I called back Dave.
“How were the needles?” His voice was far away.
“The needles?”
“Isn’t that what they use in acupuncture?”
“Sorry. Little light-headed. I’ll be coming home soon.”
“Where are you guys?”
“Midtown.”
He chuckled. “No, I mean—where.”
“On Fifth Avenue. I got sidetracked a bit. Window-shopping.”
“Ahhh.”
“I didn’t buy anything. Do you need something?”
“Are you okay? You sound a little cranky.”
“No, I’m fine.”
“Okay. I was about to order food. Are you guys eating?”
I was hungry. But the last thing I could imagine was sitting at our dining table, forking dumplings into my mouth and pretending I’d been anywhere else. “No, thanks.”
“When will you be back?”
“In a little bit.” I hung up the phone abruptly. There was a restaurant across the street with warm yellow lighting, tables on the sidewalk and people spilling out. I had never been inside.
The lively scat and roar of the diners’ conversations swept me up as soon as I opened the door. It was an Italian place, big jars of olives and curly dried pasta lining shelves against the wall, the enveloping smell of garlic. I wanted—needed—something warm to eat, so I found a seat at the bar and ordered some penne and a glass of wine.
I took out my steno pad and stared at Hedda’s notes. Now, in the bright glow of the restaurant, I saw them for what they were: a collection of meaningless letters. My eyes blurred until everything was fuzzy, as if I were straining to see the tiniest line of the eye chart.
The real news was Mission Bank.
chapter twenty-seven
I HAD SLIPPED out of bed early and was pulling on a sports bra when Dave started to stir.
“You are the earliest freaking early bird of all the early birds.” Dave grabbed one of the pillows from my side of the bed and plopped it down on his head as if suffocating himself. “Why are you out of bed at”—he reemerged and looked at the clock—“six forty-five?”
“Beat the heat.”
“Great idea.” He jumped out of bed and stretched his arms over his head.
“Wait. You’re coming?” We hadn’t been running together in almost a year. “Will you be able to keep up?”
He threw the pillow at me. “Will you be able to keep up?”
“Um, given that I exercise almost daily and your rate is about”—I squinted—“once a month, I think I can match any sputtering pace you manage.”
“I accept.”
“You accept what?”
“I accept the gauntlet that you just threw down.”
I hadn’t been trash-talking, but it was easier to pretend that I had, so I briefly shadowboxed and left to brush my teeth. He walked into the bathroom a minute later, his shoes tied. “Whenever you’re ready.” He leaned against the wall, watching me pull on my socks. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think you were trying to avoid me. You come in late; you get up early.”
“Are you kidding me? You’ve been holed up in your office for the past week and a half. No, for the past four months. What am I supposed to do? Wait around?”
“Paige, calm down.” He put both his hands on my shoulders. “I was just joking.”
“Oh. Right.” We walked down the hall to the elevator, where we stood silently, watching the LED panel broadcasting the floors we passed.
It was not a good day for a run; the humidity was so strong that I could feel my hair bunch and curl immediately. I clipped off at a pace faster than usual, though, as soon as my feet touched the sidewalk. Dave matched my stride, but I could tell from his breathing and the way he grimaced that it was a struggle. “You okay?”
“Great.” He pushed out the word like a grunt.
We got into the park, our feet clopping in unison. I was annoyed not to have my solitude; the plan for this run had been for me to think about the night before.
I barely registered that when we got to the hill at Ninety-sixth Street, Dave picked up the pace.
I turned toward him, eyebrows raised. “Really?”
“What’s the matter?” he said. “Too fast?”
“Kamikaze mission.” We ran in silence after that, working too hard for speech, accelerating through the hills of the upper loop even as the sogginess of the air made us work harder than normal. By the time we got to the reservoir, we were all-out sprinting. I wasn’t about to quit, even though I wanted to, but when we traversed up to the reservoir gate, Dave stopped abruptly, pulling my shirt so I’d stop too.
“Holy shit,” he said, gasping for breath and bending over his knees. “Holy shit. That was fast.”
Even though my heart was racing and I wanted to collapse, I shrugged.
“Come on,” he said. “You’re kidding.”
I just smiled. “I usually do five miles. That was only three.”
“Just give me a moment.”
I laughed, patting Dave’s back when I saw it from the other direction: a flash of familiar blond hair, a slice of cheekbones. Percy. Swear to god, the man was shimmering, the sunlight tripping all over itself to illuminate him. Perhaps it was my lost footing with Dave, perhaps it was my light-headedness because my lungs were still recovering from our mad sprint, but I couldn’t turn my gaze away.
Something made Percy recognize me, slow down and glance past me to Dave, who was standing upright, pressing his index finger deep into his side cramp.
I blushed beneath my already reddened cheeks, but managed to meet Percy’s eye and shake my head subtly. No.
“What?” Dave looked around and caught Percy, who sped up and was about ten feet away, watching us. “Who’s that guy?”
“I don’t know.”
He draped an arm, warm with sweat, around my shoulder. “He was totally checking you out.”
“I don’t think so.” I didn’t correct him and point out that I’d been the one doing the ogling. “I think he was wondering if you were okay, or if you needed medical attention from running too fast for your own good.”
“No, he was admiring my form and how in shape I am.” He removed his arm, and then it was safe to turn around, so we both did, watching Percy’s retreating back.
Dave wasn’t acting like someone with a secret. Maybe there was nothing untoward about his workload. Maybe he hadn’t lied to me at all. Maybe my gut sense was broken.
Regardless, I was now lying to him.
chapter twenty-eight
AT SEVEN THIRTY in the morning of the first day he was due back in the office, Dave was conked out on our living room couch, binder-clipped documents littering the floor around him. His arms were folded on his chest; his head was tilted to the right; the front shock of his dark hair was even more vertical than it usually was.
I tiptoed closer, hoping for a message from his inner consciousness, a fleeting expression or a muttered word. He was expressionless in sleep, though, as if anticipation of the day ahead had him too exhausted to dream. I sat down next to him, resting on the sliver of a couch in the margin next to his torso. When that didn’t wake him, I stretched out, easing my body on top of his, our faces aligned so that my toes stretched down to his calves.
His hip bones pressed into the fronts of my thighs, and his heartbeat pounded through my abdomen, warming it. I counted the pulses. One. Two. Three. I noticed for the first time that summer how pale he was, paler than I’d ever seen him.
Are you that desperate, Dave? Hungry enough to break the law?
When I pressed my forehead right up against his, as if I could access his thoughts through osmosis, the magnetic pull of my brain to his, his eyes flew open.
Dave�
��s eyes are brown, but they are so warm, so lit within, that when I picture him, I inevitably imagine his eyes lighter than they are. Liquid chocolate, I’ve described them. Molten amber. Weapons of charm.
Lying there, our faces so close—eyelash to eyelash—all I saw was the blurriness and light. One thousand little dots of beautifully illuminated pigment.
I could understand if you did it, Dave. I could forgive you. You can tell me. Blink if you did it. One little blink and I’ll know.
I tried to push the thought from my mind to his. For a second I thought I had. He stared back at me and moved his hands down my back until they were resting in the waistband of my pajamas. He didn’t blink.
We lay there for minutes, transferring body warmth to each other, wordless. When my cell phone rang, we both shifted by pulling back our heads—only a little, but enough to ruin the moment. I climbed off Dave in a scramble and he got up off the couch. “Shit,” he said with a casual yawn. “It’s late.”
I picked up my phone.
“Paige?” I recognized Percy’s voice immediately. “Is it too early? You sound like you just woke up.”
“No, I’m up.” I checked the clock. “It is early, though.”
“I know, sorry. But I won’t be able to call later. I referred you to some people and just wanted to leave word.”
“For what?”
He paused. “For marriage counseling. Are you interested in referrals for something else?”
“Um, no. Marriage counseling is what I do.”
“Great. She’ll probably call you today—Selena. I gave this number, okay?”
“Yep. Thanks.”
“Okay, see you tomorrow.”
Twenty minutes later, Dave came out to the living room, showered and in a suit. “Who was on the phone?”
“Potential client.” I followed him down the hall, where he picked up his messenger bag and slung it over his shoulder.
“Any golden therapist advice for me going back?”
“You’ll be fine. Just act normal.” Act like it’s no big deal.
“You mean if I act normal, I’ll fool them all into thinking I feel normal?”
“Something like that.”
He gave me a peck on the lips, opened the door and closed it behind him. I opened it and ran down the hall after him. “Dave?”
“Mmm?” He was already gone, concerned with the day ahead.
“What were you thinking?” I hated that question; it was impossible to ask without sounding desperate. I’d always told clients if you sprang that question on someone, hoping to receive reassurance, you should expect either lies or disappointment in return. “On the couch?”
“I wasn’t thinking. It was just nice.”
“Yeah.” I waited for him to ask me too, but he was apparently confident enough to not need to know. He gave me another peck, then continued down the hall to the elevators.
“Good luck,” I called after him. Without turning around or stopping, he raised his arm in victory and punched the air.
I was in the drugstore, buying more candy for the jar, when my dad called my cell phone.
“What a treat.” My tone was a little too bright and phony from the surprise; he never called.
“How’s, um, work?”
“Fine. You?”
“Good.”
“So, what’s up?”
“Have you heard from Sloane?”
“No.” I had called her and left a message to debrief her on my break-in mission, but she hadn’t called back. Or checked in. “Where is she?”
“I was hoping you knew.”
“I don’t. Sorry.”
“Have you spoken to her recently?”
“Saturday, I think.”
“So not since acupuncture.”
“Mmm.” I scratched my collarbone as if I could brush away the lie. “She’s probably seeing the Eyes or taking the ferry to Staten Island or something.”
“Did she tell you that?”
“No—I’m just saying. They’re ingesting a steady dose of tourism while she’s here. What are you guys up to?”
“Paige,” he said, lowering his voice, “are you in the middle of something? I was going to go home for lunch and was wondering if you could come. I think it would mean a lot to your mom.”
She was hunched over the counter when I walked into the kitchen. Seeing me, she brightened with the meager energy of a fritzy lightbulb. “Have you eaten?”
“No,” I lied. “I’m starving. Feed me.”
The three of us sat down at the set table—place mats, candles, flowers—in silence, picking at our food with all the gusto of actors on their thirty-seventh take of a waffle commercial.
“What are you doing after this?” my mom said.
“Just some administrative catch-up.”
“No clients?”
“Not today, although I got a call from someone new. Summer’s always slow.”
“Any news with the redecorating?” I realized that we hadn’t talked about any of this stuff—the updates that usually flowed so easily between us—since Sloane’s arrival.
“Nah. Taking a break.”
Mom stirred her iced tea with a tiny spoon, her fingers crooked delicately. “Why?”
“It just got lost in the shuffle.”
“The shuffle of?”
“I don’t know.” She accepted this without comment, stirring her tea. Stirring and stirring and stirring.
“Are you guys really worried about her?”
“No.” My dad didn’t look up from the paper. “We’re not.” My mom was silent. “She’s different now,” he said.
“How?” I asked. They looked at each other across the table. “All I remember is one horrible night. Do you remember it, with the bloody nose and that guy passed out? Poor Mrs. Chanokowski was there?”
“I remember,” said my dad.
At the same time my mom said, “Why would you even bring up that night?”
“Because it happened.” No response. “Does she really seem different this time?”
“Yes.” My dad didn’t look up.
“How?”
My mom stirred her tea. My dad sounded defensive. “She’s centered this time. She’s doing acupuncture for chrissakes.”
“Let’s talk about something else,” said my mom.
“Why do you look like you didn’t really sleep last night?” I said, and my mom absently patted down her hair at this. “And why are things so weird between you guys and Sloane? What’s the tension?”
“Did she say there was tension?” My mom shifted her eyes from left to right.
“No. But it’s pretty palpable. Even Dave commented.”
“She’s had big problems, Paige. It’s normal that things are strained.”
“Plenty of people are addicted and recover and manage to do it without completely ditching their family.” Dave had said the same thing to me when we were dating. At the time, I had asked him if substance abuse ran in his family, and when he’d said no, I’d countered—as sweetly as I could—that some things you just have to live through before you can truly understand them. “Is there more to the story? Or is Sloane really just that touchy?”
My mom got up and left the table, walking over to the iced tea pitcher and the pile of mint next to it. She tore off a handful, rinsed the mint, chopped it into little pieces and sprinkled it into the pitcher, even though no one had asked for it. “I’m thinking of starting needlepoint.”
My dad nodded as though needlepoint were a logical segue.
“There was a story about it on the radio.” She brought the pitcher to the table. “A club of women who meet in a library, somewhere in the Midwest. They knit and tell their stories. It sounded lik
e something I’d like to do.”
“Since when do you tell your stories?” At first I worried it was a little too harsh, but when no one even reacted, I got up and left the table.
chapter twenty-nine
Vanessa
WHEN PAIGE WAS four, we went strawberry picking at Mackahack Fields with Cherie and her kids. We were walking around, plopping the berries in our buckets, nibbling on them as we skipped along, when boom—Paige’s eyes got red and teary. She kept rubbing them with her little fists, and Cherie and I tried to figure out what the problem was. “Maybe she’s allergic to strawberries,” Cherie suggested. The pediatrician on call, a huge mustached man with pockmarked cheeks, insisted I bring her in. I never liked his bedside manner, but he looked like the boogeyman, so I usually did what he said.
During this visit, Dr. Boogeyman was glowering at me over Paige’s chart because he thought that I was not concerned enough. (As it turned out, Paige was not allergic to strawberries, and the redness was most likely due to some irritation, like dust or an eyelash. Take that, Dr. Boogeyman, and add to it a little respect for Mother’s Intuition.)
“Mommy,” Dr. Boogeyman tsked, “food allergies are cumulative.” It was disturbing how he did this, called us all Mommy and Daddy. The sign of some major issues, Cherie and I agreed.
“What? Like she could become allergic to other things?”
“Of course she could,” he said. “But it’s not just that. Even if you start with a mild reaction, if you test your body by eating just a little bit more, you can overstress it. Your system will react by going haywire.”
“So you’re saying that the later reaction would be worse because of the earlier reaction?”
“I’m saying, Mommy, that she could die.”
Worry is fuel for parents. It enables us to do the job: we listen to our nagging sense to gauge whether the child’s being overdramatic or the teacher is that bad, whether the stomachaches are from a bug or being left off some little brat’s birthday party list, whether the rash is something a doctor should observe firsthand. You trust your gut.
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