I shrug and say weakly, “That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean, Claire?” she condemns, her lips thin, her eyebrows puckered. She removes her glasses and sets them on the table. My Lily could have that life again. The one with beach vacations and pink–and–mint-green bikes and Montessori schools. I just needed to fix things. And so, when Big Lily climbed up those steps and Paul rolled over onto his side and pretended he couldn’t hear the outburst my Lily was having, I let myself into the A-frame home, through a back door that had been left unlocked when the cocker spaniel was let outside to pee. I slipped my hands under that sleeping baby’s pink blanket and lifted her from the cradle, careful of her head like Momma always told me when Lily was a baby, and with that baby in tow, I walked out the wooden patio door and into the starless March night.
CHRIS
I oversleep.
When I finally do wake up, the hangover is immense: a splitting headache, the despotic sunlight blinding my eyes. I wake up to the impatient sound of my cell phone ringing, the tone, in my alcohol-induced state, out of place, jarring. Henry. His voice on the other end of the line, like a drill sergeant’s, calling out orders. “Where the hell are you?” he asks. It’s after nine.
I don’t have time to shower. I reek of tequila as I wait for the elevator at the end of the hall, my hair still smelling of rancid cigarette smoke from some bar I wandered to last night. My eyes are bloodshot, my hands still clammy. I forget my notes, the ones that tell me what I’m supposed to say to the group of potential investors awaiting me in the eighth-floor conference room, the ones we’re hoping to impress. As I slink into the conference room, all eyes are on me. I taste alcohol on my breath, stomach-churning in the morning light. Gastric acid propels upward and into my mouth before I choke on it, forcing it back down.
“Better late than never,” Henry slurs beneath his breath as I wipe my mouth on the back of a sleeve. I catch sight of Cassidy, leaned in close to some venture capitalist named Ted. She’s got her lips pressed so close to his ear, I imagine the way he feels her breath, the tingle of it on his skin. He turns to look at her all at once, and together they laugh in unison, laughter that I’m sure is at my expense.
I run my fingers through my hair.
At some point, Tom pulls me aside, tells me to get it together. He hands me a mug of coffee, as if the caffeine might change things, make my speech less slurred, my thoughts crystal clear. I dig into the depths of my briefcase for financial documents which are nowhere. I yank crumbled notes, memos out instead, the purple sticky note with the sole word: Yes.
The coffee settles me some. We take a midmorning break, and I return to my room to change my clothes, comb my hair. I find the missing financial documents strewn upon a table and place them in my briefcase. I brush my teeth; between the caffeine and the toothpaste, the taste of alcohol begins to slowly ebb away. I all but overdose on pain medication for the splitting headache.
When I return, Cassidy and Ted are sharing a bagel with cream cheese from a single plate. They’re leaned in close together. She licks her fingers with an overzealous tongue and leans in close to whisper something to him. Their eyes turn to mine and again they laugh. I imagine Cassidy, in my hotel room, unbuttoning the buttons of a starch-white tunic so that I will stay. And I imagine me, forcing on a pair of loafers and running through the door. I imagine that she left that hotel room and sought out Ted. Ted, a fortysomething venture capitalist with a tungsten wedding band on his left hand. Based on the looks of things, he, unlike me, didn’t turn her away. He let her unbutton that blouse, let her reveal what was hidden beneath.
I hear Heidi in my head, hear her chant femme fatale over and over again in my head: a rallying cry. Women unite! I wonder about Ted’s wife. I wonder if she’s pretty. I wonder if they have kids.
I’m not in the least bit let down. More than anything, I’m relieved, seeing now that Cassidy would’ve chosen any member of the male species to keep her company for the night. I’m grateful it wasn’t me.
Because then I’d be the one sitting like an ass at the conference table, drooling all over a bagel with cream cheese, watching the way her tongue wraps its way around a finger as she licks it clean.
When my phone rings, I find it in my pocket and see on the display screen: Martin Miller, the PI I hired to track our Willow down. I hurry, quickly, from the conference room and into the hallway, an eighth-floor balcony that looks down into the hotel’s atrium below, filled with banquet tables and plush sofas, tropical flowers and fish, dozens of big, fat koi that swim in ponds throughout the atrium.