Chapter 18
Freddie opened his refrigerator for the fifth time in ten minutes and, sure enough, it offered up the same view. Neat piles of Tupperware, each labeled with his mom’s clear handwriting. Pumpkin risotto. Sliced turkey. Sausage stuffing. Scalloped potatoes.
The day before had been the familiar mayhem of every other Wentworth Thanksgiving.
His parents’ house in Queens was already bursting with activity when he had arrived that morning—his mom in the kitchen fretting about the ziti, while his dad fried the turkey out back.
Sophie stuffing mushrooms and detailing her plans for the new floral shop with their Aunt Susan, who was reading a People magazine aloud.
He had barely said his hellos before he was pulled to put the leaves in the dining table, only to lose the job when his Uncle Gus said he wasn’t securing the latches underneath properly and pushed him out of the way to do it himself.
The scene only became more chaotic when everyone began to arrive for the meal itself.
Soon the Wentworths’ narrow dining room was teeming with two dozen friends and relatives, all talking over one another, passing food in all directions, and raising their glasses at every invitation.
Per usual, the evening wrapped up much later than anyone intended, and Freddie spent the night in his childhood bedroom, trying to ignore the litany of concert posters that had been up since he left eight years ago.
In fact, his parents hadn’t changed anything except the sheets.
His bookshelves by the door were still full of comics and textbooks.
His desk still had his old computer and mouse.
It was an odd time capsule that he usually found funny, but this time he noticed the bulletin board above his desk, filled to the brim with photos of Anne. His heart lurched.
As soon as the sun was up the next morning, he was out the door, making excuses to leave.
He had a meeting scheduled with George and Mark Segel on Monday and he hadn’t even looked at his proposed contract yet.
To his mom’s credit, she hadn’t pried, only sent him out to his Uber with two huge bags of leftovers and strict instructions for reheating.
He opened the fridge for the sixth time, grabbed a beer from the door, then trudged over to the living room. The deep cushions of his sofa swallowed him up, and for a moment he considered grabbing his laptop and opening Mark’s email.
It was only a moment.
Instead, he turned on the television, flipping through one streaming service and then another, trying to find something to drown out the nebulous anxiety. After a few minutes he landed on SportsCenter and leaned back, forcing himself to listen to the commentators and turn off his brain.
BANG.
The sound rang through the apartment so loudly it made Freddie jump.
He stilled, listening to see if he could tell where it came from.
BANG.
The same sound again, but this time it was followed by muffled laughter, a few unintelligible shouts. Then there was the low rumble of furniture being dragged across the floor.
He looked up. It was coming from above him, on the roof deck.
Freddie frowned and turned the television up. They were recapping a football game from earlier in the day, which he hadn’t watched. To be honest, he didn’t even care about the result, but hopefully the play-by-play would drown out the sounds of conversation and laughter now humming from above.
It didn’t.
He groaned as he leaned forward, letting his head fall to his chest. He refused to be that guy who complained about other people having fun that was too loud, too unrestrained.
Hell, he was usually the guy who was at the source of it.
How many times over the last decade had he gotten calls from random front desks around the world, asking to please keep it down?
Even before he left the city, he had reveled in being the life of the party.
He wouldn’t be the one to tell someone else to temper it.
Two minutes later, he turned up the volume on SportsCenter again.
Five minutes later, he was walking out his front door and up the stairs to the roof deck.
He pushed open the metal door, ready to put on his most charming, yet assertive voice, but paused.
The table in the center was surrounded by people, each bundled up in sweaters and coats as they talked and laughed and drank from the numerous bottles plopped in between what looked like Chinese food containers.
It was hard to see exactly who made up the party—not only because of the dimness, but because half the people had their backs to him—but then a familiar face leapt up from the head of the table.
“Freddie!” James called out, clapping. “You made it!”
Everyone at the table turned at once, including the person sitting next to James in the purple sweater and winter hat with a large orange pom on top. Freddie knew it was Anne before they even made eye contact, and he froze in place.
Shit. He had been so wrapped up in distracting himself, he’d totally forgotten about Ellis’s party.
“You heard the chair, didn’t you?” Anne asked.
Then she turned to the table, her tone apologetic as she affected a loud whisper.
Freddie remembered when she used to do that years ago, after she dared to have more than a few sips of a drink and entered the unfamiliar territory of being tipsy.
“If there’s more than two people up here, you can hear everything downstairs in that apartment. The ceiling is so thin and—”
“It’s fine,” Freddie said, waving off her worried concern. And, he was surprised to realize, it was fine. His annoyance had evaporated as soon as he’d seen her. “I just heard a bang and—”
“It was James,” Bev announced. She was sitting across from Anne, slouched down and waving indiscriminately toward the end of the table. “He’s an idiot.”
“Thanks, Bev,” James said, rolling his eyes. “See who defends you the next time one of your decorations falls out the window.”
Anne smiled as she turned back to Freddie. “Sorry. One of the chair legs is broken and keeps tipping over.”
At the other end of the table, Cricket cackled. “You mean the person in it kept tipping over.”
“It was James,” Bev repeated.
Ellis tried to cover his laugh with a cough, while James narrowed his eyes at the whole table.
“I hate all of you,” he said, pointing around the roof. Then he got to Anne and his look of indignation melted away. “Except for you. You’re perfect.”
Anne laughed, then yelped as her chair almost fell over, too.
“Come on, Freddie. Join us,” Ellis said, pouring more wine into everyone’s glasses. The table concurred, laughing and lifting their own glasses, spilling their drinks over the remnants of the Chinese food spread out ahead of them.
Glen stood from where he sat beside a still-laughing Cricket, looking around the roof. “Here, let’s find a chair for you.”
“Oh, I don’t want to put you out…” Freddie started, but it was no use.
The roof was a flurry of activity—James leaping up and sending his chair slamming to the ground again, as Glen directed Ellis to a chair off in the corner and Cricket yelled down the table to Bev to make room.
More shuffling, yelling, and the spare chair was at the table, slotted in next to Bev and across from Anne.
Freddie stole a glance at Anne then. The wine had made her cheeks flushed, and the lights above set off a glint in her eye. Or maybe that had been there before—he wasn’t sure.
“Anne Elliot, are you drinking?”
She turned to him, wineglass hovering near her lips. “No.”
He narrowed his eyes on her and bit back a smile, waiting.
“I’ve had one drink,” she said, rolling her eyes. “But we’re celebrating Ellis’s birthday.”
“Hey. You don’t need an excuse,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender.
Beside him, Bev’s gaze bounced between them until she finally leaned forward.
“You went to college together, didn’t you?” she asked.
They both paused before Freddie finally nodded.
Bev turned to Anne. “Did you two date?”
Anne had been in the middle of a sip of wine and began to cough. Ellis reached over and smacked her back until she released a nervous laugh.
Jesus. Freddie’s mouth fell open even as he tried to work out what to say. Thankfully, James jumped in.
“What even constitutes dating in college?” he asked, waving his wineglass around and leaving splatters of pinot noir all over the table.
Cricket scoffed drunkenly. “What constitutes dating now?”
Glen looked momentarily confused, but didn’t have time to ask any questions before Anne leaned forward, adding another splash of wine to her glass.
“Dating is whatever you want it to be. It’s no one’s business but your own,” she said diplomatically.
Bev cocked an eyebrow at her. “Okay. Are you dating anyone?”
Everyone’s attention was suddenly on Anne, their attention rapt.
“I’m not, no,” she replied, then took another deep sip of her drink. “What about you?”
Bev sighed. “Not since Iggy.”
The chaos of the party overwhelmed them again. James asked Anne for the forks, while Glen passed Ellis another glass of red wine and Cricket directed Beverly to give her the box of the leftover crab Rangoon. The older woman ignored her, though, choosing instead to turn her attention to Freddie.
“You’re handsome,” Beverly said, her voice raspy.
He chuckled. “Thank you.”
“What do you do for a living?” she asked, throwing an arm over the back of her chair so she could face him fully.
“I used to run my own company, but I sold it last year. I haven’t quite figured out what comes next.”
She stared at him for a long moment, studying his expression. “You should model. You have the bone structure for it. Just like my friend Kenneth. He used to model for Andy Warhol.”
“Really?” he asked.
The woman nodded. “They hired him to be a mime at the Electric Circus over on Saint Marks.” Then she paused. “Come to think of it, I haven’t heard from Kenneth since that place exploded.”