Chapter 20 Above
Above
The night of the dinner, Dev picks me up, dressed in an -impeccable blue suit that makes my off--the--rack black dress look frumpy by comparison. The event is in the school auditorium, so we’re on familiar ground as we cross the parking lot.
“I’m impressed they pulled this together so quickly,” Dev says.
“That’s Melinda for you.” Inside, tables have been arranged with white tablecloths.
A display at the front of the auditorium bears a beaming picture of Bryson and his family.
I spot Melinda right away, chatting with the mayor and Bryson’s parents.
Bryson himself squirms at his mother’s side, clearly eager to explore.
I doubt he’s getting more than arm’s length away anytime soon.
Tamara waves us down. “Paul’s grabbing drinks,” she reports. Her only nod to the glamour of the occasion is a blazer over her usual top and jeans. She looks me up and down approvingly. “Well, aren’t you a tall drink of water. And the arm candy ain’t half bad, either.”
“Arm candy? I think I’ve been promoted,” Dev says, and sticks out his hand to introduce himself. Paul returns with a gin and tonic for himself and a stiff whiskey for Tamara, who downs half of it in one slug.
“So what do you think? Campaign announcement tonight, or do you think it’ll be another week?” she asks, eyeing the Hills.
“Subtle hints tonight. Announcement next month,” Paul predicts. “But it’ll be Andrew.”
“He doesn’t have the balls for politics,” Tamara says disapprovingly. “Melinda is the one who knows how to get things done. If it weren’t for the cancer, she’d be a senator by now.”
“You’re a fan, I take it?” Dev asks. My stomach feels pinched. The thing about this town is that you can’t escape the Hills if you try.
Tamara grunts an affirmative. “Liked her before she ran, like her now. Hope’s Hands is a hell of an organization, and we worked together on some DV stuff before she ran. That was my focus before I got roped into managing these chuckleheads.” She jerks a thumb toward me and Paul.
“I did always think it was funny you went from helping people disappear to finding them,” Paul says.
I twitch. “Disappear?” I say.
She waves a hand. “I spent a little time working with a group that helped women get new identities. When getting away from an abuser took more than a restraining order and a move. We’d empty their apartments out in the middle of the night.”
“Can you even do that legally?” Dev asks curiously. “Change your identity?”
Tamara makes a considering noise. “Depends. The no--paperwork,
no--crime version is keep a low profile.
Work under the table, operate with cash, use free clinics.
Giving people a fake name socially isn’t a crime.
Don’t even have to do it forever necessarily, just until whoever’s looking for you loses interest. There are legal avenues, but they’re tough to navigate.
We tried to connect our clients with folks who could help them with name changes and even petitioning for a new social security number, but most didn’t have the time or resources. ”
“And then there are the illegal things you definitely never facilitated,” Paul says, eyes sparkling.
“Only illegal thing I ever did involved a baseball bat and a strategic application of force to a vintage Camaro, and that was a matter of emergency deterrence,” Tamara says, hands in her pockets and a smirk in the corner of her mouth.
I think of those first years after Janie left.
She was basically a ghost. Using cash, crashing on couches.
Maybe that’s all that happened to her. She remade herself, the way she always talked about.
But it takes an incredible amount of work, navigating those kinds of logistics long--term.
Never drawing a proper paycheck, never signing a lease or having your credit run.
You only do something like that if you’re running from something. Someone. And Janie wasn’t—-not that I know of.
“Can I grab you something?” Dev is asking. “I was going to hit up the bar.”
I give myself a little shake. “I’ll go,” I say, suddenly needing the air.
“You sure?” he says, and at my nod asks for a scotch and soda.
“Coming right up,” I tell him, and touch his arm lightly as I drift away.
I plant myself in the line at the open bar. All of the volunteers have been invited, and I spot the new kid, no longer limping. -Tamara’s brassy laugh sounds from somewhere behind me. I check for Len and Kenny, but they haven’t arrived yet.
I finally reach the front of the line and place my order—-a G&T for me, Dev’s scotch and soda.
Hovering a few feet away, the new kid spots me and moves in with the laser--eyed focus of a social barnacle in need of a passing ship to attach to. I grab my drinks with a muttered thanks and turn quickly to make my escape—-and nearly slop both of them over Andrew Hill’s sports coat.
He catches me by both wrists, steadying me.
His grip is tight, and he holds on a beat too long before he releases me, our eyes locked together.
“Careful there,” he says. His voice is baritone.
It’s always had a gravelly edge to it. Every local profile of him talks about how Andrew Hill is genial, a man of the people, open and humble all at once, but to me, he has always seemed to carry a fragility with him—-the brittleness of thin ice over black water.
He’s too careful to make sure people like him, too precise in his efforts to be adored.
It makes me nervous about what he might do the day he stops caring what other people think.
“I’m so sorry,” I say. I want to step around him, but he’s squarely in my path, and the drinks line blocks my retreat.
“No harm done.” He hasn’t let go, looking at me like he’s trying to see something in my eyes—-or like he’s on the verge of saying something.
“Did you want to get to the bar?” I ask.
“I don’t drink,” he says.
“Since when?” I ask, unthinking, and then my teeth click shut. His eyes narrow. I’ve seen Andrew Hill very drunk indeed. Not that I was sober at the time, either.
“That was a long time ago,” he says, like a warning.
“Water under the bridge,” I say. I start to step around him. He lets me, his grip breaking smoothly, but his voice stills me.
“Audrey.” He swallows. He almost looks nervous. “It was a long time ago,” he repeats.
“I know,” I say. “I didn’t—-it wasn’t my best day. You didn’t do anything . . . ungentlemanly.”
He chokes a little. “You have an odd standard for gentlemen.”
“I just mean—-”
“I know what you mean.” He scrubs the back of his neck with one hand. “I was an idiot.”
“Past tense?” I say, daring a bit of a teasing tone. His smile is rueful.
“I like to think I’ve improved.”
Has he, though? Or is he saying what I want to hear? “What exactly do you want from me here, Andrew?” I ask.
“Nothing,” he says. “I just want to make sure we’re good.”
“Why, is someone going to be asking? I don’t think a drunken hookup in your twenties is going to disqualify you from office,” I say.
He makes a face. “God, no, that’s not it. I’m not running for anything.”
Paul will be disappointed to lose that bet. “Then why bring it up now?”
He’s still standing too close to me, giving me no easy way to exit. “No reason,” he says.
I give him a skeptical look. “Like I said. Water under the bridge. It’s forgotten. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .”
He looks as if he wants to say something more, maybe to extract a more thorough promise from me, but finally he nods.
I walk away with my heart beating a little too fast, frowning.
My encounter with Andrew was a mistake, but as far as I knew, he hadn’t thought about it—-or me—-since.
It’s odd to think it still weighs on him.
“What was that about?” Paul asks as I rejoin the others.
“Oh. That?” I say lightly. Tamara’s mouth is downturned, her eyes fixed on Andrew suspiciously. “I just almost spilled my drinks over the hometown hero, no big deal.”
“He looked a little intense about it,” Dev says, concerned. He takes his drink but doesn’t sip.
I shrug, laugh. It sounds false. “We’ve never really gotten along.”
“I didn’t realize you two knew each other,” Tamara says.
“We don’t. Not anymore. It was ages ago. He dated my best friend,” I say. And a few years later, I don’t add, I slept with him.
Well. That’s putting a nicer spin on it than it deserves.
It glosses over the particulars—-the grimy barstool that stuck to my thighs in my too--short dress, the glaze already on Andrew’s eyes when he leaned against the bar next to me, my angry amusement when I realized he had no idea who I was.
I was twenty--three and just another cute girl he expected to be bowled over by his almost--fame.
He dropped some low--effort pickup line, and I laughed. He thought I was charmed. I kept expecting him to figure it out. And for some reason, I decided to play along until he did.
What did Janie ever see in you? I remember thinking.
I thought about his lips on hers and his hands on her body and the time he got that I didn’t.
I thought about how the last thing Janie ever did to me was ditch me for this man, and when he asked me my name, I just said, “Do you really need to know?”
I expected him to call me out, even as he whispered a suggestion in my ear. Even as I followed him out to the parking lot.
I still don’t really know what I was thinking. We’d had several drinks on top of the ones I’d already downed, and he was worse off than I was. Every second I thought, I should stop this, and every second I didn’t.
We didn’t get far—-just to the back seat of his car. He was at least sensible enough to have packed a condom, and I was sensible enough to remind him to use it. It was quick and unsatisfying and the whole time I was thinking, This is what you left me for?
Afterwards, I was pulling up my panties and he straightened the strap of my dress for me. “I didn’t even get your name,” he said, and it actually sounded like he cared.