“I’m borrowing it today.”
She crossed her long legs in front of her and smoothed out her dark trousers, and the marvelous thing about Andy was that she never felt compelled to fill the silence. She was comfortable sitting beside someone, completely wordless, and somewhere in the past two years, I’d learned to love that about her. She was a rock like that, quiet and steady and always, always there for me.
“Tiel came out with us last night,” she said.
“Yeah, she texted me,” I murmured. The shelf to my left caught my attention. “Oh dear God. Isn’t Patrick’s assistant responsible for organizing this room?”
Andy held up her hands. “I stay far away from that situation. She’s Patrick’s problem.”
“That means she’s my problem,” I said. “How was Tiel?”
“Happy. Excited. Overwhelmed,” she said. “But mostly happy. And no, she hasn’t thought about wedding dates, dresses, locations, flowers, cakes, or colors. She went all snapping turtle when Lauren asked. Here’s my best guess: they’ll either elope or be engaged for the next three years.”
I didn’t know my way around Tiel yet. She only tolerated us in small bites, and sometimes, even that was too much for her. We didn’t start out on the right foot, and she was skittish around us. She’d started joining us for pedicures and drinks over the summer, and it was a good first step. Lauren took the lead on the ‘welcome Tiel to the family’ initiative, and let’s face it: she was the obvious choice when the alternatives were Andy or me.
Tiel liked Lauren but that wasn’t a valid measure of anything; everyone liked Lauren.
I ended up going to Martha’s Vineyard with Sam and Tiel two months ago—it was a pity invite and I’d accepted without shame—and the three of us had a great time together. Tiel and I parked ourselves in front of the fire pit one night, drank a lot of wine, and talked about everything but alsonothing.
Somehow, we started with the annoying dudes on the subway who felt it was necessary to sit with their legs spread at a ninety-degree angle, regardless of whether that meant they were encroaching on the space of others. That snowballed into discussing the hygiene of characters in dystopian stories because they seem to wear the same clothes day after day but are never seen bathing or washing those clothes. Obviously, that segued into comparing notes on gynecologists; I was always looking for a doctor who would actually give a shit about my issues and not wave them away as normal discomfort. From there, we debated where we’d want to live if global warming flooded Boston. We didn’t walk away with any solutions for that one, and we never revisited that awful conversation at the coffee shop last winter.
It was nice to spend time with her, and she was just as funny and sweet and spunky as Sam promised, but the jury was still out on how long I’d be on eggshells with her.
“Well that’s fabulous,” I said, reordering the stone samples. “Really, really fabulous.”
“I’m going to a Yin yoga class tonight,” she said. “Really low key. Super chill. Mostly meditation with some poses. Want to come?”
“Hand me that swatch panel,” I said, gesturing to the board beside Andy. “Yoga doesn’t agree with me.”
“You don’t like Bikram. Yin is nothing like that,” she said. “And…it looks like you need some centering.”
I turned and met her eyes. “Oh really?”
“You’ve been a bit jumpy this week.” She shrugged and pointed at my face. “You look tired, and you know I say that with love. Come to class with me, and then we can make Patrick get us take-out and drinks. He’s going to do that for me anyway. You should reap the benefits.”
Sighing, I started sorting the design journals. “I’m supposed to have dinner with Gerard.”
“Ugh,” she groaned. “Not that dick weasel again. Is this some kind of Walsh family competition? Like when Patrick and Matt tried to see how long they could go without coffee, as if that made them superhuman or something? Or when Nick and Riley took that Pure Barre class just to see who could nail the instructor first?”
“Did anyone win that bet? The barre instructor?”
Andy rolled her eyes and blew out a breath. “No, that was more about them being morons than anything else. But Gerard—that’s a contest. A really fucked-up dare. He can’t be real.”
“Oh it’s real,” I said. “I don’t think he’s that bad.”
“He isthatbad,” Andy said, laughing.
Yeah. She was right about that. When I invited him to join us for drinks last month, he started by insulting the neighborhood pub we frequented. Then he made some quietly hostile comments about large Irish Catholic families that “didn’t know when to stop” and Boston’s “cultural vacancy” relative to New York City. He ended the night by butchering everyone’s names and tipping Tom five dollars. The running explanation was that Tom must have given Gerard a handey under the table.
No one had said much about that evening. I knew my family didn’t care for him, but they were pleased about my return to polite society after months of my anti-social work obsession. They assumed it was associated with Sam’s emergence from the woods—lumberjack beard and all—and that was partially true. When Sam came home, it relieved the pressure of his absence, the suffocating fear that we’d get a call about him taking his life with nothing but the woods by his side. They didn’t know Gerard was my way of closing the book on Will.
Or, closing the book, dousing it in gasoline, burning it until only ash remained, and then punting those ashes far into the ocean.
“He’s just…a dick weasel. There’s no other way to describe it. He’s not worth a second of your time, Shan. Is he the reason you’re hiding in the materials room? I’d merrily kick his ass if you asked.”
“You’re not the only one,” I murmured. “Maybe next week for yoga. I have to deal with Gerard tonight.”
Andy stood and propped her hands on her hips. “Should we hug? Is that the proper protocol here? I never know when that’s called for.”
