Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
NORA
Text conversation with Cormac
How’s it going over there?
Great. Dogs love me.
If the brewery thing doesn’t work out, I’ll become the spiritual successor to the Dog Whisperer.
How was the first show?
I didn’t puke.
Congrats?
I usually have to puke before every show.
My NPC trick saved the world from more puke?
Yeah. If the brewery fails and your Dog Whisperer backup gig doesn’t work out, you should host a conference for a bunch of nerds.
Thank you, Nora.
“Has his dog suffered the fate of your ficus yet?” Hannah asks over FaceTime while I pour boiling water into my cardboard ramen bowl.
The water splashes my hand and I swear under my breath. Cookie, who’s watching me from around the corner, only her nose showing, flinches.
“That’s not funny,” I hiss at the phone. “She can hear you.”
Perhaps I’m giving Cookie too much credit, but I wouldn’t be so sure. Whenever we share space, she watches me with the vigilance of a conspiracy theorist on uppers. And it really does seem like she understands me, because she gives one of her chesty, big-girl barks.
Sighing, I reach into the pocket of my hoodie and step away from the phone to give her a treat. We’ve formed a shaky but simple covenant over the course of the weekend: I give her dog cookies, and she temporarily behaves (i.e., stops barking and staring me down).
Am I reinforcing terrible behavior?
Most likely.
Will she gain five pounds from a temporary overabundance of treats?
Almost certainly.
But that feels a lot like future Cormac’s problem.
“Where’d you go?” I hear Hannah ask. “Did the big, bad corgi attack you?”
“Stop tormenting her, Hannah,” Briar says in the background. Hannah’s taking care of Ollie, her likely-soon-to-be stepson, so she invited Briar and Sophie to come hang out with them at her house. I was also asked to join the fun, but I have my own temporary dependent to look after.
After accepting my bribe, Cookie backs away from my hand and disappears into the house. I return to the phone and my sad-girl dinner.
“I think it’s sweet that you’re watching his dog,” Sophie adds as she sips from a glass of wine. “Rob and I have been thinking about getting a dog.”
“I wouldn’t recommend it. She stole the bagel right off my plate earlier. I get no respect.”
Hannah chuckles. “And what have you found in Cormac’s apartment? Don’t tell me you haven’t poked around.”
I mean, I have. I’m only human.
And get this. The guy has an honorary doctorate from UNC, which was issued a month ago, and it’s stuffed in the back of a closet. The bathroom closet.
If someone gave me an honorary doctorate, you can bet your ass I’d make sure everyone knew about it.
If I ask him why it’s in there, I’ll bet there’s at least a twenty-five percent chance he’d have no memory of having put it there, possibly no memory of even having accepted it.
For someone like me, who has always attacked her goals like Cookie attacks her food bowl, that’s exasperating.
And fine, yes, the slightest bit endearing.
It’s captured my attention, much like the interesting automations he’s built into the house. Little thoughtful touches, like the way the towel rack automatically extends toward the shower when the water is shut off, so you don’t have to tramp across the floor getting everything wet.
“Well?” Hannah asks expectantly.
“He’s one of those weirdos who puts the toilet paper on the opposite way around,” I offer, not wanting to act like I’m interested in anything to do with Cormac. Briar and Sophie probably wouldn’t call me on it, but Hannah would sense blood in the water.
“What’s the opposite way?” asks Briar.
“Said like a person who does it the wrong way,” Hannah replies with a smirk. Turning back toward the screen, she asks, “Does he have any high school yearbooks? Because I wouldn’t be above bribing him to see one.”
Ever since learning about my emo phase, she’s been desperate to get a hold of photos of me with bangs, heavy eyeliner, and the skeleton beanie I wore everywhere.
Not happening.
“Of course not, Hannah. Who keeps their high school yearbooks? I doubt he even bought one.”
“Worth a try,” she says offhandedly. “Any updates about Project Pansy Pants?”
“Are there ever. Get this. Before Cormac left, he told me Pansy has been engaged two times before. I’m pretty sure José doesn’t know.”
She whistles. “Holy shit. What I would do to be a fly on the wall when you tell him. Wait, can you FaceTime us on your smartwatch?”
Briar bumps shoulders with her. “She doesn’t want to make a spectacle of it. She just wants Pansy Pants to go.”
“I actually would love nothing better than to make a spectacle of it,” I admit, “but I don’t want José to get hurt.”
“That might be inevitable.” Sophie gestures at the screen with her wine glass. “But look at us. Sometimes finding out your significant other is a dirtbag can be the best thing ever.”
I smile, because hell, she’s right. We might never have become friends if we hadn’t all temporarily fallen for Jonah’s BS.
Do I still think he’s a spineless sleaze?
Absolutely. Did I write down his credit card number before I broke up with him and then order fifteen pounds of manure to be delivered to his house?
You bet your ass. But I have to admit it all turned out well.
For us, obviously.
Last I heard, Jonah is working for his dad, which was his personal nightmare.
“I mean it,” Sophie insists.
“So what you’re saying is that we should get José together with all of Pansy’s ex-fiancés, and they’ll form a boy band or something. It’ll be the start of a beautiful friendship.”
“Wait.” Hannah holds up her palms, her expression almost electric with excitement. “That’s a fantastic fucking idea.”
It’s not, although it’s amusing to think about springing Pansy’s exes on her at the dinner on Thursday. “Too bad Cormac won’t even tell me who they are until we have more information.”
Briar laughs. “Sounds like he knows you.”
“Ugh. I wish I were over there with you guys.”
“Rethink that,” Briar says. “Hannah’s obsessed with these Shirtless Chef YouTube videos. It’s basically just this guy with good abs making Italian food shirtless. He never shows his face.”
I look down at my crappy ramen. “Sounds good.”
“Oh, it’s good,” Hannah says. “I’ve gotten Travis into them too.”
“Have you?” Sophie asks.
“It’s possible he’s just humoring me. But I got him to make me cannoli shirtless last weekend.”
“And then you played hide the cannoli?” I ask with a little twist of loneliness. It’s hard being here while they’re all over there.
“Damn straight we did. Ugh. Now I want a cannoli.”
“The only thing you have in the freezer is a box of old Girl Scout cookies,” Sophie reports.
“Oh, that’s definitely empty,” Hannah says.
Hannah’s boyfriend’s son wanders into view on the screen, rubbing his eyes. “Hannah, you’re being really loud again. We talked about this.”
“Oops, gotta go,” Hannah says. “But I also want to hear all about how the honeymoon is going. Eugene has been very negligent about returning my text messages. All he’ll say is they’re having a grand time. Honestly.”
“That’s all I’ve heard too.”
I’m laughing as I sign off.
Half an hour later, I’m sitting in the living room, watching the Shirtless Chef make stuffed shells on my phone, which is surprisingly hypnotic.
So hypnotic, I drop my water glass. It doesn’t shatter, thankfully, but it makes a big-ass mess and prompts Cookie to start barking.
I’m cleaning it up when I notice something on Cormac’s built-in bookshelf.
Several heavy volumes are tucked together in the corner of the very bottom shelf.
Well, fuck me, I guess he doesn’t just have one yearbook. He has many.
Cookie gives me a sharp look and another throaty bark that promises to turn into a cavalcade of them.
I bribe her with a treat, and once she’s calm—ahem, calmer—I finish cleaning up the spilled water. Finally, I’m free to check out Cormac’s collection.
I run my finger over the books first. Then I slide one of the pleather-bound volumes from the shelf.
I open the front cover and pause, smiling when I see one of the first people to have signed it was Mr. Mathiesson, his physics teacher.
Then there’s a very long note from Kenji.
I decline to read either, which would feel like even more of an invasion of privacy, and flip forward to the senior portraits.
Mine is alphabetically first. I shake my head, mouth scrunched to the side, as I take in my bad hair and grimace.
My senior quote, of course, is: Nora takes things too far.
I find Cormac’s photo and smile as I slide a finger over it. He’s looking away from the camera, his expression serious. His glasses are way too big for his face, but I have to admit he looks handsome and long-suffering, as if he were already exhausted by me.
His quote: N/A.
I’m not surprised he didn’t provide one. He’s the kind of person who doesn’t appreciate useless tasks.
I flip through a few more pages and a piece of old, yellowed lined paper tumbles into my lap.
Frowning, I open it, and then gawk at my own handwriting.
Dear Cormac,
The principal said I should write this note saying I am SO sorry about ruining your science experiment. It was a mistake, but I should have been more careful. Please forgive me.
Nora
I cringe, because yeah, that was a pretty shitty, principal-mandated apology note. I had been sorry—at first, but that was before Cormac yelled at me. And I mean yelled. It had felt like further proof that my existence was nothing but an inconvenience to him.
Still, it’s a one hundred percent shitty apology note, especially now that I know how much effort he’d probably poured into his project.
So why did he keep it?
I tuck it back into the yearbook and return the volume to its shelf, studying the others arranged there. Why keep any of them? I wasn’t a big fan of high school, and I know Cormac mustn’t have been either.