Chapter 45
Mallory
Tuesday Morning
Five Days After the Outing
As the first pellets rattle against the bowl bearing his name, Harley scampers toward Mallory, the routine already ingrained.
She bought the dry food at the store in Harvard Square. She couldn’t stomach the raw chicken nuggets. (Not to mention opening
a freezer.) The way Harley rears up on his hind legs in greedy anticipation seems a sure sign that he doesn’t miss them.
Not in the way he appears to miss Grayson. The swivel of his head at the jangle of keys, the slight whimper at a deep male
voice, the energy that never seems to completely settle down even when she lets him curl up against her, which she’s done
more and more each night as she wills herself to fall asleep. To shut all of this out.
She ran from the police. And her father made it okay.
Well, not okay, but he bought her time. Grief, he’d said, at his slip of Grayson being dead.
He used the thing she’s feeling, the thing she wouldn’t label herself, to reschedule the police interview for Friday, for the day after AIM goes public—a scheduling courtesy often doled out to the wealthy and connected, the latter of which Mallory has thanks to her dad.
From what she’s seen, he’d do anything for her—even go on the run with her.
She’s not even sure Ilena would do that.
For now, all she can do is wait. She’s living in limbo. She’s never lived in limbo, not once in the life she can remember,
but she’s out of ideas and exhausted.
Mallory ups the volume on the TV as a solemn Shandy Shane in a short-sleeved black sweater and black pants addresses the camera
with the gleam of having an exclusive in her eye.
“This morning, I greet you with some grave news.” Shandy brings a hand to her throat. She pats, twice, before, slowly, refocusing on the camera. “Apologies. But it is a shock, still, as I am sure it will be to you at home. Grayson Fields, the devilishly handsome, brilliant
entrepreneur with the start-up Midas touch, was to sit here, right beside me—” she glances to her right, swallowing audibly “—in a mere two days. After his beloved AIM went public. I am sorry to say we will not get to meet Grayson Fields because
Grayson Fields . . . is dead.”
A photograph of Grayson in a black tux. His smile radiates through the screen, and Mallory goes numb.
“You heard that right. But, and this is the kick in your hot pants, folks. We have learned that a police investigation is underway. Lips are tight regarding
any foul play or suspects, but we know one place that police are taking aim.”
Air quotes. She actually uses air quotes with “aim.”
A still of Mallory outside her office yesterday takes over the screen. She looks terrified. She looks guilty.
“Deemed an informational interview, officially, caught on film only by The Shandy Shane Show.”
The image widens to include Aubrey and Ella and Noreen with Mallory’s dad, Officer Middlebury, and the younger male officer
in the background.
“I’m sure we’re all wondering how this bombshell will affect the multibillion-dollar valuation of the Wall Street darling AIM. Which up until now has managed to elude the scandals and greed turning tech into blech.”
Another photograph appears. Mallory in that grape jumpsuit, arms around a very alive Grayson. At the bottom of the photo is
a tag from a social media influencer. In the background is a path of crushed oyster shells and a giant Jenga. The summer outing,
so similar to the one in her world. Except here, the embrace she and Grayson are in appears warm, loving even, with none of
the animosity burning in her gut.
“Whatever happens you can be sure that today, at AIM, no one is smiling, wide or otherwise.”
Mallory shuts off the TV, leaving the only sound the scraping of Harley’s snout against his dish as he searches for crumbs—a
sound she no longer minds. She’s not going to work today, marking the first day she’s not gone into AIM in three years. No
vacations, no sick days, no mental health days to frolic in the ocean that’s frigid even in August. Her mental health has
always been maintained perfectly fine by going to work.
Her phone rings, lighting up with a photograph of her father. She has his chin. If she’d never been brought here, she’d have
never known. Maybe he’s calling because he saw the news story or maybe he’s calling to warn her of an impending arrest. Mallory
declines the call.
She falls into the couch, not modern and firm like the one the exorbitant designer she’d hired had picked out, but soft and
lumpy and teal and furry like a goddamn Muppet with too many pillows. Mallory can’t get comfortable in it. She can’t get comfortable
here. She has a childhood home not bordering the subway, a papa bear blind to her faults, a company seemingly honestly valued
at more than two billion dollars with nary a glitch in sight, a best friend pregnant with the child she’s long wanted, another
not bereft from her fiancé’s death. This Mallory’s life is better. (Save for the whole possibly being a murderer thing.)
She doesn’t care. She wants her life. And not because of the whole possibly being a murderer thing. (Well, perhaps not only because of the whole possibly being a murderer thing.)
She wants it because she wouldn’t be who she is without it. The good (Ilena, Aubrey, AIM), the bad (lying to Ilena, to Aubrey,
to everyone about AIM), and everything in between (swearing off lavender panties and then buying nothing but lavender; building
a business on four hours of sleep; suffering through disastrous pitch meeting after disastrous pitch meeting until she could
nail them on no sleep; innuendos and wads of cash from investors; breaking the glass ceiling with little regard to where the
shards fell because they led to a hundred employees and partnerships with the likes of Reese Witherspoon and Michelle Obama;
believing she could be something and becoming that something alongside Ilena and Aubrey).
This Mallory might have done some of that, maybe all of it, but not the way Mallory did for a million reasons and one—one
that Mallory could actually try to understand. She grabs her phone and returns the missed call.
“Oh, MallieMoo,” her father says, infusing every syllable with worry. “This is all just . . . why is ‘pickle sandwich’ the
only thing I can think of?”
Because you are the human equivalent of Harley.
He exhales a heavy breath. “I’m sorry. How’s that? I’m terribly sorry that all this is happening.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Listen, we’ll sort through it, piece by piece, work it out—”
Could he be any more cliché?
This is on her. Did she honestly think he would have some answer to what the universe has done to her? “Right, sure. Sounds—”
His words drown out hers. “—together. Just like we did when we had to retrace our steps to find the stuffed seal you lost in Disney World, and when we realized listening to audiobooks would help with your dyslexia, and when you thought you’d never get into Harvard because you’d assumed you flubbed the essay on what captivates you when you said ‘yourself.’”
She can’t help but smile at that last one. This Mallory’s wardrobe is still bananas, but maybe the two of them have more in
common than she thought. “Those aren’t exactly at the same level as this.”
“They are to me. Because you were hurting, same as you are now. The hardest thing for a father to do is to see his little
girl in pain.”
Papa. Bear.
And yet, wouldn’t her mom in her world say the same?
“Addendum,” he says, “see his little girl in pain and not be able to fix it.”
A queasiness flips her stomach. He can’t make this all go away. Part of her believed—hoped?—that he could. That he would.
“You can’t, then, fix it?” she says, almost in a whisper.
“Not something this big, baby girl.”
“But you would, if you could?”
“I’d want to. Course, then I’d have your mom screaming in my ear that even if I could, I shouldn’t. Because we raised you
right.”
Does that imply her mom didn’t?
He adds, “We raised you to be able to handle whatever life throws at you.”
So that’s actually a “no” to going on the run with her.
Mallory blurts out, “Like you did? With Mom?”
“That’s private, Mallory, but yes. We all screw up. We all have to make amends. You know I have.”
But I don’t.
“Listen, MallieMoo, life’s complicated. Like this situation you’re in. But you know the way out, don’t you?”
Not really.
He continues, “It’s what your mom did, even if it took her a bit to get there.”
She draws in a breath and waits for him to finish.
“Tell the truth.”
The bluntness of his words hits like whiplash. Maybe this is his way of hinting that he knows Noreen didn’t actually frame
anyone. “So spill all?” she says, hunting. “No matter the consequences?”
“As long as you’ve done all you can to cushion anyone who might get hurt. And you have what you need to deal with those consequences.”
“And what’s that?”
“Family. Which you have in spades.”
A text comes in from Ilena, asking to be let in.
“I do,” Mallory says, “we both do.”
“Aw, MallieMoo, now you’re going to make an old man cry.”
She had meant herself and this Mallory. But his interpretation is right too. “Well, just don’t go dehydrating yourself because
I’m going to need you.” She hears him choke back the moisture that must actually be forming, and damned if it doesn’t start
to incite the same in her. “And . . . Dad? I’m lucky to have you.”
She hangs up before he can say anything back. She knows how he feels. But hearing it seems like too much of an invasion of
privacy for all of them.
Mallory swallows and heaves herself out of the lumpy couch just as Harley flips his bowl over, scaring himself. She scoops
up the trembling dog, opens the door to her condo, and waits just inside as two sets of feet echo up the stairwell. Ilena
and her inflated stomach stand in front of a waxen-faced Aubrey.
“We have to go back,” Ilena says without any preamble.
Mallory wonders if this is some trick. Ilena wouldn’t wear a wire, would she? “So I’ve been saying.”
“So now I’m agreeing.”
“Then you’ve found the portal, time machine, wormhole, universe Uber to take us there?”
“Yes.”
Mallory snorts, but Ilena doesn’t laugh. “You’re serious?” She looks around Ilena to Aubrey. “She’s serious?”
“She’s Ilena,” Aubrey says.
Our Ilena.
Who was going to leave AIM. Without cushioning anyone.
Mallory clutches Harley tighter, her dad’s words about consequences echoing in her head. “Everything we left will still be
there. All the problems. Everything we did and didn’t do . . .” Mallory looks into Ilena’s eyes, searching, making sure she
truly wants to go back to that world. With Jonah, without this baby, with AIM in peril. If the glitch is exposed, they’ll
lose everything. Mallory will lose everything. She’ll lose the self she became because of AIM. The money and the prestige and the designer clothes
and the guest spots on Top Chef and the money, the money, did she mention the money? She’d be back where she started, in her small bedroom in her mom’s apartment,
stripped of the armor that made the no father and no partner and no goddamn furball of a dog okay. Even if the glitch never
comes out, she still loses because she’ll know that in another world, her company hit the same milestones honestly. A lie—that’s
the world she’s returning to. That’s the risk she’s taking. But Ilena and Aubrey are taking risks too. They’re losing too.
Ilena steps into Mallory’s condo. “We get a second chance, not at all of it, but maybe enough of it. I’m not turning that
down.”
Aubrey gives a hesitant nod as she follows Ilena into the living room.
And Mallory lets her fingers massage Harley’s stomach, exhaling all that’s weighing her down. Who’s framing who for murder, Mack Weldon, Officer Middlebury’s sunglasses, her parents’ sexagenarian foreplay, Grayson. If she gets home, it will all be someone else’s problem.
You can’t expect to keep lying without consequences.
In Mallory’s arms, Harley releases a barely perceptible whine, and unexpected tears spark in her eyes. Ilena’s words aren’t
the same as her father’s, but the combination along with this ridiculous stuffie of a dog finally make them ring true.
She tucks her chin to the furry orange head. “I’ll fix it,” she whispers. “I’ll set things right. And I’m sorry.” He lets
out one more whimper, and her heart breaks just a little. (Actually, a lot.)