“Fine.” He was looking through their newly organized closet, trying to figure out which shoes to wear. She had a suggestion but bit her tongue.Maybe she reallywasbossy.He chose a pair, put them on, reached for a jacket. He looked up and caught her eye. She was sitting on the edge of the bed, waiting for him, smiling. She stood up right when he said, “How was work for you?”
“Good!” she said. “Actually, great! Someone sent a bouquet to Samantha Saunders, and she found me on LikeMe and messaged me saying how much she loved them.” Hope’s endorsement had been another game-changer, ricocheting through the celebrity community and adding to Ash’s client list even more. And Wade was a sports fiend—they both were, actually, that’s part of what they had in common. They bothlovedSamantha Saunders, the former Olympic swimmer—she’d been Wade’s high school crush—and Ash had been dying to tell him all day. “Isn’t that wild?”
“Wow,” he said. “Sounds like that Hope Hanover magic you’re always talking about happened again. Can you believe how lucky you’ve been?”
Hope had actually given Ash words to use in a situation like this, to reframe the way she thought of her business. Whenever Ash said, “Oh my gosh, I’m so lucky to be your friend, thank you so much for recommending Three Sisters,” Hope would say, “Ash, remember. You did the work. Luck doesn’t happen if the work isn’t being done in the first place.”
Hope told Ash this was true for her—Hope—too. Yes, luck happened in that she was born with the kinds of looks that get attention, yes, luck happened in that she finally got noticed being an extra in a really crappy movie, but if she hadn’t been out there trying, the lightning couldn’t have found her.
“Plus,” Hope reminded Ash, “you were doing pretty damn well before we even met.”
Ash decided to try out this new response on Wade before she said it to anyone at the party (it would inevitably come up and be said in ways that somehow made her feel smaller).
“That’s true,” Ash said. “But luck doesn’t happen if you’re not doing the work in the first place.”
“Right,” Wade said noncommittally. Ash pulled out her phone to show him the photo of Samantha Saunders with her flowers. “See?” she said. “Fun, right?”
“Right,” he said. He gave the photo the most cursory of glances.
“She looks so good,” Ash said. “I swear she hasn’t aged.”
Wade had finished tying his tie and headed out of the bedroom toward the kitchen. Ash put the phone in her bag and hurried after him. She wished he’d had more of a reaction.
“Okay,” Ash said as he picked up his keys from the counter. “We’ll be back by ten or eleven, right? That’s what I told Emily.”
“We’re not going,” Wade said. He didn’t turn to look at her.
“Wait,” Ash said. “Why not?” The obvious answer. “Shoot. Did Emily cancel?” Although, she realized as she asked it—did Wade even have Emily’s number?
“No,” Wade said. “But I realized I’m exhausted. You’re on me nonstop. You’ve taken all of the enjoyment out of this.”
Ash was stunned. She tried to think back over the last few minutes. She could see how she’d been too much. Too talkative and overexcited. “I’m sorry. I was trying—you’re right. I’m so sorry. Can we still go?” Shewasannoying. Shewasbossy. She could feel it. She felt it all the time, how she had becomewrong.
“But what about Emily?” Ash said, picking exactly the wrong thing to focus on. Who cared about Emily? The problem was that Ash kept screwing up.
“Text her,” Wade said. “Cancel.”
“But she’s on her way,” Ash said, again focusing on the thing that didn’t matter. Having to cancel Emily was nothing. The thing that mattered was the way Wade was looking at her with those eyes that she knew so well. He wasn’t looking at her the way he had for years. When they had sex for the first time (they’d both been each other’s first, delighted and enchanted by the other). When he got into dental school, when their kids were born, when they both found something funny at the same time that no one else in the room seemed to catch.
Wade was looking at her as if he hated her.
Ash stopped talking.
“I’ll go on my own,” Wade said.
And he did.
Ash looks up at the Airstream’s mirror. She has been bringing Wade bits of her day like a cat with a mouse, a dog with a bone, foryears. “Look at what I did!” she can practically hear herself saying.
It wasn’t always like this.
She wasn’t always like this.
He wasn’t always like this.
Her phone chimes. She looks down to see a notification from Kelly, the secretary of the nonprofit charity she runs, Second Bloom.Can you call me when you get a chance?the message says.We have a problem.
Ash glances at Wade. He’s still on his phone, but she doesn’t want to make him mad by calling Kelly back.
