“You remember how much he freaked out when Margo gotengaged? There’s no way I could have left at the same time,” Emma finally replied.
“He would be fine for a few months.”
She smirked at him. “You and I both know that’s not true.”
He nodded, not in agreement, but as a way of not saying anything at all. And really, why bother? She knew as well as he did that talking about it wouldn’t change anything. This was well-trodden territory.
“You’re coming over for Sunday dinner, right?” she asked, trying quickly to change the subject.
“I always come over for Sunday dinner.”
“Just checking you don’t have a hot date or something,” she said, wagging her eyebrows at him.
“Nope, I schedule my exciting plans for Saturday.”
She rolled her eyes. “Well, onthatnote, I’m off. I have an actual class in a few and while I would love to be late, I want to make sure to get a seat in the back so the professor won’t call on me. You know, so I can really achieve peak laziness.”
He smiled and looked like he had another barb ready, but it seemed to fade as he watched her stand.
She paused, gauging his expression. “What?”
“You’re going like that?”
She looked down at where his gaze was locked: her studded raffia Valentino wedges, her gauzy mauve Zimmermann minidress.
“Like what?” she asked.
He shook his head and chuckled to himself. “Nothing. Have a good class. Try not to be too late.”
Despite any doubts Knightley might have harbored, Emma arrived to class early by a whole four minutes. She took her time gettingher laptop ready and reapplying her lip stain as the other students bled in. It was a disparate mix of people, but Emma had expected that. She had also expected that she wouldn’t recognize any of them. No, her friends were scattered all over the world right now. It was impressive, really. She had gone from a robust social circle carefully curated over her twenty-three years in Manhattan to… nothing. It was just her now.
She pushed the thought aside as the professor shuffled into the room. In only eight short months she would be done. She had a plan, the plan was in motion, all she had to do was what the plan dictated. Simple as that.
The professor made his way to the lectern, the living embodiment of the class itself: drab, tired, and ready for retirement. The hum of conversation died as he cleared his throat, not bothering to even open his worn briefcase as he addressed the half-full room.
“Hello, I’m Professor Goddard. Welcome to—”
The door to the classroom flew open, smacking into the cement wall behind it with a loud thud. The entire class turned as a woman stumbled in. A mess of frizzy blonde hair was held together by a scrunchie on top of her head. It bobbed back and forth as she struggled with a pink nylon messenger bag hanging off one arm and a pile of books in the other. A few books fell to the floor just as the door slammed shut behind her. She scrambled to pick them up, only pausing once she was on all fours and the room was dead silent around her.
She lifted her head slowly, finally meeting Professor Goddard’s wide eyes.
“Hi,” she said. “Is this Social History of Photography?”
He nodded once.
“Oh, thank God.” She sat up and let out a relieved sigh. “I’m Nadine Pittman. I got confused about which side of the park waseast and which side was west, so I went to 80 Washington Square Park West and it was just a townhouse, but I still buzzed, and they didn’t know what I was talking about, so then I had to ask…”
Her voice faded as Professor Goddard’s expression darkened, annoyance pursing his lips.
“I’ll just… go find a seat,” she continued, pulling her bag behind her as she clutched her papers and books to her chest.
The professor cleared his throat and continued, launching into a spiel about the syllabus. Emma wasn’t listening. She was too busy watching Nadine: how she plopped down in a seat two rows ahead of her, the closest one to the door. How she tried so carefully to situate herself quietly but still managed to make enough noise that Professor Goddard rolled his eyes. How her face flushed as she mouthed,Sorry, only to open her backpack and have more papers fall out of it. How she looked close to tears as she searched for her notebook amid the chaos.
Emma sighed to herself, an unusual pang of pity in her chest.
There was no doubt about it: Nadine Pittman was a hot mess.
CHAPTER 4
