“Hi.” My heart is pounding.
“Hey there.” He’s definitely Southern. He sounds amused.
“Hello.” My mouth is suddenly frozen.
“Can I help you with something?”
I should have planned this out.
“Do you know a girl named Nina Wrigley?” The words tumble out fast. My heart squeezes when I say her name and I realize this is the first time in a very long time that I’ve even said it out loud.
There’s a pause. “What’s that now?” Someone has turned the music down in the background.
“Nina Wrigley.”
He doesn’t say anything. I close my eyes. “Do you know her?” I hold my breath. I don’t want him to answer too fast. I want just half a second more of not knowing, of getting to hope.
“Am I supposed to?” The guy sounds suspicious, like he’s being set up for something.
“She wrote your phone number down on a piece of paper, maybe a long time ago. So you at least met her at some point. You don’t remember her?”
“Sorry, sugar.” He snorts a laugh. “If I remembered every girl who has my phone number, I wouldn’t have enough room left in my brain to remember to wipe my ass after I took a dump.”
I feel my heart starting its slow descent toward the floor. “I’m sure you do meet a lot of people, but she’s the type of girl people usually remember. She’s really pretty, about five foot six, always had her hair dyed crazy colors…”
He doesn’t say anything.
“She definitely got your number from you at some point.”
“I told you I didn’t know her.” His tone is less friendly now. He pauses again. “Deb put you up to this, didn’t she?”
“No,” I say. “Who’s Deb?”
“Who’s Deb? Yeah, right.” He curses under his breath. “Listen, sugar, I don’t know Nina and I never gave my phone number to any girls, okay? So you can just go tell your little buddy Deb that she should leave me the hell alone. Tell Deb I broke up with her for a reason and that reason is that she’s a crazy jealous stalker, and if she and all her friends don’t quit calling me, I’m going to get a restraining order…” He stops talking and I hear a woman’s voice in the background, “Who are you on the phone with?!” And then a quick whispered “I swear I’ll fucking do it,” and then he hangs up.
Amanda has crouched down next to me on the floor. “What happened?”
I have to turn away because I don’t want to start crying. “Just some guy who has no idea who she is.” I try to say this matter-of-factly, force a shrug. After two years of this you’d think I would be used to it—the thrill of getting to hope, the black pit of knowing there is no point in hoping. Maybe this is just not something people are designed to get used to.
Amanda nods and puts her arm around me, because she’s heard this story about a thousand times before, because she’s been here with me for all of this. Because she is the closest thing I have to a sister now.
I let my head rest against her shoulder, breathe in the smell of her expensive hair products.
“Oh, El,” Amanda says. And we sit there like this for a moment and then I start lacing up those silly gold sandals because I’m just not sure what else to do. I crisscross the gold straps around my ankles and try to focus on the fact that I really have a pretty good tan already this year. It’s nice to have a good tan. And it’s nice to have a nice pair of shoes and these are the things I am going to think about right now. I turn to Amanda and force a smile, stick my foot out in front of me and shake it around.
“I mean, no matter what happens, at least my feet will look fashionable, right?”
Amanda smiles back, and I can tell she’s relieved that I’m trying, that I’m not letting myself sink into that familiar pit. But then before she can say anything, I realize something. And I almost let out a laugh because it is so obvious. I get up and run.
“Seeing my day like this is such an eye-opener,” Amanda says, grinning. It’s a few minutes later, and Amanda and I are sitting in Morgette’s office, watching the Attic surveillance tape on fast-forward. “Because I kinda thought I actually did some work during the day sometimes, but as it turns out…nope!”
I nod and smile, even though I’m not really listening. All my attention is focused on the tiny little people zipping around on the tiny little TV: There’s Amanda putting on lip-gloss, there’s a girl walking in, there are three girls going through the clothes racks, there’s a couple who seem to be fighting, there’s a girl around our age popping a zit in the mirror when she thinks no one is looking. There’s Amanda experimenting with many different hairstyles.