I kept up a harried walking pace, catching glimpses of my reflection in storefront windows. My mother had often accused me of “tromping” instead of walking. She had forced me to attend years of ballet class to try to expunge the tromp. Judging by my reflection in Dottie’s Organic Pet Treat Emporium, the ballet fees had been a foolish enterprise. I could feel my phone becoming slippery from the sweat on my palm as I continued to check it compulsively, staring at it and willing it to ring. It did ring once, but I silenced it immediately upon seeing Avery’s name on the screen.
Around the time when the arches of my feet began to feel like separate, aching appendages, I realized I had slowed down and commenced some sort of shuffle. My eyes stung, and I felt a bubble of emotion threatening to spill over and onto my cute new dress that had cost more money than I would ever admit to Manda. My lip trembled as the image of Kai’s face, hurt and angry, held onto my thoughts with a tenacious grip. I took a shaky breath. Deep within my reverie, I gradually realized that a car traveling along my side of the street was matching the speed of my progress. A glut of vehicles had backed up behind the pacer car, a limo, I now saw, and was raising a wail of protests with honking and shouting. I closed my eyes, on edge to think that I’d have to deal with an Internet scandal, a shocking break-up, and a traffic accident, all in one calendar day.
Avery’s head was halfway out of the limo’s back window.
“I saw you ignore my call,” he called.
I kept shuffling.
“I saw you in action! Busted!”
I said nothing.
“Are you okay?” He had to shout over the honking.
This question stumped me, and I stopped walking. I stood there mulling over a truthful answer until Margot opened the door next to Avery’s and stepped out. For a woman who topped out at barely five feet, she carried herself with the authority of an Amazon tribal chief. She shot a look at the driver directly behind the limo, and he looked like he’d been hit with a stun gun.
“Go on,” she said to the men in her jurisdiction. Avery and Vic nodded like privates to their commanding officer. “Charlie and I will see you at the restaurant tomorrow.” Without waiting for their input or approval, she stepped onto the curb and clicked toward me in her power heels.
“Let’s talk,” she said. She pointed to the coffee shop behind me. I glanced at the passel of black wrought-iron chairs and tables and wondered if I would have just kept walking right into them if I hadn’t heard Avery’s call.
Waving away Margot’s offer for a coffee, I lowered myself onto one of the chairs. After Kai’s words and his abrupt departure, adrenaline had coursed through me, probably helping me cover a lot of pavement in a short amount of time. Now that I was sitting and still, I felt all the energy that had propelled me to that spot abandon me. My limbs, my heart, my head all felt depleted, even jittery, with exhaustion. I squinted up at the sun, surprised it was out and so irritatingly perky during such a horribly dreary moment.
Margot used her back to push through the shop door to the outside. Returning, she balanced two large coffee cups in her hands. Placing one in front of me, she said, “Drink this. You’ll never make it home if you don’t.”
I looked long at the drink I hadn’t wanted, watching steam curl up in delicate ribbons. As soon as the thought occurred to me, I knew with total certainty that it was true. I looked at Margot. “You leaked that photo, didn’t you?”
Margot took her time drawing a sip out of her coffee. Steam rose and fogged the frames on her glasses. She sat back in her chair before answering.
“Yes.” One word, and that was all she was offering.
I shook my head, anger rising. “You had no right to make such a private moment public.”
She raised an eyebrow. “You were in a very well-lit restaurant with all the windows uncovered. Any person walking by could have snapped that photo.” She shrugged. “We just happened to have much better lenses at our disposal. And an inkling that we should stick around until both of you had left the building. You and Avery are wild cards when you are together. Makes for great TV.”
I clenched my jaw. “Kai broke up with me because of you.”
She winced. Drawing one cigarette out of an engraved silver case, she lit it and took a long pull. On the exhale, she returned her gaze to me. “Charlie, please. Do not stoop to playing the victim. It’s so unbecoming in a woman of your caliber.”
I stood. The table wobbled, and some of the liquid in my full cup sloshed over the rim. “I quit.” I pushed the chair back with my foot, but even over the scraping of iron on the sidewalk, I heard Margot’s words.
“No, you don’t.” Her tone was firm, irrefutable.