But he heard himself asking the question, anyway.
“What’s everything?”
Gravitational Pull
SOMEHOW IT WAS EASIER TALKING TO him when she couldn’t see his face. Easier to apologize. Easier to confess.
Heather drew in a breath and bit her lip. If she didn’t say this stuff right now, she knew she never would. Yes. This was the time—not only because of the way he’d been there for Phoebe, but because of the way Heather hadn’t been there for him. For two whole years she’d wanted to ask for his absolution. To beg for it. And there was something about the darkness that encouraged risk … and intimacy. She felt like she could tell her secrets in the darkness. Back out in the light, her rational mind would take over and she would censor herself. She’d never get this chance again.
“I just wanted to say that I know I was a bitch to you,” she whispered. Her voice was so strained that she felt like she was listening to somebody else speak. “I know it, and I knew it then, too—but I couldn’t help it. It was easier to be a bitch.”
Ed laughed grimly, but he didn’t say anything.
“And I know you don’t have to forgive me—”
“Good,” he cut in, but his tone was soft. “Because I don’t. Not for that.”
Heather’s throat tightened. She’d thought she’d been prepared for that, but she wasn’t. Not at all. His rebuke stung like a slap. “It’s just …”
“It’s just that this chair has that effect on people,” he finished for her. He sighed. “I know. You don’t have to look any farther than my sister to figure that out.”
“But it shouldn’t have that effect on me,” Heather insisted angrily. “I mean, I don’t feel sorry for you. I don’t feel pity for you. And you want to know why? Because you won’t let me.” Her voice grew hoarse. “I mean, I think that the very fact that you are considered disabled is actually ironic.”
“Uh … you want to explain that one to me, Heather?”
“Because that label is bullshit,” she spat. “It’s bullshit if you or anyone else thinks that chair makes you less of a person. Because you’re so much more of a person than anyone else I know. More than anyone else I’ve ever met. More open-minded, more thoughtful, more down-to-earth, more caring, more …” She shook her head, unable to finish—or even to organize her thoughts coherently. She didn’t even know what she was saying. She was supposed to be delivering some kind of momentous apology, and here she was ranting in the blackness like a madwoman.
For a long time the two of them were silent.
Heather’s lungs heaved. Her stomach was twisted into a dozen knots. But she was resolved not to regret what she’d said. No. She was tired of regret. She’d carried a sack of regret around with her for two goddamn years. The weight was unbearable. She had to let it go.
“Who are you, and what have you done with Heather Gannis?” Ed asked quietly.
Heather rolled her eyes. “Ed …”
“I’m serious,” he stated. “I mean, there must be some kind of body snatcher in this place. Because the Heather Gannis I’ve observed for the last two years would never say something so sweet. Something so cool.” His voice caught. “Something that actually makes me feel lucky. Which I thought was impossible.”
Heather found herself reaching out for him even before she was fully aware of what she was doing. Tears filled her eyes for what must have been the hundredth time in forty-eight hours, but she didn’t care anymore. She groped in the dark, motivated only by the desire to be as close to Ed as possible. Her fingers found his and intertwined with them. Those familiar fingers. So strong and tender. Her face swam blindly over the wheelchair. She was no longer in control. Forces beyond her understanding had taken over. Their bodies were two asteroids, adrift in space, caught in each other’s gravitational pull….
Her lips pressed against his, and the universe melted away.
ED
I’m still not really sure what happened. All I know is, Victoria and Blane’s engagement party did not turn out the way I expected.
I guess I should be thrilled. I mean, obviously I am thrilled. But the shock of it still hasn’t worn off. The memory has this strange, dreamy feel—like it didn’t really happen to me. It couldn’t have happened to me.
I made out with Heather in a storage room in the Plaza Hotel.
It’s almost funny. I mean, that’s the kind of thing that happens in those lame teen movies that seem to come out every single week. “Boy in wheelchair gets hot chick! Now, that’s Hollywood!” Even in my wildest fantasies, even when I used to daydream about getting back together with Heather every single day, I never thought I’d hook up with her like this. Every time I think of it, I want to throw up my arms and shout. Or break into a wild jig. (If I could.) I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I’m completely wound up.
Is that how love works, though? I mean, do I just fall head over heels for the last girl I’ve kissed? Am I that pathetic? Am I just your average, desperate, hard-up teenage guy with haywire hormones? I guess so. After all, those teen movies don’t lie. Besides, I fell head over heels in love with Gaia after we kissed during truth or dare. Then again, I’d been head over heels in love with her for a while before that.
This was totally out of the blue, though. Unexpected. Magical.
I guess I shouldn’t overthink it. It just comes down to this: Kissing Heather is the best feeling I’ve had in a long, long time. And in a way, that’s all that matters.
But I can’t help but feel scared, either. It’s not like Heather hasn’t let me down before. I meant what I said: I’ll never forgive her for what happened after the accident. In some ways, that hurt even more than the accident itself.
On the other hand, she isn’t the same person she was then. Incredibly, my sister was absolutely right: Heather was a little girl back then. (Insert champagne breath and obnoxious laughter here.)
We’ve both changed, actually. Which makes me excited. Maybe we can make this work. Maybe I’ll actually have a girlfriend again. A real girlfriend. Something I’d counted out. Something I’d resigned myself not to think about because I’d just assumed it was impossible.
And Heather wouldn’t be just any girlfriend, either. No, she’s an amazingly smart, amazingly sexy girl who knows me better than anyone. It’s like I typed a program into a computer: “create ideal woman”—and out spat Heather.
Only … that’s not the whole truth.
No. Because until this weekend, I didn’t think my ideal woman was Heather at all. I thought it was Gaia. Then there’s the unsavory matter of their hating each other. I know Gaia’s pissed at me already for some reason—but what is she going to say when she finds out that I played tongue twister with her mortal enemy?
She’ll probably shut me out again. And that’s what really worries me. Because then who will she have left? No one. She’ll be alone. And I can’t let that happen. Not to Gaia. I’ve seen where that leads.
sordid business
Ella might have deliberately dragged him up here—leading him on the proverbial wild-goose chase.
Beyond Guilt
“GAIA!” ELLA’S SHRILL VOICE RANG up the stairs. It seemed she was trying to pack as much disdain as possible into saying Gaia’s name. As if the mere act of forming that word was making her physically ill. “There’s somebody here to see you.”
The front door slammed.
Gaia’s face twisted into a grimace as she pulled a moth-bitten sweater over her T-shirt. There was only one person who would possibly show up uninvited at her house on a Monday morning. He’d done it before. And right now she was not in the mood to deal with him.
Unless …
Could it be Sam?
She swallowed, stealing a quick peek at herself in the mirror on her closet door. No, it wasn’t Sam. And that was a good thing, too. Her shoulders sagged. Her hair was in complete disarray—not that this was a surprise. Her clothes were rumpled and mismatched. In her fatigues and combat boots she almost looked like a
refugee from some war-torn, third-world country.
No wonder everybody wanted to hang out with Heather Gannis. She knew how to dress. Hell, yeah. Throw in some Vogue, mix in a little MTV: presto! That was fashion.
Gaia’s fashion only seemed to reflect her sour disposition.
But who cared how she looked?
With a groan she slung her backpack over her shoulder and trotted down the stairwell to the front hall.
Yup. She’d been right all along. Heather Gannis’s new best friend smiled at Gaia from his wheelchair as she descended the last flight of steps.
“Hey, G.”
“What are you doing here, Ed?” she asked wearily, heading straight for the kitchen. She swung her book bag off her shoulder. It dropped to the front hall floor with a loud thwack. Shouldn’t you he having lox and bagels with Heather right now? she added to herself, feeling petty and sullen.
Ed rolled after her. “I … uh, came to freeload breakfast cereals off you. You know, the way I’ve been doing for the past four months—”
“Where did Ella go?” Gaia interrupted. She reached into a cabinet and yanked a box of Froot Loops off the shelf, then slammed the door so hard that the plates rattled. “You know, she doesn’t like it when people just show up unannounced.”
“Yeah … I got that impression,” Ed said. He hesitated in the kitchen doorway. “She just gave me this look and took off.” He laughed. “I kind of get the feeling she wants to make this house wheelchair inaccessible.”
Great. Now he was going for the wheelchair jokes. Playing the pity card. Enough was enough. Gaia whirled and slammed the box of cereal down on the kitchen table. “What do you want, Ed?” she growled.
His expression didn’t falter. “Well, for starters, I want to know why you’re acting like such a bitch right now,” he answered with the same easygoing smile. “We can take it from there.”
“I …” She couldn’t answer. A sense of self-loathing swept over her, smothering her like a black shroud. She lowered her eyes, then glanced out the kitchen window at the charcoal-colored sky. I’m acting like a hitch because I’m a petty, jealous jerk I’m acting like a bitch because I can’t stand to share you with anyone else. Especially you know who. But there was no way she could say any of that.
“Look, I’m just a little worn out, all right?” she lied, grabbing a bowl and spoon from the unemptied dishwasher. “I stayed up all night trying to finish The Great Gatsby. I didn’t even start the paper.”
Ed pulled up to the table. “Well, if it’s any consolation, neither did I,” he said. “That’s part of the reason I’m here, actually. I was hoping to do a little early morning plagiarizing.”
Gaia met his gaze. “What’s your excuse?” she asked harshly. “Busy weekend?”
Ed blinked. “What are you talking about?”
“You tell me,” she shot back. “I know you spent the night at Heather’s on Friday.” Jesus. Who was she right now? Hearing herself made her sick. She sounded like an out-of-control second grader, throwing a temper tantrum.
Ed’s eyes narrowed in seeming disbelief. “Who told you that?”
“Your parents,” Gaia muttered. She tore open the box of Froot Loops and started pouring them into the bowl.
“Oh, Jesus,” Ed moaned. He pushed himself away from the table and shook his head. “For your information, Gaia, I was at the hospital. I just told my parents I was at Heather’s so they wouldn’t freak out. They had enough on their minds this weekend without dealing with any of my shit.”
Gaia’s head jerked up. She nearly dropped the cereal box. The sick feeling inside her began to grow. “You were at the hospital?” she whispered.
He nodded, staring down at his lap. “Yeah. Heather’s sister Phoebe … Look, it doesn’t even matter. That’s not the point.”
The blood drained from Gaia’s face. She put the cereal box down on the table. Her hand was trembling. Heather really had been having a crisis. But in Gaia’s state of utter self-absorption, she hadn’t even considered it. She hadn’t even believed it. She’d only focused on how the situation affected her.
“The point is,” Ed continued, “you’re pissed off at me, and I want to know why.”
Suddenly Gaia was overcome with an uncontrollable urge to bolt. Immediately. She couldn’t sit here anymore. Besides, her appetite was shot. If she answered Ed’s question … no. That wasn’t an option. She’d had enough self-examination for one day. No way was she going to admit to Ed that she was jealous of Heather. She would never show that kind of weakness. To anyone.
“I gotta go,” Gaia muttered. She stood abruptly and brushed past Ed, without even bothering to close the cereal box or put away her dishes. She snatched her book bag up from the floor of the front hall and grabbed her coat.
“Wait, Gaia!” Ed called after her. “There’s something I want to tell you—”
Gaia slammed the front door behind her. She was sure she didn’t want to hear what he had to tell her, anyway.
What had happened to the new, open Gaia, ready to deal like a true friend? she wondered miserably as she sped along the sidewalk, away from him.
Classic Smoke Screen
WHATEVER ELLA NIVEN MIGHT BE, she was not an up-and-coming freelance photographer.
Tom was almost certain of that now. He’d been trailing her since Saturday night, stopping only to doze for a few hours here and there—and every action she took seemed to indicate that she was leading another life. A secret life. One carefully hidden from George and the rest of the world.
The most obvious scraps of evidence, of course, were those clandestine trips to that apartment building on the Upper West Side. Judging from the frequency of the visits (four in two days), their brevity (never more than fifteen minutes at a time), and the circuitous routes she took in getting there (never the same route twice), he could deduce that she was reporting to somebody. A superior. Perhaps the person with whom she spoke so frequently on her cell phone.
But whom was she working for? And why?
There were several possible answers, of course. One was that she was working for the agency itself. She might have been assigned to keep an eye on George. That wouldn’t surprise him at all, in fact. Spouses were hired to spy on each other all t he time. It was an extremely effective way of maintaining security. Unfortunately, the spying often ended up destroying otherwise happy marriages. But then, happy marriages had never been the agency’s top priority.
It meant nothing that Tom had never seen Ella’s name on any agency list. He knew very well that no agency member could name all of the agency’s employees—just as no agency member could detail an entire operation or provide a list of all its activities. The less people knew, the better. And the powers that be would definitely want to keep Ella’s employment secret from him. After all, he was George’s best friend. He might compromise her status.
Even now, as Tom followed Ella through the gray, wintry streets of the Village to a camera store on Seventh Avenue, he was positive that this errand was simply part of an elaborate act. He hurried past the store window, eyes forward, using his peripheral vision to soak up the scene inside. She was chatting happily with the store clerk about a lens. He almost smiled. This kind of activity was a textbook precaution if one had gone deep cover. A classic smoke screen. Tom could quote the manual word for word: “Cover professions should consume most of a standard business day…. Establish relationships with appropriate merchants and associates…. Always assume you have a shadow….”
He rounded the corner and paused outside a bookstore.
A bitter wind swept down the street. He shivered, pondering his next course of action. No doubt she would spend the rest of the morning being a photographer. Correction: pretending to be a photographer. Maybe he should move on to the surveillance of Sam Moon.
Or maybe he should find out who lived in that apartment building.
He anxiously tapped his foot on the frozen sidewalk. Even as this thought crossed his mind for the tho
usandth time, he thrust it aside. If he snooped too much and she was working for the agency, then he would most likely be discovered. And then he would lose his job—and a short time later, his life. He only needed to consider how his behavior would look to them. Here he was, unwittingly spying on the agency for his own purposes when he should have been working for them overseas. He’d already gone AWOL, for all intents and purposes. Renegade. They didn’t need another excuse to terminate him.
On the other hand, there was a distinct possibility that she was working for an enemy. A foreign power, perhaps. Another intelligence community. A crime syndicate. The possibilities were as endless as they were terrifying. And in that case, the agency would want to know who lived in that building. Just as much as he did.
But I can’t afford to take that risk. Not when I have to make sure I stay alive. Not when Gaia’s in so much danger …
There was one last possibility, too. One that filled him with dread.
Ella could be working for Loki.
He swallowed, glancing back down the street toward Seventh Avenue. He knew from the agency’s database that Loki was in close contact with a “BFF” and an “ELJ.” Every time this suspicion crept into the back of Tom’s consciousness, he was nearly overwhelmed by an intense desire to find George, to tell him. But he couldn’t. Given his friend’s current fragile state, even a seed of doubt would tear George apart. No, Tom had to be absolutely sure of Ella’s guilt. And there was only one way to do that.
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