She leaves.
I stand there, looking at myself in the mirror. I’ve lost all semblance of color from my face. I feel physically ill. I’m certain that if I walk out there, Saint will see right through me. He’ll know what I want from him, that I want everything including his secrets, and he’ll know why I shouldn’t have kissed him the way I did at the Interface building. What we did there felt so intimate to me, so . . . so unprofessional on my part, considering what I have to do.
All my insecurities rising to the surface, I call for a cab with my cell. I wait a few minutes, then slip out of the bathroom and find one of the women from the press-badge table.
“Could you please tell Mr. Saint that the woman whose badge he has in his pocket had to leave, she wasn’t feeling well?” I ask her, grateful when she agrees.
Outside, my cab is waiting across the street, and I leap over a few puddles and climb inside, the bottom of the dress completely ruined. I thank the driver when I get home, then I pull off my dress and my shoes, slip into my Northwestern T-shirt, and sit on the bed, motionless, thinking and feeling blank and numb.
I never thought I would ever do anything to hurt somebody. I always thought I was on the good guys’ side, on the side of rightness. Seeing Victoria today while I was both working and not working made me see what I am. What I’m doing.
I’m a hypocrite. I’m . . . a liar.
That little game bullies try to make you play when you’re a little kid—if you were forced to kill one to save the other, your mom or your dad, who would you choose? Sometimes in life you have to make a choice like that, a decision so hard you can’t make it, you would rather sacrifice yourself. But that still means Edge goes down.
I peer into Gina’s room, but she’s not back yet. I go back to my fetal position on the bed and I turn on a local gossip show on television, trying to distract myself.
“Tonight at the Interface inaugural, Malcolm Saint speaking . . .”
A snippet from a while ago appears, and my stomach tumbles as if I’ve just taken a steep drop on a roller coaster. The video cuts back to the news anchor and an image of us, Saint and me, as he took my hand and led me to the terrace.
OHMIGOD!
“A young lady’s early departure is causing confusion among the press; this is the image taken earlier of Saint with her, arousing much speculation as to whether Saint’s got his eye on her. Early word is that she’s a member of a small magazine in the area but wasn’t on the scene as press. First time ever Saint’s been linked to a reporter. It will be interesting to watch future developments.”
“Agreed,” the coanchor says.
“Ohmigod!” I turn off the TV, toss the remote aside, and cover my face in my hands. I’m breathing in and out, in and out, when my cell phone vibrates. It’s Helen.
You’re on the news. Vicky texted. Said he looks absolutely hooked? I’m impressed
I groan, “I’m going to throw up now.”
Sick with self-loathing over my disgusting duplicity, I grab a pillow and bury my head there. I don’t answer Helen. I delete her text instead, then I reach for my lifeline, the only thing that has kept me going when it’s gotten rough:
Love you, Momma
14
AFTER THE PARTY
My mother’s probably asleep. She hasn’t answered. I still feel like shit. Hell, I am shit. Groaning, I pull my T-shirt over my knees and wrap my arms around my legs; then I bury my face there. I’ve been here for a while when I hear the downstairs buzzer. I’m not answering. I really am not.
The third time it buzzes, I give up and go answer from the kitchen. “Yes?”
“It’s me.”
Malcolm.
I glance frantically around the place I share with Gina. It’s in a Chicago factory-turned-apartment building. The doors to our bedrooms are both in a short hall, one on the right side, one to the left. Painted wooden bookcases and framed metal columns stand between the kitchen and living room. We have a hole in the wall between the dining room and the pantry, and the cheapest alternative we could think of at the time was to hang a huge whiteboard over it on the dining room side, where we write things when we get drunk or just feel like it. It used to be my idea board, but the girls hijacked it.
It’s . . . home. My home. What will he think of it?
This apartment is my pride, my little spot of peace, and now HE will be in it, and it will be intense. It’s been a while since my friends and I have had this conversation, but no man has crossed the sacred barrier of my apartment threshold. Ever. He’s the first. The very first.
I’m nervous about him seeing my place, my safe zone, my pride and joy, through eyes that have seen far too much of the world. Far more than me. What is pretty to me may be simple and uninteresting to him.