“He’s thirty-three,” said Owen.
“Okaaaay. But how do you know all this?”
“My dad was their real estate agent. He filed all their paperwork when they bought the place.”
“He clearly has high standards for client confidentiality,” I noted stiffly. I didn’t want to get in another fight with Owen. But I was feeling a range of emotions. For some reason, Libby’s age bothered me. I don’t know why, but it didn’t gel with this image I had of wife number one, whom I’d begun to deify despite myself. The fact that Libby was that much younger just felt so slimy. So underhanded. A betrayal of Walker’s wife’s memory. And Walker and Libby had seemed . . . perfect. But here was Owen, drilling little holes in their idyllic façade. I didn’t like that, either. I was already feeling stretched thin with everything the Cohens expected me to do. It was a lot more difficult than I’d anticipated. The last thing I needed was pressure from Owen, too. I wanted him to serve as my escape.
There was something else that bothered me about it. The more I was forced to confront, I realized, the harder it would be to keep all this up without feeling like their slime was rubbing off on me. But it was only a job. I had to think of that. What they did had nothing to do with me.
“Oh please.” Owen, annoyed, rolled his eyes. “My dad only mentioned it because my mom was prying. She couldn’t believe they had a three-year-old kid. I don’t even know how much the place cost. Or any of the other details. Except that they paid for the whole thing in cash. But you can find that information on public websites.”
“A wee bit curious, are we?” I said, trying to make light of it.
“My job is the Internet,” Owen said with a shrug. “It’s not that hard to figure these things out.”
“So what do you know about me?” I asked sharply. “What sort of research did you do?”
“Just a basic background check, where you grew up, your IQ, that sort of thing.” I felt the blood drain from my face. I dug my fingernails deep into the palm of my other hand, fighting panic. “Jesus, Annie,” Owen said, looking alarmed. “I was only kidding. I’d never in a million years check up on you like that.” It took a second for his words to sink in, a long second in which I struggled to breathe normally again.
“That was really crappy,” I told him through the beginnings of tears. “That was really, really crappy.”
“Hey,” he said with concern, placing a hand on my knee. “Hey, shhh. What’s wrong? I was just kidding.”
“It’s fine,” I said, trying to pull myself together. He probably thought I was nuts. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I’m getting so upset.”
“No, no, you’re right. That was mean. Here.” He rifled around in the glove compartment and handed me a pack of tissues. He steered the car into the parking lot of an In-N-Out and cut the engine. Taking my hand in his, he began to sketch semicircles on my wrist with his thumb. “I really didn’t mean to upset you. It was only a joke.”
“No,” I said. “It’s really not a big deal. As long as you swear you would never actually violate my privacy like that.”
“I would never,” he swore, his eyes earnest. “I’m serious. I never check up on people. Even with the Cohens, I was more curious about the house than anything else.”
“Okay.” I was feeling a lot calmer. In retrospect, the last fifteen minutes seemed more intense than they’d needed to be. “I just . . . I don’t know. My emotions have been all over the place lately. I’m really sorry. Don’t think I’m a freak. I’m just not sleeping well, and—”
He placed his hand gently on the side of my face, stroking my cheek, my neck, the hair at the base of my scalp. He leaned forward and kissed the side of my cheek once, then again. “You’re not a freak,” he whispered next to my ear, sending goose bumps down my spine. “You’re perfect.” His left hand cradled my jaw; I let him turn my face toward him. When our lips met, it was pure, perfect, surreal. My body felt so electric that I almost couldn’t feel a thing. His lips moved against mine, softly but with a gentle rhythm that pulled me closer, made me want more and more. As the thing I’d fantasized about ever since I met him five weeks ago materialized, it became briefly impossible to separate fantasy from reality. It all blended into a beautiful, chaotic mess. I allowed it to sweep me up, content to relinquish all my self-control.
• • •
FORTY-FIVE MINUTES LATER, we reached our destination: Dolores Park, a beautiful expanse of grass in Mission Dolores. We found the perfect spot to plop down in the grass: secluded enough that it felt like its own private oasis among a sea of picnic blankets and sheltered by both a palm tree and an oak. The city rose up beyond our grassy island, making the contrast of elements all the more stark. I had to laugh; the city was so unexpected, a hodgepodge of hundreds of completely different elements that somehow blended together to form a beautiful, chaotic picture. It was a Chex Mix of a city.
“Fooooood,” Owen said then in a low, guttural voice, interrupting my reverie. Apparently all of our making out had made him hungry. “This bad boy needs some.” He grabbed a handful of would-be belly (he didn’t have an ounce of fat on him) and squished it together in a mass. “Its name’s Garth,” he said. “A derivative of the Latin Girthius maximus.”
I rolled my eyes. How could he switch from super sexy to childish in ten minutes flat? I couldn’t figure out if I thought he was funny right then, or gross and immature. Whatever it was, it was ruining my post-make-out buzz. “You’re getting weird looks from the person at six o’clock,” I informed him.
“That’s not a person,” Owen stage-whispered to me. “It’s only a kid. Hey, what’s up, kid?” Owen waved to a little boy, maybe about four years old, who was clutching his mother’s fist and staring at us while his mom chatted away on her cell phone. My buzz was fading . . . fading . . . gone.
“Yep. Terrified. You’ve changed his life for the worse. You’ve damaged him.”
“As long as I’ve changed yours for the better . . .” Owen let his sentence hang between us like a half-teasing, half-serious promise. And there they were: the tingles. Back again.
“So, you never told me,” I said quickly, breaking the silence, “what it was your mom didn’t like about Libby. I mean, you told me, but I was totally zoned out. Tell me again?”
“Can we please table the Cohen talk for the rest of the afternoon? I’ve learned my lesson. And besides, I’d way rather talk about other stuff.”
“Okay,” I said reluctantly. “Like what?” I busied myself putting our sandwiches out on the tray, arranging the cheese and fruit next to the paper-thin crackers, pouring us each some sparkling water.
“Like, who were you before you came to California? Where are you from? What brought you out here? What do you like to do when you’re not selling your soul to Libby Cohen?” He could not have asked a more difficult question. So I decided to do what I always did: deflect it.
“You go first,” I said. “What kind of a guy is a volunteer EMT? And tell me about your business. I’ve barely heard a word about that.”
Owen puffed his cheeks and let the air out in a sigh. “Tough questions,” he said. “Okay, I’ll go. But don’t think you’re getting off the hook.”
“Don’t worry,” I hedged.
“Okay, so, I guess I’m what you’d call a huge science nerd.” I burst out laughing. Rugged, tanned, all-American, wholesome, well-rounded Owen? Right.
“No offense,” I told him. “But I can’t picture you hunched over a beaker.”
“No beakers,” he agreed. “Computers all the way. I don’t know why you’re surprised. I’ll model my wire-rimmed glasses for you later.” I caught myself mid-laugh. It appeared he wasn’t joking. Suddenly, I was fascinated. I wanted to know everything.
“So it’s always been just you and your parents?” I asked.
“Yep. Me, my parents, math competitions, science fairs, and the National Spelling Bee.” At that, I nearly choked on the piece of cheese I’d been shoving in my mouth.
<
br /> “No,” I whispered. “You were one of those kids on television? The weird ones?”
“I was,” he said gravely. “It was the seventh grade. I got out in the fourth round on ‘verisimilitude.’ So stupid,” he groaned, tossing his head back in a gesture of woe. “I rue that day. Had I only asked for the origin, I would have won the whole thing. I knew all the words after that.”
“Do you think your life would have been different if you’d won?”
“Maybe,” he told me. “Yes, it probably would have been. What National Spelling Bee winner doesn’t get into Harvard?” I raised an eyebrow. I didn’t know the answer to that. “But if I’d won, I wouldn’t have met Rebecca Carver in the crying room.”
“What’s the crying room?” I had never known it was possible to be filled with simultaneous dread and glee.
“It’s where you go to cry when you miss a word. Rebecca Carver lost on ‘oscillate.’ The easiest word in the English language.” He shook his head scornfully. “But I didn’t hold it against her, because she had pretty hair.”
“Naturally.”
“I dated Rebecca long-distance for all of eighth grade. It was very serious. She lived two states away, and she knew how to use a transistor radio. We had dozens of late-night conversations in Morse code.”
“You’re joking.”
“Maybe,” he grinned. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” His hand inched closer to mine on the blanket.
“I don’t know any Morse code,” I confessed.
“I can teach you.”
“I don’t want to know Morse code.” His pinky crossed over mine.
“I like you despite your shortcomings.” He leaned closer, his eyelids drooping a little as he looked at my lips, then my eyes, then my lips. I could feel his breath on my cheek. I ducked my head, letting his cheek touch mine. Then I turned back toward him, and his lips were there, waiting. This time when his mouth met mine, I knew what to expect, but it was no less exciting. I wasn’t as nervous as before, and so I could pay attention to the pressure of his tongue as it moved with mine. I sensed the whole of him: his smell, his taste, the roughness on his chin, the way his bravado hid a tentative quality that I hadn’t known he possessed. When he pulled away, I leaned my forehead against his. My heart thudded wildly, and all I wanted was a world where that moment could freeze forever. He trailed his fingers up and down my arm, and goose bumps rose in reaction all over my body.
“Now you,” he said softly. “Tell me everything.”
And the moment was over.
“I can’t follow that,” I replied.
“Try.” The way he said it, I knew it wouldn’t matter what I told him. I could have sailed across the world on my own or spent high school staring at a blank wall, and it wouldn’t have mattered. He liked me because he liked me, and nothing I did or didn’t do before we met would make a difference.
“I grew up in Detroit,” I said. “In a two-bedroom house the size of your kitchen. My father left when I was three. He ran off with a waitress from the Steak ’n Shake down the street, where he liked to go binge-eat after he binge-drank. My mother raised me and my sister Lissa on her own for a little while . . .”
And so the story unraveled. I talked and he listened . . . and listened . . . and listened. He didn’t pry, or look sorry for me, or even look surprised. Somewhere in the middle, though, he laced his fingers through mine and pulled me back against the blanket we’d spread out. While I was talking, he cradled my head against his chest. That’s how we stayed until I was done. And when I was done, nothing awful happened. Everything was much the same. Except when we pulled our hands apart, an invisible net remained, binding us together even though our bodies were no longer touching. That was the only difference. It wasn’t at all what I expected. It was much, much better.
• • •
I DIDN’T REALIZE we had dozed off until I woke up to find a dozen ants crawling over the cheese.
“Oh god,” I said, sitting up. “Owen! Wake up.” He rose and rubbed his eyes.
“Wow,” he said, looking at the cheese. “Damn. I was really looking forward to eating that.”
“Well at least the rest of the food is safe,” I said, relieved.
“Yeah, because I’m starving.” He started unwrapping the containers eagerly. “Let’s eat quick before it gets dark.” He was right—the sun was setting fast, and as if by magic, dozens of white lights had appeared on the bases of the palm trees bordering the park. It was lovely.
“You prepared quite a spread here,” Owen said.
“Most of it was pretty much ready-made. I just put the sandwiches together.”
“What’s this?”
“Libby brought home banana bread last night. Told me to eat it. Begged me, really. I think she’s a little weight-obsessed. She’s one of those people who buys things and then makes other people eat them.”
“There are things I could say now, but in the spirit of not talking about the Cohens, I decline to remark.”
“I appreciate it,” I replied, fixing him with a stern look.
“So, hey, right after this they’re showing a movie at the other end of the park.” Owen unwrapped one of the other cheeses and set it on the small wooden board I’d packed. “Want to go? It’s outside and free.”
“Oh yeah? That sounds great.”
“It’s one of my favorite things to do in the summer and fall. They put up a huge projector screen. It’s a lot of fun.”
“What are they playing tonight?”
“I’m not sure. I think I heard something about The Muppet Movie, but I could be mistaken.”
“I guess it doesn’t matter,” I said without thinking.
“Why is that?” Owen had a smug grin on his face. I was getting the feeling he was starting to enjoy my awkward, completely un-smooth self.
“I just meant that I’m not picky about movies,” I said lamely. I quickly spread some cheese on a cracker and stuffed it in my mouth in an effort to forcibly eliminate further awkward language from the conversation. The cheese had a strange, woodsy aftertaste that I wasn’t crazy about. I broke off a hunk of the banana bread and popped it in my mouth to chase it. That, on the other hand, was delicious: moist, buttery, and sprinkled with chocolate chips.
“Anticipating as much, I brought a bottle of wine with me,” Owen told me. He took a huge bite of his sandwich and let out a big sigh of satisfaction. I was about to tell him exactly what I thought of his confidence when I felt my throat tighten. I swallowed hard, forcing the last chunk of bread down my throat. But the feeling got worse even after I’d swallowed the food; it felt as though a fist had reached within me and was squeezing my esophagus. I couldn’t breathe.
“Annie? Are you okay?” Owen sat up from his relaxed position atop the blanket, his eyes wide with concern.
I nodded. Then shook my head. I wasn’t okay. Panic was descending too quickly for me to think. My whole body felt heavy and itchy, even as my head grew lighter. Owen’s voice began to fade. I struggled harder for air, but the narrow tube in my throat had closed to what felt like a pinhead. Like mounds of cotton had been stuffed down me until there wasn’t any room for oxygen to seep through. I’d never been more terrified.
Lissa flashed through my head, as she always did. But this time, her breathing became my own. Her body, struggling to stay afloat, was my body. Her lungs and mine were the same. Together, we couldn’t breathe. We were drowning.
And then I realized: I was about to die.
CHAPTER
THIRTEEN
“I ONLY WISH YOU’D INDICATED that you were allergic to nutmeg,” Libby said the next day, her face looking more drawn than I’d ever seen it. “I would have double-checked the ingredients. My god.”
“I did,” I insisted. “At least, I thought I did.” I could have sworn I’d mentioned it, but my head was so foggy that I couldn’t be certain of anything anymore. My throat still felt swollen and scratchy, but the welts in my mouth had completely disappeared. Yet
I couldn’t argue about it. I didn’t feel like suffering Libby’s anger. I was too exhausted. I’d been allergic to nutmeg for as long as I could remember, so it was weird that I hadn’t been clearer about it with the Cohens. I always made a big deal out of it and even wore the information on a thin, silver ID bracelet, which is probably how Owen knew exactly what was happening. Nutmeg, for me, was the culinary equivalent of being bitten by a black widow. It could very easily have become lethal. It was actually kind of miraculous that he’d gotten me to the emergency clinic on time. From there, once they’d administered epinephrine, I’d been transported to the hospital, where I’d spent the night.
Now I was back at the Cohens’. I felt extremely exhausted. But more than that, something like depression was wrapping its talons around me. I’d had to skip classes today because of the episode. I’d skipped classes before because Libby had needed me at the last minute. I was falling behind at school and failing at my job, and it was only the first semester. I could feel everything—the life I’d waited so long to live—slipping from my grasp.
“Don’t.” Libby’s voice was cold. “Don’t make excuses. And don’t think you can blame it on me. We have done everything to make you feel welcome. Everything! We have overlooked every incident that should have given us pause. We’ve accepted your eccentricities, we’ve—”
“What . . . eccentricities?” My voice was faint-sounding. It came from another universe a million miles away.
“The sleepwalking, the way you whisper to yourself, all of it! Don’t you think this worries me? You’re sleeping under our roof, handling our children . . . it’s unthinkable! Yet we’ve made every single concession. I have actually fought with my husband over whether to keep you on. And now this.” I couldn’t focus; her words were like thick sludge I couldn’t wade through. Sleepwalking? I’d never sleepwalked, not that I knew of. And although I did have a habit of talking to myself on occasion, I never did it around other people. Or at least not usually. And I didn’t remember any times where they’d caught me doing it when I thought I was alone. Her words weren’t making sense.
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