Chapter 3 #2
I turn off the phone, fearful others might call, and go inside. Mum and Laura are drinking tea in the living room and Rob is in the kitchen, now dressed in jeans and a blue sweater.
I collapse on the couch next to my sister. She hugs me. “How are you doing, Bosie?” she asks.
“Better than last night. I guess you’re used to David being gone, but it’s new to me. I’ll have to go through the whole grieving process. Again, I suppose.”
“It was very hard on you the first time, on us all. I’m so sorry.”
“I’ll be okay. It’s weird, but because it’s mixed up with everything else, being here, not remembering Rob, or anything . . . That kind of dulls the pain. Another thing that is wrong about all this.” I wave my hand around.
Laura nods, her poker-straight blonde bob swinging. “Maybe when that straightens itself out, you’ll remember the healing you’ve done too. Dr. Lin recommended a specialist for patients who’ve had memory loss.”
“Yeah.” I’m doubtful but don’t want to dash her optimism. “Hopefully.”
“Eggs.” Rob sets a steaming bowl and a plate of stacked toast on the dining table.
“Yummy, weekend scramblies,” Laura claps her hands gleefully. “Guess this is your influence, Bosie.”
I look at Rob, unsure.
“Yeah,” he confirms with a smile. “We have oatmeal — sorry, porridge — as our weekday breakfast. But Josie loves scrambled eggs on weekends.” He settles his large frame into a chair.
“Speaking of weekdays,” I interrupt, “I had a call from Angela DeMarco, which I didn’t answer, and a text asking after me. I guess we are colleagues? Anyway, Rob, she wants you to call her.”
Rob nods. “Sure. I told Mike about your accident, but I can call Ange too.”
I pile some fluffy eggs on buttered toast and take a big bite. “My manager? Mike Jones?”
“Yes, he’s a Berkeley buddy and close friend. Best man at our wedding. He was the one who told me about the comms job at H&F, where he works with his partner, Hans. You and I had been together a few months by then.”
So, nepotism’s alive and well in Manhattan. Get your college buddy to give your new girlfriend a swanky job. Lucky Other Me.
“It was perfect timing, after you were laid off at Crain’s,” Rob adds, reading my expression.
“Sure. I just don’t remember.”
“Well, you’re great at it. I told Mike you have amnesia, dating from before working there, so you’ll have to start from scratch. Whenever you’re ready.”
He’s right. Assuming it’s going to take a while to figure out a way home, I’ll have to go to work at some point. I can’t keep padding around this apartment in Other Me’s lovely, skinny-person clothes. I’ll have to do her job, hang out with her friends, live her life, too.
Until I figure out how to get back.
I watch Rob eating his eggs. What now? Will he be okay with me sleeping in the art room, being his wife but not his wife — not in the ways that matter? Does he love me enough to wait for my memories to return? Not that they will.
Poor Rob. He thinks I’m his wife, but I’m not.
And what about his real wife — the Other Me? Does she exist separately from me? If I’m here, in her body and in her life, where is she? Maybe she’s at my place in Brooklyn, as confused as I am. Or maybe I’ve simply . . . replaced her.
After dressing, I gaze out of my bedroom window at Union Square Park. I can’t go back into the living room and keep having the same confusing conversations. Even in this lofty apartment, I’m feeling increasingly claustrophobic.
Mum is in the kitchen, cleaning up.
“I need some air, Mum, I’m heading out to the park. I’ll be back in a bit.”
Mum, always approving of a brisk walk, hands me a Coach purse, the silver-gray trench, and a pair of flat boots from the closet.
“Off you go. Here are your keys. Take your mobile, too, and don’t go far.
We don’t know how deep your amnesia runs.
We’ll have lunch together later.” She practically throws me out of the door.
Downstairs, I exit toward Union Square East, the concierge holding the lobby door. “Morning, ma’am. Hope you’re recovering.” He smiles widely.
“Better, thank you,” I reply. “What’s the best place for coffee?”
“Your usual is Carluccio’s, around the corner. The coffee from the kiosk in the park is also good, although they don’t have the milk you like . . . Mr. Billing told me about the memory loss, ma’am. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks . . . I’m sorry, what’s your name?”
“Edward, or Ed is fine. The valet you met yesterday is my son, Will. Have a nice day, ma’am.”
I nod before walking off slowly. I study my surroundings with interest. I’ve been to Union Square many times, but I’ve never hung out in this neighborhood.
Rob’s building must be new, as it wasn’t built when I was last here.
Crossing the street into Union Square Park, I turn around for a better view.
It’s an attractive tower of gray stone and glass, narrowing at the upper floors and narrowest where there seems to be a single penthouse at the top.
The eighteenth- and nineteenth-floor terraces are visible, and the square pillars between them are an elegant, modern take on art deco.
At the foot of the building, across the busy street, the large canopy bears tall art deco lettering that reads “Cavendish House”.
Cavendish? That’s my last name.
My pulse quickens.
I’ve got to figure out more about this Rob guy.
On a bench under an almost-bare tree, I pull out my phone and search for Rob Billing, then correct it to Robert Billing.
There are lots of results, and several images too, a few with me in them, glamorous society photos.
There’s one of us at a Broadway premiere, me in an emerald green dress, Rob in a tux, beaming as he gazes at me.
But the photos can wait. I need to understand who Rob is, and why he lives in a building bearing my name.
Robert Andrew Billing is a New York real estate developer and architect.
Born June 4, 1979, he is the only child of Seattle real estate developer Andrew Billing and Kim Wade of the Lummi First Nation.
Andrew Billing and Kim Wade met when Billing was co-developing a resort with the Lummi Nation on Lummi lands in Washington State.
That makes sense, given the photos of his parents on my phone. Rob looks like he is at least partly of Indigenous heritage.
In May 30, 2011, Robert Billing took over as president and CEO of B+B Developments, a Seattle and New York architecture and development company founded by his father as Billing Developments in 1975.
Robert Billing began working there after graduating UC Berkeley School of Architecture in 2005.
Robert Billing’s most notable development since taking over B+B Developments is a 2015-completed residential building on Union Square named Cavendish House, which Billing designed and which has been featured on reality TV show Luxury Listing NYC.
Of course. I’ve come across B+B Developments in my job on the radio show. But I didn’t know who the boss was. And, apparently, I’m married to him.
PERSONAL LIFE
On October 10, 2015, on the Hawaiian island of Maui, Robert Billing married Josephine Alice Cavendish, a UK-born communications professional and former associate editor at Crain’s New York Business.
Cavendish is communications manager at Manhattan real estate brokerage Halstein & Faust. Robert Billing’s most recent residential development, Cavendish House, was named for his wife as a wedding gift, and the couple lives in the building.
I sit for a long time, staring at the building entrance and the words “Cavendish House” in their graceful lettering. A building named for me, as a gift from my multi-millionaire husband. Incredible.
But this is also a world where I am married to a man I don’t know, and David is dead. I mustn’t be seduced by its lavishness and its elegant architecture.
I shake it off and go to order a latte at the kiosk. The old guy beams at me in recognition. “Ms. Cavendish herself, a pleasure. How are you?”
“Fine, thank you.” I smile back and lift my strapped arm to display my injury. “Apart from the sprained wrist. How are you?”
“Peachy, thanks, ma’am. Here you go, regular latte. Four and a quarter, please.” I pull out a chic leather wallet from the Coach purse. Thankfully the back section holds cash, and I hand over a five. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you, ma’am. Send our best to your husband. Tell him Luca and Greta say hi.”
“I will.” I take a sip of the coffee and walk away with an awkward wave of my strapped arm.
The coffee is delicious, made with creamy milk.
So that’s why Other Me doesn’t get coffee from here — no 1%.
Can’t be drinking full-fat lattes with a figure like this.
I wonder if I’ll wreck Other Josie’s body for her in the time I occupy it.
I giggle at the thought and sip my coffee.
My merriment doesn’t last long. I buy a newspaper and return to my bench, wondering what else is different from my reality.
I read the paper from cover to cover, checking for variations in the news.
Nope, it doesn’t seem like there’s been some kind of butterfly effect in which my different life has somehow caused a mass humanitarian disaster.
Everything in the news seems in order — or the same disorder as my own world.
The cellphone rings and I pull it out of the purse, Laura’s name popping up.
“Hey, Laura.”
“Where are you?” My sister sounds a little anxious. “Is she okay?” I hear Rob say in the background.
“I’m in the park, reading the paper and acting like a normal person,” I say, more breezily than I feel. “How’s it going?”
“Good. We’re getting hungry for lunch. Want to meet us at Carluccio’s? It’s near the square.”
“Sure. See you there in five?”
“Sounds good.”
Passing a homeless guy on the path, I find a handful of quarters in my purse, which I drop in his upturned ball cap. “Would you like this paper? I’m done with it.”