Chapter Twenty-Four
Camille steered her lemonade-colored sedan through the DC traffic.
She and Molly were picking up Leo and Henry at Dupont Circle, heading out of town early in hopes of beating traffic on the way to Rehoboth Beach.
The hotel rooms were cheap, and the place would probably be scuzzy, but none of them cared.
It was on Leo’s tab, and it was a chance to escape the city, to frolic in waves, to cut loose.
“This is going nowhere. Seriously. I can’t believe he’s still hanging out with me.
I should break it off with him.” Molly couldn’t help but second-guess herself.
There had to be a catch. She’d tried for weeks to keep her feelings about Leo in check, but every time they were together, she let herself imagine something more with him.
But as soon as they were apart, her fear crept back in.
How could she be worthy of someone like him?
He didn’t know the first thing about her.
“You’re crazy,” Camille said. “And why does it have to go somewhere? Can’t you have fun?”
“Oh, I’m having fun. Pointless fun. He graduated from Tulane.
Studied abroad. He talks like we’re going to travel the world together, how he wants to show me New Orleans, how he wants to live there someday.
I’m a college dropout from the boondocks.
I’m sketchy. He’s a law student at Yale.
Classic summer fling. Better to dump or be dumped? That’s the question.”
“I think you’re selling yourself short. And you’re hardly sketchy.”
Molly put her head in her hands. She was trying to play it cool, but she really liked Leo. And the more she wanted something real with him, the more certain she was that she could never have it. She was leaving herself unguarded, and it felt terrible. “God, I’m a mess.”
“You really are. But look there.” Camille pointed over the steering wheel.
Leo and Henry were on the corner. They’d changed into swim trunks but kept their suit jackets, shirts, and ties on.
Henry was shorter, stocky, wavy brown hair.
Hilarious and perfect for Camille, who was a cutup too.
“Molly, Leo is a stud. Look at him. He looks like a Greek god. You can have nice things, you know. And that man is nice. Don’t self-destruct. ”
Molly smiled. Half Italian, half Irish. He was too good to be true, and soon enough, one way or another, she’d lose him. It was only a matter of when. And how. “Oh, fine!” she hollered as Camille beat her hands on the steering wheel. “One more weekend, stud!”
Molly called him the night after they returned from the beach, told him over the phone that she thought he was great, really, but that they should call it.
“You’ll be leaving DC at the end of summer, back to Yale.
” They’d gotten their picture taken together on the beach, and Molly held the little plastic viewfinder up to her eye while she talked. They were kind of beautiful together.
“That’s weeks away. And, even then, it’s not that far. You could take the train.”
Their photo booth strip was stuck into her dresser mirror. In the pictures, in her reflection, she looked happy. Why couldn’t she let herself be happy? “We’re on different paths, different wavelengths.” It sounded unconvincing, even to her ear.
Leo laughed. “You’ve been dipping into the organics. I see you with your wavelengths, Sullivan. You’re not getting rid of me that easily. Listen. Did you have fun at the beach?”
Endless fun. Sand in all the places. “Of course.”
“Did you have fun skinny-dipping in the Dumbarton pool?”
They’d gone out to dinner in Georgetown one muggy night, drank too much wine.
One of the many upsides of dating Leo, Molly realized early on, was that he had money, came from money, and never hesitated to drop money to have more fun.
“I have an idea,” he’d said. “Trust me?” His question hit hard.
Had she ever trusted anybody? Someone from the Italian embassy had told him about it, the one place you could get past the guards and onto the closed grounds behind Dumbarton Oaks.
She put her trust in him, and they stripped out of their clothes, slipped into the dimly lit pool, lightning bugs setting the lawn aglow.
They floated, made out buck naked, screwed in the loggia.
They’d walked off the grounds right past the guard.
Leo had that way about him, like he belonged everywhere he went.
“Yes.”
“So, why break up? Everything is going great. No pressure from me, no pressure from you. Is there someone else you’d rather be with?”
She looked into the viewfinder again. “It’s not that,” she admitted.
“Then what? You want me to fight for you, is that it? You want pressure, Molly? I’ll give you pressure. I’ll fight for you. I’d kill for you. Is that what you want to hear?”
He had no idea what he was saying, who he was talking to. She wouldn’t wish that burden on anyone. She didn’t want anyone else to die because of her. “No,” she said. “I’d rather be the one to take the bullet.”
“All right,” Leo said. Molly could hear the exasperation in his voice. “This conversation has gotten way too serious. I’m sorry if I’m freaking you out. I’ll back off if that’s what you want. But don’t push me away.”
Molly laid back on the bed, listened to Leo breathe into the receiver.
Tell him the truth and let him decide for himself.
The problem was that the truth had gotten too complicated, even for Molly.
And it was more than that “first thing” that he didn’t know about her.
It was every other thing since. Guilt had taken root inside her.
When she was little, she’d imagined extracting it with a scooper or syringe.
Then she tried to assuage it, but it became unwieldy and vicious.
Now it felt systemic, elemental. She was mean and careless and self-destructive.
Leo had been such a surprise, so unexpected.
He laughed at her caustic humor, he liked how she dressed, whether she wore girly skirts or combat boots.
If he cared that she didn’t have a college degree or even a great job, he didn’t let on.
She told herself that trying to be the right kind of girl for Leo was exhausting, but maybe the truth was that she wasn’t trying that hard and that he liked her anyway, maybe loved her even.
And if he loved her, really loved her, she could tell him anything, and he would listen. Maybe worrying was exhausting her.
“The truth is I’m freaking myself out. I’m sorry,” Molly said, grimacing as she allowed Leo to get that much closer. “Forget I said anything?”
Leo laughed, sounding relieved. “You really are a tough nut, Sullivan. You know that? See you Friday?”
They had dinner at an Ethiopian restaurant in Adams Morgan a week before Labor Day, a week before Leo would leave for Connecticut.
He said pressure, and he’d been applying it.
He’d given her his new phone number already, his new address, made her promises about weekends and holidays, how they would figure it out.
Molly wore a white dress with yellow embroidered daisies, a dress she wouldn’t have been caught dead in when she was a teenager.
It was a little too cute and country club, but it was practical for a muggy DC night, and most importantly, she knew Leo liked it.
At the last minute, she’d put on the stolen bracelet she stowed in her underwear drawer, admired how it fit loosely, expensively on her wrist, more diamonds than necessary.
It would match her fake earrings, make her that much shinier for their night out.
They fed each other spongy flatbread dipped in spicy dishes, sipped sweet honey wine. He put her fingers in his mouth, and she giggled. He held up her palm. “That scar’s kind of badass. Knife fight?”
“It’s from a sparkler,” she said. “I grabbed it after it burned out.” She didn’t know what had made her do it.
Some impulse to brand herself, to cause pain on top of pain.
“I didn’t know how much it would hurt.” She ran her finger over it, felt the tingle of touch, the flutter of opening her heart to him. Ask me more.
“Wow, and speaking of sparkler! Where’d that come from? That would set a guy back.”
Molly shifted, immediately regretted wearing the bracelet. She brushed off both conversations. “This? Fake. Are you kidding?” She felt like a kid playing dress-up, the real fake.
“More wine, please!” she said, bending the conversation away from her.
After dinner, they made their way through the bustling dining room to the exit.
Lacquered fingernails parted the beaded curtain.
Leo stepped Molly back to make way for the incoming party, their laughter already too much for the small space.
The woman, turned to someone behind her, was unmistakable.
Stiletto heels the same temptation red as the fingernails, tasteful dark suit impeccably tailored, blond hair up in that high ponytail.
In those heels, she was as tall as Leo. Molly’s mouth went dry as the party of four backed her and Leo even farther from the exit.
“Excuse me,” Leo said politely, tapping the woman to get by.
Molly wanted to duck between their legs, scurry off like the pickpocket she was.
Sideny Grant glanced at them, dismissively at first, but then stared at Molly blankly like she was searching a card file for the name that went with this face. “Ha,” she said. “Molly? What are you doing here?” The tone was exactly right. What was Molly doing here?
Sideny elbowed Charlie, who stopped guffawing long enough to see what it was that his wife wanted. His mouth flew open, and he made an involuntary sound like a crow’s caw.