Chapter 4
In fact, as Anne stood in the middle of Cricket’s living room, covered in sweat and dust after spending the day packing up her now-empty bedroom upstairs and clinging to a cardboard box filled with her most prized possessions, she couldn’t think of any possible way this scenario could be worse.
“Welcome home!” Cricket exclaimed. “Don’t worry about the smell. It’s patchouli, I promise!”
I stand corrected, Anne thought.
Cricket had spent the past week extolling the virtues of her apartment, and Anne had patiently listened, keeping her questions about Cricket’s collection of K-pop memorabilia to herself.
And even though Anne had been too busy to stop by and see it until the very last minute, i.e.
, the morning she needed to be out of her old apartment to make way for the new tenant’s painters, she knew the layout thanks to the units above and below it.
The front door opened to the living room—flanked here by two beanbags and a litany of tapestries that Anne was fairly sure were against fire code—and a small kitchen to the left.
A stick of incense burned on the countertop, framed by a few burn marks on the Formica from where the ash had fallen during previous uses.
It sat dangerously close to a pile of posters for Cricket’s play, each one featuring a half-naked woman covered in silver body paint and perched precariously close to a man’s crotch.
To be fair, Cricket hadn’t lied. The apartment was lovely and bright despite the BTS posters and foam furniture throughout.
She just hadn’t mentioned how much stuff she had, and how haphazardly it was strewn across every available surface.
Anne was already mentally cataloging how to organize it, a game plan to tackle at least the living room.
A beautiful vision of plastic bins and labels danced in her head, and for a minute, she almost felt better.
“Help yourself to whatever you see in the fridge,” Cricket said as they passed the kitchen. “And don’t worry about glasses, I usually just use the Solo cups above the fridge. I hate doing dishes, you know?”
Oh God.
They continued forward, down the short hallway and past the bathroom to an open doorway.
“Ta-da!” Cricket said, waving jazz hands toward the waiting room. “What do you think?”
Anne tried not to cringe as she surveyed the fairy lights that hung from the ceiling, the remnants of stickers along the walls.
But at least there was a bed! And a dresser!
That was a plus, right? Of course, the dresser was missing its bottom drawer.
And the room appeared to be missing a window, too.
“It’s great,” Anne said.
Okay, maybe not great, but it could work.
It had to. She couldn’t start looking for an apartment until she had a job, even though she technically had a job—it was just on hiatus at the moment.
But once the show came back, she would still be stuck looking for a new place to live with a minuscule salary, and—
Nope, no spiraling today. She had somewhere to live; that’s all that mattered right now.
The first item on her plan could be ticked off.
Tomorrow she would unpack her things and organize, then she could focus on finding a job—something to tide her over until the show came back, anyway. It was all under control.
“I’m just across the hall if you need anything, so…” Cricket turned and caught Anne’s expression. “Something wrong?”
Just my hopes. My dreams. My life.
Anne pushed the thought away and forced a smile. “Just thinking about all the unpacking I have to do.”
Cricket’s expression lit up again. “So exciting! I would love to help, but I have to get ready for rehearsal. Then I need to go and hang up those posters around the neighborhood. Oh, you’re coming to the play, right?
We’re opening in a few weeks, and I really need the energy of the crowd behind me, you know? So I can really feel my character.”
“I thought you were an understudy?” Anne asked.
“I am, but you never know when you’ll be called upon. That’s theater. Speaking of which, do you have any body glitter? All the understudies have to bring their own.”
Anne narrowed her eyes at her, trying to judge if she was serious. “I’m all out.”
Cricket sighed as she turned toward her room. “That’s okay. I’ll pick some up when I head out.”
Anne waited until she heard Cricket’s door shut, then she fell back onto the mattress.
The springs let out a low, anguished wheeze just as the first chords of Taylor Swift’s “Anti-Hero” blared out from behind Cricket’s bedroom door.
It was so loud Anne almost missed the sharp knock at the front door, followed by Bev’s voice bellowing, “TURN IT DOWN.”
This is fine, Anne told herself as a kernel of panic lodged in her chest. After all, it was temporary.
She just needed some earplugs. Maybe a few candles.
That could help with the smell, too—which was definitely patchouli and not weed, right?
Right. Once she got out of these old sweats and jumped in the shower, she would feel better.
It was amazing what a conditioning mask could do.
She almost believed it.
Her phone let out a ping in her hand and she looked down to see her father’s message on the screen.
DAD
Is it asking too much to get an update or do I have to drive back to the city to find out where my furniture is?
And just like that, her tenuous morale deflated to nothing.
It would be easy to ignore the text, but she had learned from years of managing her father’s company that the longer you ignored Walter Elliot, the more attention he demanded until it became impossible to get anything done.
This would only be compounded by the fact that he was currently without his personal belongings while trying to acclimate to his new loft apartment in Brooklyn.
ANNE
They picked up the furniture from storage at 9am.
They should be in Brooklyn by noon.
DAD
So I’m just supposed to wait around all day??
ANNE
If they’re not there by noon, we can call.
DAD
By that point my furniture could be floating in New York Harbor!
An array of responses flew through Anne’s mind, but in the end she just put her phone on silent and leaned back into the mattress again.
She knew she should get in the shower, but at that moment, all she could do was lie there and stare up at where someone had put a collection of glow-in-the-dark star stickers on the ceiling, and wonder what else could possibly go wrong.
Another sharp knock echoed down the hallway from the front door. Anne almost called out to Cricket to tell her Bev was getting angry, but then she remembered that this was her home now—at least for a little while. Surely, she could answer the door.
She stood, using her forearm to push some of her blond hair from her sweaty face, then headed down the short hallway and swung the door open.
“I’m sorry, Bev. I—”
But it wasn’t Bev.
There was a man there waiting, his head bent down to look at his phone. Tall, in a well-tailored suit, with brown hair that was slightly mussed. Then he turned to face her, revealing a smile she hadn’t seen in eight years.
Freddie Wentworth.
For a split second, she forgot she was covered in sweat and dust. Or that her hair was unwashed and sticking to her forehead, or that her sweatpants were awkwardly riding up her ankles.
For that split second, she was twenty-two again and life wasn’t really that bad because Freddie was there, his green eyes crinkling at the corners, an easy smile turning up his lips.
But it was only a split second.
That’s how long it seemed to take him to recognize her. That’s when his smile faded, and suddenly the reality of the here and now crashed into her with mortifying clarity. Her hair, her clothes, the way his eyes traveled across it all and seemed to critique every detail.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” he replied slowly, his brow furrowed.
She had never seen him in a suit before, and her pulse tripped at the altered view, how it sharpened the lines of his now-broad shoulders and accentuated his height. His dark hair was shorter now, so she could see the stern line of his brow.
She opened her mouth to say something, but it just hung there gaping for a long moment.
“Hi,” she repeated. It sounded almost offhand, like the word was a reflex while her brain tried to make sense of the last thirty seconds. “What are you doing here?”
“I live here,” he replied.
Somewhere in her brain, she recognized that voice—she had dreamed about it over the past eight years—but now it was missing some key component. The warmth, the light tinge that made it sound like he was always just a few moments away from laughter.
A thousand different questions swirled in her head. Her brain desperately grasped at them, trying to formulate at least one into a coherent string of words. Maybe then she could think of what else to say, ask what he meant, and why—
“Is that Freddie?” Cricket’s voice called down the hall. Anne could hear her bounding toward them until Cricket’s body slid in beside her own in the doorway. “Freddie! I totally forgot you were stopping by today.”
From the lip gloss to the low-cut leotard Cricket was now wearing, Anne doubted very much that she had forgotten. But whether Freddie knew that or not didn’t seem to matter.
Cricket sighed and leaned against the doorframe. “How are you?”
Freddie’s gaze bounced between Cricket and Anne, his confusion creating a deep crease between his eyebrows.
“Oh my gosh, I’m so rude!” Cricket let out a bubbly laugh. “Freddie, this is my roommate, Anne.”
His gaze snapped to Anne again. She was ready to offer a yet-to-be-conceived excuse as to why she was living with a twenty-two-year-old wearing a leotard at noon on a Tuesday, but then Cricket continued.
“Anne, this is Freddie. He’s the one who bought your dad’s apartment.”
No. No no no. This wasn’t happening.
A heavy silence swallowed them up as Freddie stared at her.
Anne’s mouth fell open again. But to say what?
There was no way he knew that he had just bought her old apartment.
How could he? She’d never had the courage to invite him over; all she had told him during the course of their relationship was that she lived on Avenue A.
Even if he had suspected—which she highly doubted, considering the expression on his face right now—he couldn’t possibly have assumed she would still be here.
Eight years was a long time, and when they last spoke, she had big plans that should have left this place far behind.
Should have. God, that was becoming the mantra of her life.
“Good to see you, Freddie,” she finally said.
He nodded, his jaw tight. “You, too.”
“Wait.” Cricket’s lips made a bow. “Do you two know each other?”
“We were at NYU together,” Anne replied quickly. She was working hard to maintain a smile, but it felt thin across her face as she met Freddie’s gaze again.
“Right,” he replied. His expression was unreadable.
“Oh my gosh, that’s insane!” Cricket said, batting a hand against Anne’s arm. “And to think, you literally just moved the last of your things out of there. How crazy that you both didn’t know!”
“So crazy,” he said, his tone flat.
Anne wanted to crawl under a piece of furniture and die.
Cricket laughed for a little too long. “You’re so funny!”
“I try,” he said, flashing her a tight smile. “Well, I have painters arriving soon, so about those keys…”
“Oh! Right.” Cricket turned and grabbed a manila envelope off the entry table along with a set of keys, then handed both to him. “There’s the key to the apartment, and the key card for the roof.”
“Thanks,” he said, taking it.
“I also put my number in there, in case you have any problems. Or you need someone to take you around the neighborhood. I can show you where to get the best cup of coffee.” Cricket shrugged, as if the idea had just come to her.
Anne averted her eyes, but they only ended up landing on Freddie again. He wasn’t looking at her anymore, but somehow that was worse. Like he wouldn’t acknowledge her at all.
“We should let him go, Cricket,” Anne cut in, her hand gripping the doorknob so tightly she thought she might break it. “I’m sure he’s anxious to go up and get settled.”
“Right!” Cricket said with a satisfied sigh. “Well, welcome to the building, Freddie! And call if you need anything!”
He nodded to her before he looked at Anne again.
A million different words ran through Anne’s mind, along with a million different ways to put them together.
She could ask how he was, what he had been doing, tell him how much she had wondered about him over the past eight years.
But in the end, none of that mattered, did it?
Because, from the way he was glaring at her, she knew he didn’t care either way.
“It was really good to see you, Freddie,” she said, forcing yet another smile. One that would mask how her heart sank with the realization.
Then she closed the door.