He opens his mouth to respond, but I run to a far corner of the wall. And then I slowly release a breath, trying to getPirate Dukeand Jack out of my head.
Once again, it ends up being Jack and me doing actual demolition and Avery, Anna, and Margie sitting around my apartment. Avery and Anna laugh and swap stories, while Margie looks up every once in a while from a script she’s reading to interject amusing anecdotes of her own. It would be a fun and lively environment if I didn’t want this flipping wall to come down and be put up again as soon as humanly possible.
It isn’t until the food arrives that I realize those bumps on a log ordered takeout. Jack and I reluctantly halt our work to eat. Jack sits on my sofa with Anna, my coffee table pressed up close to their knees. Avery sits in the armchair closest to where Anna is seated. He offered the chair to me like the gentleman he is, but I declined in favor of sitting cross-legged on the floor. He and Jack talk about work.
Margie is in my other armchair, legs draped over the seat’s arm, her back against the other. She’s still reading.
I throw a veggie egg roll and a scallion pancake down my gullet and chase it with a bite of chicken and broccoli. “Latest episode?” I ask her, leaning over to look at the script.
“No. It’s for a movie. Lucas is in talks to star as the lead, and there’s a part for me, he thinks.”
“That’s awesome!”
“Yeah. It’s violent, though. But kind of camp. I’m into it.” She hands it to me to review.
The meal feels too cozy. Like a real group of friends hanging on a Thursday night. This is unacceptable. I shake off the trance, force myself to stop watching Jack’s mouth move as he speaks, and stand, tossing the script onto my kitchen counter.
“What’s that for?” Anna asks, pointing to the jumbo package of Command hooks I’m opening.
In response, I set up a little ladder Gence loaned me and attach a hook to the ceiling, right near our dividing wall. “The wall is filled with lots of holes going straight through now. Temporary fix.” I ascend and descend a bunch, attaching a handful of hooks at regular intervals. And then I go to the hall closet and retrieve the discount grommeted curtains I bought.
I attach the first set of curtains to the hooks and survey my work. Though The Hole is still the only place to get through to either apartment, the holes everywhere, even covered with mesh and bits of plaster in some cases, left me feeling too exposed. The black curtains now hang floor to ceiling and do an admirable job of blocking the entire wall.
Avery stands to help me set up the other hooks and curtains, and that seems to be the cue for the others to begin cleaning up for the evening.
When all is swept and vacuumed, I set our plates in the sink. Jack’s shirtsleeves are rolled up to his elbows, and he rinses and puts dishes into my dishwasher without a word. The kitchen feels even smaller than its tiny size warrants, the air heavier than it’s ever felt. Jack brushes behind me to grab paper towels, and it’s the equilibrium-upsetting equivalent of being electrocuted. He shows no sign of having the same reaction.
Anna interrupts our flow, insisting to her brother that the night is young and a bar is in order. Again.
Avery, of course, enthusiastically agrees and insists we go, even though going out on a work night is so unlike him, let alone twice in one week. Margie turns to me and shrugs, grabbing her purse with a raised eyebrow. I pretend to be engrossed in the button panel on my dishwasher, privately hoping they’ll have all gone away by the time I look up. That is, until Jack presses the wash cycle button and towels off his hands, leveling me a flat look.
“Complicated, finding that wash button.”
“Yeah, I’m not going out, sorry. Work tomorrow, and I’m on point for a big project. And then I have an after-work thing before the party,” I announce.
To Avery, I offer an apologetic look. “I just have to put in an appearance at a dinner, and then I’m coming straight to your party. Okay? I tried to say no, but Rochelle wouldn’t let me. I couldn’t avoid it.”
Avery looks momentarily aggrieved, but it’s gone in a blink. “All right. Just don’t miss my speech? I have to point to you in the crowd for a joke at the beginning.”
“Of course!”
Everyone files out of my apartment, and I move to make way for Jack to do the same. But he stops next to me, as if this was a party we hosted jointly and we’re seeing our guests out. Alarm streaks through me. He was supposed to leave!
He smiles and then dips down to whisper, his lips brushing the sensitive skin of my earlobe, “Nice try, coward. I’m not going anywhere.”
13
Despite my curtain barrier and the pots and pans I quietly set up around The Hole as a rudimentary alarm system, I still had a sleepless night. Part of it was a sexy-time dream I can’t quite recall the details of, but that definitely had something to do withThe Pirate Duke. And the remainder of my restlessness was down to dread. How nuclear will Jack’s retaliation be? On a scale of nocturnal haircut to something way worse, how bad are we talking? And even more disturbing—like the sloughing of an old skin—my dislike for Jack is being shed with alarming ease.
Work was a long trudge through a Siberian wasteland of competing PowerPoints. Anthony decided to present a framework that proposed a completely divergent path to the one we’ve been working toward, which necessitated a response pitch deck—the dueling banjos of the corporate world. Exhausting. I ran it to Rochelle, who grabbed Sam Greenfield in a conference room to get his input.
“Sit tight while I talk to him.”
“I just have to run and get ready for this thing I have tonight, actually—”
“It’ll be five minutes.”
It has been forty-five minutes. I linger near the kitchen, where half-closed blinds obscure my view into the glass-walled conference room. I can only see the back of Sam’s head, but Rochelle’s tight smile is clear. She’s not thrilled. Shit.
