A girl was the last thing Scarlett wanted to see.
It was enough to make Scarlett duck down behind a parked car, pretending to fix her shoe. She watched from her crouched position, her heart pounding furiously. The rising nausea that hit when she first saw Coco McBigGlasses subsided when she saw how they interacted with each other. There was a large space between them as they spoke, and Eric kept his arms folded over his chest—not angrily, more like he was just hanging out, maybe giving directions. The girl definitely seemed annoyed about something. She was waving her arms a lot. When she finally finished whatever she was raving on about, she hurried down the street. Eric stayed exactly where he was.
Something had just happened, but Scarlett had no idea what. The girl didn’t act like she was there with Eric—it looked more like she was stopping to complain about something. Aside from the fact that they came out of the same door a few minutes apart and that they spoke for a moment, there was nothing worrying there.
Scarlett felt like an idiot. She backed up, slipping around the corner, so that Eric wouldn’t see her suddenly spring from a crouched position across the street. He had to be on to the shoe trick by now. She really needed a second stealth move. Actually, what she needed was to be less insane.
She waited a minute or two, taking the time to pet a Labrador that had been tied to a stop sign while his owner went into a bakery. The poor dog looked confused by his temporary abandonment, eager for any kind of company or reassurance.
“Waiting is the worst,” Scarlett said to the dog. “I know.”
The dog wagged his tail in happy understanding.
When Scarlett rounded the corner, Eric was still in his spot, staring up at his window a few floors above. Scarlett shook out her curls and put on her best, “I was just wandering along—I had no idea you were here!” face, which was just her normal face with slightly widened eyes.
“Hi,” she said. “I was just walking over.”
“Hey,” he said. He was extra Southern now. He must have dragged five syllables out of the word. “It’s time, isn’t it?”
He stirred, like he had forgotten why he was standing outside in the first place, and slowly followed along.
“You seem kind of tired today,” Scarlett said.
“Yeah. I didn’t sleep too much last night.”
And that was it for his end of the conversation for the next four blocks. Scarlett filled in, telling him all about Lola’s toilet paper folding and lavender essences and breakfast-redesign schemes. It was impossible to tell if he was listening at all, so she shut up by the final block.
“Stop a second,” he said, slowing her down at the corner before the church. He reached for his glasses, as if he was going to take them off, and then decided against it.
“I’ve just been thinking about your question,” he said. “And you’re right, we need to figure that out.”
This was good. Very good. This made Scarlett love the sun on her skin, and the smell of detergent coming out of the laundry next to them, and the people walking by talking on their phones. The world worked. Everyone in it was happy, really. Maybe that’s what he’d been doing in his apartment—he’d been thinking. Maybe Mrs. Amberson’s plan hadn’t worked exactly as she described, but still that little bit of space had really…
“I can’t really be that right now,” he said.
…what?
“What?” she said out loud.
A pause. A terrible, terrible pause.
“A boyfriend.” More playing with the sunglasses. “And if I can’t give you that, I’m not sure we should go on like this.”
“If you’re worried about Spencer,” Scarlett said, scrambling for words, “I’ve talked to him. He’s being a little weird, but it’s not you. It’s because I didn’t tell him.”
“You don’t understand,” he said. “This is my fault. I really don’t want to lose you or Spencer as a friend and…”
Scarlett didn’t hear the rest. All she knew was that he meant it. She knew it in her bones, her blood, her heart and mind. Eric was dumping her. The smell of detergent burned her nose and the people on their phones were too loud and obnoxious and there was a glare. The ground felt like it was falling away.
She was vaguely aware that they both started walking again in the direction of the church, that a few of the cast members were just a few steps away.
“Excuse me,” she said, walking away from Eric and cutting through them.