Follow Me

by Kathleen Barber

  “I’m going to take a walk around the block. When I come back, you can’t be here.” She stared at me so intensely her eyes bugged slightly. “Do you understand?”

  Do you understand? Like I was some sort of simpleton, incapable of comprehending basic language. The men from the Overexposed forums had been right about Aly: she was nothing but an uptight bitch. She would never be happy, and I deserved much better than her.

  “I understand,” I sneered at her.

  “Good,” she said, nodding abruptly. She pivoted on her heel and marched off, without looking back even once. I watched her go, her strong runner’s calves bobbing from underneath the hem of her skirt suit. Aly was so severe. It was hard to imagine that I had once thought she was something special.

  I paused and looked back at her building. Within a week after sending that impersonal message, Aly had changed the locks on her home. It had been performative; the lock she had installed wasn’t anything special. I could easily break the glass panel beside the door, snake my arm through the newly created hole, and let myself inside her apartment. I could smash the mason jars she used to serve drinks, an affectation that drove me mad; knock all the pretentious biographies and all the books of political analysis she said I didn’t understand off her flimsy IKEA shelves; burn those expensive candles that smelled like sugar until there was nothing left but crumbling wicks. I could wait in the shadows of that dark row house until she returned home and—

  No.

  That wouldn’t get me any closer to Audrey, and she was all that mattered. Everything else was just a distraction.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CAT

  Bill Hannover summoning me into his corner office on a Friday afternoon could mean only one thing: my weekend was about to be consumed with some research project or motion drafting. In the four years I had worked at the firm, I could count on my fingers the number of times I’d had a completely clear weekend. It wasn’t something that bothered me. I knew that sacrificing my weekends was a necessary step on my path to the partnership, and I was happy to hand them over. Since Audrey had parachuted back into my life, however, I’d started carving out more time to spend with her, checking out new restaurants, visiting the museums, and acting as her photographer so she could pose in front of interesting backdrops from the Lincoln Memorial to that house on Q Street that was painted to look like a watermelon.

  That weekend, though, I was free to do all the work Bill might pile upon me. Audrey had a second date with Max Metcalf, and I’d felt both relieved and queasy since she announced it. Their relationship seemed like a catch-22. If things didn’t work out, would Max hold me accountable and make good on his “a person never forgets camp” threat? On the other hand, if they did, would Camp Blackwood come up in their conversation? Would Emily Snow? And once Audrey learned about that summer, what would she do with that knowledge? She’d never demonstrated discretion with other people’s secrets (for example, I knew exactly how many men our mutual friend Jasmine had slept with, even though Jasmine had never once revealed a partner to me), and she had a platform that could reach more than a million people in an instant. I couldn’t decide which scenario was worse.

  I shuddered and pushed the unpleasant thoughts from my mind as I took a seat before Bill’s modern glass desk. Work first, then I would worry about Audrey and Max.

  “Catherine,” Bill said, looking up from a thick binder and rubbing his neatly trimmed gray beard. “Thanks for coming by. I have to jump on a call in a minute, so I’ll make this brief. I’ve been impressed with your work.”

  I held my breath, hoping Bill wouldn’t add a “but” and go on to mention the memo I had flubbed after Audrey kept me up all night.

  “You’re the kind of diligent, conscientious associate I want in my corner. Do you have time to join my team for the Phillips litigation? I’m not going to sugarcoat it, it’ll be round-the-clock work for a while, but it’s an interesting case and we’ll be arguing it before the Southern District in October.”

  “I have the time,” I assured him, chest expanding with pride. “Count me in.”

  “All right,” Bill said with a decisive nod. “Glad you’ll be joining us. My assistant will reach out later to schedule an on-boarding meeting for the full team.”

  Bill picked up his pen and turned back to his binder, dismissing me. I rose from the chair and floated out the door, nearly running directly into Connor. He looked behind me to Bill’s office, then gave me a quick smile and, with an inclination of his head, indicated I should follow him down the hallway. Butterflies burst into my stomach. This was the most significant interaction I’d had with Connor since the uncomfortable night at the Hirshhorn two and a half weeks earlier, and I had been craving a return to normalcy with him. I missed our jokes, the way his hazel eyes twinkled when he smiled, the slight imperfection in that otherwise gorgeous smile.

  “So,” he said, voice low, as we walked down the hallway. “Coming from Bill’s office, huh? And with a smile on your face? Let me guess: Good news about the Phillips team?”

  I nodded, straining hard to remain professional. “I’ve been killing myself to get staffed on that case. You know how most of the cases I work on settle, so I’m excited to get in the courtroom. And there’s no denying that this is an interesting case. The libel allegations alone—”

  “Yeah, definitely. Well, congrats. It’ll be fun working with you.”

  My heart skipped a beat, part thrilled at the prospect of working alongside Connor, part offended Bill had chosen him before me. “I didn’t realize you were on the team, too.”

  “Yeah, Bill asked me this morning. Sounds like there’ll be a lot of all-nighters in our immediate future.”

  Against my will, my heartbeat resumed and stepped up to a double-speed pace as I imagined long nights in the office with Connor, the two of us holed up in a conference room, chugging coffee and sharing vending machine candy, discussing the finer points of our legal arguments. Our hands would meet atop a stack of binders, and everything that had happened since Audrey had begun messing in our relationship would melt away. This would be our chance to start fresh, to recapture the intellectually stimulating atmosphere of when we first met.

  “Oh, well,” I said, forcing a casual shrug. “That’s just part of the job.”

  * * *

  THAT NIGHT, I dreamed about Connor. I awoke flushed, my whole body tingling from the sensation of dream-Connor tracing his long fingers over and inside my body. My cheeks grew hot and I pulled my covers back up over my face. I was relieved it was Saturday and I wouldn’t have to go into the office, where I was sure the indecent scenarios my sleeping brain had conjured would be glaringly obvious. My only conversations with Connor that day would be over email, and for that I was grateful.

  The dream continued resurfacing during the course of the day, popping into my head when I was in the middle of reading a case or blending a smoothie for lunch or responding to Audrey’s texts about what she should wear on her second date with Max. Memories of the dream (the feel of his soft lips meeting mine, his hands being assuredly placed on my hips, then stroking the skin there lower and lower and lower …) kept me so mellow I didn’t even feel any anxiety over what Audrey and Max might talk about on their date.

  I was still luxuriating in my secret fantasy as I walked to my usual Saturday afternoon nail appointment. I could already hear Monet teasing me about the blush in my cheeks, and I was debating whether to tell her some version of the truth when I thought I saw Connor’s tall form on the sidewalk in front of me. I stopped short, certain my overactive imagination had created this apparition. I watched the Connor-like image as it walked ahead of me, certain it would soon fade into the nothingness it assuredly was. But when it pulled open the door to Columbia Brews and disappeared inside, I realized it wasn’t some sort of shade. It was Connor, in the flesh.

  Sweat tickled my palms. This was my perfect opportunity to casually chat with him outside of work, to try to repair some of the da
mage that had been done to our relationship. All I had to do was walk into the coffee shop, act surprised to see him there, and then … what? My inclination was to talk about work, but I knew Audrey would chastise me for that. Let him see you as someone other than his colleague, she had said to me, and that advice rang through my ears. But what should I say? What would Audrey say in this situation? I closed my eyes and tried to imagine myself as her, imagine what she would say if she happened upon the object of her affection while out. She would clap her hands joyfully, the gold bracelets she often wore tinkling with the motion, and she would make a joke about him stalking her. Or would the joke be about her stalking him? Audrey did self-deprecation better than I did; she always managed to seem humble yet still glittery.

  Just say something, I told myself, and took a deep breath before following Connor inside the coffee shop. It was crowded, and it took me a moment to spot him. When I did, I caught my breath. He was seated at a two-top in the back, across from a petite woman. I couldn’t see her expression, but the way Connor was looking intently at her and leaning forward made the nature of their meeting obvious.

  Connor is on a date.

  Unbidden, the dream slipped back into my consciousness, flooding my mind’s eye with false memories of dream-Connor’s warm body pressed against mine, his breath in my ear, his voice, low and soft, saying my name. Tears stung my eyes, and I whirled around, racing out of the coffee shop. If he saw me spying on him on a date, I would never live down the humiliation.

  Just outside the door, the tears began to fall in earnest. Swiping futilely at them, I hid inside a nearby bus shelter and called Audrey.

  A date, I thought as the phone rang. He is on a date. How long has he been dating? How am I ever going to fix this?

  I tapped my foot anxiously as I waited for Audrey to answer. She would know what to do. She had more experience with dating than I had; she would know how to advise me. Refreshed tears blurred my vision as her voice mail picked up and I lowered my phone in defeat.

  That’s right. She’s out with Max.

  I frowned bitterly. This was partially Max’s fault. When he walked out of my past that night at the Hirshhorn, I had been so worried about what he might tell Connor or Audrey that I’d dropped my eye from the prize. The almost-date Audrey had arranged had been ruined in part because I’d let Max Metcalf get under my skin. And he was out with Audrey right at that moment, getting exactly what he wanted. It wasn’t fair.

  CHAPTER FORTY

  AUDREY

  Roses are red, violets are blue, some flowers are headless, you could be too.

  The unsettling rhyme had been looping through my brain for days. Even though I’d gone all twenty-first-century Nancy Drew on the comment’s author and was 99 percent certain he was a bored Nebraskan teenager making a bad joke about Rosalind, I couldn’t completely banish the uneasiness the vague threat had inspired. Even now, sitting in the passenger seat of Max’s silver Prius, singing along to a Beatles station on satellite radio as we cruised downtown on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the unpleasant little ditty popped into my head.

  I rubbed my arms to banish the sudden gooseflesh and chastised myself, Stop being ridiculous. No one is going to cut off your head.

  But I couldn’t shake the unease that clung to me like a cobweb. So that edgelord wannabe poet hadn’t left me those headless roses, but someone had. Someone had gone to the trouble of buying a giant bouquet, cutting off each flower’s bloom, and then leaving the thorn-studded stems on my doorstep. It was clearly a message of some kind, but I had no idea what that message was or who it was from.

  “Is everything all right?” Max asked, bringing me back to the present.

  I banished all thoughts of those awful stems from my mind and stretched my gloss-covered lips into a smile. “Absolutely. Just wondering where we’re going.”

  He adjusted his Ray-Ban aviators and smiled mischievously. “If I told you, that would ruin the surprise.”

  * * *

  WE DROVE INTO VIRGINIA over the Fourteenth Street Bridge and out past the airport before looping back toward the city and eventually pulling into a crowded parking lot.

  “Where are we?” I asked as I climbed out of the car. I couldn’t see much of anything other than an expanse of grass hidden by some trees, a strip of water, and a row of porta potties. Near us, a rowdy pack of teenagers were chasing each other and waving a Frisbee in the air. Beyond them, I saw mostly sneaker-wearing couples pushing toddlers in strollers and people dressed in padded shorts and helmets walking bicycles. I looked down at my chambray sundress and platform sandals and sincerely hoped Max wasn’t expecting me to engage in some sort of physical activity.

  “So many questions,” he teased, unloading a pair of reusable Trader Joe’s tote bags from the trunk.

  “I don’t like secrets,” I said, grabbing the edge of one of the bags and peering inside. I spotted a cutting board and baguette and looked up triumphantly. “Aha! It’s a picnic.”

  “You were the kind of kid who searched for her Christmas presents, weren’t you?” he guessed with a laugh. “But, yes, you caught me. It’s a picnic. Now that the weather is finally cooling down, I thought it would be nice to spend some time outside.”

  I took one of the bags from him and together we began walking toward the grass. “I haven’t been on a picnic in ages. When I first moved to New York, I used to try to convince my roommates to picnic in Central Park with me. I’d get all this stuff from Zabar’s, but they weren’t really into eating, so—”

  The rest of my words were drowned out by a sudden roar from above. I snapped my head up and saw an enormous airplane careening toward the ground in front of us. I froze, veins crackling with terror, unable to look away from the impending disaster.

  “Oh my God,” I croaked out, clutching Max’s arm. “It’s—”

  Before I could finish my panicked sentence, the plane landed gracefully on what I now recognized as a runway leading toward the airport. Fingertips still digging into Max’s biceps, I turned to him in shock.

  “Holy shit, did you see that? That couldn’t have been normal, right?”

  “Normal, expected, and the entire reason we’re here,” he said, dimples popping as he smiled impishly. He pointed across the water to where the plane was still taxiing. “That’s DCA over there. This park is called Gravelly Point, and people come out here to watch the planes land and take off.”

  “That was wild. I had no idea this was out here.”

  “Most people don’t. I know I promised to show you the most beautiful parts of the city, and this is not really beautiful or technically within the city, but—”

  “It’s amazing,” I interrupted. “And a total rush. Thanks for bringing me here.”

  “Come on,” he said, taking my still-sweating hand in his and leading me toward the grass. “Let’s set up that picnic.”

  * * *

  “THIS LOOKS INCREDIBLE,” I said, admiring the feast of crudités, baguette, grapes, and a variety of cheeses that Max had arranged on a red-and-white-checkered blanket. “I mean, what are you even doing with that blanket? It’s a perfect picnic blanket and makes the whole thing look like something out of a magazine. Which, I’m sure you realize, is total catnip for me. I’ve got to take a picture of this.”

  “You said you rated dates on Instagramability,” he said, grinning. “And I’ll confess, I bought the blanket especially for this.”

  “I knew it!” I laughed, swatting at him. “The only people with checkered picnic blankets are suburban moms from the fifties and influencers.”

  “And those who want to impress them.”

  “Well, it worked,” I teased while I snapped a photo and quickly applied my preset filter. As I was typing out a caption, the sky broke apart with the thunderous sound of another plane arriving. Even though I knew what to expect this time, my heart jumped as I looked up to see the belly of a red-and-blue plane flying low above us.

  “Wow,” I said. “Where do you think
this one’s coming from?”

  He tilted his face upward and the sunlight caught his blond curls, turning them golden. He thought for a moment and then decisively said, “Dallas.”

  “No way,” I protested. “Not Dallas. Somewhere more exotic. Thailand, maybe.”

  “Maybe,” he said slowly. “Although that would be unusual, considering DCA doesn’t service international flights.”

  I wrinkled my nose and stuck out my tongue, making him laugh.

  “Here, look, there’s this app where you can see what planes are coming from where,” he said as he pulled out his phone. He tapped on it briefly, then held it up in the air and beckoned me to look at it with him. “You can view planes that are coming and if you tap on them—see, like this? It’ll tell you where they’re coming from and where they’re going.”

  “Okay, that’s pretty cool,” I said begrudgingly. “Not quite as cool as Thailand, but pretty cool.”

  He smiled and lowered his phone. “Have you ever been to Thailand?”

  “No, but it’s at the very top of my bucket list. I’ve been planning my fantasy vacation there for years. Seriously, I have this Pinterest board crammed full of articles on the best places to eat in Bangkok and the best islands for snorkeling.”

  “You should stop planning and just go. I went a few years ago, and it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. I spent a few days in Bangkok, a few more in Chiang Mai, and then a week island hopping. I can give you all sorts of recommendations.”

  “Maybe I’ll take you up on that someday. If I ever find someone to go with me.”

  “I’m sure you won’t have trouble finding a travel companion. What about Cat?”

  “Oh, come on, you know Cat. Can you honestly imagine her taking time off work?”

  “She is a little tightly wound,” he allowed, smiling crookedly. “Here, tell you what: if you can’t find someone who wants to go, I’ll go with you.”