“What did I do? I don’t understand.”
He leaned on one foot. He had a flake of popcorn on his T-shirt. I always remembered that. Focused on it. The way he didn’t notice it. I thought it was because he was so mad at being stuck with me that he was a mess, but no. He always had crap on his shirt. He always looked as though he’d just rolled out of bed. He didn’t give a shit and blamed it on me.
Pulled between the sure knowledge that this horrible turn of events was my fault and the fact that it had nothing at all to do with me, I stood, upending the popcorn onto the carpet. “I’m moving out.”
The words came out of my mouth before I’d thought them out, but I knew they were right. I felt the relief in my guts, the lightening of my shoulders, the way every corner of my mind was suddenly illuminated.
“You’re a loser, Carl. You’re the biggest loser I’ve ever met. I’m not responsible for making your life exciting. No woman is. And I swear to God, you’re going to regret this until the day you die alone in some cheap studio in East LA.”
He left while I packed, probably to meet Francine, Victor, and Larry, which was what I’d wanted to do in the first place. I was mad and hurt and victimized by my own hard words to myself.
I moved back in with Dad and then… nothing. I was the same. I went out more, read a ton of books, made some friends, got deeply involved in my job, and ran away from romance. Even when Carl tried to bring back the friendship, I pushed him away. His idea of friendship involved kissing me, and as heartbroken as I was, I wasn’t interested in going backward.
Carl got his life together because he had to. He’d taken the risk of breaking up with me, and he had to prove he’d been right to do that. At least that was how it looked from where I sat. He got a job at Disney as a receptionist, then he got promoted to development. I saw him at Trader Joe’s buying wine. I didn’t even recognize him, he was so cleaned up and put-together. I was stopping for apples on the way back from work, and I looked as if someone had wrung me out.
Maybe it hadn’t been Carl. Maybe it was me. Maybe I really had been a dead weight on him. Maybe I was my own dead weight—living with my dad, working a government job that paid in the smallest satisfactions.
I made conversation with him at the checkout, deflecting from talking about myself so I could hear all about his blossoming adulthood. Every one of my victories and good days seemed clouded by the fact that I’d kept my boyfriend from reaching his potential. He’d been a loser because of my presence in his life.
Naturally, I went home and cried. Then I got over it. Then months went by, and I stayed numb. I had ups and downs, but they blurred into one another.
The Monday after Dash Wallace had blown a kiss behind my back was no more up than any other up. I was amped and happy walking to the library, swinging my bag of apples. I had a fun event to go to with a nice guy. Dad’s ball was almost finished in time. I had a job I loved. The sun was shining, and all the world was…
I turned the corner. The world was… weird.
The library was locked, and outside it stood a man in charcoal pants and a jacket. Pale blue shirt undone at the neck. I almost didn’t recognize him in dress shoes. I thought he was some overdressed LAUSD administrator coming with a surprise talk about a reduction in funding for libraries, how there was a public library three blocks away, how they were going to just have some shelves in the hallway, how they needed the space for a classroom. I was already listing the phone calls I would have to make to stop whatever it was he’d come to do.
Not until he was two steps away did I swallow a ton of professional antagonism.
“Are you Miss Foster?”
“Vivian,” I said, neck bent to look up into those damned blue eyes. “What brings you here, Mr. Wallace? If you want to make a big donation to the library, the children could use it.”
“You can call me Dash.”
Because he never gave interviews on camera, I’d had no inkling of how resonant his voice was. Out in the park, with the ambient noise of the wind and children, I hadn’t noticed it. But in the stark hallway of a brick-and-stone building, it vibrated against the center of my body.
“Dash then.” I unlocked the door. “You got past security.”
“I autographed a banner, and they patted me down.” He smiled, and I kept my cool. “Things have changed since I was in school.”
I opened the door and let him into my modest domain. I felt suddenly ridiculous that I had a full-time job managing this tiny room with two tables and kid-sized chairs. A couch. Two Ikea padded chairs. The windows had bars, and the top shelves were empty.
He didn’t know how hard I’d fought for a water cooler and that I paid for the cups. That I went to sales on weekends to find new books. How I fought to use the Dewey Decimal System so the kids would know how subjects were organized even though computer searches were now the norm.