Chapter 8
When Paulina calls a second time, I answer.
Be smart not defiant. Be smart not defiant.
“I know Stacy spoke to you a few days ago, and it sounds like there was a bit of a misunderstanding,” she says. “No one here meant to threaten you in any way.”
“Okay,” I say cautiously.
“I have every intention of making this up to you,” she says. “Right now, it’s important that you remain out of the spotlight, but once this dies down we can get you an internship somewhere else. A job, even. And if you want to work part-time at the affiliate up in Ithaca when you go back to school, we can make that happen too.”
The earth finally seems to right itself. “So how long do I have to ‘disappear’?” I ask.
“I’m not sure¸” she says. “This could blow over quickly, or it may take a little time. But the less you do or say, the faster it ends. Can you live with that?”
“Yes,” I reply, relief settling over me. Nothing is over. This can all go away.
I think about James then and realize I’m not sure I want it to.
**
I shadow Kristy through two more shifts before I’m finally given my own section. Thus far, I am a disaster as a waitress. I struggle to remember all the shorthand, and find myself checking with Kristy or Ginny constantly. The whole thing is humbling. A week ago I was setting up interviews with heads of state. Now I’m getting bitched at because I didn’t put the dressing on the side.
When I’m not working, there is oddly little to do, particularly with Ginny gone. I find myself compelled to fill the time somehow, perhaps because I’ve spent every summer since I was 15 working 60-hour weeks.
I begin going to a spin class, followed by yoga every morning, and I work either a lunch or dinner shift, mostly lunch because it’s slower. I can hardly argue with receiving the crappier shifts, as I can’t remember roughly half the orders I take.
But there’s still too much free time. It feels indulgent, the bad kind of indulgent, to have these hours and days spent adrift.
From what I can discern in listening to the rest of the wait staff, I’m supposed to be spending those free hours drinking, or recovering from it. But that’s not really me, or any of my housemates, except for Max.
“What would you guys do without me?” he asks that afternoon, walking into the living room to find all of us sprawled on couches and corners, reading. “I’m guessing it would be all ‘Downton Abbey’ re-runs and Scrabble tournaments.”
“I’d kick your ass at Scrabble,” says James.
“I’m sure you would, but the fact that you’d even brag about that is a perfect illustration of my point,” counters Max.
It’s almost entirely at Max’s behest that we have people over so often, a fact that irritates Ginny to no end. Actually, everything about Max seems to irritate Ginny to no end. Mostly, she’s just appalled that he’s not more like her. That he dropped out of college only one semester shy of graduation and appears to have no interest in returning. That he spends his winters as a ski instructor and his summers tending bar and seems completely content. Decisions that Ginny finds unimaginable.
“We’re having a blow-out Tuesday, by the way, since you’re all off,” he informs us.
“As opposed to what you host every other night of the week?” Ginny asks snidely.
“I’m doing it for you, Gin Gin,” he replies. “To help you remove the large stick that seems to have accidentally been wedged in your ass.”
“Yeah, well that ‘large stick’ is what’s going to make me rich and successful one day, while you’re … what? Some washed-up old guy still tending bar?”
He shrugs. “There are worse outcomes than that.”
This bothers Ginny tremendously. “How do you plan to support a family that way?” she demands.
“I’ll know that when it’s time for me to know. Besides,” he adds with a grin, “what part of my behavior has led you to think for one moment that I’m interested in having a family?”
“So all you want out of life is to bang a different girl every night?” she snarls. I’m surprised by her tone – it’s unusually aggressive, even for her.
“No,” he replies. “If we’re talking about ideal outcomes, I’d bang two or three.”
Ginny is still bitching about Max that night while we get ready.
“He’s such a pig,” she says. “And who are all these skanks he hangs out with? Do they have no self-respect?”
I laugh. “Not everyone is a Campbell,” I remind her. The acorn didn’t fall far from the tree with Ginny. Both of her parents are intense and driven. They don’t believe people make mistakes: they believe people have failed to plan. And they have fairly stringent views on human conduct — anything outside of their tightly proscribed moral code is looked upon with horror. I can only imagine what they think of my father, and me, right now.
Downstairs, both the house and deck are already full of people. “At least there are lots of men,” says Ginny.
“Did something happen between you and Alex?” I ask. The idea is almost unthinkable. They are as alike as two people ever were.
“No,” she says. “But I can look. Besides, I meant for you.”
“I think I’m over men for a while,” I tell her. What I really mean is that I am over all men but one, but even if I wanted to talk to Ginny about James, would there be a point? He has a girlfriend and he can barely stand to be in the same room as me. I’d say that makes the prognosis for our future together pretty poor.
“You can’t let that thing with Ryan kill your mojo,” she says.
I laugh. My ex-boyfriend is the furthest thing from my mind, something I didn’t even realize until she mentioned him. He’s my ex for a reason, after all. Actually several very good reasons. “It has nothing to do with Ryan,” I tell her. “I’m just not into it. There’s enough drama with my family to keep me busy for one summer.”
“That’s exactly why you need a man,” she counters. “To take your mind off things.”
I force myself to survey the room again — maybe finding someone to take my mind off James isn’t such a bad idea. But I look at the men here and find that their non-James-ness makes them about as appealing as crackers to a dry mouth.
“Ugh, gross,” Ginny whispers. “Martin is here.” Martin is our strange next-door neighbor. He’s older — maybe 30 — and seems to live in the house next door all by himself. He tends to just hang out on his front stoop, engaging whoever walks by in awkward, unending conversation. And though he isn’t invited, he apparently feels welcome to crash parties at our house. Ginny and I go around the back way to avoid him and end up sitting on the deck with James and Max. I briefly wonder why Max insists on these parties at all — he only seems to want to hang out with us no matter who is here.
He drapes his arm around my shoulders. “I want to hear more about this ex-boyfriend of yours,” he says.
The whole thing with Ryan, surprisingly, doesn’t hurt, and I really thought it would. We dated the entire year, and though I initiated the break-up, it was his douchebaggery that precipitated it. We’d been good together, but not perfect. “What do you want to hear?”
“Just what he did wrong,” he says. “So I know what not to mess up when we’re a couple.” He throws up his hands in response to James’s raised brow. “I’m kidding. But seriously, what did he do? So I’ll know once we’re a couple.”
“We had different thoughts on fidelity,” I reply.
“Oh my God,” Max cackles. “He cheated on you? What a moron.”
“I like how you emphasize the word ‘you’” scoffs Ginny. “Like it’s okay to cheat, but not on a girl who’s hot.”
“He didn’t cheat on me,” I reply. “But it was clear that a summer apart was going to be an issue.”
“So he couldn’t go for one summer without it, and lost you because of it,” concludes Max.
Ginny snorts. “Right, like you could? You wouldn’t even m
ake it a week.”
“I could for the right girl, Gin Gin,” he purrs. “Why don’t you dump that tool you’re dating and find out?”
She rolls her eyes. “Please.”
“Oh, what’s that?” asks Max, holding a hand to his ear. “Did you fail to write me into your 10-year plan? I think you might have forgotten the following bullet point: ‘sexual awakening that occurs once I suspect my high school boyfriend sucks in bed’.”
James just laughs. His eyes are softer, almost liquid, in the moonlight. Sprawled out in the chair he’s too big for, an easy smile on his face. It’s impossible not to be drawn to him in moments like this.
Ginny and Max are consumed by their bickering, which I get the sense they both secretly enjoy.
“They’re going to do this all summer, aren’t they?” I ask James.
“Yep,” he sighs. “Makes that internship in Boston look a little more appealing.”
“You don’t mean that,” I smile.
“No,” he says. “Nothing could be worth working there again.”
“Why did you hate it so much?” I ask.
“I just didn’t care about the work,” he says. “I don’t want to give up my whole life to helping some rich-ass company delve into the tax implications of moving their headquarters. I want it to mean more than that.” There’s unhappiness in his voice, though, as if he can’t stand fully behind his position.
“But that doesn’t rule out law as a career.”
He sighs. “It probably rules out making money at it, though.”
“You can room with Max,” I tease.
He grins at me. “Don’t think I won’t kick your chair over just because you’re a girl.”
I laugh hard, and in the moment being with him feels right, and easy, and slightly miraculous, as if I’ve finally lined up all the notches and ended up in the perfect place.
Except nothing is perfect, because tomorrow he’ll become that other version of himself. Terse and tense. While I don’t want these moments between us to ever end, it’s as if he’s hell-bent on making sure they do.
Chapter 9
I work the lunch shift and am sitting downstairs in my uniform afterward when Max comes home.
“See?” he says approvingly. “Feels like a second skin now, huh?”
“It’s tight as one anyway,” I laugh. In spite of his constant references to dating me (well, actually “dating” is a somewhat unspecific term for what he references), he is harmless. We have an easy back-and-forth, a kind of Luke-and-Leia vibe that could never be more than friendship. “I can’t change. Ginny’s video chatting with Alex in the room.” It seems like every time I go up there she’s talking to either Alex or Allison.
“You mean like naked video-chatting?” he suggests.
“No!” I laugh. “Oh my God. Not in a million years would either of them do that. Especially not Alex.”
“That guy’s a loser,” Max says dismissively.
“No,” I argue. “He’s a good guy. And he’s like Ginny’s alter ego. They’re so alike they scare me sometimes.”
“Yeah. That’s perfect. I bet the two of them can get together and have no fun for hours or even days at a time,” he says. “In my opinion, the last thing she needs is to date someone just like herself.”
“You know Ginny,” I sigh. “Her goals come first.”
He rolls his eyes. “I’m sure Mr. and Mrs. Campbell meant well, but in my opinion they were colossal fuck-ups as parents. Happiness isn’t even a consideration for anyone in that family.”
“That’s not true,” I argue reflexively, but begin to question myself even as I say it.
“Sure it is,” he replies. “Ginny and James both have these huge lists of things they have to do, and things they can’t allow themselves to do, and they assume that they’ll be happy in the end for all of it, but I think really they’re just going to come to the end and discover that they wanted the wrong things. You’re a little like that too – you spend so much time invested in some hypothetical future that you miss the moment you’re in.”
“That’s very philosophical, Max,” I smile. I’m teasing but in a way I’m impressed. Every once in a while, when he’s alone, he says things that imply there’s actually some thought behind his consume-and-fuck everything in sight attitude.
He grins at me. “I keep a few of those in my back pocket. They’re good for seducing girls from liberal arts schools.”
“If the girls you’ve brought home so far have ever set foot on a college campus I’d be shocked.”
He nods. “I do try to avoid that.”
I give up on ever getting into my room and decide to shower out back. Max walks with me, extolling the virtues of meditation and living in the moment. It’s not until we’re on the deck stairs that I realize James is lying in the backyard doing sit-ups. Shirtless. He seems to have twice the number of muscles a human torso should contain. And his arms … flexed as he pulls forward … Jesus. I’m pretty sure modern science hasn’t even come up with a name for all of the muscles in his arms. He may be a new species entirely. My legs go boneless and I find myself gripping the stair rail to make sure I stay upright.
“Well, well,” whispers Max, startling me. “It looks like Ginny isn’t the only one on the cusp of her sexual awakening.”
I narrow my eyes. “I was just startled.”
“Sure,” he laughs. “I always drool when I’m startled too.”
Chapter 10
I get another call from NYC the next morning. It’s amazing how many things I’m capable of thinking in the seconds it takes to answer:
Maybe it’s already blown over. Maybe I can go back.
But I don’t want to leave James.
That’s stupid. He has a girlfriend.
A girlfriend he never, ever mentions.
But he doesn’t seem to want you here either.
“Hello?”
“Eleanor.” Edward’s voice is deep and unmistakable.
“Hi, Edward.” Everyone at the kitchen table turns toward me. I’d like to walk out to the deck, but that might imply I have something to hide.
“I’m so sorry you have to go through this,” he says.
I’m still pissed, but I remember my mother’s advice — be smart, not defiant. “Thank you,” I say quietly. “This whole thing is insane.”
“It is. It is,” he murmurs soothingly. Of course he can afford to soothe. He still has a job. “We’re going to find you something else as soon as possible.”
Relief floods me. “I’d really appreciate anything you can do,” I tell him.
“Why don’t I come by tomorrow night and we’ll talk? You live at your dad’s place off 55th, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, feeling my stomach drop. “But I’m out of town.” Is it what I should have said? Probably not. But in the moment my mind was blank.
“No problem,” he says. “I’ll call you next week.”
I lay the phone down on the counter, avoiding eye contact with everyone.
“What did he say?” asks Ginny.
I shrug. “He’s going to find me something else.”
James’s voice comes next, low and suspicious. “Then why don’t you look happy?”
“He wanted to come to my dad’s place to ‘discuss’ it with me.”
I hear James’s hiss from across the room. “If I ever run into that guy, he’s going to discuss it with my fist.”
Max is more sanguine. “She’s a pretty girl, James. It won’t be the first or last time it happens. Consider this her chance to learn how to deal with it.”
“Girl is the key word,” James growls. “He’s old enough to be her grandfather.”
That’s a bit of a stretch, unless Edward was getting busy in middle school, but what I like less is the fact that James seems bound and determined to see me as a child.
Chapter 11
At the end of my second week I’m promoted to waiting tables in the bar area, as opposed to the restaurant. It’s
significantly harder and significantly more lucrative. I suspect that my promotion has more to do with my looks than my waitressing abilities, because I still totally suck.
Kristy works there with me. “Brian has a thing for blondes,” she says, winking at me. “Dye your hair and you’re out of here.”
Kristy’s boyfriend Matt overhears this and rolls his eyes. “This whole situation is bullshit. I’ve never been given a section in the bar.”
“Apparently you need to bleach your hair,” I suggest.
The third girl who works cocktail, Ashleigh, is not a blonde, but she’s stunning and I hate her a little. Not for her looks so much as the way she fawns over James, and the way she rolls her eyes every time she looks at me.
She’s only slightly less rude to me than James himself, who actively looks elsewhere when I come to place my drink orders, providing terse answers at best. It grows so tiresome that I drop my orders with Brooks, the other bartender, whenever possible.
But James is here more, and at a certain point I get fed up with his Jekyll-and-Hyde routine. “Okay, what’s up?” I ask point blank. “Why are you so unfriendly to me during the day?”
He stiffens. “I’m not unfriendly. I’m just trying to do my job.”
“You are unfriendly. And you manage to do your job and not treat anyone else that way.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says. And then he walks away. Yeah, because walking away in the middle of a conversation isn’t unfriendly at all.
Between his attitude and my complete failure as a waitress, the summer is shaping up to provide quite the wallop to my self-esteem. Did I really think I’d ever make it as an anchor when I can’t even remember a drink order? If it weren’t for my inexplicable desire to be near James, I’d have quit already.
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