I'm Glad About You(79)

And then she refused to talk about it. There was nothing to say, any lie that she might have told—I spilled coffee on it, I returned it, I didn’t look good in it, I loaned it to a friend and she ripped it—would have been shredded. So she said nothing.

Which, perversely, worked. The day after it arrived, Lars called and left a message on her machine. “I hope you like the dress,” he said. “I can’t wait to see you in it. Give me a call.” She didn’t. The next day she got another call, this time from his assistant, the interminable Josh. “Lars asked me to call and make sure that you got the package he sent on Tuesday,” Josh told her machine. “Could you touch base with the office and let us know that you got it?” She didn’t call him back either. So then Ryan called. “Alison, it’s me. Give me a call.” She didn’t. He emailed her. And then he called again. “Alison, where did you go? Did you run away to Cincinnati again? I’m going to be really mad if you did. Call me back. It’s serious.” Fuck you, she thought. But after three days of locking herself in her own apartment and taking long showers, she got ahold of herself and called Josh back.

He was so relieved to hear from her, he practically jumped through the phone and hugged her.

“Alison, hi, hi!” he gushed. “Wow, it is so great to hear from you, we were getting worried!”

“Were we?”

“Yes, Lars has been really concerned.”

“I went out of town,” she lied.

“We tried your cell,” he informed her.

“Oh, it’s out of juice.”

“Okay, well—uh, Lars was wondering if you got the package he sent you? It should have arrived on Tuesday.”

“That’s what Lars wants to know?”

“Well—I’m sure he’ll want to talk to you about a lot of things. “

“Great, why don’t you tell him to give me a call.”

“Should he use your home or your cell phone?”

“Either works.” She didn’t care how inane this all sounded. She really didn’t.

“Okay, well, I’ll have him call you,” Josh said.

“You do that, Josh,” she told him, and then hung up the phone. She didn’t want to be mean; she knew that Lars had probably been taking the poor guy’s head off for the entire three days. But what the f*ck, why was Lars having his f*cking assistant call his girlfriend anyway? Not that that’s what she was. Who knows what she was.

Lars was waiting for her at the table when she arrived in the restaurant, which was good. Disappearing for three days had clearly been effective. For one unguarded moment, there was a flash of something that skittered across Lars’s face—was that relief?—before he stood and kissed her elegantly on the cheek.

“You’ve been elusive,” he observed.

“Not really,” she countered. “I needed a little breathing room.”

“The last work session was intense,” he admitted. Oh yeah, you mean when you wanted to watch me pretend to have sex with two actors I’d never met, while you watched?

“A little intense, yes,” she said. She really didn’t give a shit. The whole fiasco of that so-called work session had been annihilated by subsequent events. Still, he wanted to see her in the dress. In the middle of all these nonapologies, the pink dress was the real apology, and he wanted to see her in it.

“Did you like the dress?” he asked.

“The dress is gorgeous,” she informed him.

“I was hoping you’d wear it.”

“This is what I wore.”

“A black sheath.”

“Yes, a black sheath, makes me look like I’m going to a funeral, I picked it out just for you.”

“That’s a bit edgy.”

“It’s Audrey Hepburn.”

“Audrey Hepburn would never have worn a sweater with it.”

“I was chilly.”

“You can take it off inside.”

“I’m still chilly.” She didn’t want him to see her arms, which Dennis had in fact bruised rather noticeably.

“It’s just a very sober look.”

“I’m feeling sober.”

“I see that.” His jaw was getting tense now. All this backtalk clearly wasn’t fun for long.

“It’s just a sweater, Lars,” she told him. She put her hand on his. “I really have been fighting a cold, and I’m honestly not feeling quite myself. But I wanted to come have dinner with you. I wanted to see you. Can’t we just enjoy ourselves?”

It did the trick, but not for good. Over time, the dress question appeared and reappeared as a running battle of wills.

“I still haven’t seen you in that dress.”

“No, you haven’t.”

“Didn’t you like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’d love to see you in it.”

“Why are you so obsessed with that dress?”

“I just think it’s a beautiful dress.”

“There are lots of beautiful dresses out there.”

“Did you not like it?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then why won’t you wear it?”