Steph’s at my elbow. “Do you want to leave?”
“No, Jesus,” I mutter. “I’m not that weak.”
“I could kill him.” Steph’s eyes are burning.
“Steph, be cool,” I say. “It’s fine. I’m fine.”
He’s weaving toward the table, all dark eyes and ruling-class confidence. My heart is throbbing painfully. I’m furious with it.
“Hi.” He goes to kiss my cheek. I reel back, toss him a You’ve got to be fucking kidding me look. He falters and addresses Steph. “I’m Elan.” He extends his hand.
Steph grimaces at it. “Uh, no.” She slides into her seat without taking her eyes off us both.
Distress flickers around his face. He gestures at my dress, almost uncertainly. “You look very beautiful.”
“You look like a big-game hunter.”
His voice turns intense. “Can we talk?”
“We are talking.”
“You haven’t replied to any of my messages,” he says, pleasingly distressed. “I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for weeks.”
“Oh, are we telling each other things we already know?” I say. “Okay: I don’t want anything to do with you because you’re a selfish prick.”
“Lacey, please. I didn’t even know if you’d be here. I thought you might be recovering.”
I glance at him sharply. “Recovering?”
“After your surgery.”
I blink and look away. Steph’s still watching us with a hawk’s precision. “I didn’t go through with it.”
From the corner of my eye, I see him exhale. “Can we talk? Please?”
“Don’t be ridiculous,” I tell him, smiling. “Vivian’s coming.”
Vivian, Brian, and a handful of strangers find their seats at our table. Wine and a plate of crab cakes materialize. Happily, Elan has been seated next to a venture capitalist’s very blond, very chatty wife, who is unable to read social cues. Every time he tries to turn to me, her long pink talons squeeze his arm, forcing him back. Steph is drinking very steadily, staring at Elan in a way that’s noticeably weird. Vivian is pinballing between Brian, Steph, Elan, and me, trying to read the situation, charm Elan, and be a good date. I keep up an inane stream of chatter about anything that pops into my head—what was Sigourney Weaver’s best film? Does anyone actually like fermented vegetables? What should one name a Doberman?—until one of the chiseled-from-granite groomsmen finally gets to his feet and taps a microphone. “Where do I start with Tom? Tom is handsome, intelligent, char . . . cha . . . Sorry, man, can’t read your writing.”
The room guffaws. Elan leans to me. I smell musky, expensive soap. My insides twist. He murmurs, “I miss you.”
I shut my eyes, trying to quell this delicious cruelty. I cut my gaze at him coldly. “I don’t,” I say, and join the crowd in a round of applause.
* * * *
In the bathroom, I wipe my underarms with a damp paper towel. Adrenaline has spiked my pulse rate. I can’t get it under control.
I miss you.
I stare in the mirror, hearing those words even though I try not to.
I miss you.
The door flies open and two giggly-drunk Australians pour in.
“. . . both soooo hot.”
“Wish they weren’t gay.”
“I need a gay husband.”
“Ha, me too!”
They fluff up their hair in the mirror. “I hate being single at weddings,” one moans.
“I know,” the other says. “It was fine when I was twenty-five. Now it just makes me sad.”
I reapply my lipstick quietly.
“Everyone says, Don’t compromise, don’t compromise,” the first one says. “But fuck: everyone’s flawed. I’m not perfect. I fart in my sleep.”
“Everyone farts in their sleep!”
She sighs, serious. “I’m also up to my tits in credit card debt and I’ve overstayed my visa by five years.”
“Well, that is a flaw.”
They burst into tipsy cackles.
Elan has followed me to the bathroom. When I open the door, he’s pacing at the dark end of the hallway. Apparently fangirls have taught him the art of being obnoxiously persistent. He’s at my side. “Five minutes.”
I push past him. “We have nothing to say to each other.”
“Not true.” He grabs my arm.
I jerk it away. “Touch me again, I’ll cut your dick off with my butter knife.”
Heat radiates between us. My body burns, eager for him. I hate him but for a wild second, I picture pushing him against the wall, my tongue in his mouth, his pants unbuckling.
“Two minutes,” he says. “And I’ll stop bothering you for the rest of the night. Please.”
52.
* * *
A dimly lit dining room dominated by a polished wood table and two dozen ornate chairs. Elan’s licking his lips, pacing. An oil painting of a white-haired man in a military uniform hangs above the table, watching us with haughty dispassion. I stand by the door, affecting the same look as the painting.
“I didn’t know if you’d be here,” he says. “I hoped, but I wasn’t sure.”
“A minute fifty,” I say.
“Shit, okay. Okay.” He stops moving and clears his throat. “I fucked up. I fucked up at the Bushwick party and I fucked up with us. I’m sorry, Lacey. I’m really, really sorry.”
I roll my eyes, and make a move to leave.
“Wait, wait. Please, you said two minutes.”
I pause. I wasn’t really going to leave.
He says, “I am not good at letting people in. It’s hard to tell if people like me for me or for what I can do for them. I might be wrong but I always felt like you liked me for me. You really cared about me.”
I did. This is true.
He rakes his fingers through his hair. He’s shaking. “I’ve gotten into a pattern of dating unavailable women because I’ve been scared to commit. I don’t trust a lot of people. But I want to stop that.” He looks directly at me. “I want a partner. I want to be in love with someone who loves me, and I want to build a future with her. I’ve been doing a lot of soul-searching and therapy—yes, I’m seeing a therapist, like you suggested—and I really believe I am capable of making that change. I want you, Lacey. We are similar animals, you and I. Please. Please give me another chance.”
I am breathing hard through my nostrils, my teeth clenched. “Is that it?”
“Yes,” he says. “That’s it.”
“You are—” I take a step back and try to laugh. My throat is tight. I am roiling with rage, my familiar, trusty anger. Right now, it’s not an impediment. It’s protection. A weapon. “You’re a piece of work.”
“What?”
“What did you think was going to happen, Elan? You’d make your little two-minute speech and I’d lift up my skirt and we’d fuck on the table?”
“I—Lacey, I—”
I step forward, my voice rising. “You wanted to break up because I was getting a surgery that could save my life. You told me you didn’t want to meet my friends. You fucked me in public at a party and when I said I didn’t like it you just left. You left me.”
“I’m sorry. They were all mistakes—”
“And now you only want me because you can’t have me. God.” I laugh sourly. “You’re such a cliché.”
“I am. You’re right. But I mean it.”
“You don’t.”
“I do. Let me prove it. Give me another chance.”
“Why?”
“Because I could give you everything you want.” His gaze is locked on mine. I couldn’t look away if I tried. “I know you, love. I know what you want. You’re hungry for life, and I am too. You and me, together. We make sense.” He takes a step toward me. “Life isn’t perfect. Love stories are rarely perfect. They take effort, and guts.” He takes my hand. I can smell him. “But we have passion. You can feel it. I can feel it. I feel you in my body and you feel me in yours.”
/> This is not untrue. My heart, my head, my clit are all pulsing, against my will.
“If you can give me another chance, I will give you the world, pet. Starting with this.” He puts my hand over his heart. I can feel it beating through his shirt. “It’s yours. I mean it.”
I don’t trust myself to speak. I am furious and bewildered and terrified. I want to slap him and kiss him.
It’s everything I wanted to hear. Isn’t it?
“You said you thought you were falling in love with me,” he says. “If you were telling the truth, give me the chance to show you I can love you back.”
I close my eyes. A carousel of memories: Elan at his runway show, finding me in the crowd. Watching me bite down on a piece of baklava the first time I was in his home. Sitting across from him at Noemi, my legs around him in the limo, toweling his hair as he walked into his bedroom naked the next morning. Kissing him until he groaned. Taking him in my mouth. His dark eyes tracing my body, illuminating it, making it whole. The memory of it sends heat, and my body begs me for contact. But my body does not always know what is best for it. It forgets betrayal; it has no long-term plan.
I can’t be with a man who dreams me into being. Who makes me real. I am already whole. Whether my tits are real or not. Whatever it is that Elan thinks he’s offering is an illusion, and it always has been.
“No,” I say, and I leave the room.
* * * *
The sun has set, the sky deepening into lilac shot through with streaks of fading pink. A new moon rises over the ocean. Strings of white lights circle the lawn, onto which the guests are pouring. Cooper and Butterfly Wings are sitting at a table by themselves looking bored. I about-face. The last thing I want to do is pretend to enjoy meeting Cooper’s date. I lurk behind one of the huge speakers near the stage where the band is setting up. Someone clamps on to my arm. Steph. Her lipstick is smeared in a very telling way. “Lace!” She kisses me on the cheek, hard and wet. “Where were you? You mished the speeches!”
“Elan cornered me.”
“What?” Half her drink splashes to the ground.
I pluck the glass out of her hand and take a sip. “Bastard wants to get back together.”
Steph sucks in a gasp. “That fucker. He’s fucked.”
“I know,” I say. “Obviously I said no.”
“You can’t, Lace, you absolutely cannot.” She grabs the glass back off me and finishes it.
“I know,” I say again.
“Prick.” Her eyes are unfocused, blooming with anger. “Tosser.”
“Babe, did you eat dinner? Maybe we should get you some bread.”
“He’s a cunt, Lace, a total cunt—”
“Babe, I know. I said no.” Is she too drunk to understand me? “No more drinkies for you, okay? I’m going to get you a water.”
I spin around. Elan is right behind us.
“Lacey,” he says, his voice low. “Can we—”
“Cunt!” Steph announces loudly. A handful of party guests turn and stare.
“Not a good time,” I mutter, trying to yank Steph away.
Elan glances at the guests, and nods, backing away. He mouths, Later. I return it with a glare but his back is turned and he misses it.
Luna is cutting through the crowd toward us. Thank God. Steph lights up. “Hey!” She’s all over her, lips at Luna’s neck. “You’re so sexy. I wanna fuck you—”
“Oh-kay.” Luna grabs Steph as she almost stumbles.
“—In the pussy.” Steph finishes, grinning proudly.
Luna and I exchange a glance. What to do with drunk Steph? I’d put her in a taxi, but we’re all carpooling back to Brooklyn, same way we came up. “I could use a coffee,” Luna says to Steph. “Help me find one?”
“Sure,” Steph says. “Coffee.” She looks at me and laughs. “Coffee,” she whispers. “Wink, wink.”
“Thank you,” I murmur to Luna, who nods as if it’s no big deal.
“I got it,” she says, hooking her arm around Steph. “Go have fun.”
Fun. Outcome seems unlikely.
The crowd gets bigger with every passing minute. I do a lap, cutting through it in a way that suggests I’m on an important mission. I spot Patricia with a handful of Hoffman House clients: the creative director for Apple, the executive vice president of Estée Lauder. If I float by, hopefully she’ll reel me in. I’m a few feet away when we lock eyes. Her gaze lights in recognition. She raises a hand as if to wave me into the inner circle. But then, just as quickly, her expression changes. She blinks, her hand moving instead to smooth her hair, her focus back on our clients. I slide by, wondering why she changed her mind.
I head for the bar furthest from the stage, ready for some sad solo drinking. Sitting alone at the end of it is Cooper. No date in sight. His jacket is gone, the sleeves of his shirt rolled up to his forearms, tie loose. In the crazy mess of this overblown night, he is the only calm, quiet thing about it. I steel myself, and approach. “This seat taken?”
He looks up. And smiles. A blazing, beautiful smile. “I was really hoping you’d say hello.”
“I was really hoping you’d say that.” I slide onto the barstool. “Where’s . . .” I mime hair, a dress.
Behind his glasses, his eyes flick to my cheek, then back to my face. “Left. Wasn’t feeling well.”
A cool rush of relief. “That sounds like the worst lie ever.”
“Right? At least give me period pain.”
I nod. “A man deserves menstrual cramps when he’s being ditched by his insignificant other.”
He huffs a laugh. He glances at me sidelong, almost as if he’s nervous around me. “How’s your night, Lacey?”
“Underwhelming. Steph is blind drunk, and I just got cold-shouldered by my boss and I have no idea why.”
Cooper taps his cheek awkwardly. As if to show me something on mine. “You have . . .”
“What?” I touch my cheek. Sticky red on my fingertips.
“Looks like someone kissed you?”
I grab a knife and hold it up to my face. A giant red lipstick mark is smeared all over my right cheek. “Steph. Fuck.” I dunk a napkin in some water and begin to clean it off, replaying Patricia’s look when she saw it. Surprise. Disapproval. Yup, I’m the one with a drunk friend slobbering all over me. Or did she think I’d been hooking up with someone? Even worse.
“It’s just lipstick,” Cooper says.
“I know,” I say. I don’t want it to seem like I’m overreacting. But Eloise’s words come back to me: You don’t have the pedigree, taste, or composure to be a fashion editor of Hoffman House. But that is obviously not what’s on Cooper’s mind. He swivels to face me, and says, very seriously, “Lacey. I’m really sorry how things ended between us.”
“Me too. It’s okay.”
“But it’s not, really.” He slumps over his drink, like a soldier who’s seen too much. “I think about that afternoon on the pier a lot.”
“What do you think about?”
“Just . . . a different ending.” His eyes on mine again, openly intense. “For us.”
Us. I still feel the thrill of this word. I don’t want to ask. But I have to. “You’re moving to Germany,” I say. “Aren’t you?”
He closes his eyes and nods. “Next week.”
I look straight ahead for a moment and then back at him. Strangely, I feel like laughing. It’s all just so . . . sad. Such a mess.
Elan appears at the other end of the bar, gaze roving the crowd. Oh, hell no. I am sick of being the source of this idiot’s belated epiphany about love, particularly after such god-awful dungeon sex. I slip off my stool. “Want to get out of here?”
Cooper grabs a bottle of champagne from behind the bar. “Where to?”
53.
* * *
Moonlight nicks the black ocean silver. We pick our way along the cliff top, salt air turning our skin sticky. The silence between us is not awkward: it is just quiet. I focus on savoring the way our fingers graze wh
en he passes me the bottle.
We find a tuft of seagrass overlooking the water. The dull thunder of the ocean mixes with the sound of the party, wavering on the wind. The water stretches endless. Beneath the surface, another hidden world.
I take a swig of booze. “I didn’t do it. The surgery.”
“I heard,” he says. “Can I ask why not?”
I shrug, not because I don’t know but because I don’t feel like rehashing his role in my decision. “You know when you’re hanging out with people, and you have to leave early? Everyone tells you to stay, but you have to go, so you do a round of goodbyes and hugs and everything. Then, you’re at the door, and you glance back, and you want everyone to still be staring after you, waving. But they’ve all already gone back to their conversation. You’re not missed at all.” I gaze out at the ocean, the endless, shifting expanse. “That’s what makes me feel sad about dying. That after I’m gone and everyone has said goodbye, life just goes on without me.”
“You’re worried about leaving a legacy?” Cooper asks. “What you’ll be remembered for?”
“More like, I’ll just miss it. Life. I’ll miss being a part of it. I’ll miss weddings and the ocean and music and champagne. I’ll miss the drama and the gossip and the news and New York. I’ll just miss it.”
Cooper glances at me sharply. “You haven’t . . . found anything?” He gestures vaguely at my breasts.
I laugh, mimicking his somewhat clumsy gesture, and he chuckles too. “No. All clear, for now. It just gets me thinking.”
Cooper puts his hand on my shoulder. Warm. Assured. “Lacey. You’re not dying.”
“We’re all dying, Coop. We’re all going to die.”
His face is somber but beautiful. I’ll miss Cooper. I don’t even feel nervous when I raise my hand to touch his face. I just want to feel it, beneath my fingertips. I shift closer, so he’s able to put his arms around me, his fingers running down my back.
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