“Sleepover with Mom.” Betty willed herself to turn and run, to point herself as far from this stranger as possible, but inexplicably, her feet remained grounded.
“Okay, well, I’ll let you go on your way unobstructed. If you decide to file an insurance claim, just for, you know, like, an injury, here’s my card.”
He fished a card out of the inside pocket of his jacket.
“Who still carries business cards?” Betty asked.
“This guy.” He looked utterly delighted.
He really was very cute, Betty thought. Dark hair, long lashes. Dangerous.
She read his card. “Caleb.”
“My parents were Bible-thumpers.” He shrugged like this was just casual information he shared, which, maybe it was.
Betty never had the luxury of casual information. If she had, she would have shared that they had this in common, the parental religious zealousness. Her siblings: Patience, Levi, Noah, Jacob. She’d adopted Betty full-time when she left after eighteen years of Elizabeth, which her dad liked to remind her meant “God is my oath.” Only Patience and Levi called her Betty back then, and only when their dad wasn’t around. Now Caleb felt slippery, treacherous; this whole thing did. She needed to get out of there.
“I’ll think about it, Caleb.”
“That’s not a no.”
She shook her head and started on her way.
“That’s not a no,” he called after her.
She grinned over her shoulder, then refocused and pointed herself in the other direction. And that’s when she realized that Caleb wasn’t the only one who had noticed her. She was nearly certain that someone had a phone pointed at her, filming her as she walked away and rounded the corner. She picked up her pace to catch them in the act, but when she reached the main hall, whoever it was, was gone.
She spun on her toes and raced toward the uptown track, putting as much distance as she could between whoever it was and her anonymity.
13
Night Five
Sybil
Sybil still hadn’tgotten used to Zeke’s easy handsomeness, to the way that she felt like maybe he was flirting with her. But wasn’t that a ridiculous thought? She was probably mistaking kindness for flirtation. She’d given in to his proposal for a sleepover. She’d boarded Pluto with their dog walker because Mark was allegedly working an overnight shift (again), and since this was a night for an Insomniacs gathering, she thought why not, what the hell. Sleeping alone in the perfume-scented king-sized bed in their pied-à-terre had already lost its appeal. She’d spend the time listening to another bleak murder-y podcast or watching some gruesome documentary—Death on Cruise ShipsorRocky Mountain Horror House, and wondering if she could make Mark’s body disappear.
Betty had left early for her shift, and Julian texted that he had something come up, so it was just the two of them. Zeke had greeted her in his sponsored tracksuit and fleece slippers, and Sybil felt a little foolish in tapered jeans and a cashmere sweater, but she didn’t know how to be casual in front of himyet. She was always too aware of her age, of the fact that she needed tinted moisturizer to get her skin to look normal, that if she slipped on Eloise’s sweatpants, she wouldn’t have the luxury of looking like she hadn’t just given up. The cliff between chic and dowdy was a steep one in your forties.
It was midnight now, and she decided to make them baked ziti.
She’d gone to the organic co-op in her town and shown up with a full bag of groceries, even though Zeke said his assistant could just as well pick them up. But she needed to stay busy. She needed tobebusy. Eloise had called and said she regretted not taking a gap year, which spiraled into an argument about Sybil pressuring her to go right to college and pressuring her even more to become a doctor. Like Eloise hadn’t been the science star all through high school!Forgive me, Sybil had shouted,for supporting your interests!Charlie never called, which made her wonder if he missed his mother at all, and if not, what she had done wrong such that he hadn’t. And Mark? She sighed as she sliced a perfectly round, perfectly red tomato. She’d sharpened her knives last night, and the cut was incredibly satisfying.
“At what point,” Zeke was saying—he was lounging in his breakfast nook, and Sybil had a hard time meeting his eyes— “do you think our bodies will just break down, just collapse from never sleeping?”
“Mine sooner than yours,” she said, then regretted it because she didn’t want him to think she was fishing for compliments.
“I don’t know,” he said. “You seem to be holding it together.”
“My back disagrees.”
“Have you seen my eyelid?” he countered.
“Sometimes when I stand up too quickly, I think I’m going to pass out.”
“Sometimes at PT,” he said, “I get so angry that I feel like I’m having an out-of-body experience.”
“Sleep does control your mood,” Sybil said.
