Chapter 19 #2
The coffee turns in my belly. When Maral strolls into the station, bag slung over the shoulder of her lucky emerald-green wrap dress, long black hair flowing behind her like that of a siren calling from the sea, my eyes sting just looking at her.
She’s so happy, she’s practically radiating with it.
“Sorry I’m late.” She’s slightly out of breath from her brisk walk. “You look…weird,” she says, spying my wretched grimace.
“You look spectacular,” I say, voice hitching on the last syllable.
“Whoa, what’s the matter?” She steps toward me, concerned. “How were things with your mom?” she asks knowingly.
I sniff. “Filling. There’s two weeks’ worth of dinner for you in this cooler.”
She takes in the travel cooler at my feet, then raises worried eyes to me. “Ryan?”
I swallow. “Long gone.”
“Have you heard how his meeting went?”
“Not yet,” I say. “It started at ten—I’ll text him after.”
Shanthi waves her phone at us. “Speaking of which, we need to get boarding.”
We make our way to the platform, questions cropping up in my mind like moles I keep whacking down, fighting my instinct to hammer Maral with them. She’s being secretive for a reason. Badgering her will only cause her to clam up more, probably. So I aim for breezy.
“Where were you?” I ask. It comes out less breeze, more howling gale.
“Just met someone for breakfast.” She keeps her gaze averted, busying herself with opening doors, fussing with one of my suitcases.
“Who?”
“Simone James. We did our master’s together.”
She climbs aboard the train and we’re distracted by finding seats, stowing bags, and getting settled.
I decide not to press. (Someone give me an award.) Maybe she did meet Simone for breakfast. Maybe she’s really wearing her lucky dress for no reason at all—or at least not to impress her secret lover.
Hell, maybe Simone’s her secret lover and she’s not ready to come out yet.
What kind of cousin would I be if I pushed that?
Shanthi promptly puts on her noise-canceling headphones, effectively pulling a curtain between us.
Maral and I sit side by side across from her, Mar suddenly quite taken with her phone.
I check my own. Ryan’s meeting is probably almost over.
I start to draft a message, erase it, try again, erase that too.
Every attempt is either too flirty or too cold.
I bite the inside of my cheek, unsure what tone to hit because I’m unsure what we even are at this point.
He remains an employee of my publisher—if he hasn’t been fired—and we remain…
friendly. Do I just ignore the undercurrent of what else we’ve been?
I have to.
I decide on something simple. Hey, hope you got home safe. How did the meeting go?
Easy enough. Sounds like something I’d text to Meredith. That’s a good barometer.
I watch the screen, expecting ellipses on his side of the text chain, but nothing comes up.
Maybe he’s still in the meeting, even though it took me so long to actually write that stupid message that it’s well past eleven now, our train chugging toward home.
Meetings go long all the time. Would that be a good thing or bad?
Or maybe his lack of response is deliberate. Maybe Woodsworth did let him go and he doesn’t want to tell me for fear that I’ll feel guilty (accurate). If he’s out of a job, he has way bigger fish to worry about than telling me.
“You okay?” Maral asks, making me jump.
“Fine,” I say, my tight voice sounding anything but.
Her lashes dip as she glances at the phone in my hand. “Any news?” she asks.
I shake my head.
She reaches for my hand, but I flinch away, and she drops hers.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“As soon as there’s anything to share, you’ll be the first person he tells.”
A sound escapes my mouth, something between puh and a choke. “I don’t know about that.”
“I do,” she says.
Something about her tone, its conclusiveness, irks me. “Now you’re a Ryan expert?”
To her credit, she takes my impertinence in stride. “I’d have to have spent the past two weeks buried underground not to notice that he’s got feelings for you beyond just sexual ones.”
The very mention of his sexual feelings has my thighs sneaking together. It feels like it’s been a month since Ryan touched me, instead of just a few days. How will I go on without it?
“Do you know he called ahead to every daytime event to make sure they served your favorite coffee?” Maral goes on.
“You’re not a diva, you don’t have a rider.
But he did it. What about what he said to that dickwad at the Chicago event?
And how about the way he stood up to your mom?
Vartouhi may not have loved that, but I sure did. And I know you did too.”
My chin quivers as visions play on a loop in my mind.
Ryan at my side, coming to my defense at the Chicago Q and A.
Standing in my doorway that night, asking if I was okay, nobly averting his gaze from my braless breasts.
Valuing my work, validating my choices. Sitting with me on cold cement in an alleyway as I reeled from my mother’s criticism.
Listening with every ounce of his attention.
Understanding, empathizing. Rubbing my back. Weaving his fingers through mine.
“It doesn’t matter,” I say. So defeated it aches. “The tour is over, and he’s out of my life now. My personal one, anyway. Maybe also my professional one.” The phone—as yet responseless—feels like a lead weight in my hand.
“He doesn’t have to be. If he’s no longer at Woodsworth, nothing is actually standing in your way. Except you.”
“Are you forgetting our plan to move across the country?” Nothing is certain yet, but Nadia and I are meeting with Scope this Friday. Wheels are in motion. And they’re going to take me far, far away from Ryan. Which, all the better. Or at least not worse. Right?
She rolls her eyes, muttering, “How could I forget.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I ask. Her lackluster responses to anything L.A.-related lately are beginning to irritate me.
She presses her lips together, hesitates. “Nothing,” she says finally. “Just—who knows how long that could take? There’s plenty of time to see where things might go with Ryan in the meantime.”
“You mean to watch things crash and burn.”
Her eyes soften. She tucks her hand through the crook of my elbow, wraps her slender fingers around my biceps. “Ryan isn’t Nathan.”
“No,” I say. “But I’m still me.”
And there’s the rub. No matter how well things may go at first, there is a side of me that—if revealed—causes the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
It happened with Nathan, and that was hard enough.
I couldn’t face that with Ryan. He got enough of a peek behind the curtain in Boston, and I’d rather chew on stemware than let him see any more.
Would much rather he remain a fond memory than a present heartache.
My phone buzzes, saving Mar from having to muddle through a response to that mic drop. Butterflies take flight in my stomach when I see Ryan’s name on the screen. Finally.
All is well.
Relief whips through me like a whirlpool, despite the hint of an undertow beneath its surface. The implication of his continued employment at Woodsworth is that there is officially no chance for anything more between us.
Which was always the case, anyway. So, pulse, you can stop your arrhythmic beating now, thank you.
I share the news with Mar and ignore the disheartened look in her eye that indicates she’s also connected those dots. I’m starting to respond when I get another buzz.
How are you? How’d it go with your mom?
I slump back in my seat. Of course. Even as he’s facing what is surely an intensely stressful day back at work, he asks after me.
Fine, I start to type, then erase it, remembering the way he scolded my oft-used refrain. But I clam up at the idea of answering with something too real, feeling like I’d be giving too much credence to what we shared in that alleyway two nights ago. Not only to him, but to myself.
At the same time, it feels wrong to brush him off. After everything.
Could have been worse, I finally write.
True, he responds. You could have been camping.
A laugh bubbles out of me. I send a skull-and-crossbones emoji, follow up with Food was amazing, at least.
His response comes back. But how was the coffee?
A smile spreads across my face like watercolor paint.
I send him a drooling emoji in response.
Consider whether I should write that I’ll see him tomorrow.
He did say he’d come to my keynote at the Lead Tomorrow conference on Tuesday, and I assume he’s still planning to.
Though…who knows. It’s not strictly a book event.
No reason for anyone from Woodsworth to be there, least of all the head of publicity who was only assigned to my tour at the last minute due to a staffing change.
One who was caught in flagrante delicto with an author on camera, no less, and almost got fired for it.
Surely they’ve reassigned him now—maybe even warned him to keep his distance, for optics’ sake.
Which…all the better. Ryan will move on, work on other books, sleep with other women, and maybe find one whose heart is a cozy refuge rather than a haunted house.
My shoulders feel heavy. I sink into the worn upholstered seat, closing out of the text chain.
Before I swipe out of the app, another message catches my eye. The one Jacob sent this morning.
My thumb hovers over it for a moment before I give in, tapping it open. I type—Heading back now; hit you up soon—and before I let myself think about it, I press Send.