I—quietly, imperceptibly—let out the sigh.
“But a different unit in the same building opened, and, Meg, it’ssomuch better. There’s this window in the kitchen, and—”
“Those chopsticks are mine,” I blurt, and she blinks quickly. “Never mind. Take the chopsticks. I don’t care.”
“Meg, come on.” Her voice is so gentle. But what right does she have to be gentle with me, when it’s been death by a thousand cuts for me in this apartment for months? I press a thumb to my temple, rub my fingers over my still-damp forehead, feel the soreness of the pimples assert themselves. There’s a dull throb of exhaustion in my shoulders, my back, my feet. The truth is, we both know I’m not going to argue with her. Especially not about this. If she wants to go now, sheshouldgo. Given the way I grew up—my parents white-knuckling their entire marriage from the time I was born, a “staying together for the kid” cautionary tale—I know that more than anyone.
“Listen, it’s been a lousy day.” I reach down, pick up my discarded bag, try to seem casual and not like I’m thinking of my efficient wash-and-cry coming right up. “So if not the end of summer ... ?”
She looks down at her noodles. Sothisis the hard part, then. I tighten my already tight shoulders in preparation.
“We can get in at the end of June.”
“That is . . . soon.” Tough-to-find-a-non-creepy-subletter soon, and anyway, the hope was that by the time Sibby moved out, I wouldn’t need a subletter right away. I’d have landed the Make It Happyn job.
A fresh wave of anger rises within me, and I feel desperate to get away from her, to shove it down.
“I was thinking I could call my dad,” Sibby says. “Then I could pay you for the rest of the summer, even though I’m leaving earlier than I said.”
It’s my turn to blink in surprise. Sibby broke financial ties with her dad about four years ago, when he’d come to the city for a conference. She’d met him for dinner and a show, some musical Sibby had already seen three times, and afterward at the hotel bar, Mr. Michelucci told Sibby he couldn’t see her up there, not ever. “You’re not like those girls up there, Sibyl,” he’d said to her. “You don’t have the voice or the face or the body. It’s time to get serious.”
When she’d come home that night, she’d cried and cried, choking on the words he’d said to her, and my heart had broken. All the connections and commonalities Sibby and I had, the ones we relished and celebrated as each other’s very best friend—I would have never wished this one on her, a fractured relationship with one of her parents, especially her dad. She’d always been closer to him, had always felt he was in her corner.
So I know exactly what it would cost her to ask him for this.
“Don’t call him,” I say. I’m mad at Sibby, and I’m confused by her. But I love her, still. I want her to be happy. And if she’d propose something this desperate, then obviously what she needs to be happy is this move. “I can cover it.”
“Yeah?” she says, her voice lilting, musical. Her dad, he can get in my gum cocoon, too. He was so wrong about her. Shedoeshave the voice and the face and the body, whatever that means. It’s only that a whole lot of other people in this city do, too.
“Oh, yeah,” I sort of . . . chirp. “It’ll be fine.”
Already I’m thinking about what’s in my bank account right now (mybusinessbank account, thank you very much), how much savings I have, how many regular jobs I have lined up in the next few weeks, when my next quarterly tax payment is. It is supremely, face-punchingly annoying that I’m thinking about how useful a quantitative analyst who does math in his head quickly might be right now. A handsome pocket calculator on demand.
“Can we work out the details later? Ireallyneed a shower.”
“Sure, of course.” She picks up her phone from where it sits beside her box of noodles, checks the time before she speaks. “Why was your day so lousy?”
I stare at her for a long moment. What can I even say in the remaining minutes she’s got to give me? What would even make sense, what with all these long gaps of time between our interactions? I think, painfully, about Reid and his blunt, no-nonsense questions. The ones I said he had no right to ask. He doesn’t, but still.
It wasn’t the worst thing, to be asked.
I don’t really answer her. I shrug and gesture to my wet, bedraggled face and body and tell her to have a good time at Elijah’s. I go to my bedroom and close the door behind me.
But before I strip off my clothes, I pull my phone from my bag, hold it in my hand for a few minutes while I look around my room. For weeks all I’ve been able to see in it is the cramped chaos of my desk, the work I’ve been trying to do and redo as I struggle with the Make It Happyn job. The rest of it, though—sure, it’s small and it’s messy, but it’s also lovingly, carefully curated. The perfect, pale-blue down comforter with fluffy, pin-tucked-style squares. The big white pillows with a gray monogram that I designed, an indulgence after theTimesarticle came out. The sheer pink scarf I have draped over my bedside lamp. The small, rose gold statuette Cecelia bought me for Christmas a couple years ago, a bird at rest, its rounded body perfect for cooling the palm of your hand. The silhouette I did of the Manhattan skyline—instead of lines defining the buildings, I’d done a tiny, pristine roman print, snippets of conversations I’d overheard on the subway, a simple dot separating them.
I don’t want to have to move from here right now. I don’t want another upheaval.
But I need more money—and soon—to make it work. And since I won’t have any more walks with Reid on the agenda, I guess I’ll have the time.I pick up work easily, I hear myself telling him.I’m in demand.
I swipe my thumb across the screen and navigate to my contacts.
“Cecelia,” I say, when she picks up the phone. “Do you still have that number you mentioned?”
Chapter 6
Idon’t mean to be dramatic, but: It’s a motherfucking movie star!
I mean, it’s not like it’s Meryl Streep. But it is a person who has been in at least one movie, and it is also a movie I have seen. Said movie was calledThe Princess Tent, and not only did Sibby and I see it together in the theater when we were fourteen years old, we also each had our own copy, and we watched it at probably sixty percent of our sleepovers.
