Shake the Glitter Off

--------

My mobile takes a moment to power up, but then the familiar greeting dashes across the screen and the unlock option opens up. I glance up at the clock at the top of the screen and note the time. It’s 3:11 in the morning, New York time, which means that it’s just after nine in the morning in Berlin.

I had been lucky. There hadn’t been a lot of people flying from Prague to New York City at eleven at night, so I had pretty much the entire row to stretch out. I had lifted up the armrest and attempted to sleep, but I never really liked sleeping in public because I felt like people were staring at me and it makes me uncomfortable.

My movements are slow as I gather together my purse and Bill’s jacket that I had shrugged off immediately after boarding. Rydan had texted me while I was in the air to tell me that it was freezing, so I slip the black hoodie on once more and zip it up tightly before I pull the sleeves down over my hands and grab my purse.

The flight attendant flashes me a friendly smile and I give her a short wave as I walk off of the plane, my purse hitting the side of my leg rhythmically as I walk. There’s really only a short space where I’m unprotected and the icy blast of wind nearly takes my breath away before I’m safe again in the jet way.

A huge part of me can’t believe that I’m really back in New York. I still feel like I’ll have to board another plane and go back to Germany, because that’s where my home really is. I’m sure I’ll feel different once I get home and I’m settled in once more. I can’t pinpoint exactly when I started to refer to Berlin as home and this bothers me. I’m a New York girl at heart and I always will be.

JFK is pretty tame at this hour, I decide, as I trudge through the airport with the hood pulled up over my messy ponytail in order to ward off paparazzi. It is highly unlikely that I’ll be photographed, especially at this hour, but I’m not taking any chances. I don’t want anyone knowing I’m back in America. Because it’ll get back to my family and I do not want to deal with them or the media's over-exaggeration of my return.

I’m reeling as I turn the corner and start to scan faces for my best friend. I need to eat something and then I need a shower. I’m still on European time, so I’m not that tired. It also didn’t help that I slept the majority of the flight away.

Finally I spot her standing near the luggage claim area, bundled up tightly and standing on her tiptoes in order to see over everyone’s heads. Our eyes meet almost immediately and she starts forward as I rush ahead, eager to see her after more than half a year apart.

She opens her arms wide and I envelope myself into her warm body, clinging to her slender frame tightly. She doesn’t say anything, only squeezes me gently and rubs at my sore back tenderly.

I can feel the tears beginning to well up in my eyes and I blink them back furiously. I have no intention of bursting into tears in the middle of the airport. It’s a mixture between relief at finally being home and in the presence of someone who loves and supports me unconditionally and disbelief that I’m really, truly here. It makes my decision to leave Bill behind in Germany that much more real and concrete.

Rydan, having been my ride home on many occasions, expertly starts to guide me towards the luggage claim. “So how was your flight?”

“Long,” I answer honestly, starting to pull my bags off of the moving belt. My voice is hoarse from not using it and I clear my throat before I talk again. It feels weird to speak in English now and I have to make a conscious effort to switch my German off. “I’m so hungry though.”

“Did they not serve you a meal?” She asks, puzzled as she fishes three of my bags out of the mess. “I thought any flight over, like, three hours had to have food on them.”

I pull a face as I tug my last two bags off and fumble with the straps for a moment before I finally am able to swing the first over my shoulder, next to my purse, and then carry the second in my hands. “I had some disgusting vegetarian meal—I have no idea what I was eating, so all I ate was a roll and some sort of noodle and vegetable concoction.” Out of the corner of my eye, I can see her grinning to herself as we start to walk towards the exit. “What?”

“You have an accent,” She announces, her lips stretching upwards in a happy smile. “It’s definitely German.”

“What?” I wrinkle my nose as we walk through sliding glass doors and towards the short term parking garage. “I do not have an accent.”

“Yes you do!” Rydan insists, bumping into me purposefully. “You stayed over there for six and a half months. Did you not think you’d pick up some trace of an accent? Don’t worry, it’s adorable. Your New York accent will be back before you know it.”

I don’t even dignify that with a response as Rydan leads me towards an elevator that we take to the third level of the garage and then we walk towards her dark blue four-door car. After unlocking the car and popping the trunk open, it takes us a moment to arrange three of my bags inside before Rydan shoves the last two bags into the backseat.

I lower myself into the passenger seat and drop my purse to the floor, grateful for the seat and eager for the heat to be turned on full-blast. As Rydan starts up the engine and fools with the heating adjustments, I turn in my seat and my nose catches a familiar smell that brings a smile to my face. The jacket still smells like Bill and if truth be told, I had spent the majority of the flight using his hoodie as a pillow on the armrest. The faint scent of cigarettes and his cologne is what got me through the second flight even when we hit turbulence and the jerking of the plane sent me sprinting into the bathroom so I could empty my stomach of the final dinner Bill had cooked for me right before we left for the airport.

Rydan shifts into reverse and smoothly pulls out of her spot before she shifts down into drive. “So how are you feeling, sweetie?”

I know that she’s referring to the babies and not myself personally. “Tired,” I answer honestly, shrugging my shoulders as I look over at her. “Though that’s supposed to end soon, which I am greatly looking forward to. I want my energy back.”

“This was my last week before winter break begins, so I emailed all of my professors and took it off. I told them it was a family emergency so we can spend the entire week hanging out in the apartment and crying into our takeout containers.” She sends me a goofy smile that brings a grin onto my own face. “I also went grocery shopping earlier today and I stocked up on all of the essentials. So you can have a day or two to recover from your jet lag, but then I want to use up all of my supplies.”

“That’s fine,” I laugh weakly, shaking my bangs out of my eyes. “You’re acting like I’m just coming off a bad breakup.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I cringe. I know that I’m not being fair. The last time Rydan had spent quality alone time with me, I had just found out about Alex and I had been an emotional, hysterical mess. “I knew you’d come through for me, Rye.”

“What else are best friends for?” She asks rhetorically as we fly down the highway towards our house.

We arrive nearly thirty minutes later and Rydan parks in front of the luxury apartments. She doesn’t even have the car in park before the doors open and the night doorman hurries down the stairs, having recognized Rydan’s car. I don’t recognize his pale face, so he must have been hired in my absence. When I left, the night-time door attendant had been a young man in college. He must have graduated while I was gone.

Rydan has the trunk open and the doorman works to draw out my bags as I pick up my purse and step out onto the sidewalk, inhaling deeply. New York is rushing all over me and it brings a smile to my face. It smells just like I remember.

I pick up one of my bags and the doorman has the other four as we start to walk up the stairs and into the lobby. Rydan is back in the car where she’ll drive around the block and park in the building’s garage, next to my car in our assigned spots.

“Where to?” He asks as he piles my bags onto a carrier and starts to walk towards the elevators.

“The penthouse,” I reply softly, looking all around me curiously. The lobby hadn’t changed; it’s all the same, down from the ridiculous plant arrangement by the mail room to the creamy beige walls with the gold accents.

We ride up in silence, me leaning against the cold walls of the elevator and him fidgeting with his uniform uncomfortably. I know I should at least make an effort to get to know him, to let him that I live here so that he can recognize my face. But I can’t bring myself to speak. I just want something to eat and a hot shower.

I lead the way off the elevator and I hear him walking behind me, the carrier practically groaning under the weight of my luggage. It takes me a minute to find the silver key on my loop—I hadn’t used it in so long that I almost didn’t recognize it—before I unlock the front door and step into the main entry area.

“Just leave them here,” I instruct, offering him a weak smile. “Thank you so much.”

“No problem,” He mutters as he transfers all five of my bags to the floor before he retreats, dragging the carrier behind him dutifully.

I close the door behind him and look around me once more. I had missed my house much more than I had let on. It had taken me weeks to find the perfect place and I had obsessed over decorating and remodeling the penthouse until it met my standards.

The front door opens into a small main entry area and immediately to the right is a powder room and a coat closet. Rydan’s bedroom is through the door to the left of the entrance and she has a spacious bedroom and bathroom of her own. And another treasure that’s extremely rare to find in New York City housing is the tiny washer/dryer combo that’s hidden by a sliding door next to Rydan’s room

There’s a hallway opposite the front door and that leads into a wide, open living room where we had a fireplace and the entertainment system, along with overstuffed sofas and armchairs. Nestled between the living room and the powder room is a small kitchen that rarely saw any action, since neither one of us are very domestic.

Directly across from the kitchen is my bedroom. I had two massive closets and an ensuite bathroom, along with a private entrance to the tiny patio that was off of the living room. It isn’t that big, compared to the massive celebrity houses just down the block in SoHo but it’s home and I love it dearly. Every inch of this place is me and Rydan and we have spent two happy years here together.

It takes me three trips to bring all of my luggage into my bedroom and I heave a massive sigh as I survey my bags. It’s going to take me ages to unpack everything. I unzip the bag closest to me and then push it away immediately. I was looking for the bag that holds all of my toiletries since the first order of business is a long, hot shower.

Eventually I find my things in the third bag and I carry my things into my bathroom. The first thing I realize is that Rydan has cleaned my bathroom to perfection. A rush of gratitude sweeps over me and I make a mental note to thank her as soon as I’m finished with my shower.

It takes me only twenty minutes under a blisteringly hot spray before I deem myself presentable once more and I pad out of the steamy bathroom and pull on a pair of loose black sweats and a white wifebeater that accentuates the tiny bump in the front.

I walk out of my bedroom and into the kitchen. Rydan is sitting at the counter, sifting through a stack of mail. I open the refrigerator and go for a takeout container from the diner around the corner. They have the best fries in the entire world and our apartment is a frequent delivery stop for them.

I barely suppress the squeal of excitement as I see the thick fries and I head towards the toaster oven, my mouth already watering at the thought of dipping the fries into tartar sauce. I dump the entire box onto the tray and then push it inside the small oven, impatient for my food to be finished.

“Thank you for cleaning my room,” I say suddenly, as I fidget with the range knob while I search for a suitable temperature to heat the food back up. “It was such a pleasant surprise to come home to after a long flight.”

“Well I couldn’t let you shower in mold, could I?” Rydan says from behind me and I hear the rustle of paper as she moves. “This mail is all yours; it’s been accumulating since you left.”

“I’ll go through them tomorrow,” I look at the offending envelopes distastefully from over my shoulder. No doubt the majority of it was junk mail that could just be pitched. “I have no energy to do that now.”

Rydan looks sympathetic as I turn around, leaning up against the counter and crossing my arms over my chest. Her eyes widen and she nearly chokes on the glass of water she’s currently sipping from. “Holy shit!” She wipes at the water on her chin with her sleeve as she sets the glass back down on the counter.

I start forward, confusion knitting my eyebrows together. “What? What’s wrong?”

“Your stomach,” She motions, staring openly at my bump. “It’s huge!”

I stop and then frown as I look down. I don’t know, it’s not like I can see my stomach over my massive chest. Sudden waves of self-consciousness wash over me and I tug awkwardly at my shirt, trying to stretch the material out so my protruding belly isn’t as noticeable.

Rydan picks up on what I’m doing almost immediately and she starts to shake her head. “No, no, don’t. It’s not a bad thing, Lily. It’s cute! I mean, I know you told me you were pregnant, but it just didn’t set in until just now when-when I saw.”

“Yeah, well… I am,” I finish up lamely, still feeling unwieldy and noticeable. “They’re both in there.”

She stands up and walks around the bar. “I know, I saw them in the sonograms. What’s it feel like to be pregnant?”

I weigh her question in my head heavily. Do I answer flippantly, trying to pass everything off as though it’s not a big deal? Or do I answer honestly, rolling out every ache and pain that I’ve experienced in the past fifteen weeks?

“Pressurized,” I answer finally as my ears pick up on my French fries sizzling behind me. “It’s all pressure here,” I make a wide, sweeping motion across my belly. “It’s like that feeling that you get that lets you know you have to go to the bathroom, only it’s twenty-four/seven. And my chest hurts so unbelievably bad. Back in Berlin, I took to walking around Bill’s rooms without a shirt or bra on because my boobs were so tender. It was agony having to put clothes back on when he came home at night.”

Rydan is unsuccessful in attempting to hide her giggle. “I can’t believe you’re pregnant.”

“Believe it,” I reply, turning around and peering in at my food. How long have they even been in there for? I should have set a timer. “Because we have twenty-five more weeks of this.”

I pull out my tray of fries using the dishtowel that’s much too thin and I end up burning my fingertips a bit. I hiss as I throw everything down on the counter and my fingers go immediately into my mouth.

If Bill were here, he’d rush over and kiss each of my fingers until I felt better.

Immediately I banish the thought from my mind. I can’t think like that. I’m having a hard enough time adjusting to life without him and purposefully dwelling on his absence is just unnecessary pain on my part.

Rydan yawns and she opens up the refrigerator before she pulls out a bottle of water. “I’m going to go to bed. I don’t know what time you’re planning on getting up tomorrow, but I have to go to school for a few hours to take my mid-terms early. I shouldn’t be more than a few hours, but you can text me if you need me or something, okay?”

“Okay,” I nod as I start to rummage through the cupboards for a cup and a plate. “Thanks, Rye.”

“No problem, Lils.” Rydan walks out of the kitchen and I hear her walk across the marble in the front entrance before her bedroom door shuts quietly behind her.

It takes me a few moments to dump my food onto a plate and to pull out a jar of tartar sauce from the fridge. On a last minute whim, I add some hot sauce and then pour myself a generous glass of lemonade.

My meal is eaten as I sit at the bar, my mind whirling as I try to piece together an active to-do list in my mind. I’ll need to put in a call to Nathan to let him know that I’m back in the states, I need to unpack, I need to schedule an appointment with my doctor here in New York, I need to go through all of my mail and I need to go shopping for some maternity clothes. And I need to get into contact with an adoption agency. I've decided that I want the twins to live here in America.

By the time I’m through with my food, I’m tired. I was still on Germany time and though the clock on the stove reads five in the morning, I feel like it’s eleven for me. I put my plate and empty cup in the sink and then turn off the lights before I check to make sure the front door’s locked.

I step into my room and then shut the door behind me before I walk towards my bed. I’d left at the end of May, so I still had my light blanket on the bed and not my thick, downy duvet that would keep me warm against the winter chill.

It takes me a minute to pull the blanket out of the closet and then another fifteen is spent stripping my bed and spreading out first the electric blanket and then the comforter. I leave my light quilt rolled up in a ball on the floor—I could wash that tomorrow when I had the energy.

I fish around in my purse for my mobile before grabbing it from a side pocket and starting the search for my mobile charger in my bags. I pull out the charge cord from the bag that had held my toiletries (I obviously had some semblance of order when I’d packed up) and plug it into my phone, before I make a move to throw my phone onto my night stand table.

I have nine missed calls and seven voicemail messages. I click on my missed calls list and then I see that they’re all listed as international calls. And I know immediately who it is. I’d forgotten to call Bill when I landed nearly two and a half hours ago; he’s probably already boarding a plane for New York.

I struggle to remember how to dial internationally. Bill had taught me on the car ride to the airport, making me repeat the number back to him dutifully like a child—011 to connect internationally, 49 to dial Germany, 30 to select Berlin’s area code and 01 followed by 313 0182 to connect to Bill’s mobile specifically.

I bring my phone up to my ear, my thumb nail going into my mouth as I wait for my call to be connected and transferred. Hopefully he’s not furious with me for not calling. Things had just been so hectic in the airport and I was just ready to go home. I try to console myself with the fact that I landed at just after nine his time and he had an off day today, so he was most likely still in bed when I touched down in America. He wouldn’t have answered my call regardless.

He picks up after one and a half rings, his voice peaked and tight as he speaks. “Hallo?”

“Hey,” I greet him quietly as I settle down in my bed. “I’m home and in bed already.” Again, I have to make a conscious effort to transition back into German so that our conversation will be easier on Bill.

“How are you? How do you feel? How was the flight?” He fires off his questions pointblank and I struggle to keep up with them. Strangely enough, he doesn’t sound at all tired.

I smile, despite my drooping eyelids. “I feel perfectly fine. I only got sick on the plane once because of turbulence—“

“I should have flown with you,” He sighs, frustrated with himself. It had been quite tiresome trying to convince him to not purchase a ticket to come with me. “That way you wouldn’t have been alone.”

I shake my head, despite the fact that he can’t see me. “I was fine, it was just turbulence. As soon as I sat down, I felt better. Rydan picked me up and here I am, already curled up in bed. I’m exhausted but I just wanted to let you know that I'm safe.”

“Because he would have been on the next flight out if you didn’t call in the next ten minutes,” Tom shouts from somewhere in the background.

There is a slightly muffled sound of Tom squealing as Bill hisses at him in barely audible German and I can only imagine what he’s done to make Tom shriek like that. “You didn’t have to worry, Bill. I was fine. Why are you awake on your off day?”

“I got up at 7:30 so I wouldn’t miss your call,” He admits sheepishly. “I didn’t know if the flight was ahead of schedule or behind or—“

“You didn’t have to get up so early on your off day!” I protest, feeling badly that I kept him from sleeping. Especially when I knew firsthand how little sleep he was running on because of his hectic schedule. “I would have just left a voicemail—“

“But then I would have missed talking to you,” Bill interrupts quietly and for a brief moment, I wish I were back in Germany in bed with his arms around me. But I know that I’m better off here in New York, that I can’t just hop onto a plane and go back to him. “You sound exhausted; go to sleep. I’ll call you later tonight.”

“Get some sleep yourself,” I order jokingly. “Enjoy your off day.”

“I’d enjoy it more if you were still here,” He mumbles quietly and I can’t help the pang that shoots through my heart at his words. “I love you,” He offers finally and I ignore his first words so we don’t have this particular conversation again.

“I love you, too. I’ll talk to you later,” I whisper, my eyes already closing despite my best efforts to stay awake.

He laughs and I’m born away on how sweet and infectious his voice truly is to me. “Sweet dreams, you.”

“Good night,” I breath before clicking end and rolling over as sleep overtakes me rapidly.