Down the Rabbit Hole

April looked over at her, then down at the desk where Macy was gazing. “What do you mean? Did you forget to do something?”


“No.” She looked up at her friend, her stomach in her throat, the conviction of having let something slip through her fingers filling her. How had she lost it? What had she been thinking?

“About Jeremy, I mean,” she continued, her voice reedy. “I think I’ve made a mistake. I can’t stop thinking about him. He was perfect, except for that one thing.”

April’s face lost its glee. “That one thing being that he didn’t pay any attention to you.”

She pictured Jeremy’s eyes gazing down at her as his body moved over hers, their breath mingling while their torsos arched and flexed together, legs tangling. “He paid attention to me sometimes.”

April made a sound in the back of her throat. “Sometimes. Listen to yourself. You’re a powerful woman, Mace. Look, it says so right here.” She jabbed at a place on the screen. “Come on, don’t get all maudlin on me now, or I’m taking my Three-Buck Chuck back. Jeremy was an addict, and like with any addict, you were number two. Is that what you want?”

It was true. At times, it was true.

“Remember that time you told me he spent the entire evening on his phone while you were trapped in a conversation with Weird Mildred at Rob and Frank’s?”

“Ugh.” Macy shuddered. She’d tried and tried to catch his eye, but not once did he look up to see where she was; and when she finally had escaped Weird Mildred, she’d gotten caught by the woman who ran the co-op, who went on and on about organic carrots. Something about how they shouldn’t be grown on farms, but in people’s backyards because that soil doesn’t usually have a history of pesticides— Could that be true?

“And he waited in the car with his phone one time, didn’t he? Instead of going in to your cousin’s baby shower?”

She tapped her fingers on her desk. “I had to go get him. To be fair, it was a baby shower. Most of the guys there looked miserable.”

“Sure, but if you say you’ll go, you go. You don’t sit in the freaking car.”

Macy turned to her. “I thought you liked Jeremy.”

“I did!” She lifted a shoulder, let it drop, continued to scroll down the profile page. “But, I don’t know, it just seemed like . . .”

Macy waited, but April didn’t finish.

“Seemed like what?” she pushed.

April exhaled and took her hand off the mouse. She turned the swivel chair toward her. “Don’t get mad.”

A bad feeling erupted in Macy’s stomach. “I never get mad at you.”

“Well, okay, don’t get upset, then.”

“Just spit it out,” Macy said, feeling ill. “Was he cheating on me? Did he make a pass at you? Oh my god, it’s not one of those things like Suzanne’s boyfriend where you all took an oath not to tell—”

“Oh for god’s sake, no! To be honest, I started thinking it wasn’t right when you told me about that time he answered a text in the middle of having sex with you.”

Macy’s cheeks flamed. “That was a work thing. It was really important. And we weren’t supposed to be having sex, actually. We were at the tennis club, in one of those unisex bathrooms near the pro shop.”

April laughed and rustled Macy’s hair. “That’s right! I was so proud of you, thinking outside the box like that. A public restroom! That was a first for you, wasn’t it?”

But he had taken the text, she was thinking now. He must have had one eye on the phone the whole time . . .

“Seriously,” April said, “and I’ll only say this once, in case you end up back together with him.”

Macy’s eyes shifted to hers, knowing it was hopeless. He’d texted during sex. You didn’t come back from that. Granted, that had been months ago, but in light of all the evidence since then, it was significant now.

“What?” Macy was uncomfortable under April’s scrutinizing gaze.