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I wake up every morning with a sense of purpose: I am a tastemaker. As a book editor in New York City, I think about it constantly: What do people want to read? What will they want to read in one year? What about two? Mostly I acquire books that entertain women, that engulf them. When I think about the reader, I think about you. I buy books that I hope will make you smile, make you believe in the magic of love at first sight—I buy books that I hope will heal your heartbreak. I read all the time, big, thick manuscripts. It’s part of the job. Each night I take home chunks of pages in an extra shoulder bag. I read on the treadmill. I read while I’m eating my take-out dinner. I read before bed, propped up with a pillow, my glasses slipping down toward the tip of my nose. I’m beginning to wonder if carrying all the paper is the reason my right shoulder feels like it’s filled with marbles.
In the morning I get up and I flip on the radio. NPR and a cup of coffee. I’m always running late—I can never figure out what to wear.
I’m almost twenty-eight years old and I’m always trying to look older. I hate blazers and button-up shirts. I hate walking the streets of New York in high heels; the men gawk and the concrete wears them down until the metal pokes out the bottom. I lock the door and say goodbye to the cat, hoping for her that today, there will be pigeons.
I read on the subway, pressed up against a big man whose breath smells like rotten eggs and stale coffee. Next to me is a fat, middle-aged stockbroker, staring over the top of his Wall Street Journal at the gap between the taught fabric of a blond woman’s skirt. He has a slim gold wedding band on, and I wonder if the woman who gave it to him believed in love at first sight.
The train shoots underground and the faces around me look ashen in the yellow lights. I close my eyes for a moment, and everything, the lights, the people, the rapidly receding subway walls, slips away and I am rushing out into the bright sunshine. I walk up a long dune that leads to the beach, where I can hear the sound of the ocean. It sounds like a sigh. I open my eyes to see people looking back.
Has she fallen asleep?
I focus again on the pages in front of me. I tell myself, All I want is to heal some heartbreak. Upstairs in the glass-walled building, I flick on the desk lamp in my third-floor interior office. Without windows, the fluorescent lights give me a raucous headache, and I’m not usually a headache kind of girl. Glancing at my calendar, my eyes find the familiar photo pinned near the top of my bulletin board.
Have you ever looked at a photo so much that you can’t even truly see it anymore? I examine it again, trying to break it down into pieces. I see a man who looks far older than his sixty years, walking down a winding set of stone stairs. At his feet, a small brown-and-white dog is captured mid-movement, and he has turned to face the camera above him, his eyes gazing back at mine. The expression he wears is one of faux surprise: he hardly ever plays it straight for the camera. I know this, because neither do I. In a moment he’ll call out, Hey, you coming?
I see a flash of fabric breeze past my office door.
“Good morning, Signe,” my boss says.
“Good morning to you,” I say brightly. I flick on my computer and glance at the persistent blinking light on my phone.
You have five new messages.
I reach for the phone with one hand and my coffee with the other. Lately, I think, my face hurts from smiling.
“Hi, this is Signe Pike, returning a call . . .”
I am going to heal your heartbreak, because I have no idea how to heal my own.
