and A-line skirts. I was outgoing, I was cheerful, I said hello but didn’t ask for a selfie with the talent or try to kiss up to the producers and writers (though I did text Eric every time I saw Tina Fey). The job wasn’t rocket science, but I did it well.
Eric had a higher-paying job, and I encouraged him to look into MBA programs, because he had a really good brain for numbers. After just two months at the bank, he was already restless and irritable about his entry-level position. He wanted something with status, with an office and a personal assistant.
Personally, I felt there was a lot of peace in doing a not-hard job. Besides, my real adult life lay ahead of me, in some happy, vague fantasy that involved me wearing a lot of Armani, but still being a stay-at-home mom to our kids. Surely Eric and I would be getting married soon; we talked about it without reservation, not the specifics, but just when we’re married or that would be a nice place to settle down or when we have a baby. There was no rush. We were just out of college, after all.
NBC was fine. I never minded delivering lunch to the newsroom or standing in the rain to grab a taxi for someone who’d forgotten to book the car service. Then one day, a reporter from The Day’s News asked me to run out and buy him a new shirt and tie; he had to go on air unexpectedly and had sweated through his original shirt running back from lunch. “I hate to ask you,” he said. “But I’m in a jam, and my assistant isn’t in today.”
“Oh, I don’t mind!” I said. “No problem at all.”
He gave me four hundred dollars. “Buy yourself something for your trouble,” he said, “and thank