Before
Frankie
They’re standing outside the door to my studio when I come back from the safe, brightly lit café I’ve been hiding in for the past twenty minutes.
Noah paces the Great Jones sidewalk worriedly.
Tall Max has his hands jammed deep in his pockets, shoulders hiked up angrily—it makes him seem even taller.
Max is even better-looking than Noah, like a very intimidating Norwegian model who rarely smiles, though Noah insists he does all the time at home.
I have never been Max’s favorite. He thinks I should get my own husband, Noah confessed in a moment of drunken honesty.
I almost like Max more for saying it out loud—he’s funny and smart.
And he’s also not wrong about me using Noah in that way.
I nearly texted Richard first, as if that picture of us, that picture he doesn’t even know about yet, means we’re in this together.
Do I like the idea of him swooping in to my rescue?
It feels a little lame, but there’s no denying that I wish I had a person right now.
And I wish that person were Richard. The connection I feel every time I’m near him is ridiculous, childish in its absence of clear logic—unfortunately, knowing that doesn’t seem to be making it any less real.
“Thank you for coming,” I say to Max. “I know you have a dinner to get to.”
Max tries to smile, but he doesn’t get very far.
“It’s not a problem,” Noah says. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, just a little freaked out, that’s all.”
“Yeah, me, too,” Max says sharply. “Remind me why we’re not calling the police?”
“I can’t,” I say. Luckily, I’ve already worked out a good excuse. “The studio belongs to the gallery, and I think maybe I left it unlocked. I’m afraid they’ll get angry with me if they find out about the damage.”
Not bad. Also, now that I’ve said it out loud, I’m realizing it’s true.
“Okay,” Max grumbles. “But to be clear, I will be way more than angry if someone is still in there.”
“I’m sure they’re not,” Noah says. “She called us like thirty minutes ago. They’ve got to be long gone by now.”
“Great, then we can go home,” Max says.
“Stop it, Max,” Noah snaps, which makes Max scowl even more.
“Thank you,” I say directly to Max. “I know this is annoying, but I do really appreciate it.”
—
I follow them inside, feeling lightheaded when I see the extent of the damage.
When I entered the first time, I was terrified and turned around immediately as soon as I realized someone had vandalized the studio.
I registered that it was bad, but not this bad.
The space has been completely destroyed, my supplies ransacked, canvases slashed.
The effort it must have taken. The rage.
The Senator. He sent another crazy text demanding I call him. But when I did, he just breathed into the phone, then hung up. Now this? It doesn’t make any sense. Unless he’s completely lost it.
“All clear,” Max says after he checks the last dark corner. “Crisis averted.”
“Are you going to be okay?” Noah asks me, ignoring Max’s impatient singsong tone. “Because you don’t look okay.”
“It was probably just kids messing around,” Max says. “The kids that go to LaGuardia near my work are animals. They’d probably call this an average night out.”
“Max, go outside. I’ll be there in a second,” Noah says.
“Fine.” Max raises his hands and turns for the door.
“Sorry again!” I call after him. He waves an annoyed hand over his head on the way out.
Noah motions to the damage. “What is this, Frankie?”
“There are some kids who hang out nearby at night, smoking pot. They seem like prep school kids. Aren’t they the worst ones?”
“It’s a lot of anger for some random kids.”
I’m quiet for a long time. It’s not like I need to lie to Noah.
He is the one person who knows. Not about the agreement or the money—I was too ashamed to admit that to anyone.
But he knows what happened at his house that night.
I think he’s always felt guilty about it.
That’s probably why he’s so generous with me.
I shrug. “I think it might be the Senator.”
“Really?” Noah’s face scrunches in disbelief. Then he looks mortified. “I’m not saying that I don’t…Obviously it could be him. But, I mean, it just seems…That was a long time ago.”
“He’s been texting me, too.” The picture of me and Richard is not relevant. It’s not. “He’s running for governor, and his opponent is a woman who might be digging around his personal history.”
“Shouldn’t he be trying to win you over, then? Not threatening you?”
It’s a fair point. “I don’t know, but the texts are from him, for sure.”
“What do they say?”
“Nothing, really. That I should watch myself. That he’s watching me. He wanted me to call, but then didn’t speak when he answered. And now…this.”
“Shit.” Noah looks worried. “You need to go to the police, Frankie. This situation has gotten out of control.”
“I did.” I shake my head. “But without any actual proof or the threat of imminent danger, they can’t do anything.”
“Let them find the proof! That’s their job.”
We had a similar fight twenty-two years ago, after the party. But I finally put my foot down and made Noah drop it, then proved I’m not sure what point when I decided to see the Senator again.
“I’ll try again,” I lie. I am not telling him about the NDA now. I can’t—he’ll feel betrayed. “But I’m worried about what he’ll do if he finds out I went to the police.”
Noah leans forward and wraps me in a hug. “Frankie, I’m more worried about what he’ll do if you don’t.”
* * *
I fell down. Spectacularly. And we weren’t even climbing a cliff edge or delicately making our way on all fours up a rock scramble.
The topography on the first official day of hiking from base camp to Camp One was like hiking through the woods of the Northeast. The only difference was the trees.
Impossibly tall and thick and such an array of exotic greens all mixed together—I’d never seen anything so vibrant or diverse.
And it was so still and hushed as we hiked.
I felt moved almost to tears. After so many years in New York City, I’d forgotten how being so deep in nature left me awestruck.
These days it was something I only ever felt when I was working.
Painting was the only time I felt much of anything.
Maybe that was really why I came to this place on the other side of the world. Maybe there was something else I was looking for after all, and—
Whoosh—
My heel slipped right out from under me at the damp crest of a small hill.
But instead of catching myself as I had when it happened before, this time the other foot went, too.
I landed hard on my ass. And then I was in motion, sliding down a gully.
I just kept going faster and faster like I was on a Slip ’N Slide until finally I came to a stop at the bottom of the hill.
I pushed myself up quickly, ass and legs throbbing, scrambling to reclaim my dignity—though it was far too late for that. The men all stood at the top of the hill staring down at me. The only woman on the trip had gone down in a fabulously humiliating fashion.
If you could die of embarrassment, I was about to flatline.
“Whoa!” Bakari exclaimed good-naturedly, already on his way to help me. “That was the express way down.” He looked at my feet when he reached me. “Here, step this way. That is not the best place to stand.”
The reddish-brown earth was moving beneath my feet in a swirling pattern. I wondered for a moment if I’d somehow hit my head.
Bakari tugged me forward gently. “Ants,” he said casually as he gestured to the ground.
“What is it?” Richard called out.
“Oh my God.” So many ants it was impossible to believe. Millions. They were the moving earth.
“What’s the matter?” Van said nervously, walking to the edge and peering down.
“Just ants,” Bakari called back casually.
“But a lot of ants!” I added. Bakari’s tone hardly captured the situation. “Way more than you’ve ever seen.”
“Ouch!” Scotty, up at the top of the hill, jumped to the side.
“They bite,” Kito said casually. “The ants. You should shake out your pants. They are up here, too.”
“Oh, man, they’re everywhere!” Van shouted in a panic.
Kito guided the men down to where we were standing. My entire rear end was soaked in mud. I was already strategizing about how I would hang back within the group until it dried.
“Jesus, that is a lot of ants,” Richard said, stepping back nervously.
“Shit, I think they’re way up in my pant legs already!” Brooks howled.
“Mine, too!” Scotty shouted.
“I think they got me also,” Van groaned.
The men danced in circles, helplessly trying to slap away the ants. Yelping. They looked ridiculous.
“Falling down doesn’t seem so bad now,” Bakari said to me, laughing. “Let us go.”
We hiked for five hours the first day. It was far longer and far more tiring than I had expected.
Already the altitude had a subtle but noticeable effect, making everything just a little bit more difficult.
I pushed harder to compensate, which only compounded my exhaustion.
We were constantly shuffling places, but Richard was behind me for most of the afternoon approaching Camp One.
“It’s amazing how you’re handling all this,” he said to me at one point.
“You mean the falling down like an asshole?” I asked.
Hours later, my cheeks still felt warm from the whole debacle, and I was ready to pounce on whatever patronizing thing he was about to say next.
How you’re handling this—for a woman, for such a novice, for someone like you—wasn’t a great start.
I liked Richard, and he was certainly attractive.
But I suspected he’d eventually show himself to be like so many other men I’d known: a disappointment.
“No, I mean this whole thing. I never could have come over here alone like you did.”
My irritation was substantial, but unmoored. There was actually nothing irritating about what Richard was saying.