“It’s New York! This sort of stuff happens all the time! Just”—she tossed a duffel at me—“throw some shit in there, okay? Stop it with the conspiracy theories and make yourself useful.”
I glared at her, then began corralling the rest of her plush objectswhile she moved on to her closet. By the time my bag was zipped and I’d asked for my next assignment, I realized Katie’s eyes had welled with tears.
“Hey,” I said. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Yeah! I just don’t totally know where I’m going to stay, is all. I guess it sort of hit me again. How stressful this is.”
“Can you... can you call your parents, maybe?”
She laughed. “Nope.”
At that, my chest tightened. I exhaled and released my apparently clenched fists. “What about Lola? Can you guys get a hotel? Where’s she going to stay?”
“Juniper’s, I think. The per diem isn’t great. I guess I could go to Danny’s, or... I don’t know. I could probably go to Juniper’s too, but not for six weeks. She has a roommate, and...”
I was about to say something, probably something like,Juniper’s sounds like a great idea, actually; I’m sure her roommate won’t mind,when Katie’s phone rang again. She pushed back her shoulders before answering it. Her voice, at once, was high and perky and not the same.
“Hey! Can I call—” A muffled, imperceptible command. Then another one.
I took a step closer, and Katie put the phone on speaker. Selma. She wanted Katie to make a few final tweaks to Meredith’s last manuscript, and she wanted them made now.
“I might need a few hours,” Katie said, setting the phone on her dresser. There were still a few tears in her eyes, but she was making quick work of her underwear drawer all the same. It was—and I say this with respect—very confusing. “My apartment’s uninhabitable. I have to move. I need to figure out where I’m going to stay and get settled before I do anything. I’m packing right now.”
“What do you mean, move?” Selma said. “You’re staying in New York, right?”
Katie flung something very small and very red into her open suitcase. I rubbed my throat.
“Don’t know.” Another thong—ice blue. Jesus. “This guy I’m seeing, he’s got a place in the Village. I could probably ask him, but it’s not like he’s my boyfriend or anything. And my parents’—that’s not an option. And I don’t want to go to a motel in Hoboken. It’s going to be, like, two months, and—”
“Can you hold that thought,” Selma said, “for just one second? Stay on the phone. Don’t hang up.”
There was a little clucking, a little cursing, and then silence. A minute later, Selma was back on the line. And indoors, it seemed. The clack of a keyboard, the ding of an inbox.
“You’re going to Meredith’s,” she announced.
“Huh?” Katie and I said, almost in unison. I beat her by half a second.
“Tyler?” Selma said. “Is that you?”
I walked closer to the phone, scratching the back of my neck. “Selma, hey. That’s, um, that’s kind of crazy, isn’t it? Katie going to Meredith’s? We don’t actually know her. And last time we were there, well... There’s no service, and she...”
Selma’s typing stopped. “She what, Tyler?”
Katie stared at me. Neither of us had told Selma about Meredith’s behavior last week. At the time, doing so seemed unprofessional and unlikely to do us any favors.
“I just... I don’t know if it’s safe,” I said.
Selma literally guffawed. “Safe? It’s the safest place on earth. I’ve known Meredith since she was your age. Younger, even. That house is a fortress.”
Katie was still looking at me, deer in the headlights. Her packing had come to a complete and total stop. I tapped the mute button.
“I don’t think you should go,” I said. “We’ve never even stepped foot inside the actual house. This isn’t professional, and it doesn’t make sense to me. Something feels off. You don’t have to say yes.”
“I don’t want to go.” Her bottom lip trembled. “We’re on a roll. I want to stay here. I want...”
I stepped closer and curled my hand onto the edge of her dresser. “If you wanted... I mean, if you needed... You, uh, you could always—”
“I can hear everything, you two.” That was Selma. I, apparently, hadnottapped mute. “Katie’s going to the Hamptons. Meredith thinks this’ll be good for the book, for Willa’s development. That the setting descriptions were a bit lacking, anyway. Maurice was already in the city returning an ottoman—he’ll be there soon. It’s a done deal.”
