42. Emmy
Liam and I talk on the phone for hours every night while I’m in Nashville.
I hear the jingle of Snowflake’s collar near the phone and smile. “You’ve got her on the bed, don’t you?” I ask.
“She’s lonely,” he says. “She keeps watching for you. It seemed like the least I could do.”
Tears sting my eyes unexpectedly. I hate the idea of her watching for me, wondering when I’ll get home every day. “I don’t know what I’m going to do with her in New York,” I say, my voice slightly hoarse. “There’s a dog walker who comes to the building, but it seems like such a lonely day for her. I’m never home.”
He’s quiet for a moment. We haven’t really discussed the fact that I’m leaving, that this is nearly done, and I’d rather not discuss it. I’ll be checking on the progress of the construction once we’ve torn down Lucas Hall, but I won’t be back often. These last few days with him are really the only ones I’m going to get.
“I can keep her,” he says. “Depends on the job that’s underway, but I’m spending more and more of my days just driving between jobsites and she can come with me for that.”
I swallow. It’s a kind offer. It’s the best solution. I don’t know why it makes me so fucking sad. “Thank you,” I whisper. “Well, I need to get to bed.”
“Are you crying, Em?” he asks.
I brush the tears off my cheeks. “I don’t cry.”
He laughs. “Of course you don’t. But Em? We’re going to miss you too.”
* * *
I returnon Friday and head straight to the grocery store. Liam’s guys are already done here—it’s pristine and ready for business, aside from the empty shelves. It’s no longer my problem—we’ve hired a manager and as long as she does her job well, my involvement is done.
I walk back to my office for the final time, and my throat is tight. It’s a shitty office—not a single window, cinderblock walls. I should be thrilled that I’m finally clearing my shit out. But it was a little island in time, an awful space where I was strangely happy. Which I guess could be said of Elliott Springs as well, these past few months.
I’ve just finished packing the final box when Charles calls. I’m tempted not to answer, but he’ll just keep calling if I don’t.
“Has the diner agreed to sell?” he demands in lieu of a greeting.
I don’t actually blame him for being so persistent. While most of Main Street consists of old rowhouses we can’t get torn down, the diner sits on its own large parcel of land. There are a million things we could do with it once the apartment building is in.
“No,” I reply. “It’s been in their family for forty years. I think you’d need to make a really nice offer for them to even consider it.”
“It’s not worth shit at the moment,” he argues. “I’m not clueing them in to what it’s worth by offering them millions. Did you call the health department?”
“Yes,” I lie. Paul is a dick, but I just don’t have it in me to ruin Jeannie’s business. It seems to me she’s suffering enough just having him as a kid. “Elliott Springs is inconvenient. It might take them a while.”
“Time there has made you fucking incompetent,” he says as he hangs up. “I’ll do it myself.”
I sink into my chair. It’s so…wrong. It’s so incredibly wrong. He’s going to destroy this woman’s family business because he thinks it will make him money. But I’ve been helping him because I wanted revenge, half of it against people and places that never did anything to me, which probably isn’t any better.
Being bullied probably should have taught me that bullying was wrong. Instead I decided to be the biggest bully of them all.
I throw the last box in my car and walk to the diner just as the lunch shift is dying down. It’s probably not the best time to talk to Jeannie, but I’m not sure there’s ever a great time. She’s here all day long, and she’s always working.
If Charles was just willing to make her a decent offer for the property, I’d think she should take it. As things stand, though, selling the diner will simply mean she’s entering the job market for the first time at an age where most people are retiring.
Paul is wiping down the laminated menu with a cloth I can smell from four feet away. He has a bandaged nose and a black eye—I imagine I know who did it.
“What do you want?” he asks, as surly as ever.
“For you to fuck off and die,” I answer with a tight smile. “If that’s not an option, however, I’d like to talk to your mom.”
“She doesn’t need to talk to you,” he replies. “If you’re trying to buy us up like you’ve done with the rest of the town, the answer’s no.”
“Hmmm, if I wanted to have an important business conversation, it wouldn’t be with the guy whose primary responsibility is wiping down the menus,” I reply, walking past him toward the kitchen. I’m improving, but I’ll never be a fucking saint.
I poke my head in. Jeannie’s at the far end, talking to one of the line cooks, but comes over quickly. “Hi Emerson,” she says, “is everything okay?”
“Not really,” I reply. “Can we speak in private?”
She frowns and leads me back to a tiny office that’s full of boxes and piles of paper and still is a marvel of cleanliness compared to my mother’s house. She gestures to the chair across from her. “Sorry about the mess. What’s up?”
I take a deep breath. “I’m going to tell you to do something, and I need you not to ask a single question. I also need you to never tell a single person what I’m about to say.”
Her eyes widen. Her nod is barely perceptible.
“Get a commercial cleaning company in here. Today. You need to have them clean everything, top to bottom. You need to be able to eat off the floor when they’re done.”
“Are we getting inspected?” she whispers.
“I think so. I don’t know how fast it’ll happen, but I suspect it will be really fast. And for the next couple of days, don’t have anyone working that could get you in trouble.”
“Trouble?”
“I’m not asking about this, and I don’t want to know, but if you’ve got anyone here who’s undocumented, give them tomorrow off. If you have anyone who’s violating parole, who’s wanted for something…give them the day off too.”
“We’ve been inspected before,” she says faintly. “We always do okay.”
I stare at the floor. “Jeannie, this isn’t going to be that kind of inspection.”
I want to tell her they’re gunning for you. They’re going to make it so hard to operate your business that you just give up. But as much as I like Jeannie, I know that anything I say could come back to bite me in the ass. If I admit how Inspired Building operates, she could appear at the final hearing about Lucas Hall and ruin everything.
“Did you make this happen?” she whispers.
I shake my head. “No.”
Suddenly, I’m so fucking glad not to be a part of it.
* * *
“That was a nice thing you did,”Liam says over dinner.
I look at our plates. “I barely helped you cook. You said, and I quote, that my assistance is ‘mostly ornamental, and we’re safer that way.’”
He grins. “I meant what you said to Jeannie. At the diner.”
I exhale loudly. “For fuck’s sake. She wasn’t supposed to go running her mouth about that.”
His tongue prods the inside of his cheek. “She wasn’t running her mouth. She was telling your boyfriend—”
My mouth opens to correct him, and he stops me. “You fucking live with me. Don’t argue about that. Anyway, she was telling your boyfriend about what a nice thing you did.”
My arms fold. “She still shouldn’t have said anything. I mean, she just gave information that could get me fired to my only competitor for Lucas Hall.”
Any hint of a smile leaves his face. “Are you serious right now? Would you not have told me about that because you still think I’m trying to steal Lucas Hall? After everything we’ve been through, you still think I’d fuck you over?”
No, I don’t. But that’s the thing about having the rug pulled out from under you: it’s always when you don’t expect it.
“Crazier things have happened,” I reply.
He pushes away from the table. “Jesus Christ, Em. I don’t even know what to say.” His hands press to the top of his head, tugging at his hair. And then he grabs his keys and walks out the door. Panic swells in my chest, but I’ve no clue how to back things up, how to fix them. A few seconds later, the truck roars as he tears off down the street. I swallow hard and press my face to my hands, trying not to cry.
I don’t want to be like this. I don’t want to be this cynical and untrusting. I was made this way by being put in the exact situation he’s putting me in now: by being asked to trust someone, by having someone assure me he had my best interests at heart. How many times did I meet someone new and later learn he or she had only been nice to me because they were helping Bradley with one of her schemes? It didn’t happen once, or even twice—it happened multiple times and I fell for it again and again.
I start cleaning up dinner, but when every last dish is in the washer and there’s nothing left to be done, tears start to stream down my face. I hate that he left. I hate that I have no one in the world, other than him, and now he’s gone too. I hate that nothing about destroying Elliott Springs feels the way I’d hoped it would.
The lights of his truck sweep the kitchen as he pulls into the driveway. I turn toward the sink and remain there, trying to pull my shit together. He crosses the room while I grab a sponge and start to scrub the already spotless stainless steel. I can’t seem to stop crying.
“Em,” he says quietly, pulling me toward him.
I resist, but eventually I’ve got no choice but to drop the sponge and turn.
“Oh, honey,” he says, brushing the tears off my cheeks. “Is this because I left? I was just trying to clear my head before I said the wrong thing. I was always going to come back.”
I nod as if I already knew this, my tears soaking his shirt, but I didn’t. “I trust you, Liam,” I whisper, “but that’s what’s so terrifying.”
He leads me to the couch and turns off the light so we are mostly sitting in darkness. He pulls my head to his chest and runs a hand over my hair. “I just don’t understand, Em. I’m killing myself here to move at your pace, to show you how I feel. I just don’t understand why nothing seems to work.”
It’s time, I guess. I don’t want to tell him this story and it might ruin everything, but I need him to understand. “So what you need to understand is this,” I begin, my voice barely a whisper. “I had no friends in high school. I probably would have, but everyone was too scared of Bradley for that. I skipped lunch because she made fun of me for eating. I skipped every school event because I had no one to attend with. I was alone at home, I was alone at school, I was alone everywhere. That’s why I created the online book club.”
His hand runs in circles over my back.
I continue. “It was on Facebook. Mostly women who like Jane Austen. And then this boy joined. James. He lived in San Francisco and we were the same age. He started messaging me and I was so fucking happy to have a friend.”
I swallow. God, the whole thing sounds even more pathetic aloud than it did in my head.
“He liked me. He sent me photos of himself, and when I finally worked up the nerve to send him photos back, he told me I was perfect just as I was. This went on for about six months and messaging him was the highlight of my whole day. He convinced his mom to drive him down from San Francisco so he could take me to homecoming. He’d gotten a bright blue bow tie to match my dress…”
My voice trails off, remembering it all. Our discussions about corsages and matching ties and how late he might be able to stay. He was a virgin too. He was nice about not pushing me too hard, but I knew he was hopeful, and I was too. I was so fucking hopeful. I worried seeing me in person would change something, but I knew it also might confirm something.
“They got stuck in traffic, so he asked me to meet him at Lucas Hall instead of picking me up. He kept texting with updates, saying they were closer. I looked like an idiot standing out there, and I knew it, but I kept on waiting. It was a full hour before he finally texted to say he was on Main Street. I said something like, ‘I can’t wait to see you!’ and he said, ‘I can’t believe you thought I’d date a fat pig.’”
Liam’s arm stiffens. “Wait. What?”
My voice is rough. I can’t believe I’m still upset well over a decade later. “There was no James. Bradley fabricated the whole thing. And right after she sent that final text, she and her posse came outside and threw copies of all the messages I’d sent ‘James’ from the top of the stairs. It was all the pictures, everything, blowing down the steps. And it wasn’t until they started laughing that I realized he’d never existed in the first place.”
“God.”
How many decades will it be before I stop feeling ashamed of it? Before I don’t cringe at the memory of those photos of me blowing all over the stairs? I never sent him nudes, the way he requested, but the pictures I did send were bad enough. And those ridiculous, impassioned emails: James, I love you more every day. I can’t wait until we are at the same college.
Of course, he’d said those things to me too. He’d said more, so much more, all calculated to get me to say it back. But all that mattered after that night were my words, repeated back to me as I walked through the hall.
The pictures of me in a bra would pop up at random for the next two years—papering the lockers when we got back into school Monday, raining down from the sky when we threw our caps at graduation. Bradley and her little followers would quote my most heartfelt, pathetic missives to me as I walked through the halls.
I wanted to die, and the only thing that got me through it was by telling myself I was going to make them pay.
His lips press to my head. “I’m so sorry, Em. So, so sorry.”
“It isn’t that I don’t trust you,” I whisper, and my voice cracks again. “The problem is that I do. So don’t fuck up, okay?”
He pulls me tighter. “I won’t. As God is my witness, I won’t.”
I believe him. But that doesn’t mean I’m not still scared, too.