Chapter 18
T hey didn’t kiss again, and neither mentioned it. Somehow they had an unspoken agreement that it had been a closet-related blip and nothing more. Instead they settled into a happy, remarkably domestic routine. On the days Lainey didn’t have a big order, she cooked supper. When she was stuck for hours working, Dexter picked up takeout and spent the remainder of the evening helping her with whatever she was doing. She was always appreciative of those times, overtly so, no matter how many times he told her he enjoyed it. He liked the change of pace from his job, the part that allowed him to turn off his brain and stir or dip or wash things on repeat. But it was more than that; he enjoyed spending time with Lainey, even when she was stressed out and overly tired, she was fun and pleasant company, lighting his world with her quick wit and warmth.
And so somehow, without notice by either of them, they began spending all Dexter’s non-working hours together, including every weekend. Neither knew when or how it morphed to an assumed, nor how they slowly began speaking in the plural. What are we going to do this weekend?
If they privately acknowledged this phenomenon in some remote parts of their brains, they refused to bring it to the forefront. And they certainly refused to acknowledge it in any tangible way. The door between their apartments remained open at all times, giving an al fresco feel to their living arrangement. If Lainey was cooking and ran out of an ingredient, she went into Dexter’s half the house and took it, whether he was home or not. And when he was home, he was more often in her part of the house anyway, only going home at night to sleep in his bed. After a while even that small separation began to feel odd. But if they weren’t ready to acknowledge their growing dependence on each other during the daylight, they certainly weren’t ready to address their growing longing for each other in the nighttime.
I must be lonelier than I realized, they would admit, if the subject ever popped to mind. Both of them felt comfortable enough to admit that much was true; they had been lonely, Lainey especially. Ever since she quit work, she had been isolated from other people. For her Dexter clearly filled a void. Both of them could see and admit as much. But that was as far as Dexter was willing to go. If his brain started to probe any deeper, he would staunchly cut it off with a quick and ready rejoinder. I like her; she’s likeable. Of course I enjoy her company, look at the alternative. That was an easy one to believe because, in comparison to The Russians, Lainey was clearly the preferable and more enjoyable choice. Plus she smelled good and she fed him. What wasn’t to love? Not that I love her, he hastened to tell himself. In a friend way, perhaps. They were decidedly friends, the type who had fun, ate all their meals together, and spent all their evenings cuddling on the couch.
The cuddling was part of the contract, Dexter assured himself. His newfound enjoyment of it was not, but he didn’t discuss that part of things, not even with himself.
As for Lainey, life was looking up, if she also didn’t let herself look too closely. There was Dexter, an unexpected delight. Who knew the stodgy neighbor would turn out to be secretly funny and, after a bit of practice, a deft hugger? Not her, that was for certain. When she agreed to marry Dexter for the sake of his job, she had envisioned a few awkward run-ins during times they were unable to avoid each other. Instead they had somehow become inseparable.
Her job was looking up, too, if she also didn’t allow herself to delve too deeply. In reality she walked a razor’s edge of disaster, one failed job away from losing everything. But if she didn’t dwell on how abysmal her future was, she could feel cheerful about the present. The enrober had worked to increase her productivity. She was able to take on more jobs, as many as she could find. Currently she had a big order, her biggest one to date—five hundred oversized chocolate ants for a woman who wanted them as a giveaway for her new business. The whole thing felt symbiotic to Lainey, girl power and all that. Women supporting women. Maybe she should put that on her website, if she ever got a website. For the moment she was still relying on word of mouth, a few flyers she’d posted around town, and her Facebook page.
She finished packaging her 500 th ant and checked her phone. The woman, Cheryl, had said she would text the dropoff location and it hadn’t come through yet.
Finished the last ant, Lainey sent her. The return text came almost immediately, but Lainey had to read it three times to make certain she understood.
Forget it.
What? Lainey tried, but there was no response. She tried to call. There was no answer. She texted again. I have your ants. Need the dropoff info and final payment.
I’m canceling the ants. My loan fell through. The business is a no-go.
Lainey stared at her phone. This could not be happening. She had spent days upon days making these ants, had bought a hundred pounds of covuerture Belgian milk chocolate. Even with Dexter’s generous discount, the financial outlay had been immense, not to mention the time it took to make each ant because the woman wanted buttercream faces piped on each one to highlight her up-and-coming organic makeup business.
You still have to pay, Lainey typed. I’ve already made them. I’ll deliver them and you can decide what to do with them.
You can deliver them but I ain’t paying.
It took a special sort of person to go to the trouble of typing bad grammar. Even most people who spoke it out of a lazy habit texted the proper word. Something about it now felt like purposeful anger, vengeance perhaps. With a sinking feeling, Lainey checked her bank, the place where a week ago she placed the woman’s deposit check. She may not be a business genius, but she knew not to buy hundreds of dollars worth of ingredients and materials without a deposit. Except now there was no deposit. The check had bounced; Lainey’s account was overdrawn.
Seeing spots, she sank to a chair and bent over.
Ruin. Disaster. Repossession.
She dashed upright and stared at her enrober. Would The Hungarians come and take it?
It’s already paid for, she reassured herself. It was the less-tangible things now hanging in the balance. Insurance, rent, food, gas. She would need all of them in the coming days, and now there was no money.
She bent over again, trying hard not to hyperventilate. When the fog of panic began to ebb, she realized there was nothing she could do. Even if she was inclined to, she couldn’t track down the woman and make her pay because she had no idea where she worked. Her gaze settled on the five hundred ants. They stared back at her, their overly vivid faces a tangible reminder of her failure.
I can turn this around, she thought, pulling deep for any hints of her former optimism. There was no chance she could re-sell them to someone else, not with the odd juxtaposition of bug and beautiful makeup. (Really, that should have been her first clue the woman’s inner wheel had stopped turning, but she’d jumped at the chance to make something so unique.) At the very least she could make someone’s day brighter. With renewed determination and a forced smile, she hopped up and began gathering the ants into their protective plastic bin. She would take them to a homeless shelter. Maybe they would go to someone who hadn’t had chocolate in way too long; maybe they would still find a way to make someone smile.
This day won’t be a total waste, Lainey told herself, beginning to feel some of the cheer she was trying desperately to fake.
“ T his day was a total waste.”
That was what Dexter was finally able to get out of Lainey. At first it was just the wailing. He found her once again lying prone on her living room floor, a sad starfish. He sat beside her and petted her head.
“What’s the matter?” He wasn’t unduly alarmed. Lainey was a small person of big emotion. It was more concerning when she didn’t feel something deeply. A closed off and withdrawn Lainey was terrifying. Thankfully it was also rare.
She shifted from her position on the floor, pelting herself into his lap instead. And that was when she told him her day had been a waste.
“Why?” he asked.
“Ants…makeup…ruined…fail…homeless…”
Those were the only discernable words, muffled as they were against his leg and by her tears.
“The ants’ makeup got ruined?” he asked. It was a sign of how far they’d come together that the sentence made perfect sense. Had the buttercream slid off? That had been a concern in the testing phase.
She shook her head furiously back and forth. Clutching his shirt in both hands, she peeled herself away and finally faced him. “No, she c-canceled.”
“Canceled? What do you mean she canceled?”
“I mean she nixed the ants. She didn’t want them. Apparently her business fell through. It’s a common theme. Girl power.” One fist pumped weakly in the air while her face resumed its position against his thigh. He peeled it away again, needing to understand.
“Lainey, what? She canceled the order? With no warning?”
Lainey nodded.
“Who does that?” he said, outraged on her behalf.
“People who order ants wearing makeup, apparently. But that’s not the worst part.”
“It’s not?”
She shook her head.
“What’s the worst part?” His hand smoothed over her hair, unsticking the stuck pieces from her wet cheeks.
“I tried to donate them to a homeless shelter and they refused them. It’s against the law or something because they don’t have labels, and the way she said it, like I should be ashamed for suggesting it. Insult to massive injury.” She wailed again and resumed her post, face mashed firmly against his leg.
Dexter could well imagine how it had been. He knew the type, a small-time bureaucrat who got a contact high off wielding a tiny amount of power. “There are plenty of places you can donate them.”
She withdrew her head from its resting place again, pausing her weeping to blink at him. “There are?”
“Yes. It can’t be anyone that takes government funds because of all the rules, but there are tons of private places that don’t go in for that sort of nonsense and will be glad to have them. In fact a few of them serve children who would love, absolutely love those silly ants.”
“Really?” Lainey whispered, a genuine smile beginning to take the place of the tears as she imagined kids enjoying her ants.
“Yes. They’ll be a smash,” Dexter assured her.
She took a shuddery little breath. “Okay. Thank you.” She rested her face against his leg, cheek first instead of nose first this time so she could still breathe and communicate.
“Was that it?” he asked, sensing there was more.
When she froze, his hunch was confirmed. “Well,” she drawled. “Her deposit check bounced.”
“What? So she’s a criminal on top of being a rotten person?”
“Apparently,” Lainey agreed. “The ants deserve so much better than her.”
“Lainey,” he said, taking a bracing breath. They never discussed finances. It was one of the many taboo topics between them on an ever-growing list.
“Hmm,” she said, sleepy after all the emotion she’d expended.
“That had to have taken a wrecking ball to your finances,” he noted.
She froze again. “Oh. It will be okay,” she said in a tone that convinced neither of them.
“I’ll give you some money.”
“You already gave me some money. I bought a Hungarian enrober.”
“I’ll give you some more money,” he said.
“You can’t do that.”
“Of course I can. Why not?”
“Because it wasn’t in the contract and you said…”
He rolled his eyes. “I said I won’t fix you, but this wasn’t what I was talking about, obviously. And technically we’re married.”
Her eyes rounded with renewed panic. “Are you afraid I’m going to wreck your pristine credit? I truly am the Titanic of people.” Her hands pressed to her temples.
“I am not afraid of any such thing. Marital status has nothing to do with credit scores, unless we take out a loan together.”
Lainey dropped her hands and blinked at him. “That’s probably the sort of thing I should have investigated before we were married.”
“Probably,” he agreed.
“I bet you did, huh.”
“I did, but then that’s me.”
“It’s okay,” she assured him, now resting her head on his shoulder. “I’m a pretty bad bet.”
“I disagree.” He kissed the top of her head and reached for her hand, giving it a squeeze. Strange how something that used to be so foreign to him—affection—now came so easily and without thought. “Are you going to take the money? Say yes.”
“Yes. Thank you.” When it came down to it, she had no choice, and that was what she hated the most. How had she gotten herself in this position? She left her last job because she wanted to be independent and instead she had traded dependence on an employer to dependence on Dexter. Somehow that was worse, and she didn’t understand why. Was it because she didn’t want to be Dexter’s liability? For her entire life, everyone had reached a point where she became too much. What if that happened with Dexter? It can’t, Lainey told herself. Because if there was one thing she knew for certain it was that she could no longer contemplate a future without him.
“It’s going to be okay,” Dexter reassured her, giving her hand a squeeze. “It’s only a little setback. You’re going to bounce back.”
He was right. She would bounce back from this setback. But if Dexter lost faith in her and decided he was done, what then? Because she didn’t think she would ever bounce back from that. It was that realization, more than any other, that left her pale and silent, quaking with nerves and dread and not the post-weeping exhaustion Dexter presumed.