Chapter 5 #2
I check the time on my watch, a thirtieth birthday gift to myself.
“I was going to grab a coffee before everything starts,” I say.
When I look up, I catch Henry scowling at my wrist, and for a moment I allow myself to imagine that he is looking at me as I am looking at him, furious that I am no longer his to control.
“Is it weird if I join you?”
My heart palpitates irregularly. “Yes.”
He gives me a rare, real smile, and we step closer, check both ways to make sure the street is clear before crossing.
A small, juvenile part of me feels precious and protected knowing I don’t need to worry, that Henry will signal when it is safe for us to cross.
Walking alongside him is a stupidly erotic experience.
I have become accustomed to short Hollywood men, and something in my gut ignites, remembering that when Henry gets in my face, takes me down to my studs, he has to bend at the knees.
“How was the rest of last night?” he wants to know.
“I left not long after you. Campbell tried to get me to stay out. Corrine too. She must be hurting right now.” I laugh for Henry’s sake.
We could talk for hours about Corrine. Yeah, he once said, she does not like you.
It wasn’t to be mean. Henry is curious about interpersonal relationships.
He was good at letting me vent, even better at analyzing the smallest of interactions.
Some might call that gossip; with Henry it felt like intelligence gathering.
“I can’t wreck myself like that anymore,” he says.
A year ago, I might have agreed. But something about my last birthday has set me off, turned me feral again at the advanced age of thirty-four years old.
“Hey,” I say. “Can I tell you something?”
Henry pauses at the top of the short stone staircase that leads down to the quad, his chin touching his chest and his brow furrowed, ready to hear it.
“That girl, Emma. She told me she found PT.”
Henry raises his eyebrows. “You’re serious.”
I nod.
“But you know the house cleaner did.”
“Yeah. And I said that to her, and she quickly corrected herself and said technically yes, but then she arrived at the house before the police got there and she ran upstairs and found him in the bathroom. She said she left and didn’t tell the police, which just doesn’t seem like something a person would do.
She also went into this whole thing about how PT canceled all his classes the day before he died and his hands were covered in Band-Aids—”
“Band-Aids?”
“Yeah. It was like she was trying to imply he had defensive wounds or something, but then why—”
“Would he have Band-Aids?” Henry finishes for me.
I sweep my hand in his direction. “Exactly. Like, what, PT’s killer stopped and took care of his boo-boos before he slunk out into the night?”
“And what is she doing showing up to PT’s house at eight in the morning anyway?” Henry asks, his lip curled with distaste.
“She said he asked her to come over. To discuss her script. She was like, ‘Did he say anything to you about it?’ ”
Henry laughs at that, affects the voice of someone reading an email. “ ‘Dear Faye, the script I’m presenting you is from the most singular talent I’ve ever come across in all my decades of doing this.’ ”
That’s exactly what I thought Emma was hoping to hear. I stare at Henry in amazement. It wasn’t just a rose-colored memory that Henry’s operating system runs complementarily to my own. “Meanwhile all he did was apologize for the fact that it was late. I don’t think he’d even read it yet.”
“I don’t feel old,” Henry says, “but then I spend ten minutes with someone like that and think, thank God I’m not young anymore.”
That’s a great line. I repeat it back to myself so I will remember to put it in my Notes app later. “I meant to tell you,” I say. “You did a really nice job with the eulogy.”
“And here I’m supposed to say that means a lot coming from you.” But there is no malice in his tone.
“I’m sorry this happened, Henry.”
Henry nods with a hard expression. Men always look so angry when they’re sad. “If we’re going to stand here and be saps like this, then I may as well tell you thank you for coming, that it would have meant a lot to him to know you were here.”
Henry and I are standing close. His eyes, this morning posing as true blue, scan me back and forth like a line of text.
He is so tall he eclipses the sun. It bursts from behind him, a magical shot I wish I could bottle and uncap on set of my next production.
Henry turns and begins to descend the stairs.
“I have some of your things,” he tosses casually over his shoulder. “I brought them in case you came.”
I follow Henry down the stairs, thinking about his careful hands, folding my things, placing them carefully into a little shopping bag.
I’m thinking about Henry thinking about me, wearing whatever skimpy fast fashion time capsule I left behind.
I did not know I was leaving Lake Wanika for the last time when it was the last time.
“I could make some money on eBay,” I joke. “It’s vintage now.”
“Want me to swing by your hotel room after the ceremony?” Henry offers.
We are walking alongside each other again.
He does not look at me as he says this, but I glance over and catch him drumming his fingers against the outside of his thigh.
He’s nervous about what I’ll say to that. My head is hot and full of noise.
“That works,” I say, matching his neutral tone.
We cross the trimmed green of the quad in an old silence, like now that an arrangement has been made, there is nothing left to discuss.
I know what it feels like to make an arrangement with Henry, because we made all sorts of demented ones when we were together.
From the opposite side of campus, I see Corrine and Campbell approach the café doors, their nanny bustling Tookie along behind them.
Henry calls out and they stop, visor their eyes with hands, wave when they realize it is us.
Corrine turns to brush something off Campbell’s shoulder, and as she does this she whispers something to him.
I am surprised to see the deep groove between her ghost-blond brows relax the closer we get to her.
She looks relieved, happy even, to see Henry and me getting along.
Another woman might have thought about this moment a little harder, but I did not come all this way to think.