10. Daphne
Daphne
I wake up the next morning to the sound of my mother’s voice in the hallway. “Daphne? I have to run to the feed store. Would you get breakfast on?”
Lifting my head off Rickie’s pillow, my first thought is: oh shit .
My second thought is: how do I end up in so many awkward situations? If I call out an answer, she’ll know I’m in the wrong room. And where is Rickie? I’m alone in this bed.
“Daphne?” she calls again. “Are you in there?”
It’s not the crime that gets you. It’s the coverup, right? When will I learn? I slide off the bed, march over to the door and yank it open. “I’ll make the breakfast.”
My mother turns her head. Her eyes widen.
But that’s when my bedroom door pops open, too. Rickie is standing there, blinking sleep out of his eyes.
My mother’s confusion doubles. “Will someone start breakfast? I guess it doesn’t matter who.”
“Sure,” Rickie grunts.
“I’m sorry I fell asleep on your bed,” I stammer.
He shrugs. “No problem. Yours was available.”
“The bacon is defrosted,” my mother says. “I’ll be back in an hour.” She turns around and marches back down the hallway toward the staircase.
Rickie and I spend a long moment just watching each other. I have a hangover, but not from alcohol. It’s the vulnerability. I hate looking weak, and last night I just spewed all my poor life choices at Mr. Hot and Broody.
“Sorry,” I mutter again.
He just shrugs.
“Now she’s going to imagine that we’re...” I clear my throat.
“S’okay.” He yawns. “I imagine it every day, too. So we’ll have that in common.”
Then he slips past me and nabs the bathroom before I can get in there.
Figures.
* * *
Lucky for me, Reardon doesn’t try to call me again. He doesn’t text, either. But now I’m always on edge. Every time my phone lights up with an incoming message, I have a moment of panic.
But as the days pass, I start to relax. Rickie and I don’t speak of it again.
He knows I don’t want to. Although I have to admit that spilling my guts has made me feel a little calmer.
It makes me feel less crazy to hear someone else’s thoughts about it.
Threats are his only move , Rickie had said. And I appreciate this logic.
It doesn’t stop me from worrying, though. And it doesn’t stop me from feeling deeply embarrassed. I told Rickie about the academic land mine I’d created. But that’s not the only thing that Reardon destroyed.
He took my self-esteem, too. It’s just gone. When I started dating him, I thought I was smart and maybe even sexy. Now I’m just a dumb girl who screwed a liar. Oldest story in the book.
* * *
When Wednesday arrives again, Audrey sends us off to Burlington with another shipment of applejack for two new restaurants.
This time, there’s a holdup at the first one—nobody is there to receive it. And we burn fifteen minutes trying to call the phone number on the manifest, until finally someone shows up at the restaurant and takes the delivery.
“I’m going to be late for work,” I complain, eyeing the clock on the dash.
“Nah, it’s fine,” Rickie says. “I’ll drop you off, go to my class, and then make the delivery afterward.”
“Really? Could you?” The desperation in my voice is evident.
“Uh huh. Because I can tell the idea of being late to your second day at a new job is making all your good girl sensors ping like crazy.”
He’s not wrong. “Someday you’re going to be an excellent shrink.”
“Aw, careful, Daphne. I think you just paid me a compliment. I might get cocky.”
“Too late,” I snap. But there’s no bite in it. I watch the red bricks of the Moo U campus approach, and I wonder how it came to this. I’m actually starting to like Rickie. And that’s dangerous.
He pulls up in front of the School of Public Health a couple minutes later. I reach into the back seat for a box of pastries that Audrey sent with me this morning. For your new friends at work , she’d said. I was testing blueberry recipes .
“Whoa, what are those?” he asks.
“Just bribing my coworkers so they’ll like me. It’s what you do at a new job.” Thank God for Audrey’s social impulses. I’m well aware that I was frosty last week. It’s almost like Reardon Halsey has made me forget how to feel optimistic about people.
Rickie rolls down the window so he can talk to me after I shut the door. “Don’t forget we’re stopping for ice cream on the way home.”
“Again?” I turn around on the sidewalk to wave goodbye to him.
“It’s what we do, babe. It’s our thing. Don’t mess with tradition.”
“Fine. Later.”
“Later!”
I turn around, only to find Karim holding the door for me. “Good morning,” he says.
“Morning.”
“Rickie Ralls is your boyfriend?”
I laugh. “Not exactly. We live together.” That came out wrong, but it’s accurate. “Like roommates.”
“Oh. Cool.” He shrugs as I follow him through the lobby and into our office space. “Sorry. It just made sense to me. Like all the attractive, super intelligent people should really end up together.”
I think Karim just called me super intelligent. And attractive.
Weird.
“Last year I was a TA. For a cognitive psych class.
And the professor interviewed Rickie in class about his amnesia.
That was interesting. But Rickie knew more of the neuroscience we were learning than most of the graduate students in the class.
And then there's the whole speaking three languages thing. It does things for my competence fetish.”
“Karim, do you have a man crush on my friend Rickie?” And just listen to me! I'm teasing my new coworker like a normal, well-adjusted person.
"Oh, it's a full-on crush," he says. “Those eyes. Those tattoos.”
My surprised laugh comes out as an undignified snort. “Don't ever let him hear you saying these things. His ego is king-size. He does enjoy flattery, though. Just a tip.”
“Really?” Karim's eyes sparkle. “So you're saying there's a chance?”
He leads me into a conference room, where Jenn is already waiting.
"Morning!" she says, hoisting a postal service tray out of a box and onto the table.
And with one glance I know what we're going to be doing today.
The envelopes stacked into that tray are identical to the ones causing all the trauma in my life.
I actually shiver.
"This is the—“
“Northeast Healthcare Workers survey. Vermont edition," I say, sounding like the worst kind of know-it-all. "Sorry. These envelopes haunt my dreams."
And I mean that literally.
"No problem! It's great that you've done this before. Once you get comfortable I'll just go over our procedure, because there could be differences?”
"Absolutely." I shed my heavy backpack and slide Audrey’s pastry box onto a corner of the table.
Then I listen like a champ as she explains the procedure. The surveys are separated from the envelopes, but the envelopes are retained by zip code.
We did the same thing, of course. But Reardon had disposed of the extra envelopes too. It was the first thing I’d checked.
It turns out they do things exactly the same way in Vermont. So we get to work. I'm already a pro at zipping the letter opener across the top of the envelope without slicing the papers inside, and the work goes quickly.
"I brought treats," I say after an hour. "Blueberry scones."
"Does that mean it's time for a coffee break?" Karim asks.
“Yes!" Jenn shouts. "Our coffee break ritual is an episode of Cold In Death."
"The true crime podcast?" I ask.
“That’s the one. Are you a fan?”
"Not yet. But first I need to duck into the library anyway and swap some journals."
They both stare at me. “You didn’t,” Karim clears his throat, "finish reading those already?”
“Well, sure. But I had a whole week. And I don't have a life, so...” I chuckle nervously.
They exchange a glance. "Wait until she finds out our other favorite pastimes,” Jenn says.
“They’re very intellectual,” Karim explains. “Darts at the bar. And karaoke."
"I can play darts," I insist. "My grandpa taught me. He's a shark. Karaoke and I don't mix. Like, at all.” I don’t like to be stared at.
“Eh, one out of two ain’t bad,” Karim says with a shrug. “Can I have a scone now?”
“You can have two.” I slide the box toward him on the table. I already like these people. I can’t help but feel a little whiff of hope.
Reardon seemed nice, too , my battered ego points out. You can never really tell .
New friends are too risky. I learned that the hard way.