16. Hailey
“Four weeks.” My aunt sits to my right on my blue velvet sofa that matches my blue velvet walls. A box of invitations sits on her left, a box of envelopes on her lap, and a box of gold leaf inserts waits on her right.
Four weeks.
It’s been four weeks since my world went sideways, and my insides quiver as though it happened four minutes ago.
“Four weeks until we schmooze with the who’s who of New York society.” Nat fans herself with a piece of gold filigree. “I can hardly wait.”
“Can hardly wait to raise money for a good cause, right?” Astor perches on an antique chair with clawed arms and feet in front of me with her laptop on the small, matching clawed-footed breakfast table. Her face pokes from behind the screen and hikes a severe brow at my aunt.
“Absolutely.” Nat ruffles the thin gold at Astor. “I would never minimize Hay Bale’s passion project.” She blows me a kiss, then slips her gaze back to my friend. “Being excited to reconnect with friends I haven’t spoken to in a year is icing on the cake.” My aunt goes back to stuffing envelopes. “Besides, I’m not getting any younger. Some of these friends won’t be around for many more celebrations.”
“Way to bring down a room.” Astor snorts, still clacking away at the guest list.
“It’s not sad. Getting old is a privilege. Dying is part of living,” Nat pontificates.
“Subject change,” I beg, crouching over my homemade poster board mock-up of the venue, complete with tables, chairs, bars, entrances, and emergency exits, the silent auction displays, and a stage complete with a mini band. My lead singer even has a Mohawk, and his bandmates have full-body tattoos. None of them are wearing clothes, but I haven’t gotten desperate enough to draw their anatomical parts, just yet.
“Arlo Judge.” Astor has the good sense to wince before I say anything. In fact, she doesn’t let me get an are-you-fucking-kidding-me in before trudging ahead. “He’s been on the invite list for the past five years.”
“And he’s been a no-show the past five years. What better time to mark him off? Give the seat to someone on the waiting list,” I decree.
“Not so fast.” Nat leans forward. The box of envelopes teeter precariously on her thighs. “He attended last year.”
“He did not,” I counter.
“Did so,” she spits back. “How do you think he knew you were a therapist?”
My gaze narrows on my aunt. If my eyes were darts, she’d be dead or tranquilized at the very least.
“We had a nice chat. He was there celebrating his friend’s first night away from her baby,” Nat explains as though she shouldn’t have mentioned this months ago when the man in question’s application came through my office.
Astor scrunches her nose. “That’s a thing people celebrate?”
“The baby was a year and a half back then and had hardly left the woman’s tits.” Nat grabs her own breasts. “If you ask me, it was long overdue.”
“What exactly did you two talk about?” I sharpen my already pointed stare.
“I can’t remember all of it.” I whittle the point again. “It was a year ago…but he was impressed with the party and that it was actually raising a good chunk of money for a worthwhile cause. Not the arts.”
“What’s wrong with the arts?” Astor balks.
“That’s what I asked. He said nothing, but making sure people have safe places to land is a hell of a lot more important than making sure they have advanced pottery classes in school.” Nat shrugs. “That’s when I told him that my niece would love him.”
“You what?” I squeak.
“Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” She waves me off. “We talked about your love of the cause and how you two should meet. Then he told me that he wasn’t what you were looking for, that he had issues, and I told him you’d like him even better then because helping people was your main passion in life.”
The more she talked, the more I hid behind my hands. “You didn’t think mentioning this was at all important, especially when he came to see me as a patient?”
“Why would it matter?” Nat stuffs an envelope. “He was just a beautiful man I spoke with, who was taken with you and your causes.”
“So off the list?” Astor asks.
“He and his table raised more than a million dollars that night.” My aunt tosses the ready envelope into a pile with a flourish.
Astor and I lock eyes immediately, me through the spaces between my fingers.
Another million dollars?
I blink and blink some more.
“He’s staying on the list, along with all of his friends,” Astor announces.
There’s nothing I can say. It’s more money for a good cause, no matter my stupid feelings about the man. Besides, he probably won’t even attend.
“Subject change,” I beg again. “And this time, it better be a good one.”
“I think your cat is plotting my murder.” Astor looks into the far corner of the room.
A much safer topic.
Two windows join to form the most spectacular view of Central Park. Plinko sits on his custom-made window perch between them. That way, he gets morning and afternoon sun. His grizzled little ears are cockeyed on his head, and he does have a die-stupid-bitch-die stare going.
“He has resting murderer face.” I begin adding floral arrangements to tables. “Also, it’s your fault.”
“That he has RMF?” Astor chokes.
“That he’s here, contemplating all the ways he could take you out.” Damn, there are a lot of tables. My hand starts to cramp.
“You love that mangy thing.” Nat puckers and blows him a big kiss.
He meows, and I have to bank the urge to grab him up and smother him to my chest. I smile at him, though. That damn cat has proven to be the grounding force in my life over the past few weeks. Four, to be exact.
The night I came home, deleted my Crave app, called and froze my membership, and cried myself to sleep, Plinko wedged himself between my boobs and didn’t move until I had to pee the next morning.
I’m pretty sure he’s thrilled that I have the gala planning to toss myself into. He’s swatted me a time or two for smothering him.
“I can’t believe you already have all the silent auction items in storage,” Nat marvels. “And you received almost double what you’ve had every other year.”
Astor jerks her head in my direction as though she wants to say something, but I don’t look at her. I perfect my petals and leaves on another table’s arrangement.
“And you’re still looking for more?” My aunt adds another envelope to the packed pile, and then relaxes back as though she’s the one who’s been scouring the city every evening over the past few weeks looking for auction items.
“Just one.” I straighten and crack my back. “I want a wow piece. Some kind of art. Sculpture, maybe, or a large oil painting.”
“The crystal vase worth more than my condo isn’t wow enough?” Astor gapes.
I shrug. It’s over the top, I know. But it’s been my outlet, and it’ll be fully planned in another week. Since I’ve been heading it for the past three years, I have everything down to a science. There’s not much left to do. Then what the hell will occupy my free time? My hands begin to shake.
“Who wants a drink?” Nat gracefully rises from the couch, careful not to disturb her work.
“A drink?” Astor goes bug-eyed. “It’s eleven o’clock, Natalia.” Her head shakes. “I could go for a snack, though.”
“Do you have anything to eat here?” My aunt heads past the wall of painted blue closet doors stretching from the floor to the high ceiling, and down the long hallway, lined with closets, toward the kitchen.
“I have a ton, actually,” I call after her. I’ve been eating my feelings too. Hiding them. Ignoring them. Brushing them off.
“When are you coming back?”
My shoulders fall. I knew the second Nat was out of earshot, Astor would be on me about therapy. Of course, I gave her the rundown when I couldn’t get out of bed when Monday rolled around after that dreadful weekend.
What he had done wasn’t all that bad.
Divided into three entities—donor, partner, and patient—he made me experience emotions I hadn’t ever expected or wanted to feel. As one singular man…Fucking hell. The feelings he evoked left me trembling and incapable of rational thought or simple function.
“After the gala.” I give her a big smile.
“Try again?”
My smile widens. “I will, after the gala.”
She turns her body toward me, rests her elbows on her knees and her chin in her hands, and looks at me on the floor, a ridiculous pile of baggy sweats and a poof of knotted hair on the top of my head. It’s Saturday, and she has on sweats too, but hers are a whole lot less wrinkled and likely smell better too. She probably put them on this morning, as opposed to the second she walked in the door from work yesterday, like I did.
“Have you spoken to him?”
“No.”
“Seen him?”
“No.”
“Do you want to?”
“Astor.” I jump up from the floor and stalk to the window. “I can’t.”
“Why not? He’s no longer your patient. And when he was, you didn’t do anything wrong. You didn’t know.”
Maybe I’d overreacted when I called her screaming about losing my license. There was one example of the irrational thought he provoked.
“You know why.” I stuff my hands into the deep pouch of my hoodie and practically snarl.
“I don’t,” she corrects. “Because you haven’t told me.”
I stare at the specks of people moving about their life with no clue what a fucking scary place surrounds them. They’re oblivious to how one second everything is fine, and then the next, nothing will ever be that way again.
Never.
And he made me feel as close to fine as I’ve ever been…since.
“He coaxed me across boundaries I never thought I’d cross. He made me speak during sex. He made me hate my blindfold. He made me want more.”
My friend smiles as though I just told her great news. “Monday, noon, my office, no excuses.”
“Make me.” I grin.
My aunt’s heels clack on the parquet floor in the hall.
Astor grins back. Her thick brows waggle, and her eyes shine with mischief. “Does Nat know you’re the one who stole her vintage Dior handbag, gifted to her by Yves Saint-Laurent himself?”
“Borrowed,” I whisper.
“Are you planning to return it?”
“Return what?” Nat asks, always the Nosy Nelly.
My friend bats her lashes and smiles at me.
“A bag I borrowed from Astor.” I flip her the bird when Nat’s back is turned, setting down a tray of fruit, cheese, and crackers. “I’ll bring it to you Monday.”