And because I know that feeling, know how it is to pretend not to hear all the subtext that lies beneath ahe justloveshis workor to laugh uncomfortably at a hurtful joke abouttaking the fun out of things, I oblige. I tell her I’ll work on this composition more, try it in different colors. I encourage her—pointedly, only her—to send me some ideas for quotes over e-mail. I shake Cameron’s hand again and tell a bald-faced lie, because it was not at all nice to meet him, and I gather my stuff in my bag, tossing out a couple of self-deprecating jokes about its sloppy contents to break some of the tension that’s hovering in the air.
But when Lark walks me to the foyer, the scene of Cameron’s bonanza of cursing at a tiny type-pad that probably has more skills of human intuition than he does, I’m oddly unable to keep the ruse going.Why are you with this guy?I want to say. But I don’t want to make her uncomfortable, don’t want to shine an even brighter light on something she so clearly didn’t want me to see.
“He’s been under some stress lately,” she says, before I can speak.
Default protocolis telling me to nod and smile again. But I must be all kinds of unblocked now, because I bypass it entirely and blurt, “That really sucked, what he said.”
I only think fleetingly about whether or not he can hear me. I’m not sure I care if he does.
But I do care that Lark stiffens, her chin raising. She purses her lips and turns to the type-pad, punches in a code, and waits for a click before setting her hand on the doorknob. My face feels like I’ve stuck it against a hot oven door.
“I’ll send you some of those quotes,” she says sharply, andoof. Probably “God is dead” will end up in there, after this. The bright side, I guess, is that she’s not firing me, but I feel such a potent, shaky-stomached feeling of dread.Why did you say anything? Why couldn’t you have left it alone?
“Sure,” I say. “Listen, I’m sorry if—”
“He’s a good guy,” she says, pointedly. “I know him.”
I realize that Lark can absolutely be decisive when she wants to be. For example, when she wants me out of her house. When she’s reminding me that I’m her employee, not her friend.
Nod and smile? Activated. I feelridiculous.
“Oh, yeah,” I say, stepping toward the open door. “I was being—”Honest, my brain supplies, but I don’t say it. Instead I wave a hand dismissively.I was being silly, this gesture says.
“I’ll give you a call next week,” she says as I step onto the stoop, into the late-afternoon light. She doesn’t sound much like she plans to call me next week.
“Absolutely,” I say, nodding and smiling before I walk away.
When I first moved to New York, one of the hardest things for me to get used to was not having a car.
It isn’t that I thought I needed one—there’re cabs and buses and the subway and your feet, obviously, and there’s never anywhere to put one unless you’re a billionaire or a person who doesn’t mind having a lot of unpaid parking tickets. And it isn’t that I’ve got some kind of American love affair with lengthy road trips, either, because I have a small bladder and a short attention span and also probably cannot be trusted to change a tire myself.
But getting my license at sixteen had been my most profound escape hatch, the thing that changed my life in relation to my parents’ home the most. When tension would flare between them—more and more often as I got older, though back then I didn’t really know why—I’d cheerfully call to them that I had an errand to run, or an extracurricular event at school, or some plan with Sibby. Then I’d grab the keys to my tiny, used Toyota and hit the road.
Sometimes I’d pick up Sibby; sometimes I’d go it alone. Either way, inside my car, I’d crack the windows no matter the temperature outside, a pressure release valve for all that tension, all the frustration I’d feel—at them for being so loud and messy with each other, at myself for being so quiet and accommodating. I’d queue up some pop-hits playlist, something where the beats were fast and the lyrics were easy to remember. I’d sing along, crowding out whatever words I’d heard between my parents, whatever words kicked around in my own head, desperate to be said out loud. I’d drive the suburban outerloop for as long as it’d take me to feel better.
City walking eventually became a substitute, though there were times, especially initially, when there were still so many strained conversations to be had with my parents (for example: what to do with that old Toyota, once I told them I wouldn’t be coming back), where all I’d want is an hour—thirty minutes, even—to be behind the wheel of a car. Going fast, wind in my hair, noise drowned all the way out.
After I leave Lark’s, I really, really wish I had a car.
I’m rattled, that’s the thing. For the rest of the afternoon, I run over those last few minutes in my mind, chastising myself for saying too much. I try to work, but that’s a comically terrible idea. Letters—speaking and unpredictable—are the last thing I want to look at.
I want fresh air and a break from the words I shouldn’t have said, and I want the kind of relief that only one person has made me feel in recent weeks.
So I call Reid.
“I guess I didn’t think about the—lack of signs,” I say to him now, as we stroll along my favorite part of Prospect Park, a curving path around Long Meadow. From here, you can look out over the vast expanse of green, the thick boundary of trees, and forget you’re in a city at all, and even as much as I was longing for fresh air myself, I picked this specific place for Reid. Because I thought he’d enjoy it.
“It’s fine.” While it’s not exactly curt, it’s not exactly warm, either. It’s not exactly,I’m really enjoying this nature walk and this hot tea you brought me. Beside me, he’sMasterpiece Theatrestiff, the jacket of his suit—dark, dark blue again—draped neatly over his arm, his slim-cut white dress shirt doing everything to recommend swimming laps. But he’s kept the sleeves down, buttoned at the wrists, still no concession to the warm air.
Maybe I’ve made a mistake, calling him—no matter that he’d texted me right back to tell me he’d come. No matter that he made me laugh with his reply, passing on my offer of a smoothie by telling me he preferred his fruit in “regular format.” No matter that he walked up the subway stairs andswoonshed, as though he’d been waiting to see my face all week. Whatever made him agree to come, it hasn’t been enough to chase away what I’m sensing is an awfully bad mood.
“No game, though,” I say, and even to my own ears my voice sounds false, almost manic in its effort to stay light, to pressure valve my way out of this frustrating, tension-filled day. “Maybe we can play—”
“Meg,” he interrupts. “Are you okay?”
I shove my smoothie straw in my mouth, suck up more of its mango-banana sweetness to stall. Once I swallow I smile and—oh no.Nod. “Sure,” I add.
“You seem—” He breaks off, clears his throat. “Different. Sort of . . . wired.”
