Chapter Thirty-Nine
I needed to get down the elevator and out the door and onto the street. Then I could just sob. It was dark and loud outside. The streets were crawling with drunks and bachelorette parties. One more crying woman in a sea of chaos would be nothing to look at.
The elevator doors opened to the lobby and I walked straight through the bar to the side exit on Baronne Street.
“Vera?”
No, no, no.
If I didn’t look back, I could claim I hadn’t heard him or that I was distracted.
I opened the door, and a firm hand gripped my elbow.
“Vera,” Eli breathed. “Are you just going to ignore—”
I turned around just as the torrent of tears began to fall. Shit. I did not want to be perceived at this moment and especially not by Eli.
His taunting expression quickly shifted to deep concern, a muscle in his jaw clenching.
“Vera,” he said tenderly. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”
My lips parted and I shook my head because I couldn’t let the words come out without a chorus of hiccups and sobs.
And then he pulled me into his arms, turning me away from the entrance. He smoothed a hand over my hair while his other hand rubbed broad circles on my back.
I gasped at the relief of being touched. Being held. Brody and I had gotten to a point where we rarely touched outside of sex. But being held by Eli, his body shielding me from the very full lobby and bar . . . I felt briefly soothed.
“I’m getting your shirt all wet,” I said. “And I’m wearing all this stupid makeup.” I pressed a palm to his chest and tried to push back from him, but his arms only tightened around me.
He rested his chin atop my head. “Don’t push me away right now.” His voice verged on desperate, like he needed this as much as I did.
We stayed like that for a while and if anyone noticed or cared, I couldn’t see them.
I focused on the sandalwood scent of his cologne and the fresh linen detergent he kept stocked in the apartment. At least he’d changed out of his tux and into a black T-shirt, so my mascara stains would be hidden.
“Do you want to go for a walk?” he asked.
I nodded into his chest.
“Wait here,” he whispered into my hair. “I’m going to close out my tab.”
While he ran back up to the bar, I turned to the window to see a distorted version of my reflection. I rubbed under my eyes as best I could to wipe the makeup away. There was nothing to be done about my puffy face and the swelling under my eyes.
Eli returned and without hesitating took my hand, pulling me out to the street and through the throngs of people. Once we had made our way past the crowds, his thumb ran back and forth across the top of my hand before he let go.
I fought the hollow feeling at the loss of his touch. There was no excuse to hold hands. I hadn’t even wanted him to in the first place.
We walked in silence up to Canal Street, and I felt Eli’s eyes on me, concern radiating from him.
“I’m okay,” I finally said.
“It’s okay if you’re not.”
We paused at the crosswalk, waiting for the signal.
He rocked back on his heels with his arms folded over his chest. “Do you want to tell me what had you so upset back there? Did someone say something to you?”
I sniffed. “You gonna beat them up?”
“Maybe. I’m not a surgeon, after all. These hands aren’t too precious.”
“Well, unless you plan on going a few rounds with Ruby, then down, boy.”
“Ahhh.”
We crossed the street into the Quarter and he didn’t press for information, but I wanted to talk to him. I wanted him to know.
“I asked her why she invited you.”
“Did you, now?”
“She thinks she knows what I need, but she never asks what I want.”
He inhaled through his nose and nodded slowly. That was the closest I’d gotten to asking him to leave.
“It’s not that I don’t want you here—”
He shook his head. “Don’t worry, Vera. I know this isn’t about me. What else did she say?”
I didn’t know how to explain to him that I wanted him here so badly for plenty of reasons, but none of them were good for me. “She’s just disappointed in me. I’m not married. I don’t have kids. No real career. I’m not adventurous or outgoing. I’m not any of the things she wants me to be.”
He steered us around a corner, down a quieter street full of darkened art galleries and restaurants that were closing up for the night. “But are you any of the things you want to be?”
I sucked in a deep breath, the thick, humid air coating my lungs with condensation. “No. Yes. Maybe. Sometimes. I don’t know how to tell her that I’m disappointed in myself too without feeling like she’s somehow won. It’s like . . . I can talk shit about myself, but when she does, it’s different.”
“No, you can’t.”
“What?”
“Talk shit about yourself,” he said. “I’m not okay with you bullying yourself like this, Vera. And respectfully, fuck Ruby.”
I laughed. I couldn’t help it.
But he wasn’t laughing with me. “How the hell do you not see what I see, Vera?”
I shook my head. “Tell me, then. What do you see?”
He stopped and turned to me. We stood in the darkness just outside a circle of light emanating from a courtyard.
“I see the girl who did extra credit in classes she already had an A in. And the woman who cared for her dying mother through an illness that hurts nearly as much to witness as it does to experience. The open and kind person who let Brody in and treated him like family even though he’s a human wrecking ball. ”
“I liked to think of him more like the Kool-Aid Man,” I said quietly.
He shook his head. “Sure. The Kool-Aid Man. You encouraged Leonard to finally go through with the funeral he spent years planning. And you’re one of the funniest motherfuckers I know. You’re smart and curious and thoughtful. You put me in my place.”
I looked up at him then. His green eyes were silver puddles in the moonlight. “You make that part easy.”
He threw his head back with a knowing grin. “You need a drink,” he finally said. “Let me buy you a drink.”
INT. RECORD STORE—DAY
Arlo scours the crates. Vinyl in one hand.
ARLO
You can tell everything about a person by the songs they skip.
POPPY
I don’t believe in skipping. It feels like cheating.
Each song is there for a reason. Even the quiet ones.