“I have to do this,” Palmer said, picking up her pencil again and flipping a few pages back in her script binder.
I nodded and shouldered my bag but didn’t leave yet. I still didn’t know where we stood, and the thought of leaving with things so unsettled was making me feel panicky. “So,” I started, then hesitated. “Are we okay?”
Palmer looked over at me for a moment before looking back at the stage. “I’m not sure,” she finally said.
I nodded, swallowing hard. “Okay,” I said as I stood up. I paused there for just a moment when I realized there was nothing else to say. I walked up the aisle, to the back of the auditorium, looking at the stage one last time, where Tom and the camp director were starting the scene over again, having made their adjustments, trying to get it right this time.
The afternoon dragged on, one of the worst of the summer, time seeming to crawl. I ended up just driving around aimlessly, from Flask’s to the beach to the Orchard, but no place felt right, and I didn’t stay in any of them for more than a few minutes. I couldn’t go home, because Peter was there. I couldn’t hang out with any of my friends. Two of my constants had vanished, and I was getting more agitated with every hour that passed. I didn’t know what my life looked like if we weren’t all still friends. It was a reality I couldn’t even fully grasp. For the last five years, it had been the four of us, what I had always believed to be an unshakable unit. The thought of not having them—the thought of some reality I might have to accept where I didn’t have them—was making me feel like I wanted to scream, cry, and throw up, all at the same time.
These feelings were reaching a boiling point when I pulled into Clark’s driveway to walk Bertie. I was angry and on the verge of tears, always a dangerous combination. A tiny voice in the back of my head was whispering that I should just leave, come back later, that I was spoiling for a fight and in no condition to see anyone, much less Clark. But I ignored it and got out of the car, heading up the walkway and letting myself in the side door.
“Bert,” I called as I stepped inside the house. The dog was standing in the kitchen, giving me his biggest doggy smile. His tail was wagging so hard his butt was shaking back and forth. “Now, Bertie,” I said, in a tone that was intended to let him know I meant business. “I don’t want to do this today.”
But Bertie didn’t seem to pick up on any of this, and as I took a step closer, he did a little leap into the air and galloped out of the room. When Clark did Bertie’s inner thoughts—in a voice Bri had told me sounded like a decent Jimmy Stewart impression—he always said, “The game, Andie. It’s afoot!” when Bertie jumped like that and went running off. Normally, this routine cracked me up, since Bertie always seemed so pleased with himself, like he was sure he was getting something over on us. But today it was just irritating me.
“Stupid dog,” I muttered as I walked into the kitchen, getting his leash from the cupboard and making sure I had enough plastic bags with me, then slamming the cupboard door harder than I needed to.
“Hi, you,” Clark said, standing in the kitchen doorway. He had the rumpled, unfocused look that I had learned meant he’d been writing all day, his eyes bleary behind his smudged glasses.
I made myself look away from him, back down to Bertie’s leash, which I was coiling in a loop. “Hey.”
“How are you doing?” Clark asked, walking over to me. He wasn’t asking it in the rhetorical way, where you don’t even really expect an answer. He asking it in the careful way you ask people who’ve just suffered a loss or undergone a trauma. After all, he knew the bare bones of what was happening—I’d texted him the situation that morning.
I shrugged, then shook my head. “Not so good.” Clark reached out for my hand, but I took a step back from him and picked up Bertie’s leash. “I have to take him out,” I said, looking away from Clark. “Bertie, now,” I yelled, willing the dog to listen to me just this once.