The Assistants(70)
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LATER THAT NIGHT, Emily and I drank champagne in our pajamas. Me in my leisurely stripes, she in her lace two-piece. It was just the two of us again, lounging on my bed. Ginger, Wendi, and Lily had gone home; the news that Emily was free had quieted the chatter on the Internet, and we could take a deep breath and relax back into our old selves—or, the newly updated versions of our old selves.
“So, how exactly did you manage to get me out of jail?” Emily asked while uncorking our second bottle of Asti Spumante.
“Long story. I sort of had Robert by the balls.” I held out my glass to be refilled. “The cojones.”
Emily set the bottle onto my nightstand and scrolled through a few new messages on her phone. She was already being bombarded with calls and e-mails. Everyone wanted to know what had happened. Why was she held in custody? Why wasn’t she charged with anything? People wanted answers. Emily didn’t have any of those answers, but she was still enjoying the attention nonetheless.
“You’re going to have to be a little more specific,” she said. “I have to have a good story to tell my fans; that’s what they want from me now.” As she was scrolling, her phone chimed again.
I checked my own phone, not for messages—which was good because there weren’t any—but for the time.
It was only a little after eight p.m. Not so late as to make it entirely insane for me to forgo my champagne flute, lift myself from the bed, throw on some clothes, and make my way uptown. Kevin had to have heard the news by now that Emily and I had come out okay. I liked to imagine that he’d been closely monitoring my situation on the sly since we broke up; I pictured him peeping around Titan corners, eavesdropping on conversations, worrying over Emily’s arrest, and even cheering on the snowballing success of our website from his too-small couch in his too-small apartment.
Of course I understood that in real life Kevin was still angry. And that even now, my being exonerated didn’t un-betray him. I’d still lied to him over the course of many days and nights and hamburgers—and that was unforgivable. But I wanted to go to him, tonight, immediately, unforgivable or not.
“I’m running out of battery.” Emily poked at her phone without looking up. “Have you seen my charger?”
I wheeled around to the side of my bed, put my feet on the floor, and stood up. By the time Emily realized I wasn’t searching the room for her phone charger, I was already pulling my pea coat out of the closet.
“What the hell are you doing?” she asked, suddenly aware of me. “Where are you going? Out to sea?”
I buttoned my pea coat closed. “I won’t be gone long.”
“Where could you possibly have to go? I just got out of prison, I’m an ex-con, the least you could do is drink with me all night.”
I leaned over her and gave her a kiss on the forehead just as her phone chimed again—but this time she ignored it.
“Hey,” she said, making her eyes big. “Fontana. I know where you’re going.”
Heating up quickly in my heavy wool sailor’s coat, I vacillated between dashing out the door and disrobing.
“Good for you,” Emily said, full of pride. “Go to him.”
“Fuck off,” I said to sabotage the moment, and then left the apartment before the vulnerability and my wooly sweat could really seep in.
Go to him.
Who did Emily think I was, pre-op Meg Ryan?
You know what Robert would say to that? Hogwash. What a buncha hokum. Grow a set.
Once outside I became acutely aware of my light-headedness, the wobbliness in my knees. In a split-second decision I called a cab. And, no, it wasn’t because I was going to start living like a spoiled rich girl who took cars everywhere now that I was all out of debt and not a criminal. It was that it was post–rush hour—the trains would take forever and traffic would be light. I also wanted to give myself the least opportunity to change my mind and turn back. The investment of a $30 cab ride was as good a deterrent as I could think of.
Plus, cab rides are awesome. Except for the slight carsickness and occasional fear for your life, there is nothing like zipping through nighttime New York in a foul-smelling automobile. To get to the Upper East Side from Williamsburg, you have to go over the Williamsburg Bridge, which isn’t quite the Brooklyn Bridge, but it’s no scrub either. Crossing it, the view of the Manhattan skyline always made my chest feel too full, like my heart had suddenly swelled in the way of the Grinch who stole Christmas the moment he went soft. I was a real sucker for shiny lights and tall buildings. Tonight the sky was so black and clear, the skyscrapers looked Photoshopped against it—it was truly beautiful, and I thought to myself, This is going to be horrible, what I’m about to do. This was going to make me feel like I wanted to die, but once it was over, I could move on. I’d continue with my life knowing that at least I tried. At least I fought for him. That Tina Fontana—island unto herself—was willing to do everything in her power to keep someone in her life.
My cabdriver carried on a conversation in a foreign tongue as he negotiated the FDR Drive and it dawned on me gradually: this would make two people now that I didn’t just wave off with a see ya before closing the door and plopping down in bed with Netflix and some cookies.
“Ana baneek omak!” my driver shouted, but he was addressing someone else.
When we finally turned onto Kevin’s block, it was the strangest thing—Kevin was right there, trudging alongside us up the sidewalk, with his hands dug deep into his coat pockets. It was a moment I recognized from a thousand movies, starring Meg Ryan and her contemporaries. Kevin was on his way to find me just as I was on my way to find him.