“If I wanted to judge people all day I’d either be a priest or get a Facebook account,” Roland said. “I didn’t do either.”
A night breeze blew past, and she shivered. She wanted to ask Roland to put his arms around her to warm her up, but she didn’t. They were strangers again. He’d been inside her not half an hour ago and now she couldn’t even ask him to hold her. She and McQueen had been willing strangers, especially during sex. She’d played her role and he’d played his and the unspoken agreement was to never peek behind the curtain. And she’d never wanted to peek. But with Roland she did. She wanted him behind the curtain with her. She didn’t want to pretend anymore.
“If you weren’t a monk this would easier,” she said.
“Even if I were the judgmental type,” Roland said, “I don’t have much of a leg to stand on after tonight.”
“Good point,” she said, dropping her head between her arms to hide her smile.
“Are you thinking about him? Your ex?” Roland asked. He sounded serious now. It was so strange to hear his voice like that.
“I’m thinking about you,” she said. “And him. How to tell you about him.”
“Just tell me.”
“I lied to you, too,” she said at last.
“About what?”
“McQueen.”
“What? Cooper McQueen? Your boss?”
She nodded.
“He wasn’t my boss.”
Roland stared at her, wide-eyed in surprise. “Cooper McQueen...the billionaire investor guy? You were his girlfriend for six years?”
“No. We were sleeping together,” she said. “For six years. But I wasn’t his girlfriend.”
“Then what were you? Secret wife?”
“Secret mistress. His bought and paid-for secret mistress.”
Roland turned his head quickly and looked at her through narrowed eyes.
“Told you so,” she said. He was clearly stunned. No words necessary.
“A mistress?” Roland said.
“Or a kept woman. I’ve called myself that a few times.”
“So...that’s still a thing? Kept women?”
She laughed. She hadn’t expected to laugh during this conversation.
“Yeah,” she said. “Kept women are still a thing. Where there are men with money and women without it, it’ll be a thing.”
Roland waved his hand to indicate she should keep talking. At first the words didn’t want to come out, but then eventually everything started to spill. Finally she managed to look Roland in the face. He didn’t seem to be mad, though he didn’t seem all that happy, either.
“You expected better of me, didn’t you?” she asked him.
“I expected better for you,” he said. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Obviously you and I never had a normal brother-sister bond,” he said.
“Obviously,” Allison said.
“But I always loved you,” he said. “I don’t like the thought of you being trapped in a tower by some rich guy using you for sex.”
Allison smiled wanly, her laugh hollow and cynical to her own ears. She felt older than Roland then. He seemed so innocent to her, this noble-hearted monk. He had no idea what her life had been like with McQueen.
“I wasn’t trapped except by choice. I have could left him if I’d wanted to. And I’m not ashamed of my relationship with him. I’m not comfortable talking about it with people but...but I know I should have told you about it before we slept together.”
“I’m glad you didn’t tell me first. I might not have slept with you otherwise.”
“Ah-ha. Judging. I knew it.”
“No, it’s not that, I swear,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “I mean... I wouldn’t want you to think I came to your room because I thought you were, you know, easy.”
“I’m not easy at all,” she said. “McQueen’s handsome and a billionaire. Fact is, I’m quite difficult.”
Roland held up two fingers.
“What?” she asked, eyeing those two fingers.
“I’m pretty difficult, too,” he said.
“Wait. I was your second?” she asked, pointing at herself. He nodded. “Wow. So it was me and someone from a long time ago?”
He nodded again.
“Hope it was worth the wait,” she said.
He nodded again, slowly, and with his eyes wide open.
“I feel very honored to be your second,” she said.
“And I’m honored to be your rebound monk,” Roland said. “I’m not anywhere close to being a billionaire.”
“It wasn’t really the money, you know,” she said. “The money made it possible but...truth is, I didn’t want to be alone. I needed someone in my life. McQueen was definitely better than nothing.”
“I thought he had a girlfriend. In the article where I found your name...he definitely had a girlfriend.”
“Oh, he did,” she said. “And he had me, too.”
“You deserve more than that,” Roland said.
“Maybe,” she said. “But in fairness to McQueen, he made it very clear from the beginning what I was going to be to him. I was in his life to provide sex on demand. Girlfriends had their own lives. Girlfriends could say, ‘Not tonight, dear, I have a headache.’ My job was to be the girl who never had a headache. I was a luxury purchase, and the luxury was that I was there when he wanted me, and when he didn’t, I simply ceased to exist. I was—” she blew on her fingertips “—a ghost.”
“A ghost in love,” Roland said.
“He called me Cricket,” she said. “How can you not fall in love with someone who calls you Cricket?”
“Why Cricket?”
“Our first trip he took me on was to New York. I was twenty, summer before my junior year of college. We went to a Broadway play and it was a nice night so we walked back to the hotel. We passed some homeless people and I told McQueen he should give them money. He said being with me was like having his own personal Jiminy Cricket. I was his conscience.”
“It sounds like he cared about you.”
“You’re being nice.”
“He kept you for six years,” Roland said. “He must have cared about you a little bit, anyway.”
“Maybe. Not that it matters one way or another. It’s over. He met someone and they had a one-night stand. And, bam, she’s pregnant. So goodbye to me.”
“Ouch,” Roland said, wincing dramatically.
“Yeah, ouch,” she said. “But it’s the right thing to do. There’s a kid involved now so...” She took a shuddering breath, wiped her own tears before Roland could. “It’s for the best. I had to put my whole life on hold for him. No job. No boyfriend. The girl in the tower is a romantic image to anybody but the girl in the tower.”
Allison felt the tears threatening to come again and she blinked and blinked until she’d blinked them away. Roland stood between her knees, his hands warm on her bare thighs. She covered his hands with hers and looked at their entwined fingers.
“So that’s it,” she whispered. “The story.”
“Is it the whole story?” Roland asked.
“When he walked out the door two days ago,” Allison said, “I was seven years old again waiting for my mom to come home from the drugstore where she’d gone to get me some cough syrup. It should have taken thirty minutes. Two hours later she still wasn’t back. I just... I walked around the apartment calling for her like a lost dog or something. Like she’d hear me calling and come back.” Allison blinked more hot tears from her eyes. “She never came back. I barely remember her, but I still hate being left alone.”
“Is that why you’re here? You didn’t want to be alone?”
“Probably.” She realized as she said it how cold that sounded. “Sorry.”
“You don’t have to be sorry. If Dad wasn’t dying, I doubt I would have had the guts to write you, anyway. I’m glad I did, though.”
“Even knowing who you just slept with?”
“Especially knowing who I just slept with,” he said, smiling.
She playfully but not-terribly-gently elbowed him in the ribs.
“I deserved that,” he said. “You okay?”
“I will be.” Allison shrugged, pretending she was fine already. “You know what’s funny? His new lady told him that I couldn’t be in the picture anymore. That’s what she said. I was never in the picture. Except the sort of pictures you shred and then burn the negatives after.”
“Negatives, huh?” Roland said.
“McQueen doesn’t trust the Cloud with his dick pics.”