Chapter 7
·····
Owning a car in DC is too much to bother with when I work primarily from the efficiency apartment in Cathedral Heights I’m now subletting, or from libraries and archives downtown that don’t have parking for less than twenty dollars an hour anyway.
So I’ve forgotten over the eight years since I moved from LA how much I enjoy driving.
It’s meditative to listen to my music and get lost in thought as the road stretches out in front of me.
We’re solidly in North Carolina—Virginia finally ending a short while after I took over—and even in the dark, I can tell that the pine trees lining the highway aren’t the same kind I’m used to up north; these are, I don’t know, fluffier?
I wonder if Mike’s made it home to Carla and the pugs yet.
Mrs. Nash didn’t get it either when I tried to explain why Josh created the Instagram account.
While I am furious on your behalf, I must admit I don’t understand why the internet would need so many photos of you , says my memory of her the night of the book release party, when I showed up at her door with an overnight bag and a plea to sleep in her spare bedroom until I found a new place to live.
You’re a lovely girl, Millie, but you’re no Carol Burnett . Which, harsh. But fair.
It’s been almost three hours since the rest stop, and my bladder is starting to curse me out again for filling it with so much ginger ale and grenadine.
But at close to eleven at night, there aren’t many options for a pit stop.
Finally, I spot a billboard for a McDonald’s with a twenty-four-hour dining room right off the next exit.
Thank the bathroom gods I won’t need to squat in a bush on the side of the highway.
When I take the keys out of the ignition, Hollis shifts a little in his seat but doesn’t wake up.
Which is good, because I think I might be staring at him.
Okay, I’m definitely staring at him. I can’t help it!
He might be kind of a jerk, but he’s a total snack.
And that conversation about “eating” we had back at the restaurant reminded me that I’m an increasingly hungry woman.
His phone yells at me to make a legal U-turn, then to turn left, then to take the on-ramp back onto the highway.
This bathroom detour is distressing the lady who lives inside the map app.
I grab the phone to pause the trip, but a notification pops up as soon as my finger touches the screen.
Everything shifts. And Hollis, the dummy, must not have a lock on his phone because instead of pausing the navigation, a text exchange with someone named Yeva Markarian opens up without asking anything further of me.
HOLLIS: Flight canceled. Driving. Should be there by tomorrow night. Sorry.
YEVA:
HOLLIS: I’ll make it up to you.
YEVA: You better. I can’t believe I’m all alone on our anniversary.
Anniversary? What? Is it not a sex appointment awaiting him in Miami but a full-scale girlfriend? Why would Hollis lie about that?
The phone vibrates again in my hand, and another text shows up.
YEVA: I guess I’ll just have to start without you...
Yikes. I am not supposed to be privy to this conversation. I should really put the phone back down, mind my own business—
Oh . Geez. Wow.
The picture that appears on the screen is... a lot more of Yeva Markarian than I ever intended to see. It’s artfully shot, for sure; the lighting is actually quite lovely. But there is no mistaking what is going on in that photo.
“What are you doing?” Hollis’s voice startles me into dropping his phone. It bounces off his leg and falls to the floor.
“Nothing,” I say, feeling my face heat. “I think you, uh... you have a text from your girlfriend.”
“Girlfriend?” He recovers the phone from where it landed between his feet, rubbing the area by his knee where it hit him. “You mean Yeva? She’s not my—”
“Well, whatever. None of my business, is it? Pause the navigation, please. That’s what I was trying to do in the first place.
” I sound relatively calm, I think. But inside, my heart is slapping against my sternum.
It shouldn’t matter that Hollis’s friend with benefits is apparently more like a girlfriend with.
.. standard amenities. It shouldn’t matter .
It shouldn’t matter. Except it clearly does for some reason.
And before I can unpack the whys—because I extremely don’t want to—I slam the car door behind me and march to the side entrance of the McDonald’s.
The glass door opens more easily than I expect, and the handle hits the brick wall, bouncing the door back into me and pushing me inside like I’m in some sort of vaudeville act.
Hollis watches the whole embarrassing scene from the car, his eyebrows raised in what could be either confusion or amusement.
I stick my chin in the air and continue through the restaurant’s vestibule.
The thing is, when I broke up with Josh, moving next door into Mrs. Nash’s apartment was a double-edged sword.
No need for movers (or even to put anything into boxes), minimal disruption to my daily routine, easy enough to retrieve any misaddressed mail.
The downside was that the sound of Josh having aggressively loud sex with someone new within a few days of our split carried remarkably well through the shared wall.
And the feeling was kind of the same as this.
This heavy-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach-ness that I can’t reason my way out of no matter how many times I tell myself I have no right to be jealous.
At least that memory, coupled with this unpleasant feeling, makes me remember Mrs. Nash’s amazing reaction when the noise carried into our living room. As soon as it became apparent what the sounds were, she scrunched up her nose as if smelling something rotten.
I’m sorry, Millie, she said. I know you must have cared for him at some point to have stayed so long. But I have to say, that boy fornicates like a gorilla doing an Elvis impression. And this new friend of his sounds like a squeaky door.
I laughed until I cried. Each exaggerated grunt and high-pitched glissando that reached my ears sent me howling again, while Mrs. Nash continued her scathing commentary on their efforts.
It ended after a few minutes, and I sobered as I realized: If we could hear Josh and his mystery woman, Mrs. Nash had probably heard Josh and me .
Oh no. Mrs. Nash. Please tell me we weren’t terrorizing you with our sex noises for the past two years , I said, clutching her hand.
You silly thing. I never heard a peep from you. Which is one of the many reasons I was relieved to learn you were leaving him .
There’s a grin on my face when I come out of the bathroom, but it fades when I see Hollis leaning against the wall in the little hallway, studying the brown wallpaper peppered with large sans serif food words opposite him.
He extends my backpack toward me, his index finger hooked through the loop at the top.
“You forgot Mrs. Nash. And your wallet.”
I take the backpack and thread my arm through one strap. “Thanks, but I don’t want anything.”
“Okay,” he says. “I’m sorry, by the way.”
“For what?” I fold my arms over my chest, waiting for him to admit he lied to me. I still don’t understand why he would lie about something like this. Why hide an entire girlfriend?
“I presume you saw that picture. It, uh, clearly was not meant for you.”
“Right,” I say. And then, maybe because it’s been a long and weird day and my brain-to-mouth filter is unreliable even under ideal circumstances, everything in my head suddenly turns into actual words I am saying.
“Because why apologize for lying to me about Yeva, right? I mean, I’m just some ridiculous girl you’re stuck driving to Florida with.
You don’t owe me the truth. You don’t owe me anything at all, really.
” And that’s a pretty thorough accounting of reality, so I don’t know why I’m spitting my sentences with such venom.
“I’m starting to think ‘ridiculous’ isn’t the right word for what you are,” he says, taking a step toward me. “Weird, absolutely. I’d give you weird. But not ridiculous.”
I take a step backward, and my butt hits the wall. “Thanks... I think?”
“And I didn’t lie to you. Yeva isn’t my girlfriend. She’s exactly what I said she is: a friend I have sex with sometimes.”
“Then what anniversary is she talking about? The first time you banged?”
“Uh...” His eyes shift away from mine and focus on the tile floor as he rubs his right earlobe.
Is this what Hollis looks like when embarrassed?
It’s adorable. “Actually, yes. We first hooked up over Memorial Day weekend five years ago, when I was in town for a mutual friend’s wedding.
The anniversary thing, it’s become sort of an inside joke, because I always wind up visiting at the end of May.
It’s not a... sentimental arrangement.
It just works well with both of our schedules. ”
“Hold up. So your sex appointment is... annually recurring? Like blocked out on your calendar and everything?”
“Yeah. When circumstances allow, at least. Last year Yeva was involved with someone, so I didn’t come until they broke up in July.” His lips compress as if rethinking his phrasing. “Didn’t come visit,” he clarifies.
The tension drains from my shoulders, and my backpack shifts down my arm. “Why didn’t you tell me that from the beginning?”
“How was I supposed to know you’d want to be informed of all the logistical details of my sex life?” This is a new expression on his face. It’s... smug. It makes him look extra-punchable, but also somehow more attractive.