“All right,” Leo said. Molly could hear the exasperation in his voice. “This conversation has gotten way too serious. I’m sorry if I’m freaking you out. I’ll back off if that’s what you want. But don’t push me away.”
Molly laid back on the bed, listened to Leo breathe into the receiver.Tell him the truth and let him decide for himself.The problem was thatthe truth had gotten too complicated, even for Molly. And it was more than that “first thing” that he didn’t know about her. It was every other thing since. Guilt had taken root inside her. When she was little, she’d imagined extracting it with a scooper or syringe. Then she tried to assuage it, but it became unwieldy and vicious. Now it felt systemic, elemental. She was mean and careless and self-destructive.
Leo had been such a surprise, so unexpected. He laughed at her caustic humor, he liked how she dressed, whether she wore girly skirts or combat boots. If he cared that she didn’t have a college degree or even a great job, he didn’t let on. She told herself that trying to be the right kind of girl for Leo was exhausting, but maybe the truth was that she wasn’t trying that hard and that he liked her anyway, maybe loved her even. And if he loved her, really loved her, she could tell him anything, and he would listen. Maybe worrying was exhausting her.
“The truth is I’m freaking myself out. I’m sorry,” Molly said, grimacing as she allowed Leo to get that much closer. “Forget I said anything?”
Leo laughed, sounding relieved. “You really are a tough nut, Sullivan. You know that? See you Friday?”
They had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan a week before Labor Day, a week before Leo would leave for Connecticut. He said pressure, and he’d been applying it. He’d given her his new phone number already, his new address, made her promises about weekends and holidays, how they would figure it out. Molly wore a white dress with yellow embroidered daisies, a dress she wouldn’t have been caught dead in when she was a teenager. It was a little too cute and country club, but it was practical for a muggy DC night, and most importantly, she knew Leo liked it. At the last minute, she’d put on the stolen bracelet she stowed in her underwear drawer, admired how it fit loosely, expensively on her wrist, more diamondsthan necessary. It would match her fake earrings, make her that much shinier for their night out.
They fed each other spongy flatbread dipped in spicy dishes, sipped sweet honey wine. He put her fingers in his mouth, and she giggled. He held up her palm. “That scar’s kind of badass. Knife fight?”
“It’s from a sparkler,” she said. “I grabbed it after it burned out.” She didn’t know what had made her do it. Some impulse to brand herself, to cause pain on top of pain. “I didn’t know how much it would hurt.” She ran her finger over it, felt the tingle of touch, the flutter of opening her heart to him.Ask me more.
“Wow, and speaking of sparkler! Where’d that come from? That would set a guy back.”
Molly shifted, immediately regretted wearing the bracelet. She brushed off both conversations. “This? Fake. Are you kidding?” She felt like a kid playing dress-up, the real fake.
“More wine, please!” she said, bending the conversation away from her.
After dinner, they made their way through the bustling dining room to the exit. Lacquered fingernails parted the beaded curtain. Leo stepped Molly back to make way for the incoming party, their laughter already too much for the small space. The woman, turned to someone behind her, was unmistakable. Stiletto heels the same temptation red as the fingernails, tasteful dark suit impeccably tailored, blond hair up in that high ponytail. In those heels, she was as tall as Leo. Molly’s mouth went dry as the party of four backed her and Leo even farther from the exit.
“Excuse me,” Leo said politely, tapping the woman to get by.
Molly wanted to duck between their legs, scurry off like the pickpocket she was.
Sideny Grant glanced at them, dismissively at first, but then stared at Molly blankly like she was searching a card file for the name that went with this face. “Ha,” she said. “Molly? What are you doing here?” The tone was exactly right. WhatwasMolly doing here?
Sideny elbowed Charlie, who stopped guffawing long enough to see what it was that his wife wanted. His mouth flew open, and he made an involuntary sound like a crow’s caw.
When Charlie booted Molly from the house, Sideny had been on the campaign trail. He’d put Molly in a taxi headed for the train station, with a ticket to Maine in her purse and her tail between her legs. As far as Charlie Grant was concerned, he’d bought Molly Sullivan out of his hair and his city.
“Hi,” Molly said. Her voice was pipsqueaky. She raised her hand in a small wave to match, cleared her throat.
It took barely a second for Molly to realize that Sideny and Charlie had registered the bracelet. She jerked her hand behind Leo.
“Charlie,” Sideny said, her voice sing-songy and accusatory. “I thought you said Molly had to go back to Maine, some family emergency ... I thought you went back to Maine,” Sideny repeated. Her eyes scanned Molly’s face, then Leo’s, scanned the darkness between them for another glance at Molly’s wrist.
“Nice to see you,” Molly said merrily, as if her stomach weren’t in knots. She tugged Leo’s arm. “We have to go. Enjoy dinner.” She pulled Leo past the other couple, through the beads, down the steep stairs, and to the street.
“Molly! Hang on,” Leo said, laughing, unaware of Molly’s mortification. “Let me catch my breath! That woman is so familiar. Who was that anyway?”
Sideny was on all the television news programs, talking about the Clinton/Gore ticket. Molly had told Leo she’d been a nanny and had given it up, that she couldn’t stand the dripping entitlement or the way the parents treated nannies like commodities they could buy and trade. She’d let him believe that the hardest part of leaving the profession was leaving the kids behind, though in truth, Maeve had been right. Molly didn’t like them much.
“Sideny and Charlie Grant. I nannied for them.” Molly tried to quash the images that flashed from her memory of other things she’ddone for Charlie or allowed him to do to her. And the bracelet. She had no idea what it was worth, though the way Leo had whistled when he thought it was real confirmed it was a lot. She looked over her shoulder at the door, sure that one of them would crash through at any moment, chase her, demand it back, have her arrested. “She works on the Clinton campaign. You’ve probably seen her on television.”
“She said you went back to Maine? I thought you hadn’t been home since last year.”
Molly hated lying to Leo, but this was what she’d been afraid of—getting too close, baring her rotten soul. “Honestly, I lied to get out of the job. Their kids were a nightmare and the pay was terrible and I got the offer at the bakery—all of the above, you know? I probably should have given more notice but ... yeah.”
The bracelet felt like a vise. She wished she could unclasp it and drop it in her purse, but she’d called enough attention to herself already. She wanted to recede, like the tide or a shadow. “Anyway, can we go now? Back to your place?”
In Leo’s apartment, Molly took off her clothes, tucked away the bracelet, and laid on her stomach on top of his down comforter. She was glad to be out of the entire getup. She wanted to forget all about Charlie Grant and her past and to just ... be.
“You should leave that bracelet on. It’s sexy.”
She shook her head. No more Charlie. She’d pawn it and be done with him. “Play naked for me,” she said.
