“There’s a great doughnut shop near 101 Park Place tower,” she prodded.
“I just can’t face Beck,” I wailed.
“You just need a shower and a doughnut.”
I tried the tap. Still no hot water. Now in addition to the cake batter, I had pizza sauce on me.
Brave the cold water or say fuck it and channel your inner bag lady?
I wrapped plastic wrap around my hair. Hey, the raw eggs in the batter were probably good for it. That was what they used instead of conditioner in the Victorian times.
“You have a right to get your own belongings that belong to you,” Maeve said. She pulled a hat out of the overstuffed, tiny closet.
“If he gives you trouble, you can call the police, and they’d make him let you in. If you think about it, the fact that you’re not involving the police is doing Beck a favor he doesn’t deserve.”
I picked up my coat. Maeve handed me a trash bag and my bathrobe.
“You can’t afford a new coat, and I don’t know if dry cleaning will take out a pizza sauce stain,” she said.
“I can’t show up to Beck’s condo looking like this!” I said, looking down at my disheveled state. “I’ll be arrested!”
“I thought you were tight with some of the seniors there,” Maeve said as she shoved me out the door. “It’s the middle of the afternoon. Beck is at work. You’ll just scoot upstairs—the concierge can probably let you in—you’ll grab your things, then we’ll leave. Maybe the hot water will be back on when we come back. We’ll do some interview prep, then we’ll have super amazing jobs! You can do it!”
“I can’t.”
But I had to. My rent wasn’t going to pay for itself. A new job wasn’t going to fall in my lap. Beck wasn’t going to ride in on a horse and rescue me like Prince Charming. My life wasn’t going to magically turn great.
It was just that when I had been with him, it had finally felt like it was my turn. I was going to have my promised reward for working hard and being a (mostly) good person. But Beck hadn’t been a reward. He had only been yet another obstacle on my drunken two a.m. walk through life.
Time to woman up, I told myself as Maeve and I waited for the subway.Time to start adulting. First step, pick up your clothes. Then you’re going to go home and take a cold shower. Yes, you are because you cannot sleep in your own filth for another night. You’re going to do laundry then interview prep.
But it all seemed so exhausting. I just wanted to curl up in bed with a big mug of tea, some homemade scones, and a romance novel and lose myself in someone else’s world.
“At the very least,” Maeve said as the train rumbled through the tunnels, “no one wants to be anywhere near us when we’re dressed like this.”
“I think it’s just me,” I said. My hair was frizzy and poofy on a good day. Between not combing it or putting any product on it and sleeping in a pile of cake batter, I hadn’t been able to fit it under my hat.
Instead, my pink Hello Kitty hat that I’d bought while drunk online shopping one night was perched on top of my plastic-wrapped hair.
“You’re definitely giving out ‘I just escaped the insane asylum’ vibes,” she whispered.
“Hey, free room and board and hot water?” I said. “Sounds like my kind of place. I’m not picky.”
I was filledwith dread as Maeve and I headed toward 101 Park Place tower. Would Beck be there?
Of course not, I tried to assure myself.It’s the afternoon; he has meetings with Owen and Walker in the afternoons right after I bring him his tea.
But no one would have brought him his tea, so maybe that had thrown him off his schedule.
There’s no reason for him to be there. You’re going to get in and get out, just likeMission: Impossible.
I knocked on the glass lobby door.
The doorman glared at us and yelled, “No panhandling!”
I started to panic.Guess I should have braved the cold shower after all.
“Tess!” Vera called. She and several of her fellow senior residents were power walking along the Central Park side of the street. “You’re looking great! Did you have a spa day?”
