I pushed the save icon on the Word doc and titled it “Letter for Erica London.” Then I attached it to an e-mail to Mrs. Murphy and asked that she set up the trip and also that she overnight the tickets to Erica along with a physical copy of my letter.
Maybe Erica would actually open it if it looked like the letter was from Mike. And maybe after she read it, she’d take my advice. Letting James go notwithstanding, Erica was a smart enough girl. She might just listen to me.
That thought—the thought of this plan actually working—made me sick to my stomach. My mouse pointer hovered for several seconds over the send button on the e-mail to Mrs. Murphy. Then I reminded myself that Erica was my second-to-last atonement.
I swallowed my nausea and clicked send.
THIRTY-ONE
A few months after the Erica London Atonement, Veronica switched our Girls’ Night from James’s old place to Nicky’s house. This was a night that she, Tammy, and me were supposed to spend drinking martinis and collating the specially designed, one-of-a-kind invitations for her wedding, so I was immediately suspicious. Up until this point, she had been militant about not letting Nicky see any of the stuff we were doing for the wedding. Not because she wanted to surprise him or anything, but because Nicky always had an opinion about everything, and they both had such strong personalities that there was a real chance they wouldn’t make it to the altar if Nicky decided to weigh in too heavily.
They didn’t fight that much, but when they did, from what Tammy had told me, it was a nasty piece of business; they both had that habit of going from tropical breeze to arctic winter in zero seconds flat.
I often wondered who was on top when they had sex, but so far, I hadn’t gotten up the courage to ask. In fact, I still wasn’t comfortable enough in my and Veronica’s unexpected friendship to ask her much of anything, which is why I waited until she went to make us a second round of martinis before I questioned Tammy about the Girls’ Night location switch.
“So why did Veronica want to meet all the way over here? I don’t know if we’re going to get done before Nicky comes home from the club. Plus, I’m closer to your side of town now.” I was living with a once-famous musician in Atwater, which was right next door to Los Feliz.
Tammy lowered her eyes. “Well, um . . .” She took a deep breath. “No offense, but . . . James is back in town.”
I was so glad I was dark-skinned at that moment, because I’m sure I would have visibly paled if I had been any other shade. “Really?” I said. “I thought he was going to stay in New York for a while.”
“Um, he was, but Gusteau wants to test market some new Farrell Men products in Los Angeles, so he’s back out here to oversee that.”
I was confused. Why all the secrecy? “So he’s just visiting for a few weeks?”
“It’s a whole line, so it’s going to take a while. He’ll probably be here all the way up to the wedding. In fact, he might stay on indefinitely after that since he can work out of either office. He’s not sure yet.”
I could hear in the hesitant way Tammy was talking that there was something more she wasn’t saying. “Were you planning on telling me this? Like ever?”
Tammy set down the invitation she was putting together. “Yeah, I wanted to tell you, but Veronica didn’t think we needed to say anything, because she didn’t want things to get awkward. He’s, um . . . seeing that actress again.”
My heart dropped with a sick thud. “Erica London?”
“Yeah.” Tammy was wringing her hands and looking everywhere but at me now. “I didn’t really like her the first time around, but she seems a lot better now. They got back together at the New York premiere of that LaTrell Green movie. James says he’s giving her another chance, because this time she promised to be honest with him.”
Now it was my turn to give up on putting together the heavy vellum invitations. “Wow.”