Chapter 16
I squeezed through a group of people standing near the entrance of the bar, either coming or going—whichever the case, loud and in the way.
I reached a high-top table where Sloane, Becky, Laurel, and Cheryl (our brunch group) were already standing.
A round of shots were in front of everyone but Cheryl.
“Ahhh!” Becky screamed when she saw me. “She’s here! Congratulations on finally asking for a promotion!”
“Yes, it’s the first step,” Laurel agreed. “He’ll come around. He knows how much you do.”
“I quit,” I said. “In a very loud, official manner.” As loud and official as standing next to a dumpster could be.
Sloane slid her shot in front of me, her eyes asking me questions that didn’t make it to her mouth.
I threw back the shot and sucked in some air as it burned a path down my throat. The others followed suit.
“I’ll get started on another round,” Sloane said, heading toward the bar.
“Oh, Cheryl, congrats on the pregnancy,” I said.
Cheryl had met her husband at this very bar four years earlier.
He’d dumped the handful of drinks he was taking back to his table all over her.
He apologized for ten minutes, then offered to literally give her the shirt off his back.
She accepted. He took it off right there and she changed into it in the bathroom.
He stood around shirtless, talking to her until the bouncer kicked him out for not being properly clothed.
But not before he got Cheryl’s phone number.
That was a solid meet-cute, an adorable story that could be told for the rest of their lives.
“Thank you,” she said to me now, rubbing her flat stomach. “You all have a built-in designated driver for the next seven months.”
“That is good news,” Becky said.
Sloane came back, carrying four more shots, which she expertly placed on the table. She held one in the air. “To the future.”
I lifted one as well. “If the universe won’t provide, we’ll do it ourselves.
” As much as I didn’t want it to be true—in fact, for the last six hours I’d been trying to convince myself it wasn’t true—I knew that the only way to keep my dream alive right now was to start my own agency.
With no backup, no name recognition, not enough money, no potential clients.
“For real?” Sloane asked. She must’ve known what I was implying with that declaration.
“It’s my only option at this point,” I said. I’d cut all ties with Rob and, by so doing, probably with the rest of my Los Angeles agency connections. I definitely couldn’t survive alone in New York. I needed to stay here, where I was surrounded by family and friends. This was the only way.
Sloane downed her drink and I did the same. “That’s cause to celebrate.”
I wasn’t sure if it was, but I could pretend, at least for tonight, before reality set in. “How did your meeting go?” I asked.
“I’m not going to yum your yuck,” she said.
“You got the saying backward,” I said.
“In this case, I did not.”
“I’m happy for you,” I said.
She pointed to the bar and left again.
Three more shots and a plate of boneless wings later, I started to think my own agency was not just some far-fetched dream but the best idea ever.
I was listing all the pros to Sloane while the others were trying to choose which songs they wanted to sing for karaoke.
It was an important decision that they didn’t take lightly.
I counted the benefits off on my fingers. “I don’t have to share any of my commission. I don’t have to answer to anyone. I can rep whatever books I want to rep.”
“If you want to rep a romantic thriller with a horror ending, you can,” Sloane said, slapping her hand on the table to emphasize her point.
“Exactly,” I said.
“Did Oliver… this dec… today? If s… tell… amazing.”
“What?” I leaned a little closer. It was loud in the bar. Getting louder by the second, it seemed. Or maybe I was just getting more drunk by the second.
She spoke directly into my ear. “Oliver. Did he influence this decision?”
“No. I made it all by myself, thank you very much. The only thing that came out of lunch was Oliver asking me if I was sleeping with Rob.”
“You aren’t sleeping with Rob, so I hope you said no.”
“I said, ‘Not currently.’”
She groaned. “Less is more, Marjorie. Those are conversations you have when you know someone better.”
“Probably true. You should’ve seen the way he looked at me.
” It had hurt, sitting there in the restaurant after loudly quitting my job in the alley, to have Oliver close himself off, become overly polite, asking generic questions and barely answering mine with no more than a word or two.
But maybe it was better this way. Our second chance proving just as much as our first one that we weren’t right for each other.
Becky called out from across the table, “What do you think about Celine Dion?”
“Wildly ambitious,” Sloane said. “But go for it!”
“Yes!” Laurel agreed.
Back to me, Sloane said, “Did words accompany his look?”
“He said, ‘Oh.’”
“Oh? And then what?”
“And then our food came and we ate and he asked me if I’d ever been to Seattle.”
“Seattle? Why?”
“Because that’s what you do when you’re done trying to get to know someone. You ask them generic questions like if they’ve ever eaten crab legs or been to Seattle.”
“I didn’t think Oliver would be so judgmental,” she said.
“Because you know Oliver so well?”
“He’s been your online boyfriend for three years. That’s as long as I’ve known you! I’ve seen him with at least one bad haircut and a plethora of questionable clothing choices.”
I laughed. “Oh, and remember that time he posted only pictures of him blinking?”
“That was funny. Exactly! I thought he was chill and funny. But he’s actually judgmental and… judgy?”
A snort burst out of me. “You judge me for sleeping with Rob too,” I said. Just like my sister and parents would.
“I judge Rob for Rob and… okay, I judge you. But I’m your best friend and I know the whole story. I don’t deflect with questions about Seattle.” She let out a short breath. “You should’ve stalked Oliver online. Then you would’ve found all his red flags.”
“He didn’t have any social media attached to his dating profile and I just barely got his phone number. I still don’t know his last name! I reverse-image searched his pictures last week and nothing came up.”
“You did stalk him online. How dare you do that without me.” It was one of our traditions to research my app matches online. Mainly to make sure they weren’t on any of the lists that women put up after scary dating encounters. But also to feel them out, see the kinds of things they posted.
“I found nothing.”
“Maybe he doesn’t exist,” she said, her eyes wide.
I doubled over, laughing. “You’re drunk.”
“So are you,” she said.
“I am! How am I so drunk already?”
“You drank,” Sloane said as someone bumped into her from behind. She reclaimed her space by widening her stance. “Wait, have you been to Seattle?”
“I haven’t. Is that a bad thing? Is this a question I should be asking people? Does it answer a question without having to ask the question?” I wanted the answer to be yes because maybe that meant Oliver wasn’t done trying to get to know me.
“What?” Sloane asked, not keeping up.
“You know what I mean,” I said. Someone onstage was singing “Open Arms” very poorly. “It’s a question that reveals things about someone without being overly invasive.”
“Invasive, like asking them if they’re sleeping with their boss?”
“Yeah, like that.” Shame washed through me. Oliver was done. And why wouldn’t he be? The feeling must’ve been accompanied by a change in expression because she pulled me into a hug.
“You’ve had a hard day,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
I just let out a muffled whine against her shoulder.
“What you should’ve said to Oliver’s question was, No, but I can be sleeping with you tonight if you want. ”
I gave an ironic laugh. “Believe me, after the look he gave me today, he doesn’t want to. It will probably be another three years, at least, before I see him again.” That thought twisted my insides.
“Call him. We’ll tell him he’s being judgy and to get over it.”
“The only thing I want to do now is drink until I don’t remember any of my problems.”
“Deal.”
Sharp stabs of pain radiated behind my eyes.
Like the sun’s rays were slicing through my eyelids, trying to blind me.
My mouth felt like someone had been filling it with cotton balls all night only to empty it this morning, leaving my throat scratchy and my tongue stuck to my bottom teeth.
I tried to enable my spit glands but they had been emptied as well.
“Sloane,” I groaned, wondering if she was up yet.
Even if she was, she probably couldn’t hear me.
I rolled over and the knives inside my head ricocheted around in my empty skull.
Empty, because I certainly didn’t have a brain anymore.
A brain would’ve given me thoughts and memories, would’ve reminded me how I ended up in this terrible state, but there was nothing. No thoughts. No memories.
I stumbled out of bed and to the bathroom, where I stuck my mouth under the faucet and sucked down water for several minutes.
“This is why we don’t drink, kids,” I said to the nonexistent children in the room.
My nephews immediately sprang into my mind, watching me with their innocent eyes, asking me if I was sick, telling me that their perfect mom never drank.
I knew that wasn’t true, but hungover Margot was extra hard on me. She was super judgy.
Judgy . A thought rattled around in my brain with that word but refused to produce any actual memories.
“Sloane,” I said again, and beelined it out of the bathroom, heading for the kitchen and aspirin. On the floor next to the couch was the Bad Decisions jar. It was empty, turned on its side with two five-dollar bills on the carpet nearby. Weird.
A note was waiting on the counter next to the bottle of aspirin. I hate you. How dare you get to sleep in while I have to go to lunch with my family and face the consequences of our actions. Also, I love you. Sorry about your job. But remember, you’re a rock star.
Ugh. My job. I hadn’t forgotten that trainwreck. But a rock star? She’d never called me that before. I was sure there was context there, but again, my brain wasn’t filling me in. My phone started buzzing in my hand even though I didn’t recall picking it up.
Mom. I hadn’t talked to her since the T-ball game a week ago.
The clock on the microwave said it was just after noon.
Before I answered the phone, I opened the bottle of aspirin and took three.
An open bag of potato chips was also on the counter, probably another way Sloane was trying to smother her hangover.
I stuffed a couple in my mouth, begging the grease to ease the nausea in my stomach.
My phone stopped buzzing, but before I could even finish chewing another chip, it sprang back to life.
“Hey, Mom,” I said.
“Honey, hi! Congratulations! I’m having something sent over. Did you get it?”
I cringed at the volume of her voice. “What? Did I get what? Why?”
“Bill!” Mom called to my dad, yelling in my ear. “Did you send it? Did it work?” Back to me she said, “I thought the bugs were finally ironed out.”
“Bugs?”
“On the food app.”
“You sent me food?” Did she somehow know I’d need food this morning? Had I drunk-texted my mom the night before?
“I thought it worked. It says delivered on my screen. Is it delivered?”
“Let me check.” I slowly walked to the door, trying not to anger my pounding head any further, and opened it. I let out a surprised yelp when a man was standing on my front porch holding an In-N-Out bag. He was backlit by the sun and I squinted against the light.
“What’s wrong?” Mom asked.
“Nothing. It’s… it’s here. Thank you.” To the man, I said, “Hold on.” I spun around, walked to the couch, and plucked the two five-dollar bills off the floor.
“Glad you got it,” Mom said. “Enjoy.”
“Mom, wait.”
“Yes?”
“I’m sorry I haven’t been to see you more lately. You were right, I have been… unhappy. But I’m working on things. I’m going to visit soon.” I walked back to the door and held out the cash for the delivery guy.
Over the phone, Mom said, “Yes, I heard about how you’re working on things. Audrey told us! We’re so proud. Call me after you eat so you can tell me all about your new position.”
I was stunned silent. Before I had time to respond, the phone went dead. The bills in my hand were still extended in front of me. Only now that my eyes were adjusted to the sun, I could see that it wasn’t a delivery guy at all.
It was Oliver.