by Penny Reid
Because Janie was absolutely delightful and unlike anyone else I’d ever met, I took her up on her invitation to join the group one random Tuesday, and the rest was history.
This Tuesday was Sandra’s turn to host; on my way to her apartment I had to walk past Dan’s; this filled me with an assortment of indescribably odd feelings. I knew he wasn’t there. I knew he was in New York. I knew I would see him on Thursday. And all of this knowledge was strange and clumsy. It was like we’d been on the sidelines of each other’s lives for years, and now—quite suddenly—we were on the same field together, playing as teammates.
Shaking off the peculiar self-consciousness, I knocked on Sandra and Alex’s door, pulling the lemon loaf from my bag. Alex answered.
I gave him a small smile and I held out the loaf. “Hi.”
Instead of moving to the side and motioning me in wordlessly—which he’d done every single time I’d ever knocked on their door—he stepped forward, pulling the door behind him mostly closed, seemingly both startled by and keenly interested in my presence.
“Kat.”
I backed up automatically to give him room, but I was so surprised by his abrupt movement into the hall, it took me a moment to react.
Alex was over six feet tall, so I retreated further backward rather than tilt my head to meet his gaze. “Is something wrong?”
“How are you?” he asked, sounding concerned, his attention disconcerting.
I’d known Alex for a year and a half, since he and Sandra had unexpectedly married. I knew he was a world-class hacker. I also knew he loved and was completely devoted to Sandra. And that was basically all I knew.
Like me, he didn’t talk much. But he had this presence about him that made me wary, like he was dangerous. Or could be dangerous if he chose to be. As I usually did with people who made me nervous, I mostly avoided him.
“Okay. And how are you?” I clutched the lemon loaf to my chest.
He squinted. “What’s going on? Do you need help? How can I help?”
That had me blinking furiously. “I—I—I’m not sure—”
“You and Dan getting married. That was sudden. I haven’t told anyone. Not Sandra. Not Quinn.”
I snapped my mouth shut, startled by his statements. His gaze was too intense, unsettling, but strangely not in a bad way. More like he was really, really concerned for my well-being.
Yet, still unsettling.
I released a breath, my eyes moving to the door behind him as I tried to pull my thoughts together. “Uh, Dan and I, it was sudden. How did you find out?”
“I’m tapped into government—uh—databases.” He said databases slowly, giving me the impression it wasn’t as benign as the word databases implied. “I have alerts set up for a few people.”
“You have alerts set up for me?” I asked before I could consider my words.
Alex stared at me, his expression thoughtful. “Would it freak you out if I said I did?”
“A little, yes.”
“Then, no.”
I studied him for a beat. “You’re lying.”
“Correct.”
I shook my head, closing my eyes, bringing my fingertips to my forehead, and freaking out a little.
“You’re important,” he said, as though those two simple words explained his actions.
Scoffing, I rubbed the space between my eyebrows. “I’m not sure how important I am.”
I heard Alex gather a breath before saying, “You have the potential to make a real, lasting difference. You’ll soon control over half the voting shares for the second largest pharmaceutical company in the world. You’ll be able to influence drug development and health policy globally, maybe even cure a few diseases, control a vast number of lobbyists. So, yeah. I’d say you’re important.”
My eyes cut to his and I found him watching me with a peculiar kind of focus. I wasn’t surprised he knew who I was. Dan had known; I imagined Quinn also knew.
And yet, none of them have ever brought it up until now, or made an issue out of it, or asked me about it, or asked for anything.
Alex continued, “Completely independently of all that, you’re important. So let me help.” He motioned toward the apartment behind him. “Why, if you’ve been married for a month, doesn’t anyone else know?”
Frustrated that Alex knew as much as he did, I glared at him. It’s not that I didn’t trust him. But at the same time, I didn’t trust him. I didn’t know him. Making my problems other people’s problems—especially people I didn’t know very well—made me exceedingly uncomfortable.
Yet here we were. He knew Dan and I were married, and he hadn’t shared the news, with anyone, not even his wife.
Choosing my words carefully, I allowed myself to admit this much. “I asked Dan to marry me on Thursday, and I haven’t had an opportunity yet to fill him in on the whole story. This has all moved incredibly fast. Once I bring Dan up to speed, then we’ll let everyone know.”
“You asked him on Thursday?”
“That’s right.”
“The certificate says—”
“The date has been altered. But the marriage is,” or very soon will be, “real.”
His blue eyes were piercing, not precisely skeptical, more like curious. Eventually, he gave me a single nod. “You have to promise me that you’ll ask for help if or when you need it.”
I didn’t understand his motivation and so I couldn’t help but point out the obvious. “Alex, why do you want to help me? We don’t even really know each other.”
He balked, blinking once like my statement surprised him, and his hands came to his hips. I suspected for a moment he wanted to protest my claim. But then his features relaxed, as though he thought better of it, instead nodding as if to agree.
“I’d say it’s more accurate that you don’t know me.”
A shiver of unease ran down my spine. “Well, that’s cryptic.”
“I’m mucking this up.” He rolled his eyes toward the empty hallway. “This is why I don’t speak.”
Watching him, I realized he was irritated, but the irritation appeared to be directed inward. His statement about never speaking reminded me a little of myself. I often felt that way, like all my words were wrong, and I felt myself soften toward him. It was kind of . . . endearing. Dangerous and endearing? Was that possible?
“I know a lot about you,” he said plainly, but also with a note of gentle earnestness I wouldn’t have believed him capable of moments ago. “Not just from the work I do for Quinn, but also from Sandra. She talks about you. A lot. She tells me her worries and fears for you. She loves you, and that means I’m invested.”
He pressed his lips together and they didn’t exactly form a smile, more like a line that communicated amused surrender. “You don’t trust me. Knowing what I do about you—and that’s not meant to freak you out—I understand why you don’t trust me. I wouldn’t trust me either. Believe me, I get it. So trust Sandra instead. Just promise, if you need help, you’ll come to me.”
Thrown by his sincerity, I examined him closely for artifice and found none. “Okay. Fine. I promise to let you know if I—if we—need help.”
“Good.” Looking reassured, he reached for the doorknob and held the door open for me, lifting his chin toward the foil package in my hands. “Is that your lemon loaf?”
“Yes.” I hesitated, then held it out to him.
He took it, his expression still intense. “I’ve been meaning to ask, can I have the recipe?”
I grinned as I walked past him and into the apartment. “Of course.”
“Thanks. And—uh—Kat?”
“Yes?” I turned toward him, bemused by his sudden wordiness.
“This might not be the best time for me to admit this, but I hacked your phone. Sorry,” he said, not looking sorry, but more like he felt like it was important that I know this information.
My mouth dropped open. “What?”
He lowered his voice to a whisper. “It was supposed to
be a joke, but afterward, I wondered if you’d be upset.”
“Upset? Of course I’m—wait, why did you hack my phone?”
“Dan and I are always pranking each other. When I saw you two were married, I changed Dan’s contact name to Husband in your phone. And, on Dan’s phone, I changed yours to Wife.”
Alex hacking my phone and changing Dan’s name to Husband was the second best news I’d had all week. The first best was—of course—Dan agreeing to marry me.
Giving into the urge to celebrate renewed confidence in my own sanity, I indulged in two lemon drops and didn’t turn down the offer of a third.
So when Sandra suddenly declared, “I think we need to discuss the elephant in the room,” I set my drink on the coffee table and turned a hazy smile in her direction. Knowing Sandra, this could mean literally anything, including an actual elephant.
But then Sandra said, “Anal.”
And I laughed, recognizing that it might be the only time in my life I laughed after the word anal.
“Sandra.” Fiona, sitting in the recliner on my left, made an exasperated face though her tone was even; she didn’t glance up from her knitting.
Her reaction didn’t surprise me. Fiona was difficult for me to describe because nothing ever flustered her. Due to this, she’d always been a bit of an enigma. Especially since I felt like I couldn’t make it through twenty-four hours without being flustered.
She was older than me by more than a decade, had two well-adjusted, gorgeous children, and a brilliant husband who was madly in love with her. She always seemed to know exactly the right thing to say and had her shit together at all times, especially during impossible situations. Her husband, Greg, often teased that she was a robot. I could definitely see his point.
Take now for example.
Fiona was approximately the same number of weeks pregnant as Janie, but her belly was much, much smaller. Maybe this was because Fiona was just over five feet and Janie was almost six feet, but still. Still!
Her hair was done in a sleek bob, she wore a fashionable turquoise maternity dress and strappy black sandals, and her skin looked fantastic. She’d made the lemon drops everyone was drinking as well as canapés.
That’s right. Canapés. Freaking canapés! Who does that while nine months pregnant? Ten days ago, she’d organized an impromptu dinner party at Janie’s apartment—so Janie wouldn’t be left out—and made everyone dinner.
I can’t even.
Janie, however, my dear friend, was a hot mess. Her wild red hair was piled high on her head in a haphazard bun, curls and tendrils snaking out in every direction. She wore black horn-rimmed glasses, she’d confessed that this was to hide the bags under her eyes from lack of sleep, and she was wearing a tattered Wonder Woman bathrobe over Wonder Woman pajamas. Every so often, she’d stretch, her face contorting with discomfort, then close her eyes and sigh.
Fiona was too perfect. I couldn’t relate.
Sandra wasn’t finished. “Anal. Who has done it? Who is doing it? Who likes it? What is the deal with anal?”
Ashley, videoconferencing from her family’s home in Tennessee, shook her head. Ashley had moved back to Tennessee about six months prior and had been joining us via computer ever since. Tonight, Sandra placed a laptop on a stool so our friend could see us and we could see her. The brunette sat on an old mustard-colored couch, a big family room behind her.
“Sandra, no one wants to talk about being impaled via the rectum.” Ashley’s Tennessee accent only emphasized her dry humor. “It’s why I hated my emergency room rotation, folks coming in with light bulbs and such stuck up their B-hole. That’s not something they make a greeting card for. Sorry you’re a dummy who stuck a light bulb up your ass, hope you get smarter soon.”
Nico—aka Nicoletta, the only male member of our knitting group, and Elizabeth’s husband—snorted and then laughed loudly. “Oh man, that’s hilarious. You might see me steal that for the show.”
I also smiled, but kept my eyes on my knitting. I still hadn’t grown accustomed to Nico’s presence, even though he’d been attending knit nights whenever he could for the last two years. He didn’t do anything to make me uncomfortable. I was the problem.
The thing was, he was a famous comedian. He had a show on Comedy Central. He was down-to-earth, and funny, and insanely handsome, and charismatic—so charismatic—and everything wonderful. He was basically a Disney prince come to life, who also spoke Italian and had blind devotion to his wife. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t have the tiniest crush on him, but I felt like it was impossible not to.
“Use it for your show, Nicoletta.” Ashley shrugged. “I ain’t using it for anything profitable.”
Not a second later, Ashley’s youngest brother, Roscoe, poked his head in the frame. “Are y’all talking about anal?”
This drew smiles and chuckles from all gathered except Ashley.
Usually, I would’ve remained quiet for the rest of the evening. First of all, her brother Roscoe was seriously, seriously hot. And he was in veterinary school. As far as I was concerned, he embodied walking kryptonite for the virtuous-minded.
Secondly, I didn’t know him. It wasn’t like discussing this stuff with the rest of the ladies (and I included Nicoletta in that). I knew them. I trusted them. We’d been through times together.
However, since I was on my third lemon drop, my uneasiness was eclipsed by a general sense of ennui. And the realization that I wasn’t uneasy had me pushing the rest of my lemon drop away. Alcohol made me braver; I knew this about myself. Which was why I only allowed myself alcohol when I was with my friends.
“Get out of here.” Ashley shoved her little brother to the side, but he didn’t leave, opting instead to join her on the couch.
“What do you think you’re doing?” She scowled at him.
He shrugged. “I think I’ll learn to knit.”
Elizabeth and Nico shared an amused look.
Fiona heaved an aggrieved sigh, likely unaware of Ashley and Roscoe’s spat. “Sandra—”
“Hear me out.”
“For man on man, it makes sense.” Janie rested her crochet on her stomach. She’d been treating her pregnant belly like a table for the past month. “Because men have the prostate and pressure on that area feels good.”
This was a very Janie-like thing for her to say. She seemed to know a little—or a lot—about everything, and when topics were raised, controversial or otherwise, she always offered a deluge of random factoids on the subject.
I loved this about her, and it was likely one of the reasons I trusted her so quickly and easily. Rather than responding to something sensational with a knee-jerk reaction, she was always taking a step back to consider the facts first.
“No one wants to talk about this.” Ashley covered her face.
“I kinda want to talk about it.” Elizabeth shrugged, not trying to hide her devilish smirk, and her devilish smirk drew a smile from me.
I often wished I could be more like Elizabeth. Not only was she book-smart—she was an emergency room physician—but she was also unfailingly forthright and a consistent source of positivity and encouragement. I loved how generous she was with praise, always looking for ways to build others up.
She and Sandra were equally thoughtful in this way, and I may have had a little bit of hero-worship for them both.
“Oh? Really?” Nico sat up straighter.
“For man on woman, however, anatomically speaking, there’s no reason it should feel good.” Janie shook her head, wrinkling her nose. “So why do women do it?”
“It's been proven that women can orgasm without any physical contact at all. All that’s needed is the right kind of mental stimulation.” Elizabeth turned her knitting, lifting a suggestive eyebrow at her husband.
I averted my gaze, a tinge of embarrassed heat making my neck warm. This wasn’t because Nico and Elizabeth were giving each other the sexy eyes—which they were, and did often—but because, even with three lemon drops l
owering my inhibitions, her words had hit too close to home. I felt like I had a scarlet ‘O’ on my chest with a thick black circle around it and a line through it.
Luckily, no one was looking at me, and Marie—who’d been very quiet up to now—made a show of waving her index finger between Nico and Elizabeth, “Hey, hey, hey. Get a room.”
Marie was a journalist and probably the best person I knew. I had a lot of moments when I’d ask myself, What would Marie do? and then I’d do that.
If any of us were in trouble or needed help, she was the first to volunteer. She babysat for Fiona and Greg all the time, and she’d dropped everything last spring to help them deal with an emergency in Africa. She also helped Elizabeth and Nico whenever their niece—who had cystic fibrosis—came to town and they needed an extra hand. She’d been the one to visit Janie and Quinn in the hospital when Janie had initially been placed on bed rest.
In addition to her incredible kindness, she was also funny, and smart, and freaking gorgeous. Basically, she was everyone’s favorite because she was impossible not to love.
Embarrassingly, when I first met her, her unfailing generosity had confused me, made me suspicious of her intentions. I didn’t like her, she felt too good to be true, and I was slow to trust her. I couldn’t fathom that someone like her existed, someone so incredibly good. Using the Disney analogy again, she was like a fairy godmother.
Over the years, her abiding goodness had forced me to change my mind, and now I was just as much in love with her as everyone else was.
“So, most of y’all’s orgasms is in the head.” Roscoe turned to Ashley and nudged her with his elbow. “Get it? Get it? In the head.”
Ashley glared at her brother.
I swallowed a rush of bitterness at Roscoe’s joke and decided to switch to water for the rest of the night.
“Moving on.” Fiona didn’t roll her eyes, but her tone spoke volumes.