Macarons

Last January, I googled couples’ classes NYC, confirmed macarons were gluten-free, and booked me and my wife a chilly, late-night adventure in the East Village.

We’d just wrapped up a holiday season where (in my melodramatic—but, arguably, kind of romantic—mind) we’d been torn apart like star-crossed lovers, forced to celebrate separately to accommodate the schedules of other family members who, unlike us, were not expected to uncouple for the holidays. Perhaps it was because we’ve been together over a decade; I often got the feeling that people still saw us eighteen, two kids in puppy-dog love. Or perhaps it was because holidays were for ‘real families,’ and we were just good old gal pals with an eight-pound mutt where a tiny human should be. Whatever it was, I was feeling burnt out, bitter, and determined to make up for lost time.

The class took place in a narrow kitchen lined with steel tables that accommodated four people each. Couples filed inside from the cold, possessing the awkward, uncertain energy of a second or third Hinge date. We appeared to be the oldest couple there; apparently, every other New Yorker figured out how to bake macarons before thirty, and we were behind.

Although I’d picked the class, Melissa seemed more in her element than me. With her eyebrows knit in concentration and dressed in her white undershirt and one of the bakery’s black aprons, I suddenly understood why straight girls were so obsessed with Carmy from The Bear.

It's disgustingly sappy to admit, but little moments like this made me fall more deeply in love with her than the moment before, like an anchor sinking peacefully into the warm, seemingly bottomless waters below. I loved that she piped macarons with the same precision she acquired during her surgery rotations. I loved the familiar kindness in her eyes when I piped mismatched blobs of batter onto the template, and the way she laughed when the chef assured me that it was okay, that she’d just run a class for kids and they’d struggled with this part, too. I loved how we giggled and spoke with our eyes while the couple across from us stumbled through small talk: the familiarity that came with years, accompanied by genuinely liking each other in the kind of way that was likely responsible for our families treating us like silly kids rather than a married couple.

When everything else in life was frustrating or disappointing or the opposite of what I’d intended, this, at least, was always good. That’s what I was thinking, right up until the moment Melissa straightened up, reached for her water bottle, and asked me, “Do you know how long this thing goes?”

I knew from the way she gulped her water and glanced in a tired, anxious way at the wall clock that she was starting to feel unwell. Over the past couple of years, I’d learned to catalog these symptoms in my mind so that the smallest pinch of her brow or downward tilt of her lips could alert me to the impending threat. It started with a celiac diagnosis—which we’d taken in stride, because there was no other option, really, and we still got to have wonderful things like macarons. But like everyone in the bakery that night, autoimmune diseases tend to travel in pairs. Her undifferentiated connective tissue disorder (a mouthful to say and handful to live with) made her joints ache, body throb, and brain fog, even despite her meds.

I told Melissa there was still over an hour left. It was an answer her body didn’t want to hear; she pressed her hands against the base of her back and leaned forward, bending her knees. It was as though she had transformed since we first arrived, the giggles and her steady movements washed away like chalk in the rain.

“I don’t think I’ll last that long,” she said, and I knew it wasn’t empty words. She’d had to leave early, once, when we’d seen Phantom on Broadway. We’d gone because I’d wanted to see it, and the dog needed a walk anyway, and sitting alone in a dark theater wasn’t the worst thing in the world. But like all things in life, I would have preferred to have shared it with her.

I ran over the day in my mind, imagining what we could have done differently that would have ensured we were always one step ahead of a potential flare of her illness. We’d met before the class for dinner and drinks at a nearby Mexican restaurant; the margaritas were perfectly balanced, the cauliflower taco was to die for, and I’d savored the opportunity to catch up before we were surrounded by strangers in a tiny bakery. But perhaps if we’d skipped dinner, she would’ve had more energy for the class. Everything is a negotiation these days: measured risks, carefully timed schedules, needs before wants and compromising on compromise.

I assured her she could leave the class early if she needed to. But secretly, I dreaded the possibility of standing alone on our side of the table, finishing the macarons by myself as if I’d googled the words macaron workshop instead of couple’s class.

Mercifully, the instructor chose that moment to announce we were taking a break. “You can stay in here if you’d like,” she said, “or we have a back garden if you’d like some fresh air.”

Melissa and I exchanged a glance before heading to the small, fenced-in backyard. A semicircle of chairs lined a barren fire pit, and Melissa wasted no time in plopping down into one of the seats.

“You can go, if you need to,” I said again. “I can finish filling them myself.”

Melissa took a deep breath of cool January night air, then shook her head. “No, I should be okay. Sitting is helping. Plus, you can’t be trusted alone with a piping bag.” She smirked, dropping her voice as she said, “I can’t believe she compared you to her kids’ class right to your face.”

I groaned, hanging my head in my hands. “No, I deserved it.”

“You really did.”

We joked back and forth for a while, Melissa sipping her water, sinking further into the chair, and eventually she rose, hands pressed to her back as she gave a nod of approval. “I’m ready to go back in.”

Part of me felt as though her exhaustion had transferred to me, the threat of her leaving—and all the implications it held of future dates spent half-alone, of canceled commitments and lopsided compromises—having zapped the easy joy I had earlier in the evening.

We went back inside, shedding our coats and tying back on our aprons. I looked at her again in her apron and white t-shirt, this time thinking less about The Bear and more about how thin she’d gotten over the past year, how fickle her joints and back had become when previously, Melissa had been the steadiest thing in my world.

But she was still here, and there were macarons to finish. So, finish the macarons we did.

We ended up with two boxes worth: some that could pass as professional, and some that had been formed and filled by me. By the time we reached the 7 platform at Grand Central, Melissa was tired enough to sit on a bench without questioning what else may have occupied her seat over the past twenty-four hours.

Melissa popped open the first of the two boxes, and we began eating and ranking the macarons by their fillings. An old man approached us, eyeing the box with interest. Melissa smiled, breaking one of our train stations rules (do not engage with strangers, especially at night) and passed a macaron into his hands. He took a bite and walked off happily.

I felt a surge of affection for her then. For being the kind of person who gave without hesitation. For being the kind of person who, when balancing her body’s pain against the pain of leaving, had found a way to stay with me that night.

Then, in a blur of motion, the old man reappeared in front of us and reached with an open palm into the box. Fingers extended like the metal hooks in an arcade claw machine, he grasped onto as many macarons as he could hold. He cradled the bounty to his chest, then dashed off across the platform with his spoils.

Melissa and I stared, dumbfounded, at the remaining macarons, all of them abruptly made inedible by the touch of a strange old man.

“Well, then.” Melissa pressed the lid shut. “He must have really liked the macaron I gave him.”

The train rolled into the station, and I stared back at the box of spoiled macarons we were leaving behind. We’d spent hours in that bakery crafting them with care, balancing her needs against our wants to get to this point in the evening. I imagined we could take them with us if we’d just waited to open the box until we got home, or if we’d stood on the edge of the platform instead of taking a bench.

All the what-ifs and if I’d onlys swarmed around me like pesky flies. Then, the train rushed into the station, the motion sending my hair flying and my coat whipping at my knees. Melissa and I turned away from the box of macarons at the same time, our eyes meeting one another’s as the train rolled up to the platform. All at once, we burst into a fit of giggles, heads back and hair whipping against our open mouths, our laughter so loud and unrestrained that it carried above the rumbling of the train.

Perhaps that first box of macarons had never been ours. Perhaps it was always meant to be that old man’s. I didn’t mind, though. We still had the second box, and that was enough for me.

-Briana McDonald

Briana McDonald is the author of three middle grade novels with Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, and her short fiction has appeared in several literary journals. When she’s not writing, Briana lives and works in New York City with her wife and their dog, Rex. Find out more at BrianaRoseMcDonald.com.