“Come on,” I said. “Walk through the garden. It’s kind of a Buddhist-monk-meets-HGTV experience.”
We went down the winding little path, and as Georgia commented in amazement, I felt a rush of pride for Will. He might be a little clenched and difficult, but someone who could make this out of nothing . . . the list of his flaws was balanced by these other things. He was hardworking. Dedicated. Nurturing. Patient. So what if he didn’t watch Downton Abbey?
As we came back onto the patio, I noticed there was an addition since I’d last been here—one of those stainless steel gas heaters you see in outdoor restaurants, giving off a nice glow. The patio table had been set with dessert plates, forks and cloth napkins. A bottle of wine cooled in a bucket of ice. Candles were on the table, and there was a little jar of rosebuds in the center.
And yet he’d been running late on that phone call.
Or not.
“This is so beautiful,” Georgia said.
The rest of the meet and greet was perfectly pleasant. Georgia asked easy, pleasant questions: Did Will like to read, where did he go to school, what were his favorite meals from Salt & Pepper? He, in turn, asked her a few, not quite as gracefully. He kept wiping his palms on his pants, and his shoulders were tense.
“Well, I have to get Mason back,” Georgia said once we’d finished dessert.
“Mason, can I come to a meet sometime?” I asked.
“Yeah! Absolutely.” He turned to Will. “I run cross-country. I’ve been injured, but I should be running again soon.”
“Great,” he said. “That’s a really good sport, from what I hear.”
“Do you run?”
“Uh . . . I used to. A little bit.”
“Cool. Well, thanks for the computer and stuff, Will. Really.”
“My pleasure. They were just sitting on a shelf. Glad you can use them. Shoot me an e-mail if you get stuck.”
Georgia beamed. “Lovely meeting you, Will.”
“I think I’ll walk home later,” I said. “Hang out here a little longer.” Then I hugged them good-bye, gathered the plates and glasses and went into the kitchen. Will escorted Georgia and Mason to the door, lifting his hand as they went down the walk.
As soon as the door was closed, I jammed my hands on my hips. “You didn’t have a call to the coast, did you?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, thanks for your honesty now! Why did you lie to me before? And why won’t you come to my house? Why did you wait until almost seven thirty to let me know you weren’t coming? We were just sitting there like lumps while you played Martha Stewart over here!”
“You don’t need to yell.”
“This is not yelling. You have not yet heard me yelling, Will Harding.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Okay. Come sit down,” he said, gesturing to the world’s most boring couch.
“No! I hate your living room. It’s very brown. You need an accent wall and some decorations.”
“Come back outside, then.”
We went back out, and I took a few deep breaths of the cool fall air. It was getting colder, and I shivered. Will went inside and came back with a soft blanket and handed it to me. Humph. I wrapped it around my shoulders, not willing to let him off the hook just yet.
He sat down across from me and looked into my eyes. Didn’t say anything.
Silence. I hated that. “Look, Will. It’s one thing not to like crowds. I get it. You lost friends in a terrible, senseless act, and it was horrible, I’m sure, but you can’t just manipulate and lie to me because—”
“I was there.”
“What?”
“The day of the shooting. I was there.”
The horror of that image punched me in the stomach. “Oh, shit. Oh, no. God, Will. I’m so sorry.” My eyes filled with tears, and I covered his hand with mine. He squeezed back and looked away.
“Yeah. So it’s a little more complicated. Technically, I have PTSD.”
“Of course you do. Who wouldn’t?”
“Going out, being away from home . . . it’s tough. But I’m trying. I wanted to come tonight, but I don’t . . . ah, shit.”
“You don’t what, honey?”
There was a pause, and then he smiled a little. Oh. I’d called him honey.
Then he rubbed his eyes. “I don’t like to leave here. It’s hard for me to feel safe away from home. Even having people here is nerve-wracking.”
“I noticed you were a little sweaty.”
A little huff of laughter escaped his lips. “Yes.”
“You did great, you know. They really liked you.”
“Good, good. I liked them, too.”
We sat there in the beautiful garden, holding hands across the table. “Do you want to talk about it?” I asked, swallowing. It was not the type of thing a person longed to hear about. “The shooting?”
He pulled his hand away and fiddled with the tablecloth. “I guess I have to tell you, don’t I?”
“Well . . . no. But maybe it would be better if you did.”
He sighed, rubbed his forehead too hard, so that I wanted to pull his hand away. “It was at our office. Nenos Game Design in Houston. We had this guy, a new hire, a tools engineer, and he didn’t work out. He was just kind of . . . odd. So he was let go.”
He was quiet for a few beats. “And then he came back about a week later. I didn’t know what the sounds were . . . I was in the back with Jane. She was the head programmer, the one who had fired him. We heard the noise, and she said, ‘Is that . . . is that gunfire?’ like hearing elephants would’ve made more sense.”
His hands were shaking. “She was pregnant.”
Oh, no. Please, no. Had a pregnant woman been one of the victims? I didn’t remember reading that detail.
“There was another shot. I got up; I closed the door to her office,” Will said, his voice flat. “It was like a drill, almost, except for the . . . screaming. I turned off the lights, locked her door . . . it was just that little doorknob lock, nothing that would really keep anyone out, and told Jane to get under the desk. She begged me to stay with her, and I did.” He looked at me, his eyes bleak. “I tried to keep her quiet, because she was . . . well, hysterical. Called 911, said there was a shooter and then we just . . . waited.”
In halting sentences, Will told me the rest. He could’ve gone out. He wanted to. In those brief but endless minutes, he thought about taking the fire extinguisher, spraying the shooter in the face, or hitting him with it. And if he had, maybe the last victim wouldn’t have been killed.
That last victim had been his best friend.
But Jane had been sobbing, pleading, saying, Don’t leave me, don’t leave me, don’t leave me. So he stayed, crouched behind the desk, trying to keep her quiet, flinching at the sound of each bullet. He figured he could at least shield her with his body if the shooter came in.
Will wiped his face. His eyes were dry, but he was drenched in sweat, his leg jiggling under the table. “We . . . we, uh, heard him try the door, and we thought this was it. I . . . I had to cover Jane’s mouth so she wouldn’t scream. Then we heard the sirens, and there was another shot, the closest one yet.”
“My God, Will,” I said, wiping my eyes.
“That last shot . . . he’d killed himself. We didn’t know that, though. We just stayed there under the desk until the SWAT team came in.” He swallowed hard. “Then we had to . . . uh . . . walk past . . . everyone. That was it. We were safe then.”
I jumped out of my seat, unable to have anything between us, and sat on his lap, hugging him. “I’m so sorry,” I said, stroking his hair. “I’m so, so sorry.”
“Thanks.” His voice was hoarse, his arms dangling at his sides like dead things.
God. No wonder he was so tense all the time. No wonder.
“You hav
e to know,” I whispered, because my voice was rough with tears, “you probably saved that woman’s life. And her baby’s.”
“I just hid, Marley.”
“No,” I said, my voice fierce. “You stayed with a pregnant woman who was going to be killed.”
“Yeah.” His tone told me he’d heard it before.
“Was she okay?”
“Yes. Had the baby two months later. Named him Will.”
I smiled a little at that. “So clearly she thinks you saved her life, too.”
He cleared his throat, and I got up, pulled my seat closer so I could see his face. “So you have PTSD . . . what is that, exactly? I mean, I know what it is, but how does it work?”
“Like this. Like an idiot who can’t go to his girlfriend’s house because he might get shot along the way. Or, if he does make it to her house, he might have a panic attack because a shooter could come in at any second. It’s embarrassing and ridiculous, that’s how it works.”
“Honey. You survived hell. Give yourself a break.”
He gave me a look. “I know. In my head, I know a lot. The problem is, a panic attack . . . You think you’re dying, you can’t talk, you can’t move. Then I started to . . . obsess about what would happen if I had a panic attack when I was driving. What if I caused an accident and killed someone? What if people saw me collapse on the sidewalk?”
“They would probably help you,” I said.
He scrubbed a hand through his hair. “Logically, I know that. But there’s this horror of someone seeing me like that. I guess it’s shame.”
“You have nothing to be ashamed of,” I said, my voice shaking. “You were a hero that day, Will.”
“Right. Except I could’ve helped more, maybe. But I didn’t, and this is my punishment. I moved back to New York because I wanted to be closer to my parents, and I thought it might get better, but it didn’t. I started sitting in restaurants so I could face the door, and then I stopped going to restaurants. Then I couldn’t handle the grocery store. Then it was everything.”
He looked at me. “That’s when I met you. You’re the only person I’ve let into this house in a year and a half except for my parents.”
“Are you seeing a counselor?”
He nodded. “We have Skype sessions. It helps. Not as much or as fast as I want it to. We’re working on it. The backyard was the first phase. Next step, take out the trash, which I managed last week. A personal triumph.”
“Stop knocking yourself down, bub.”
He smiled again. “Next, I’ll try to walk down the block.” He sighed. “It sounds so stupid, working up to walking in my own neighborhood. That night you told me about your friend, and how she couldn’t leave her house . . . I understood that. I know what that’s like.”
“It doesn’t sound stupid,” I said. “And you’ll make progress, Will. You’ll get there.”
“Thank you. For listening.”
A chunk of my heart broke away. “Oh, honey. You’re welcome.”
He picked up my hand and studied it a minute, then kissed it, and my heart melted a little more.
“Do you want me to stay over tonight?” I whispered.
“Yes,” he said, looking up at me with those sad eyes. “I do. I really, really do.”
CHAPTER 33
Georgia
Tell off the people who judged us when we were fat. (Check.)
Eat dessert in public. (Also check.)
Two weeks after my night in the ER, I had a date with Evan Kennedy. I should’ve been more excited about that. I mean, we were kind of dating. No. We were dating. We’d had that drink, that dinner, and a few days ago had gone to a movie during which we’d held hands and after which he’d kissed me, asked me if he could come over for a drink, and was perfectly pleasant when I told him I had parent-teacher conferences the next morning and needed my sleep.
Which brought us to today. The sexpectation date.
Marley and I were in a yoga class, my presence here signaling that the end of days was upon us, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse would be cantering in any second now, snatching us out of downward dog and carrying us off into an agonizing afterlife that could well include more yoga. God! Who knew my hamstrings were this tight? Who knew I even had hamstrings?
The room was dark (at least there was that), candles flickering in the front, flute music not quite covering the sound of my grunting. Marley, who was freakishly limber, had yet to break a sweat. Me, I was soaked through.
There were some people I knew here—some of the yoga moms from St. Luke’s, dressed in, yes, you guessed it, Pomegranate & Plum. Khaleesi’s mom (who was named Ellen; how was that for disparity?), Cash and Dash’s moms, Hemp’s dad. Every one of them said hello, and I didn’t feel as out of place as I’d expected. Which was a surprise unto itself.
Maybe going to the gym wasn’t the worst thing in the world after all. My opinion was skewed, being Hunter’s sister and therefore deemed a failure at all things athletic.
“Step forward and into rag doll,” the teacher intoned. “Uttanasana.”
“And also with you,” I murmured, getting a snort from Marley.
“So you looking forward to going out with Mr. Kennedy?” she whispered.
“Yeah, sure. He’s nice. Clean. He smells good.”
“Be still, my leaping ovaries,” she said.
“Utkatasana,” said the teacher. “Chair pose.” I squatted, imitating the rest of the class, and immediately, my thighs began burning. “Now drop two inches,” the teacher added. I obeyed, wincing. My breath came in little gasps.
“Do try to breathe,” Marley said. “It will reflect poorly on me if my guest dies.”
“You sure this is good for me?” I managed.
“Yes. So is this the date where you’ll sleep together?”
I grimaced.
“Corpse pose,” said the teacher.
“Thank God. This one I have nailed.”
“What about Evan?” Marley asked. “Will you also have him nailed?”
I laughed, then tried to shush myself, as I was now a corpse. We lay on our backs and tried to belly breathe. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Fine?” Marley whispered. “Fine? That’s not a word we use in describing sex, Georgia. Wall-banging, earth-moving, atheist-defying, wildly orgasmic, animalistic, but not fine.”
“She’s right,” said Khaleesi’s mother (grandmother of dragons?). “Don’t settle.”
“What she said,” Dash’s mother added. “You deserve someone great, Georgia.”
“Aw,” Marley said. “You hear that, G? Everyone knows. You’re the bomb-diggety.”
“Breathe in love, breathe out hate,” the teacher said. “Breathe in positivity, breathe out your doubts. Savasana.”
Yes, yoga was a little weird. But at the end of the class, I signed up for ten weeks of lessons.
Since I’d been put on the ulcer medication, I felt a lot better, but I hadn’t gained back any weight yet. I didn’t know if I’d ever have a normal relationship with food. I didn’t even know what a normal relationship would look like.
But I was trying. I was eating three times a day with two healthy snacks, on a plan drawn up by my new doctor and Marley. Having the food mapped out kept me from skipping meals or panic eating. I was on the right path.
Later that night, as I was dressing to meet Evan, I took a good hard look at my reflection. The person in the mirror was attractive—the woman in the flowered dress, even though this dress was black. It stopped a few inches above my knee, and I wore sheer black panty hose (something I never bothered with when I was fat) and pretty fabulous black stilettos that were already making my feet cramp. A silver chain necklace gave the outfit an upscale, funky vibe, as did the fierce red leather bomber jacket Big Kitty had given me yesterday. “Just for n
o reason,” she had said. “I thought it was your color.” It was also one size too small—her message to me that I still had a way to go—but if I didn’t zip it up, it looked smokin’.
“What do you think?” I asked my dog. He wagged his tail. I knelt down and kissed his bony head, gazed into his eyes for a minute. “Thanks, Ad,” I said. “Thanks for being my friend.”
I grabbed my purse and keys and went down to the courtyard. Marley was sitting there, wrapped in a blanket, gazing at the sky.
“Ta-da,” I said.
“Gorgeous. Go get him, tiger,” Marley said.
Part of me wished I could stay home. I barely wanted to have dinner with Evan, let alone sleep with him.
And yet, two hours later, there I was, at a sleek restaurant overlooking the Tappan Zee Bridge, in a corner booth, sipping wine across from a good-looking guy, dinner in my belly, which didn’t even hurt. No one had stared when I came into the restaurant. The maître d’ complimented my jacket. The waitress didn’t say how nice it was to see a brother and sister spending time together.
I guessed I was here. That place I’d yearned to be for so long.
Evan was telling a presumably amusing story about the plastic surgery practice he’d visited in LA. I nodded along, paying just enough attention to smile occasionally.
Did Emerson and the mysterious Mica ever go out to a snazzy restaurant and feel like they belonged? Would she recognize me now? Would my dating this handsome, successful guy make her happy?
That summer of her and Marley and me . . . that had been so wonderful. Ironically, every summer I’d gone to fat camp, I’d thought about being fat a lot less than I usually did. At Copperbrook, I wasn’t an embarrassment; I was a valued client in the eyes of the staff, and just another person to the other girls.
One day, the three of us had been sitting under a tree, working on writing a play, one of the activities we were given, and out of the blue, Emerson said, “The nicest people I’ve ever met are all here.”
None of us had wanted the summer to end.
Now the president of Camp Copperbrook wanted Marley and me to join the board. They ought to, after getting Emerson’s endowment. Ten girls a year would be able to go to the camp, all expenses paid, and learn about taking care of themselves on every level—mind, body, spirit. If they were lucky, they might make lifelong friends, the way we three had.
Good Luck with That Page 35