Confidential(98)

There are a few people lined up in front of the register, which is where the salespeople are, too, which means that no one can overhear us. “Hi,” she says. “It’s been a while. How are you?”

“I thought about walking on by, pretending I hadn’t seen you, but—”

“There’s no point in that. We know each other, right?”

As in, we know things no one else does. We’ve loved the same man. Maybe it’s because of the pregnancy, but Greer seems unguarded and sad, where a minute ago, she was stroking baby clothes.

“I shouldn’t miss him, but I do,” I blurt.

She’s surprised to hear it, like I’m surprised to have said it. She nods slowly. “I know,” she says, and I can tell, she does.

“I thought you’d done it.” I’m not going to spell out what I thought she did; this is still a public place. “But now . . .” I gesture to her belly.

“I thought you’d done it.” She doesn’t add the “but now.”

“That’s Michael’s baby, right?”

She hesitates, and then finally nods.

“So you were sleeping with him.” I can’t help it; I want to needle her a little, pin her down on her lie. She’d been so holier-than-thou, but Michael finds a way. Found a way.

“No. It was an insemination, actually.”

The money transferred into his account. She paid him for his sperm. “It was a business deal, then? You paid him to father your child and that’s all?” I don’t know why, but I sound hopeful.

“No,” she says softly, “it wasn’t only a business deal. But we never even kissed.”

Michael wants what he can’t have. Wanted. We all do. “Was he really going to wait the two years to be with you?”

“We were going to try.”

I don’t know why she’s being so honest with me. It could be that she’s trying to hurt me, and it’s working.

I’d thought it was a compliment that he couldn’t wait, that he had to have me right away, but now it just seems like a lack of respect. True love is patient. True love is kind.

Greer is looking at me with compassion, which is more humiliating. “So what brings you to the city?” she says, almost brightly. That subject change might, strangely, be the most awkward part of the world’s strangest, most awkward conversation.

“I work in the city,” I say, and then I correct myself. “I used to work in the city. I recently”—I debate on the wording—“gave up my job. I’m moving back to Miami.”

It’s been much easier to pack up my life in California than I would have thought. It could have been because, like Jeanie said, it takes a long time to know me, or because Michael had intentionally isolated me, also like Jeanie said. But really, she’s the only person I’m going to miss. She says she’ll bring the twins down for a beach vacation, the kind where you can go in the water without freezing your ass off. Florida’s got it all over California in that regard.

“My parents are pretty old,” I say, “and I should spend more time with them and help them when they need it.” Since I don’t have Kate to do that anymore. “It’ll be good to have a change of scenery. Too many memories here.” She bobs her head with feeling, and I wonder if she’s thought of taking off herself. “And my cousin Kate, the one I told you about at dim sum? She woke up. She needs to learn how to do everything all over again, how to walk and talk and feed herself, and I’m going to be there every step of the way. I’m going to take good care of her.”

I don’t know why I’m telling Greer all this. Maybe it’s because I want her to think I’m a good person, because she basically told me she thought I was the killer, and she hasn’t yet walked it back. Or maybe it’s because I want to convince myself that it’s all going to turn out all right. That I am, in fact, a good person. Sometimes I have my doubts. Michael wasn’t in our relationship alone. And the way I threw shade at both Greer and Lucy when I talked to that detective, trying to get him to focus on them—I don’t feel good about that. Well, before today, I’d felt fine about Greer, but I always felt a little guilty about Lucy.

She never got arrested, though. No one has.

“It sounds like a really good plan,” Greer says when I’ve stopped babbling. “I wish you and your family the best.”

She sounds sincere. I think.

I indicate her pregnant form. “I wish you and your family the best, too, Greer.”

And that’s it. We’re parting ways. I’ve gone from floored to hurt to proud of myself for my maturity in, like, five minutes. But that kind of roller coaster of emotions has gotten to be routine over the past months. Hell, if I’m honest, it’s been a lot longer than that. My time with Michael was no picnic.

But things are going to be different now. It’s funny that circling back to the beginning, to my roots, can be a fresh start. I think it will be, though. I’m not even bitter about getting fired. It’s been a blessing in disguise, and the timing was incredible. Within a week, Kate woke up. That gives me a chance to be the friend, and the family, I should have been. The human being I should have been.

Kate’s going to need a ton of rehab, and I’ll be right there with her. Like Michael said, I’m formidable; I’m a force of nature, and I’m going to send all that Kate’s way. Every bit of my energy is going to her. I’m swearing off men for a long, long time.