Read Maybe in Another Life for Free Online

phone.”
    “Nothing.”
    “Gabby, c’mon,” I say.
    “It’s not important. It means nothing.”
    “Hand it over.”
    She reluctantly puts the phone in my hand. It’s a text message from Katherine.
    Going home with Ethan. Is this a terrible idea?
    My heart sinks in my chest. I look away and hand the phone back to Gabby without a word.
    She turns back to look at me. “Hey,” she says softly.
    “I’m not upset,” I say back, but my voice is thin and high-pitched. Upset is exactly how I sound.
    “C’mon,” she says.
    I laugh. “It’s fine. He can do what he wants.” I’m glad I didn’t stay out late with him, looking to see if there was something between us. “I specifically did not stay out with him tonight because I didn’t want it to be a one-night thing. If it was anything. So there you go. Spares me the embarrassment.”
    Gabby frowns at me.
    I laugh defensively, as if the harder I laugh, the harder I can push her pity off me and out the window. “He’s a great guy. I’m not saying he’s not, but, you know, if that’s how it gonna be with him, I don’t need that.”
    I look out the window again and then immediately back at Gabby.
    “I like Katherine, actually,” I say. “She seems great.”
    “If I may,” Mark interjects. “I don’t know much about the history between the two of you, but just because he’s sleeping with someone else doesn’t necessarily mean . . .”
    “I know,” I say. “But still. It makes it clear to me that he and I are best left in the past. I mean, we dated forever ago. It’s fine.”
    “Do you want to change the subject?” Gabby asks me.
    “Yes,” I say. “Please.”
    “Well, should we go to breakfast tomorrow while Mark goes into work?”
    “Yeah,” I say, turning away from her and looking out the window. “Let’s talk about food.”
    “Where should I take her?” Gabby asks Mark, and the two of them start rattling off names of restaurants I’ve never heard of.
    Mark asks me if I like sweet or savory breakfasts.
    “You mean, do I like pancakes or eggs?”
    “Yeah,” he says.
    “She likes cinnamon rolls,” Gabby answers at the exact same time I say, “I like places with cinnamon rolls.”
    When I was a kid, my dad used to take me to this doughnut shop called Primo’s Donuts. They had big, warm cinnamon rolls. We’d go get one every Sunday morning. As I got older, we got busier. Eventually, a lot of my parents’ time was spent shuttling Sarah to and from various rehearsals and recitals, so it became harder to find time to go. But when we did, I always ordered a cinnamon roll. I just love them so much.
    When I moved in with Gabby’s family, Tina used to buy the cans of raw cinnamon rolls and bake them for me on theweekends. The bottoms were always burned, and she had a light hand with the prepackaged icing, but I didn’t care. Even a bad cinnamon roll is still a good cinnamon roll.
    “With a lot of icing,” I tell Mark. “I don’t care if it’s a day’s worth of calories. Gabby, if you’re up for it, I can try to find Primo’s, and we can go there tomorrow.”
    “Done,” she says. “OK, we’re almost at the museum. Up on the right here. You can sort of see the lights now, just right there.”
    I look forward, past her head, and I think I see what she’s talking about. We breeze through the green light, hitting a red in front of LACMA, and now I see it perfectly.
    Streetlight after streetlight, rows of them, tightly lined up and lit. These are not the streetlights that you see today, the kind that shoot toward the sky and then curve over above the street. These are vintage. They look as if Gene Kelly might have swung on them while singing in the rain.
    I look at the installation, staring with purpose out the window. I suppose there is something very simple and beautiful about it. City lights against a backdrop of a pitch-black night does have a sense of magic to it. And maybe there’s a metaphor here, something about