Chapter 8
eight
RODRIGO
I’m reeling. The room is spinning. The air has left my lungs.
It’s wrong for me to be affected. I’m a good man, and shouldn’t have been moved.
This is important to me. I want to tell you that I looked at that woman— Billie— across Melissa’s baby shower and registered nothing.
That I filed her away as another guest, another name, another woman holding a pink paper cup.
I want to say that. I cannot say that, because it would be a lie, and whatever else I am, I am not a liar.
So here is the truth:
Billie is beautiful.
Not in the way Alana is beautiful, which is a dangerous, weaponized kind of beauty.
Billie’s beauty is different. It hits you between the eyes before you’ve had time to raise a defense.
Billie is beautiful like water in a desert.
Softer. Unguarded. She has this face that is— I am going to sound ridiculous, and I accept the consequences— she has the face of someone you want to tell the truth to.
Big, dark eyes with these gold flecks in them, genuinely harmless and deeply perceptive.
She reminds me, immediately and entirely against my will, of a baby deer.
A bambi. It’s not an insult. I mean it as a compliment.
There is something about this woman– Billie– that makes me want to keep her safe— but then— she has a strength in her that says she has the power to save me, too.
She doesn’t know she has it. I can tell she doesn’t know, which is somehow the most alarming part of all.
It’s there in the way she straightens her shoulders when she’s uncomfortable, and in the way she makes statements into questions, because she is searching.
But she’s funny and ironic, and all of this…
All of this is a problem.
Because I know exactly what Alana wants from her.
I have seen the vision board. I have spent the last three months watching Alana construct her perfect life like a military operation.
And I cannot stop what Alana wants. No one can stop what Alana wants.
But I can make myself useful in the one small, stupid way that is available to me right now.
I can make Billie Harper dislike me, and by proxy, perhaps, dislike Alana.
This is what I tell myself as Billie looks at me with those Bambi eyes and points again to the picture of me when I was a baby. She asks, “I mean, I’m seriously asking, have you always been this rude, or is it just to me?”
My eyes blink open and shut. She believes I am being rude, I realize. My plan is working. She does not understand what I am saving her from.
“I cannot explain—” I start to say, but she cuts me off.
“I mean, I’m a total stranger to you and you’re acting like I’m some horrible person!
” She stands, her cheeks turning red. “Did I do something to offend you, or do you just not want your girlfriend to make new friends?” She crosses her arms, and I know immediately I am in enormous trouble.
Excellent. “Maybe you’re the controlling type? ”
Oh no, I think. This woman— Billie— is most worried about Alana’s safety when in fact she should be considering her own.
But there’s no way for me to tell her the truth without putting her in more danger.
Instead, because I cannot think of anything else to do, I reach out and take her hand in mine.
I want her to understand. I wish I could explain all of it to her, but instead— I take her hand.
She freezes, then melts a little. She is so close to me I can feel her chest moving up and down as her breath quickens.
I lean toward her and whisper as gently as I can, “Be careful. That’s all. ”
Time slows down. I am so close to Billie. Her perfume smells like vanilla and oranges. There is something electric in the air, and I could stay here for days. Her hair falls gently over her cheek as we separate, but my hand is still on hers and I do not want to let go.
From across the room, I feel Alana’s gaze land on us. I don’t look over.
I shouldn’t have done that, I think, aware once again that I am standing too close— to Billie.
I let go of Billie’s hand and keep my posture neutral. I take a measured sip from my cup.
Billie clears her throat. “Alana mentioned you paint,” she says, her voice suddenly very formal. “What kinds of things do you?—”
“It’s just a hobby,” I repeat. It isn’t safe to let Billie know me more. If she knows why I paint she might like me, and I am determined that she should hate me, and thus stay away from Alana.
“No, it’s not,” Billie says with so much intensity I’m taken off guard. “People don’t paint just for something to do.”
“Why do you think people paint, then?” I say, keeping my voice even as if I don’t care what the answer is.
“I think people paint because they want to imagine a world that’s beautiful.
” She looks at me in such a way that I swear she is seeing straight through me.
“Because they want to make the world better, or more bearable. I think painting is a way to take what you see in front of you and realize what’s wrong with it, then use all the pieces to create something better.
Something that only exists in your imagination that you can finally bring to others. Painting is wish fulfillment.”
My mouth opens, but no words come out. I’m speechless. I’m struck by the desire to pull this woman close to me again. She is wise, and gentle, and just as I’m thinking of all the ways I would want to be near her, if I weren’t currently dating Alana.
This is the moment Alana materializes beside me, linking her arm through mine with the easy, claiming precision of a woman who has done an inventory of the room and is now collecting her assets.
“Okay, so I have a strategy for you,” she says to Billie, as if she’s been thinking about this for some time. “You need to just ask people outright which baby picture is theirs.”
That’s right, I think. The baby pictures. I had forgotten all about the game.
“Walk up to someone, point at the sheet, and go— ‘Hi, which one is you?’” Alana continues.
Billie shakes her head. “That’s— isn’t that cheating?”
“Completely,” Alana says, absolutely delighted. “That’s why it works. People never expect dishonesty at a party.”
I watch Billie consider this. I watch the small, genuine smile settle on her face. She excuses herself— graceful about it, warm, like she doesn’t want to be rude even when she’s walking away— and crosses the room toward a woman with short hair and a stern face.
Alana squeezes my arm and tilts her head up toward me with a private, proprietary smile.
“I love her,” she says, watching Billie go. “Don’t you love her?”
I watch Billie approach the disgruntled woman, pull out her sheet, and, I can see it from here, simply ask. The woman lights up. Points to her photo. They both laugh. Billie’s smile is breathtaking.
I think I might love her, I want to say jokingly, but I work hard to keep the smirk off my face, which is the face of a scoundrel. Billie is gorgeous. And she needs to stay far away from me.
“She seems fine,” I say.
Alana narrows her eyes at me, reading something in my voice. Then she lets it go— stores it somewhere, files it under: deal with this later— and turns back toward the room.
I look at the baby game sheet in my hand. I don't look at Billie Harper again. This requires more effort than it should.
* * *
Later, Melissa announces the game results from the center of the room. Everyone stops what they’re doing. The room adjusts to her.
“Okay,” she says, sweeping the stack of submitted sheets. “I’ve tabulated the results.” A pause. “It wasn’t close,” she adds.
The winner, of course, is Alana.
Alana does not look surprised. She holds one hand to her chest and makes a small, delighted sound, as if the universe has done something considerate. I’ve seen this performance before. Alana is always surprised by exactly the things she engineered.
“She absolutely cheated,” mutters the woman with the dimple, though she’s laughing when she says it.
“I used strategy,” Alana corrects, with absolute serenity.
Across the room, I catch a small, startled smile on Billie’s face.
She is, I notice, also holding a game sheet with significantly more correct answers than she walked in with— a fact she seems to be quietly deciding to keep to herself.
Good for her. She doesn’t want to win through cheating.
I bet she tried Alana’s way and felt too guilty to submit her paper.
My heart swells with understanding. I, too, have done things Alana’s way, only to feel regret later.
“And the prize,” Melissa announces, a tone of pride in her voice, “is courtesy of Steve’s company.”
Steve materializes from the back of the house, and I will say this for Steve: he commits fully to the moment. He is beaming, and I can tell he’s been waiting to do this for two hours. Behind him, the hallway contains something large, wheeled, and decorated with an enormous pink bow.
It is an electric scooter.
It is not a small one.
“We just launched the Mark IV,” Steve says to the room. “Goes up to twenty miles an hour, self-balancing technology, app-controlled speed limiter—” a meaningful look at his wife— “though I’ve already disabled that.” He winks.
There is a beat in the room. Then a sound that I can only describe as the collective processing of twenty people realizing the prize they’ve missed out on is much nicer than a scented candle.
Alana claps her hands together once. She looks absolutely delighted. “I’m like, going to go so fast!” she says to no one in particular.
I think about Alana on an electric scooter moving at twenty miles an hour through Chicago. She will, no doubt, run over a few small children and forcibly remove car side mirrors. The idea is horrifying. I decide not to think about it further.