“I could help,” Lark says.
Sibby and I both watch as she holds up the planner again, waving it in the air. “I’ll do some social media posts about this to start.”
“Oooh,” Sibby says, and there’s not a trace of jealousy in her voice. I get the sense of something important here, some shift in our pattern—Sibby not looking to take over, to be the one in charge. “Yes, this is good.”
“And you meet your clients out, right? At coffee shops?”
“Uh, yes?”
Lark nods. “Maybe I could show up for the difficult ones, you know? I’m not saying everyone would care, but I still have a good deal of Princess Freddie power to my name. I could be a character reference. I mean, not a movie character. I’m not going to come in costume. You know what I’m saying.”
I blink at her. “But you . . . What about your privacy?”
She shrugs again. “That’s why I’d be a good reference, right? I trust you with my stuff, so they can, too.”
“Lark, this is too much.”
“It’s not. It’s like you said. We’re friends.”
“Oh!” Sibby exclaims. “Are we going to have a sleepover now? Because we absolutely should.”
“I can swing it,” Lark says. “I’ll call Jade and ask her to bring me some things.”
“Who’s Jade?”
“My assistant,” Lark says, and Sibby’s eyes go wide.
“Oh, my God,” she says, smooshing all her syllables together in excitement. “We havesomuch to talk about.”
From my spot on the floor, I watch them chat easily, and I feel warm all over at the sight.This is love, too, I tell myself, reminding that aching mark on my heart. These friends who are here for me, who are helping me pick up the pieces after this scandal.
But even so, all night I wait for a call, a text, an e-mail.
All night I feel like someone I love is missing.
Chapter 20
Iguess I leave because I’m looking for a sign.
In the early light of Sunday morning, I rise from the massive pile of blankets and throw pillows (not my eyelids, which have been modestly improved by, of all things, two moist teabags laid gently over their swollen surface) haphazardly arranged on my living room floor. Pretty much all of my bones hurt from sleeping in this arrangement, even a few I wasn’t aware I had, but I don’t suppose I’d trade it. Sibby’s still down there, the comforter from my bed pulled up over her head, only her pouf of black curls visible on the pillow. On the couch, Lark is sprawled—in true princess style—limbs askew, mouth open, a gentle snore punctuating her breaths. Neither one of them stirs when I move, and I’m guessing that’s because they stayed up much later than me. I’m pretty sure I’d drifted off sometime during the fifth episode ofThe Bachelorettebinge-watch, and as I tiptoe into the kitchen I fleetingly wonder if I ought to check the freezer for one or more of my bras.
Instead, I immediately check my phone, which is, at this point, almost certainly a fool’s errand. There’s still nothing from him, and nothing new from the news or gossip blogs—only the same basic information, repackaged to seem like there’s something additional. Keeping the clicks coming.
I could start working, I suppose, could start setting up these coffee-shop meetings Lark plans to help me with. But this early on a Sunday—well, on a Sunday at all, probably—I’m probably not going to hear much back. And anyway, at this particular moment, when my heart—still looped with that inconvenient L—is tight and aching, work would only be another kind of hiding. If I’m missing Reid so much, I might as well do the one thing that’ll make me feel closest to him.
Quietly, I wash my face and brush my teeth, avoid everything in my closet with any kind of frolicsome pattern, and shove my feet into a pair of sneakers that’ll keep my feet comfortable. I snag a piece of scrap paper from my desk and in my own unadorned, unremarkable handwriting, I write a simple message.
Going for a walk. Back soon. xo—Meg
I leave it on a throw pillow beside Sibby before I leave.
Outside the morning sky is clear. It’s already warm, but nothing like yesterday’s sweaty soup-fest, and I focus on the fresh air as I walk for blocks and blocks. All the signs are familiar to me, and I can’t think of a single game to play. I think of Reid that night at Swine, telling me he walked with a Meg-shaped shadow beside him, and once it’s in my head, it’s all I can imagine—my relationship to this city and its signs changed forever now, a memory of Reid with me in so many places.
He did give you signs, I keep thinking, each time I wrestle with the shock of what’s happened. His disdain for his work, his stress over it, his reluctance to talk about the details. His phone—the trouble it had caused to be away from it, even for his so-called sick day. Hismoney people, math peoplefrustration. His insistence that he would leave New York by the end of the summer, his seeming difficulty comprehending how he might stay.
But it’s the other signs I struggle to read without him here beside me. That last time I saw him, and the look on his face when he saw Avery. His determination when he came to see me at the shop, coded program in hand. Was it less amicable with her than he’d told me? Had he told everyone about what he had seen in my letters, and had he sought me out, at least at first, because he couldn’t get over her?
No, I think, almost desperately.No, you have other signs. Everything he and I shared. Every way he ever touched me. Every time he walked with me, made love to me. Those were signs, too.Remember them, I tell myself.Remember them while you wait.
