Follow Me

by Kathleen Barber

  “Actually,” I said, slicing my steak and dreaming of instead slicing off one of Esther’s fat fingers, “I’m sort of seeing someone.”

  Silence descended. I put the steak in my mouth and chewed.

  “That’s great,” Leigh finally said, her tone a little too earnest.

  Beside her, Tag’s wife, Arielle, smirked, her expression calling me a liar.

  She was wrong. I was, technically, seeing Audrey. Maybe I wasn’t seeing her in the precise sense that Leigh meant, but it wouldn’t be long until things changed.

  “Oh yeah?” Tag said, cutting his eyes at Arielle.

  “Yeah,” Simon echoed. “Who’s the lucky lady?”

  I shook my head resolutely. I couldn’t trust my family with so much as a crumb of information. I knew they’d find a way to ruin things.

  “Come on, Peanut,” Arielle taunted, using the infantile nickname I had repeatedly requested they retire. “What’s the big deal?”

  Underneath the table, I balled up my fists and squeezed, nails digging into my palms. The pain steadied me and made me less inclined to grab Arielle by her yellow hair extensions and smash her face into the good china.

  “Yeah,” Tag agreed. “You can tell us.”

  “Come on now, everyone,” Leigh said. “Let’s leave poor Peanut alone. Look how embarrassed he is. His cheeks are so red!”

  She smiled at me sympathetically, and I hated her. I hated all of them, my smug brothers with their sycophantic wives and horrible children and my disinterested, image-obsessed parents. I dug my nails deeper into my palm and blinked back dark, rage-filled thoughts.

  “We’re just having fun,” Tag said. “Peanut can take a little fun. Can’t you, Peanut?”

  I couldn’t open my mouth or a primal scream would come out. My nails bit through my flesh and I smiled tightly at my brother as blood trickled from the wounds.

  At the head of the table, my mother rose. “Can I get anyone another drink?”

  * * *

  AS USUAL, the family retired to the back porch for after-dinner cordials and dessert. Also as usual, Leigh and Arielle declined dessert and disappeared to watch the children, while my mother fell asleep in her drink and my father and brothers dissected something they read in the Wall Street Journal. As they debated financial terms with which I had no familiarity, I excused myself to the restroom. No one even looked up.

  Passing the open door to the family room, I heard Arielle’s nasally voice say, “It’s just so obvious that he’s making it up.”

  I halted, veins alighting with anger.

  “Oh, come on,” Leigh said. “That’s not fair. Why shouldn’t he see someone? He’s a good-looking guy. I really thought things were going to work out with—”

  “Yeah, but they didn’t,” Arielle interrupted. “And his looks will only fool a girl for so long. You know as well as I do that there’s something off about him. You remember what happened when . . .”

  Blood roared in my ears and I clenched my fists, briefly indulging in the fantasy of putting my hands around Arielle’s spray-tanned throat and squeezing until there was nothing left in her. I imagined her face turning red, and then blue, as she gasped and choked, pleading with me. Maybe she wouldn’t dismiss me so easily when I held her life in my hands.

  But I wouldn’t do that, of course. It was just another totally normal, inappropriate thought, the kind born of healthy resentment. With my head held high, I walked past the family room, past the bathroom, and out the front door.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CAT

  I had been eyeing the partnership ever since I first walked through the polished mahogany doors of Barker & Liu, LLP, four years ago. I knew reaching its pinnacle would be no cakewalk; across all offices internationally, the law firm made fewer than twenty partners annually, and only one or two were women. The road to the top was steep and packed with obstacles, but as my father always said, nothing worth having is easy.

  “Not easy” was putting it lightly. Being named partner would require an almost inhuman dedication to the job. The hours were so long and unrelenting that I ate most of my meals at my desk and worked through the night a few times per year. Most people couldn’t handle it. They burned out; a lucky few escaped to cushy corporate jobs while the majority moved to government work or smaller firms, taking the substantial pay cut in exchange for a good night’s sleep and time with their families.

  That wouldn’t be me. I could sleep when I was dead, and I had no family clamoring for my presence. I had exactly one social obligation: I joined my friends for bar trivia on Thursday nights. We’d been going to the same cheesy sports bar since the summer I graduated from law school, when my friend Priya suggested its trivia night as a much-needed sanity break from studying for the bar exam. The idea of drinking pitchers of domestic beer and thinking about trivialities when I should be studying the rules of evidence made me break out in hives, and so I planned to skip it … until Connor asked if he would see me there.

  Of course I said yes. I had been attending ever since, although my participation flagged the year Connor lived out of state for a clerkship. Since he had returned, I rarely missed trivia. Even though we now worked at the same law firm, those Thursday-night excursions were the only times we saw each other outside of work, but remembering my vow to help Audrey acclimate to the city, I invited her to join us.

  * * *

  I ARRIVED AT THE BAR ten minutes later than promised and found Audrey perched on a barstool, dressed in short black shorts and a white eyelet lace shirt. She was sipping a glass of rosé and laughing with the bartender, a baby-faced guy adorned with tattoos. From his leering expression, I could tell he was wondering the same thing I was: whether she was wearing anything underneath that shirt.

  Her glossy mouth twisted wryly as she said something to the bartender that made him throw his head back in exaggerated laughter. He then said something and she ducked her head coyly, twisting a lock of her long, red-gold hair with her white-polished fingers. I hesitated, unsure whether I should interrupt their flirtation.

  Suddenly, she swiveled on her barstool and called out to me. “Cat! There you are!”

  “Sorry,” I said, hurrying to her side. “I got stuck at work. Have you been waiting long?”

  “I haven’t minded,” she said, throwing a kittenish smile at the bartender.

  “Let’s—”

  “Hey,” one of the regular waitresses, a young woman with emerald-green hair and the inability to make it through a shift without spilling at least one drink, said as she stepped between me and Audrey. With a tray of empty glasses balancing precariously on one hand, she said to Audrey, “You’re Audrey Miller, aren’t you?”

  Audrey smiled beatifically at her. “I am. And you are … ?”

  “Jody. I’ve been following you for, like, ever.” She set the tray down on the bar with a loud rattle and handed her phone to me. “Here, take our picture.”

  Audrey offered me a shrug and a small smile before casually tossing an arm around Jody’s shoulders and grinning for the camera. It was magic: somehow Audrey managed to make it look as though she and Jody were great friends, rather than strangers who’d met only seconds before. I knew that photo would be plastered all over Jody’s social media the second we walked away.

  The bartender smiled crookedly at Audrey. “Should I be following you, too?”

  “Everyone should follow me.”

  “Maybe I will,” he said, winking at her.

  The way he said it turned my stomach, but Audrey was already plucking a business card from her purse. I restrained myself from snatching it out of her hand and warning her about picking up strangers in bars, particularly strangers who had a giant, bloody skull tattooed on one hand.

  “Come on,” I said sternly instead. “The game’s about to start. We should find the rest of the team.”

  “Absolutely. Just let me settle up here.”

  “No worries,” he said. “It’s on the house.”

 
“You’re a doll,” Audrey said, spinning off the barstool. She collected her wine and a plastic bag of animal crackers from the bar.

  I smiled and pointed to them. “I see your favorite snack hasn’t changed.”

  “Guilty as charged,” she said brightly, holding the bag out to me. “Want some?”

  I took a few and led her through the bar to where our team, the Fertile Octogenarians (a property law joke that had seemed hilarious when we were neck-deep in bar prep), traditionally gathered in a large, rounded booth. I quickly made introductions: my friend Priya from law school; Jessa, Priya’s coworker at Planned Parenthood; Lamar, Jessa’s boyfriend; Harry, a friend of Lamar’s from college; and Lon, who worked with Harry at the DOJ.

  “Hi, everyone, thanks for letting me crash your trivia party,” Audrey said, smiling and sliding into the booth beside Harry. She tossed the bag of animal crackers in the middle of the table. “Help yourselves.”

  Lon, who had a nasty habit of digging around in his ears with his fingers, immediately reached a hand into the bag, and I decided I’d had enough animal crackers.

  Audrey pulled me into the booth beside her and raised her arm, her phone angled toward us, taking a selfie. I forced a smile onto my face, already knowing what the image would look like: Audrey grinning coquettishly, her eyes widened and her chin tilted just so, while I sat woodenly beside her, my face inevitably captured with one eye partially closed. I had hundreds of such pictures from our college years.

  “Where’s Connor?” I asked, striving for casualness even as my throat closed over his name. I had walked past his office on my way out of work, but his door had been shut and I couldn’t tell whether he was inside or already gone.

  “Right here.”

  Connor had the kind of deep, authoritative voice that all lawyers dreamed of having, and the sound of it always made my heart contract. I turned to see him standing at the edge of the booth, smoothing his thick, sand-colored hair with a hand. He grinned and my heart squeezed again, dangerously tightly. I loved his smile in its imperfect perfection, the way it lifted slightly higher on the left and the way it displayed his chipped front tooth.

  “Hey, Harrell,” he said, sliding into the booth beside me. “Who’s your friend?”

  “Hi,” Audrey said brightly, leaning around me. “I’m Audrey.”

  “Connor,” he said, directing his smile at her in a way that made me bereft. I intensely wished that Audrey were wearing something more substantial than a doily.

  Feeling shamefully territorial, I leaned forward to interrupt their eye contact, saying, “Audrey, Connor went to law school with Priya and me, and he works at Barker & Liu with me now.”

  “Ah,” she said, eyes twinkling mischievously. “So I should probably keep the lawyer jokes to myself?”

  “No, I love a good lawyer joke,” Connor protested. “Here, what’s the difference between an accountant and a lawyer?”

  “I don’t know, what?”

  “Accountants know they’re boring.”

  “Ba-da-bum-ching!” Lon said, laughing loudly and rapping his brawny hands on the table.

  I glared at him. Lon had wormed his way into the team by following Harry to trivia enough times that we felt as though we had to let him play. He was a wealth of sports knowledge, but he was a lecherous boozehound. He’d been ousted from the bar more than once, and a girl from another trivia team once claimed he had followed her home and pounded on her door until she called the police. I didn’t want him even looking at Audrey.

  But Audrey ignored him, saying to Connor, “That’s pretty good. But I have a better one: What’s the difference between a mosquito and a lawyer?”

  “Somehow I doubt this will be a flattering comparison.”

  “One’s a bloodsucking parasite,” Audrey said with a smirk. “The other is an insect.”

  “Burn!” Lon announced, extending his body across the table and offering Audrey his open hand for a high five. She gamely slapped his palm.

  “Ow,” Connor said, faking an injury to his heart, and then said to me, “Harrell, your friend is cruel. Did you know what she thinks of you?”

  Words failed me, as they often did around Connor, and I ended up saying stupidly, “She’s just kidding.”

  Connor blinked slightly, and then placed his hands on the table. “Okay, guys. I’m going to grab a drink before things get started. Anyone else need anything?”

  Lon pounded the rest of his beer and slammed the empty glass on the table. “Another Bud Light.”

  “Sure thing, Lon,” Connor said, smiling tolerantly. “Anyone else?”

  “I need a drink,” I said, sliding out of the booth after him. “I’ll come and help carry.”

  Connor smiled down at me, sending my heart galloping again. Even more than that smile, I loved the fact that he could smile down at me. I’d towered over every romantic prospect since the age of fourteen, and it was refreshingly novel to feel small and feminine for once. I envied women like Audrey, pixie-sized women who would never have to worry about being taller than their partners.

  As I stood, Audrey caught my eye. She winked ostentatiously, and even as I died of embarrassment, I felt a rush of warmth in the center of my chest. Audrey got it. She got me. It was going to be great having my best friend around again.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  AUDREY

  Sorry, there’s a fire drill here at the office. Rain check?

  I read Cat’s text with dismay. I’d nabbed us last-minute reservations at the Michelin-starred Bresca, and was really looking forward to the evening. The menu looked incredible, even for a plant-based diner like me, and there was a living wall of moss that would make for amazing photos. In anticipation of a fun and picture-ready evening, I’d carefully selected an only minimally wrinkled outfit—I had yet to unpack anything other than my laptop and prized record collection, and was cherry-picking increasingly rumpled clothing from boxes as needed—and applied a full face of makeup, including false eyelashes. And now Cat was abandoning me, expecting me to spend the night alone? It wasn’t like there was anyone else I could call.

  That’s not entirely true, I reminded myself. There was someone else I could invite to join me for dinner, but I hadn’t told him I’d moved to DC yet and didn’t want to call him with a whole evening planned. It would just go to his pretty head.

  Instead, I poured some Riesling into a recently acquired wineglass and reminded myself that, with my healthy social media following, I was never truly alone.

  I checked my already immaculate makeup, opened Instagram, and switched to Live view.

  “Hey, friends,” I said brightly.

  Izzy had once criticized the sunny voice I used in my videos. “You’re presenting a false reality,” she said. “I thought you claimed to have this ‘authentic’ persona.” I’d fired back that being cheerful wasn’t inauthentic—it wasn’t like anyone told you how they really were after a polite “how are you.” Besides, there was research to support the idea that smiling even when you felt low could put you in a better mood. I smiled harder and hoped that was true.

  “Confession: I have yet to unpack from my move.” I flipped the camera around and slowly panned the mountain of boxes before turning back to my face and slapping a hand to my cheek in mock embarrassment. “I know, I know, it’s shameful. I decided I could not live another minute like this, and so tonight I am finally tackling this totally hideous task.”

  I started chatting about my day—the new glassware I’d purchased, the barre class I’d attended, and the uniquely DC experience of getting stopped by a motorcade on the way home from work—and comments began appearing at the bottom of the screen.

  I love DC! You’re going to have the best time there!

  Great earrings!

  I felt my smile stretching, becoming more genuine. This was why I shared my life online. The free products were fun, but it was the connection with real people that kept me turning on my phone. It made my heart sing to know that at that moment,
tens of thousands of people across the world were taking time out of their lives to hear about mine, to send me comments.

  Of course, while the comments were usually evenly divided between fawning praise and questions, there was the occasional slimy one. Nice rack seemed a perennial favorite. I ignored the more depraved comments, knowing they were almost certainly posted by some weirdo living in his mother’s basement. (The irony of mocking anyone else for living in a basement did not escape me.)

  “Having a serene living space is really important to me,” I said, telling them not the truth but rather something I wanted to be the truth. “So these boxes have been driving me bananas! I’ve been far too busy since I moved here to unpack, so I made the decision to stay in tonight and finally just do it! I’ve got everything I need: a box cutter, a glass of wine, and a Talking Heads record cued up. Wish me luck!”

  good luck, audrey!

  Good luck!

  You have the best taste in music!

  goooood luck xxx

  “Bye for now, lovers,” I said, tossing a wink at the camera and disconnecting the livestream.

  I dropped the phone to my side and let the smile fall from my face. I really did not want to unpack those boxes. I poured another glass of wine and began rearranging my records instead. My sister mocked me mercilessly for living a digital life while collecting something so hopelessly analog (but Maggie worked as an accountant for a paper company, so, really, who was she to criticize something for being analog?), but I loved the tangibility of records. My infatuation with them had started on a whim, when I’d come across a secondhand (or, more likely, third- or fourth-hand) copy of the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album at the Brooklyn Flea and had decided it would look fun in a frame. Then Nick gifted me a record player so I could actually listen to it, and I became a vinyl convert.