Chapter Fourteen
FOURTEEN
I celebrate Thanksgiving with a day-old turkey sub from the Eagle’s Nest convenience store, washed down with a questionably cranberry-flavored sparkling water; a phone call from my mom in which she mostly complains about the drive to Florida and how my dad tried to stick to a strict schedule of stops that left her car sick; and a true-crime-inspired murder mystery on Netflix that creeps me out to the point of insisting that Bing Bong sleep in my room, because an eleven-pound orange tabby who loves everyone is better than no protection at all.
The rest of the week, both before and after the holiday, proceeds relatively smoothly.
I finish a draft of almost the entire first chapter of my dissertation (which I choose to celebrate, despite the fact that it’s only so-so, and I’m about four chapters short of where I need to be).
I get regular texts from Fisher to check in.
He sends reports on ski conditions and his friends’ antics, and just this morning, a selfie in front of the lodge fireplace; he’s wearing a t-shirt with a tortured pun on the front about pie and π.
Planning to get one more run in
before hitting the road
Home tonight by dinnertime
Can’t wait to see you
The Fisher is texting … bubble appears, then disappears. A few seconds later, one final message pops up.
How can one tiny heart emoji make my own actual heart leap?
I don’t want to read too much into it. But Fisher is not an emoji person. So it has to mean something, right? Unless maybe his thumb slipped on his keyboard and somehow landed on—
No. I am not going to play coy with myself. He likes me. I didn’t need a heart emoji to tell me that, but I’m glad I have it. And obviously, I like him, too. A lot.
So, should I send one back?
I hesitate over the keyboard, my armpits prickling with sweat like a lovesick girl. But it feels so fast. An invitation to court disaster. Before things can spin out of control, I tuck my phone into my bag beside my laptop and head for the Grind.
The coffee shop is quiet; most of the students won’t return for finals week until tomorrow.
But it feels good to be out of the house.
I order a pumpkin spice latte—“last one of the season,” the barista warns me with a smile—and take over my usual table near the back.
I’ve made progress with the Great File Reorganization Project, but there’s still more to do and caffeine always helps.
The first three gibberish files open to reveal undergraduate papers that would have been no great loss, but I dutifully rename them and save them to their new proper places.
The fourth is a draft of an application letter for a job I didn’t even want, and that one, I simply delete.
File five takes a moment to open, which either means there’s something wrong with it or it’s something large.
I can’t imagine what it could be. And then, the first words appear.
Chapter 1
For a young woman of no fortune and few prospects, Elinor Bishop had given shockingly little thought to marriage.
Oh, my God. It’s the historical romance I started writing the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college. It has to be bad.
Well, not bad bad, I concede after reading a few pages. Mediocre.
My fingers move and the cursor hovers over the little X to close the document. I do not need to get sidetracked.
A dialogue box pops up in the center of the screen, because new and improved Elle has enabled autosave and automatic file backup.
Update filename, it prompts. I type HorridNovel as a sort of Austen-inspired inside joke.
Save changes? Y/N
I hesitate, shifting the cursor between options before choosing yes. Not that I’m intending to take it up again, of course. I have better things to do.
“Hard at work, I see!”
I jump guiltily and push my computer halfway across the table before looking up to see Geoff smiling down.
“Did I interrupt something important?” he asks.
“No, not at all.” With a flick of my wrist, I close the lid on my laptop. “How have you been? I, um, I hope your family is well?” I’ll admit I’m still a little curious about his excuse for his abrupt disappearance from class last month.
He looks pleased by my concern, and I feel a little embarrassed by my earlier assumption he’d made the whole thing up. “Yes, thank you. Bit of a rough patch, but I think we’re well through it now.”
He’s carrying a to-go cup; the tag of a teabag dangles from the side. He doesn’t ask to sit down and I don’t invite him. “So how was the mixer?”
In a show of indifference, I shrug, though secretly I’m heartened that tales of my humiliation haven’t yet made the rounds. “It had its moments,” I say, remembering my dance with Fisher. “I thought you said you were going to go.”
Surprise flickers into his expression. “Well, once you’d mentioned Davis, I didn’t see much point.” His blue eyes bore into mine. “Did I misunderstand?”
I cut my gaze away, because all I can think about is that red heart emoji and I do not want to blush.
“I take it he disappointed you,” Geoff says, completely misreading my non-response. “I wish I could say I was surprised.”
I take a sip of my latte, square my laptop to the edge of the table. “You don’t know Fisher as well as you think you do,” I say, still refusing to meet his eye.
He sighs. “I wonder … do you?”
What the hell kind of question is that?
Then he straightens his posture. “I should leave you to work. Take care, Elle.”
Before the bell above the door chimes signaling his exit, I’ve lifted the lid on my laptop and gone back to work sorting and deleting files.
Work today so I can enjoy my reward tonight—that’s my new philosophy.
I’m not going to let Geoff and Fisher’s bad blood with one another spoil my anticipation for the evening ahead.
A little more than an hour later, as dusk is starting to fall and I’m thinking of packing up and heading home, I feel my bag vibrating where it sits beside me on the bench.
My first thought is a phone call, but I quickly realize it’s notifications, like you’d get with a string of incoming texts. A chain of heart emojis, perhaps?
Ooh, maybe Fisher got home early.
I riffle through my bag for my phone and unearth it. Eleven messages? From the same unrecognized number? I’d just delete them, but it reminds me a little too much of the setup of that creepy movie. I click on the latest notification and realize they’re all from Geoff.
Sorry for spamming you
It seems impossible you could
really be in the dark
But just in case …
I thought you should know
As I scroll upward, I see that all the rest of the messages are links to articles. I’d like nothing better than to ignore them. But enough of them pop up with preview pictures, I can’t.
Because the subject of every one of those pictures—every one of these articles—is Fisher. Or, to give him his proper name (apparently), Fisher Davis III.
Every swipe of my thumb brings a fresh assault of headlines:
Davis Group Heir Named Tri-State’s Most Eligible Bachelor
Reel Me In: Beauties Vie for Davis’s Eye
All This and Brains Too—Yale Rowing Star’s Smartest Workout Tips
And as for the pictures? Fisher in a tux, or heading to a club, or dressed for the gym and trying to hide his face beneath a ball cap. Usually alone, but not always. Oh, not always.
I’ve rolled my eyes at a million such pictures and stories in my life, while scrolling BeeSocial or waiting in line at the grocery store. I never imagined actually knowing—to say nothing of having slept with—the kind of person those posts and tabloid articles are written about.
I follow one link and read all about Davis Investment Group and its president and CEO Fisher Davis, Jr., whose net worth has a whole lot of zeroes at the end.
Ever since the day Fisher told me his dad bought a house in Grantham for him to live in, rather than paying rent, I’ve known his family had money—more than mine, anyway, which isn’t saying a lot.
And I’ve always known he was smart; smart in a way the world values and will always see as smarter than someone getting a degree in the humanities, digital or otherwise.
In short, even without the clean vs. messy, calm and collected vs.
chaotic duality we’ve got going, there was ample fodder for my not-so-secret worry that he was out of my league.
But what I’m seeing now is clear evidence that we’re not just talking intramurals vs. pros. We’re talking different sports entirely.
He’s playing for team celebrity, with paparazzi cheerleaders and a 10,000 square foot apartment in Manhattan as well as a waterfront mansion in Connecticut.
Like a flashback montage in some painfully unoriginal movie, memories carousel through my mind: how quickly we were seated at the crowded sushi restaurant, Bill’s eagerness to make a good impression, Geoff’s face the first time he heard Fisher’s name.
A scrawny tech nerd who doesn’t know how to talk to girls? Ha!
This is a guy who could have anything—anyone—he wants.
I stuff everything in my bag and hurry from the coffee shop.
It’s dark now, and it feels forty degrees colder than it did earlier in the day, though it’s probably more like ten.
A drizzly rain is falling, and you get the sense it could change to snow with very little effort.
But you also know it won’t change, because snow would be pretty and why would the powers that be do anything to make the world a slightly less miserable place?
Sometimes I fucking hate the Midwest.
Eyes to the ground, I walk at a brisk pace to keep myself from feeling the cold (though the fury bubbling inside me certainly ought to be enough to keep me warm). Though I don’t consciously have a destination in mind, I’m not exactly surprised to end up at 804 Elm Street.
Fisher’s large front porch is bare except for the wooden swing, in stark contrast to his neighbors, whose houses are either all decked out with bales of straw and pots of chrysanthemums and big, bright orange pumpkins, or who have already transitioned to tasteful Dickensian Christmas complete with white twinkle lights.
I’m breathless at the realization that everything here—the quaint small town, the school, even me—is nothing more to him than a fling with normalcy. I don’t blame him for wanting the experience, I guess, but understanding the reality doesn’t make it hurt any less.
Though the house is dark, I climb the wide stone steps and raise the old-fashioned brass door knocker, which is in the shape of an eagle’s talons gripping a ball. No one answers, so I sit down on the porch swing and settle in to wait for Fisher to get home.