“I loathe him,” Mrs. Crawley agreed.
There was another muffled sound. Augie imagined them on the couch, Chat’s arm around her for comfort. She felt ill.
“Hey, they’ll be gone tomorrow. And the weather’s gonna be good. We’ll relax. Whatever you want to do.”
“I can’t believe I was mostly worried about the weather before,” Mrs. Crawley scoffed. “This is such a disaster. I’m so glad you’re here.”
It went quiet. Augie pictured his hand on top of Mrs. Crawley’s, as he’d done with Augie an hour earlier.
“Augie?” Augie suddenly heard from down the hall.
She staggered against the wall.
“Hey, Aug?” Teuta called louder as Augie pushed away, her feet clapping the hardwood as she rushed toward the foyer, her face hot.
In her wake, she felt the room go silent.
“What?” she whispered as she moved forward.
“Your water bottle’s in the van.” Teuta pointed behind her, confused.
“Oh. Thanks, let’s go.” She ushered Teuta back toward the door, desperate to leave before anyone caught her spying.
Still, as Teuta stepped outside and the cool air rushed over them, Augie heard footsteps, and she stopped. Part of her knew she should leave right then—that she should race outside and disappear—but another part of her held out hope that Chat wanted to find her.
She made the mistake of turning around.
Mrs. Crawley’s eyes turned to slits, her mouth a straight line. Her whole demeanor was disheveled yet restrained, her clothes wrinkled, her hair tangled, but her expression and stance were stone. She didn’t flinch until finally, she pursed her lips and spat the words that would haunt Augie the rest of the night:
“Get the hell out of my house.”
13
New York, January
Augie’s memories of New York felt at once crystal clear and like a black hole. Still, in the weeks after dinner at Julia and Micah’s, there was a catalog of moments that stuck out. It made her crazy, how she felt energy and attraction radiating off him, but everything inside her brain told her it couldn’t be. That he was just being friendly.
The dinner itself had been innocuous. Once Julia had joined them and the Greek takeout arrived, they sat together and talked about the agency, about Augie’s lottery project. They’d joked about how the team was too old to understand their target audience, and Micah said Augie would soon be running the place. Julia was kind and supportive, telling Augie not to take any bullshit, to hold her own. Augie liked Julia. She reminded Augie of Robin and Leah.
It wasn’t until after dinner that she felt another jolt of attraction to Micah. He had been helping her put on her coat, holding it out as she slipped her arms in one at a time, when she turned back to him while zipping it up, their faces now closer. “See you Monday,” he’d said quietly, before reaching for her zipper and tugging it higher.“Stay warm.” He’d let go of the zipper, moved his hand upward, and nudged the bottom of her chin with his thumb, holding it there for two full seconds. Augie had stood, stunned, before turning to the door.
As she walked home in the cold, she’d touched her own chin, trying to make sense of the gesture. Was it meant to be playful? Parental? Or was it meant to make her feel as it had—drowned with want?
She next saw him at the office. The agency was housed in a Midtown skyscraper. Augie felt like she was inThe Devil Wears Pradaas she swiped her badge for the elevator and made her way to the seventeenth floor. She was wearing her new pencil skirt, holding folders of preliminary lottery research. Despite the nerves drumming inside her, Augie was proud of herself for becoming the competent young professional she had envisioned for so long.
It was Tuesday when he first sidled up to her cubicle. “Knock, knock,” he’d said as he sat on the side of her desk, scanning her workspace. She’d decorated it with an old ceramic penguin pencil holder; a framed picture of her, her mom, and Leah from her eighteenth birthday; and brand-new floral sticky notes. As Micah looked at everything, she felt childish and dumb. He’d picked up the frame, paused. “Is this the Greenes’ pool?”
Augie had stuttered, thrown to remember that he was related to Leah, a second-cousin-in-law or whatever. It was too strange to imagine him at the pool where she’d spent so much time.
“Yeah, she—they—threw me a birthday party that year.”
“Cute.” He set the frame down gently, and Augie wondered if he meant the party, or the picture—or her. He rubbed his hands along his jeans, which scrunched the shoulders of his blazer. He looked exactly like a creative director should. And incredibly handsome.
He seemed to be genuinely checking on her, though, because he continued to ask if her payroll was set up, if she’d figured out the internal communication system—if her recycling center apartment was treating her well. The fact that he remembered their past conversation sent a surge of energy through Augie’s body.
Augie tried to remain casual yet confident as she told him she was starting to find the junk inspiring, actually. “I made a bouquet of flowers out of pipe cleaners.”
He laughed. “That’s the spirit. Maybe you should join us creatives. But really, if you need anything”—he leaned over her to the computer—“feel free to ping me anytime.” He was inches from her now, but he didn’t have room to type as he hunched down, so he grabbed the back of her swivel chair and rolled her to the side. “See? Just here.” He opened the internal messaging box, found his name, and sent an emoji of a cat saying, “You’re cool!”
