Follow Me(57)

I was stroking the downy head of our perfect infant and planning its future when I realized my ex-girlfriend Aly was standing at the base of the steps. Her cheeks were white and her shiny brown ponytail trembled; one thin hand clutched at the lapels of her navy suit while the other drew her NPR tote bag across her body like a shield. Irritation flared within me. Aly had always been so dramatic.

“What are you—?” she began, looking around wildly as if searching for help. Her dark eyes landed on the new mother across the street, and she opened her mouth as if she was going to call out but then seemed to think better of it. She looked back at me, tightening her grip on her bag. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“Nice to see you, too, Aly,” I said, standing up. “It’s been a while. Six months, right? Since you unceremoniously dumped me over text message?”

She took a step backward, and something inside me clenched. For a split second, I envisioned grabbing that ponytail in my fist and using it to smash her plain face into the concrete. That would really give her something to be frightened of.

I held up my hands to show her my palms. “Relax, I’m just here to talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” she said, taking another step away from me.

“That’s not true,” I said, fury swirling hot in my gut as I remembered the cold message Aly had sent to dismiss me. I no longer see a future for us. Please don’t call again. I’d ignored her edict and called, and then I continued calling, my anger growing in intensity each time I heard her voice mail. And then I’d found myself on these same steps one night, waiting for her to come home, my fists like spring-loaded rocks at my side.

I swallowed hard, forced my hands to unclench. “Aly, I just want to know what I did wrong. I don’t want to make the same mistake again.”

“Again?” she repeated, her eyes narrowing. “Are you dating someone?”

“Don’t look at me like that,” I snapped. God, how could I have forgotten how suspicious Aly was about everything?

“I’m not—”

“You were. You were looking at me like I could never find anyone else. I know that’s what your friend Leigh thinks, but she’s wrong. You’re wrong. You’re all wrong.”

She tightened her mouth into an almost invisible line. “Don’t take another step.”

I looked down, surprised to find that I was now standing only an arm’s length from her. “Aly, I—”

“You need to leave.”

“Aly,” I started, softening my voice.

“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.