Chapter Fifteen
Elizabeth
“Do that good mischief.”
The Tempest
Saturday morning, the rain had cleared out, leaving the skies a muted November blue. I sat out on my porch, blanket draped over my legs, laptop propped on my knees, reading and re-reading the text I was editing.
Kate had emailed the chapter Friday afternoon, saying, Juliet can’t finish the Diderot collaboration, and I need the last 60 pages by Monday. Would you have time?
It was always like this. Feast or famine. If only I could count on a steady forty hours. As it was, sixty pages wouldn’t take more than a day, if that. Kate paid well, so it was decent extra cash for a few hours on a Saturday. Hardly rent money, though.
Academic work was slower than other writing, mainly because I’d have to double-check quotes and sources, plus now in addition to running a plagiarism scan, I’d need to try and detect AI.
But I had a system, and I rocked. Normally, I loved sinking into a job, but this morning, a yawn escaped as I tried to make sense of the author’s argument.
It is hard to resist comparing this tripartite paternity to the triangular structure presented by Lacan in his study on Poe’s “Purloined Letter.” Lacan presents three positions that repeat: the first is blind; the second sees that the first is blind; and the third sees what the second wishes to hide.
I suggested changing “presents” to “posits” to avoid the echo with “presented” in the prior sentence, but that took no real effort. I was phoning it in, so I decided to put it aside to sip my coffee and stare at the autumnal trees. Maybe I’d walk to the library so I could focus.
My phone buzzed, and when I saw Chelsea’s name on the screen, I rushed to answer.
“Distract me,” I said, knowing she’d wake me up.
“I wanna take a walk. Will you come with me? We can head toward the library.”
Like she was reading my mind. I knew Chelsea’s list by heart, and we did have Take a long walk in town on there. I wasn’t sure if the two miles from my house to the Corner counted as long. If so, I could have checked it off ages ago.
“It’s gorgeous out,” she continued, as if I needed more encouragement. “You can wear your college gear and pretend you’re going to class.”
Man, she knew me well. “Sold.”
I dug out a worn-in Cavalier hoodie, but then opted for a mega-soft cashmere sweater with matching cardigan that was giving major Back-to-School.
With a headband pushing my hair back and sticky pink lip gloss, I was ready to be someone’s teacher’s pet.
I got a little buzz from the thought of sitting in a classroom desk again.
Nothing beat stocking up on school supplies and perusing the reading lists of the upcoming classes.
Maybe I’d duck into the student bookstore and check out this semester’s lit curriculum, live vicariously.
I sighed. My extracurricular reading time had whittled to nothing, never mind writing.
Chelsea showed up just as I was locking my door, and we strolled up the sidewalk toward Main Street.
“You must really want a destination vacation this year,” I said.
Her desire to run away was one of the many things we did not share.
She teased me because I’d be as happy on a beach in Florida as I would be on the Mediterranean.
Beach is beach, and I’d have my nose in a book anyway.
But my motivation was keeping Chelsea happy, and so I’d do her therapy with her—and help her get as far away as we possibly could, point by brutal point.
“I can nearly taste it,” she said, eyes closing briefly as a blissful smile lit her face.
“Can we make it to Europe yet?”
“We’re getting close. Maybe we’ll unlock Portugal today, huh?” She knocked my shoulder with hers.
I liked seeing her in such a good mood. That list along with her wizard of a therapist had brought her a long way. “Maybe even Spain! Bas seems to be happy to help you check things off.”
That was the most surprising part of all this. I couldn’t tell if she was using him for points, or if he was using her list to spend time with her, but either way, she’d given him her phone number. These were unprecedented times.
“Don’t worry. He’ll lose interest soon enough.”
I peered over at her, trying to read her expression for any tells. “He cooked for you. Twice. You’re gonna act like he doesn’t want more?”
“He won’t get very far.”
“It’s unfair. You’re struggling because you attracted a guy who might actually be the perfect boyfriend and you don’t know what to do with that. Meanwhile, I managed to scare off a guy I would have wanted to date in any normal universe.”
She pressed her lips together in that kind of sympathetic frown reserved for lost causes when there wasn’t anything left to say. “So, have you had a chance to talk with Evan?”
I winced. “We managed to avoid each other after the six o’clock news on Thursday, but I don’t see how that will last. I’d quit if I had anything better.
” That reminded me. I took out my phone.
“Speaking of which, how does this sound?” I began reading from my draft email to Kate.
“‘You depend on me to be available for the most critical work, assuming I’ll have time between the jobs that actually pay my bills.’”
Chelsea frowned thoughtfully. She was never very talkative early in the morning, while my brain came straight out my mouth.
“Loving the energy. Maybe you want to focus more on how promoting you to full-time helps her. She already knows you’re juggling jobs and still takes advantage of how fast you turn things around.
Be bold. Make her worry she could lose you. ”
Right. “That’s true. If she lost me, she’d have to pay someone else at least twice as much to get the same results. What if I threatened to quit?”
“That’s one way to go.” She glanced down at her own phone and grunted a laugh. As she feverishly typed a response, her face lit up with a kind of glee she usually reserved for booking flights.
I harrumphed. “Is that Bas?” Since she wasn’t texting me, the only other person it could be was her mom. But she never smiled after hearing from her loser mother.
“It’s nothing.”
“Uh huh.” It wasn’t nothing though. It was obvious she was casually chatting with Bas. And she wasn’t even banging him. I didn’t know what to do with that information.
She forced her smile back into a scowl. “I’d say you should only threaten to quit if you mean it. The newsroom job pays pretty well, right?”
I blew a raspberry. “Sure. It’s physically, emotionally, and mentally draining, but I can afford new shoes.”
Which I might need since my blisters had blisters.
We crossed the bridge over the tracks, and always on the lookout for an escape hatch, Chelsea said, “We should hop on the train and just go wherever it goes.”
“It goes to Charlotte,” I said. “And Atlanta.”
“And New York,” she retorted. “And New Orleans.”
I rained on her daydream. “You don’t want to be stuck on a train for thirty hours.”
“Probably not.”
“We’ll go somewhere in January. It’s not that much longer. Hang in there.”
“How many points to go to Morocco?” she shot back.
I rolled my eyes. “Too many. What about Tijuana?”
She made a stink face, and I knew she’d find a way to make sure we left the continent, list or no list. We were going to have to decide soon, though. It was getting close to time to start booking flights and hotels.
We reached the Corner, the sidewalks becoming progressively more crowded with college kids, professors, parents, families, and townies—like Chelsea and I had become. She said, “I’m gonna get some coffee,” and headed toward a corporate chain store.
I balked. “From here?”
“Come on. It won’t kill us to sample the competition.”
The Chelsea I knew wouldn’t be caught dead entering this coffee shop. When she crossed herself against demons before stepping in, I knew something was up.
Inside, Chelsea steered us through the crowd to a table where bright shafts of morning sun lit a pair of familiar faces. Bas chewed on his lip, holding in a laugh as Evan’s expression melted into pure unadulterated horror.
No wonder Chelsea had willingly crossed into the devil’s lair.
Son of a bitch.
There was no casual way to extricate myself from this chance encounter Chelsea had so obviously orchestrated. At least I’d cleaned up well. And Evan? He’d come out in a faded sweatshirt that somehow made him look hotter than anyone had a right to be at ten in the morning.
“You better hope you’re up-to-date on your life insurance,” I whispered to Chelsea. Because this coffee shop was about to become the scene of a crime: the death of our friendship.
But then I saw the way she grinned at Bas, like they’d pulled off the ultimate prank together, and I was hit with a weird mix of jealousy and joy.
Jealousy because I didn’t want anyone replacing me in Chelsea’s shenanigans, but joy in the simple fact that she’d done something so out of the ordinary for her—and she’d done it with Bas.
I elected to fan that flame. With a cheery smile at Evan, I said, “What are the odds?”