Chapter Eleven

 

 

 

I backed away, out of the room and away from the focus of Mrs. Hamilton’s vivid disapproval, and didn’t stop until I was outside, my heart thudding violently in my chest.

I could still hear Mrs. Hamilton’s words ringing in my head—“Get the hell out of my house!”—even though I had left her to shout them to my back.

Somehow, I made my way to the end of the block, the slope of the street carrying me down on unsteady feet, until I hit the bus stop.

I didn’t mean to get on, but a bus was stopping just as I hit that portion of the sidewalk and the next thing I knew I was sitting down on a scuffed plastic seat, the world swaying around me as we lurched into motion.

“You all right, sweetheart?”

My seatmate was a big, black guy with a red bandanna and one too many chains dangling from his jeans. I shook my head. “Just. Think I just got fired.” Was that what had happened? I was reeling and everything around me seemed intangible, surreal. I felt like I was floating ten inches above the ground.

The man shook his head as if to say I’ve been there. “That’s rough.”

You don’t know the half of it. I hadn’t just been fired, I realized—I had been thrown out into the street. I hadn’t even taken my purse. I didn’t have my wallet or my keys, never mind any money. I was still wearing slippers.

The precariousness of my situation began to sink in.

Where was I going to sleep tonight? Visions of myself knocking on the doors of homeless shelters, of huddling beneath a piece of cardboard under a bridge took hold.

It wouldn’t get to that, I told myself. I wasn’t entirely friendless.

“Could I use your phone?” I asked my seatmate.

He was kind. He said yes.

I only knew a handful of phone numbers by heart and one of them was my mother’s. I wanted to call her and badly. However bootstrap-driven our family might have been and whatever bad blood still flowed between my mother and I, I knew she wouldn’t turn me away in my hour of need.

But if I turned to her now, I’d never hear the end of it. She had told me that something like this would happen if I squandered my future on a thankless, dead-end job—the very kind she’d hoped I would avoid by getting a college education.

I felt too bruised to handle the lecture right now I wasn’t up for defending my choices. The last time I’d gone in for an interview had been for Mrs. Hamilton and the only reason she’d ever hired me had been sheer desperation. I’d been lucky. No one else wanted the job.

And what had that brought me? Six months of hard labor, emotional attachment to three kids I was sure never to see again and a dire lack of references. I was screwed.

I thought of Elliot and his plans for the house in Sausalito. I doubted he’d want anything to do with me after this fiasco. I was the girl he sometimes slept with. The Hamiltons were old friends. They went way back. Elliot had gone to college with Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton both, nearly been best man at their wedding.

Nothing short of a miracle would preserve our non-relationship.

At last tears welled into my eyes, making it hard to see and harder to dial. My voice caught in my throat as the call connected.

“Penny?” I croaked. “H-hi. Is there any chance I could crash on your couch tonight?” The rest was unintelligible blubbering nonsense as the dam broke and the magnitude of what I’d lost threatened to overwhelm me.

Somehow, though, Penny understood.

 

* * * *

 

I would’ve liked to say I felt better after a hot shower and a cup of coffee spiked with whiskey, but the truth was that I didn’t. Penny’s condo was too nice, too homey for my drama.

I wept in the shower and I wept some more as I got changed into a pair of PJs that Penny lent me. Her efforts weren’t to blame. She did everything right. She hadn’t even asked me many questions when I finally made my way to her front door, just welcomed me inside and let me catch my breath.

She offered to call my mother for me, but I told her not to bother. I would do it, later. Once I could speak without blubbering like an idiot.

It was just shock, Penny told me. I was safe. Everything would be fine. I wanted to believe her.

Eventually the words spilled out of me. They came slowly, at first, as disjointed as fragments of a dream.

I told Penny about the Hamiltons’ kitchen, how it was laid out like a horseshoe around a vast kitchen island. I told her about the state-of-the-art oven range and how I never cooked anything more complicated than eggs and toast. It was a meandering, purposeless narrative and I was surprised when Penny’s husband Dustin joined us once he got home. He and I had never been close. Breaking up with Penny once had earned him a black mark in my book that no amount of groveling could erase.

Penny had forgiven him, but I couldn’t. In my opinion, she was too good for Dustin and always would be.

That didn’t mean I snarled and hissed when I saw him, much less did so when I owed him and Penny for giving me a place to regroup. And Dustin didn’t gloat when confronted with my sniveling misery. If anything, he actually looked concerned. He poured me another drink and sat beside me on the couch, saying nothing.

Neither of them interrupted as I finally zeroed in on the reason why I had fled my employers in such a hurry.

My conscience bade me assure them I’d done nothing to arouse Mr. Hamilton’s interest. “Unless he thought the bananas were code for something,” I mused, snorting with mirthless laughter.

I felt wrung out. The whiskey had made me relax my clenched fists. I drank whatever they put in front of me and tried to occupy as little space as I could. Despite Penny’s assurances to the contrary, I couldn’t help but feel like a nuisance.

“Shouldn’t you go to the police?” Dustin asked when my rambling had wound down.

“I can’t press charges.” I could, but I had no proof and I was sure that Mrs. Hamilton would take her husband’s side. “With my luck, they’ll sue me for assault.” I held up my glass, wordlessly requesting a refill. “There was Riley’s teacher a few days ago…” Something I hadn’t told Penny about but probably should have. “And I did knee Hamilton in the nuts…”

“He got off easy,” said Penny as she topped up my cup. I’d seldom heard her sound so adamant about hurting someone. My surprise must’ve shown because she flashed me a rueful smile, shoulders drawing up into a shrug. “What? It’s true.”

It was, but I couldn’t afford to feel righteous about what I’d done. The consequences were likely to set me back.

“I shouldn’t have done it,” I sighed. “The hell am I gonna do for work?”

“You’ll find something.”

“You know that for a fact?” I didn’t want to argue with Penny. She had a nice condo just south of Market Street and she had a great career. Even the new husband was tolerable. Okay, he was nice. I didn’t want to like him, but Dustin had mellowed out since we’d last met and he didn’t even seem to mind me crashing on his couch. That predisposed me to thinking a little better of him.

Penny canted her head into a nod. She had that determined glint in her eyes, as if we were about to go in for a tough final and she wasn’t even considering the possibility of failure.

“Right now you should just worry about getting some sleep,” she told me sagely. “You’re totally smashed.”

“I am?” I asked and hiccoughed.

“There’s your answer.” Penny let me drink the rest of the whiskey down to the dregs before gathering up cup and bottle, and rising gracefully to her feet. I was sure she had imbibed just as much as I had and yet she seemed unaffected.

She was the bionic woman while I had become a lightweight. A failure. I couldn’t even hold my liquor anymore. I groaned, letting my head drop heavily against the back of the couch. Self-pity was in vogue this year.

Halfway to the liquor cabinet, Penny spun on her heel. “Hey, does Elliot know?”

“Who’s Elliot?” Dustin asked, glancing curiously between us. I shouldn’t have felt so gratified that Penny had kept my secret, but I did. I liked knowing that I could trust her.

“My boyfriend.” My lover. The first one seemed to fit just as well. I wanted Elliot to be my boyfriend.

Maybe we could catch a late night movie and tumble drunkenly into bed together afterwards. I could introduce him to my mother someday—she’d be pleased to know he was a professor, even if he wasn’t Iranian.

I reminded myself that none of that was likely to happen. “He’s friends with the Hamiltons.”

“Ah.” Dustin winced. “Well. That’s all the more reason you should call him.”

“Yeah, right.”

“He has a point,” Penny said. With my eyelids so heavy, I had a hard time focusing on her features, much less disagreeing with her.

“The only thing calling him will accomplish is me getting my heart broken. Can’t do that right now,” I muttered. “It already feels like a pincushion. So for now, my heart’s closed for maintenance.” I tapped my fingers against my ribcage, giggling as they resonated dully. “Come back tomorrow.”

Penny sighed, but she didn’t press the point. I caught her exchanging a glance with her husband, but I felt too tired to puzzle out its meaning. Their couch was comfortable and Penny’s liquor had done its work.

The minute my head hit the pillow, I was already asleep.

 

* * * *

 

The apartment was plunged in darkness when I woke. A sliver of moonlight hit the grandfather clock in the foyer, providing just enough light that I could spy the hour. Twelve twenty-five. I had slept like a log for a solid six hours. My head felt only slightly like it was stuffed full of cotton.

I felt rested, if a little sluggish, as I pushed myself up to sit. Someone had draped a quilt over me while I dozed. I wondered if it was Penny. I assumed it must have been. The afghan looked old and smelled faintly musty, but I welcomed its warmth.

On the coffee table in front of me I noticed a glass of juice, two aspirin tablets and a sandwich resting on a white porcelain plate. Apparently hospitality in the Kim household didn’t end with a boozy, emotional welcome. Gratitude overwhelmed me. I must have been a fool for thinking Penny’s desire to have a private wedding ceremony had anything to do with me. I was a fool and a selfish, awful friend.

Among other things… I couldn’t help think about Zara, Phoenix and Riley, the kids I’d abandoned in my rush to get away from their awful parents. Even if by some miracle Mrs. Hamilton wouldn’t have fired me for seducing her husband with my feminine wiles, dereliction of duty would surely be enough to earn me the boot.

“You’ve done it now, Chase. You’ve fucked it up,” I grumbled and barely recognized my own voice. It sounded raspy, like I’d been shouting a lot in my sleep. I sincerely hoped that wasn’t the case but downed the orange juice anyway to chase away the cobwebs.

I didn’t know how else to psych myself. I understood, rationally, that the next few days would be hard, that what was coming for me was more than disappointment and fear for the future.

I was prolonging the inevitable by sitting around and listening to the ticking of the clock.

I reached for the phone with a shaky hand. It was just as well that Elliot and I had exchanged numbers recently or I wouldn’t have known how to contact him. Maybe, I thought as I listened to the first ring, that would’ve been for the best.

He picked up in a matter of seconds. “Hello?”

I felt my breath catch. Elliot sounded harried, like he’d been running. Did he already know?

“Hi,” I croaked. “It’s me.” The number flashing across his cellphone screen would be unfamiliar and I didn’t know how many girls he had on speed dial, so I added, “It’s Miriam,” just in case he didn’t recognize my husky voice.

“Miriam, Jesus—I’ve been trying to call you all evening,” Elliot said, urgency audible in his tone. “Where are you? Are you all right?”

He knew. I could tell that he knew. Mr. Hamilton must have called to warn him off.

“I’m fine. I’m, uh, staying with a friend.”

“Oh, thank God. Bridget said you just ran off. What happened?” I could hear the incomprehension in his voice. Mrs. Hamilton had given him just enough to whet his appetite but not enough so he wouldn’t think that I’d lost my mind.

Had she also told him about my sudden burst of violence? Somehow, I thought it likely.

“She called you?” I wasn’t surprised. I wasn’t even concerned with what she might have said. I felt drained, exhausted. If this was the moment our almost-relationship ended, I was pretty sure I could handle it. At the very least, I wouldn’t weep. I was too tired for that.

“I called the house,” Elliot said. “I was hoping you’d pick up and I had every intention of hanging up when you didn’t, but… Bridget figured it was me.”

No surprise there. Mrs. Hamilton knew everything about everyone. There were no secrets in her house. Why should my love life be an exception to the rule? “Oh. So… She told you.” I didn’t want to prolong this. Couldn’t we just rip off the Band-Aid and move on with our lives?

“Told me what? Miriam, I don’t understand what happened. Bridget wouldn’t say—”

Too busy protecting her husband, I thought, and building her case against me.

I was facing off against a Harvard-educated lawyer who knew everyone who was someone in this city. I didn’t stand a chance. I thought of Dustin’s suggestion that I press charges and nearly laughed out loud. Retribution was the last thing on the docket for me. My best bet was to disappear into the ether and hope that Bridget Hamilton didn’t make it her life’s mission to chase me down.

“Are you still there?” Elliot breathed into the phone. “Miriam, please… You’re scaring me.”

“I’m sorry.” I was sorry for ruining what we’d had, I was sorry for storming out like a teenager and slamming the door behind me when I’d left—I was even sorry I’d hurt Mr. Hamilton, though the bastard had deserved it.

Mostly, I felt sorry for myself. The life I’d cobbled together after college had been far from perfect, but it had had its moments. I’d miss it.

“Just… Tell me where you are and I’ll come get you,” Elliot entreated. “Or we can meet somewhere downtown. I know a bar—”

I rattled off Penny’s address before I could think the better of it. Sitting there, alone in the dark, I couldn’t quash down the reckless desire to see Elliot one last time. “I’ll wait for you downstairs,” I said.

“I’ll be there in five.”

It was late and the traffic between the Clift and Market Street wouldn’t be as dense at this hour as it was during the day, but I wasn’t going to hold it against him if he was late. I hung up the phone feeling strangely hollow, like the vital parts of me had been carved out while I slept. I shivered under my borrowed blanket.

Penny’s shuffling footsteps alerted me to her presence long before I saw her. “Everything okay? I heard voices.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I called Elliot.”

“Oh.” Penny scrubbed a hand over her eyes. Her long, silky black hair was tangled and she looked exhausted.

“Go back to bed,” I advised. It was my turn to mother her—as if I could. “I’m just going to head down for a bit.”

“He’s coming over?”

I told Penny that he was. If she disapproved, she didn’t let on. Come to think of it, I couldn’t remember her disapproving even the first time I slept with Elliot, when we were still in school and the prospect of banging older men had this veneer of danger and maturity about it that we quickly outgrew. Some of us more quickly than others, I thought, spying a framed wedding photograph of Penny and Dustin on the sideboard.

“Okay, well…” Penny mustered a smile. “I’m going back to bed, so… The view from the roof is nice, if you two want some privacy.”

“And so I don’t wake you guys again?”

“There’s no chance of that. Dustin sleeps like the dead.” Penny grimaced. “And he snores.”

“Thank you.” I didn’t just mean for the tip, though that counted, too. The thought of bringing Elliot into Penny’s condo only to have him end things between us would have been in poor taste and I couldn’t dredge up the energy to change.

The rooftop would have to do.

I donned my hoodie and the slippers I’d been wearing when I left Clay Street and trooped down the stairs to meet my not really boyfriend.

Elliot was already there waiting, a hunch-shouldered silhouette leaning miserably against the glass doors. He must’ve been trying to peer into the darkened lobby. The security lights only switched on when I walked past the sensor.

Elliot’s expression instantly morphed into one of relief. “I was worried I got the address wrong,” he breathed when I opened the door.

I didn’t get the chance to answer before he swept me into his arms, his body broad and strong and so warm against mine. It was just as well. I really didn’t have anything worth saying.

I was ashamed of myself for holding on just as tightly as Elliot held me. I couldn’t help it.

“When Bridget said you’d left, I thought… I don’t know what I thought.” Elliot kissed my ear, my temple, his lips a hard pressure against my cheek. I wanted him to be the one bruising me for a change, not the other way around. I wanted something to remember him by. “What happened?” he asked, pulling back.

He wasn’t like Penny or Dustin. He couldn’t let sleeping dogs lie.

“I think I lost my job.” My efforts to sound flippant fell short of the mark. I blinked the tears out of my eyes. “Do you want to come in? Penny says there’s a roof terrace with a nice view…”

“Penny’s the friend you’re staying with?”

I had done such a good job keeping Elliot in the dark that I hadn’t told him my best friend’s name. The joke was on me, though. There would always be that one thing I couldn’t control.

“Penny and Dustin,” I said. “They’ve got a condo on the third floor. It’s really nice…” I led the way to the elevator as if in a trance. Elliot kept a hand on the small of my back as we waited. I kept telling myself to shake him off, stop this getting any more painful, but I couldn’t.

I let him touch me. I reveled in his proximity.

A cool breeze struck my cheeks as we stepped out onto the roof. I could smell the ocean, the wet and smoky scent of city streets. Penny was right. The view from the rooftop was lovely, even if there was no chance of seeing the stars with so much light pollution.

“Do you want to talk about what happened?”

Elliot stroked his fingers through my unbound hair. I wanted to turn my head into the touch, but I resisted. I needed to get this out without relying on his strength to see me through. I wouldn’t have it for much longer.

“I kneed Patrick Hamilton in the nuts.”

For just the briefest instant, Elliot stilled his hand. “What did he do?”

It wasn’t the reaction I’d been expecting. Surprise stopped me short for a long, breathless moment. “He tried to cop a feel.” He had done more than that, but I wasn’t in a hurry to make myself into some sort of victim. I wasn’t angling for empathy.

I saw Elliot clench his jaw and my resolve wavered. To hell with it, I thought, I’m protecting a guy who doesn’t deserve it. “H-he might have implied he wanted to get to know me better. In the biblical sense.” Just say it. “He wanted to fuck me and he didn’t seem to care that I didn’t,” I blurted out, digging my fingernails into the meat of my palms.

Elliot stepped away from me, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I’m surprised Bridget didn’t tell you,” I said. Once I opened my mouth, it was hard to shut up. “She’s probably burned all my stuff, told the kids I stole her pearls… Anything to protect the family, right? It’s okay if you don’t believe me, I don’t expect you to. But I thought you should know. I didn’t run out on you, just on them.” I shrugged. “Not that it makes much difference, I suppose.”

“What are you talking about?” Elliot asked, his forehead wrinkling like papyrus.

“You’re Patrick’s friend. You went to school together.” I thought of Penny and my naïve conviction that she was perfect in every way. It had nothing to do with reason and objectivity. I needed someone to look up to.

Elliot scoffed. “That was almost twenty years ago.”

“You’re still his friend.”

“And what am I to you?” Elliot asked. “Nothing?”

I shook my head, but it was useless to lie. We’d made every attempt to avoid putting a label on our non-relationship. “You’re leaving soon.” Tomorrow night. I felt my heart constrict at the thought. “I didn’t want to end things like this, but…”

“But what? You were assaulted!” Elliot opened his arms wide. He cut an imposing figure, but I could never imagine being afraid of him. “Miriam, I’m in love with you. If I regret anything it’s that Patrick isn’t here. I swear to God, I’d pitch him off this roof.”

I arched an eyebrow.

“Okay,” he said, recanting, “I probably wouldn’t. But I’d give him a good scare.”

“It’s not your place to protect me.” If I focused on that, if I didn’t acknowledge what he’d said, maybe he wouldn’t realize it, either. I worried he might take it back.

Elliot deflated. “I know that. I know you don’t need me.”

I do. “Neither do you,” I insisted. If our arrangement had any appeal, it was that it left us both open and free to do whatever we damn well pleased. No-strings kinky sex had sounded so good when we’d first started. We must’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere along the way. Sex wasn’t supposed to be this complicated. Losing a fuck buddy shouldn’t have hurt.

I watched Elliot bridge the distance between us with slow, shuffling steps. One of his scuffed Converses was undone, laces trailing along the cement. “That’s true,” he murmured, “but I’m not going to want you any less just because I don’t need you beside me. You’re—smart and you’re strong. You make me laugh.”

“I’m good in bed,” I said, rolling my eyes.

“We’re good together. Tell me you don’t feel it, too.”

I felt his hands settle on my shoulders. The scent of his cologne was faint but familiar, a lure I had never tried very hard to resist. I couldn’t deny that we had great sexual chemistry. I loved being with him, exploring new things, laughing when we messed up.

I even liked sleeping beside him, which I’d seldom done with past boyfriends.

“You believe me,” I breathed, surprised.

It wasn’t a question, but Elliot nodded anyway. “Duh.”

“But… Why?” I refused to believe I had been pessimistic about this. “I don’t have any proof.”

“I trust you.”

“Blindly, just like that?” I hadn’t done anything to persuade him.

Elliot hitched up his shoulders. “Don’t know if you heard me before, but—I’m in love with you. So, you know… Trust is sort of a prerequisite.”

“Oh.” I gaped. He wasn’t taking it back. He wasn’t breaking up with me.

It suddenly felt like the world had just shifted one hundred and eighty degrees when I wasn’t looking.

“You don’t have to say it back,” Elliot added quickly. “That’s not—this isn’t some ploy to get you to commit. I’m just saying. I’m not going to doubt your word. I may cut off all contact with Bridget and Patrick for being a bag of dicks, but that’s another story.”

I sniffed. “I think that’s an insult to dicks.”

“Yeah?” Elliot smiled. “You’re probably right.” He put his arms around me and held me so tight that I couldn’t tell if it was my heart I could hear thudding violently against my ribcage or if it was his.

“How long?” I asked, my words muffled in his shirt. He heard me, though. I knew it by the hitch of his breath.

“How long what?”

He was trying to buy himself time. “How long have you been in love with me?” I pressed him. “Did it happen just now? Because I don’t mean to criticize but I’m not exactly at my best tonight…” What I meant to say was that I hoped he didn’t think this blubbering, helpless creature was who I was most days. I knew I came across as a hardass sometimes, but I would rather he think I was steel and vitriol than thin skin and waterworks.

“Two years,” Elliot murmured.

“You’re kidding.”

“I wish,” he drawled. “Would’ve made getting over you so much easier… Truth is, the more I thought about that night, the more I wanted to kick myself. I thought about trying to track you down, but—”

“It would’ve been weird?” I suggested and he nodded. I breathed in the scent of his cologne, the warmth of his skin. “Stay with me tonight,” I heard myself beg. It was pathetic, but I couldn’t bite back the plea.

Elliot pressed his lips into my hair and said, “Staying right here as long as you want.”

I didn’t tell him that I thought that might be a long, long time, that two years was just an amuse-bouche of sorts.

I lost track of the hour in his arms. I allowed myself to drift, to think of the future in terms other than my own hapless panic. Whatever happened with the Hamiltons, with my job, I would pull through. The thought of having Elliot beside me as I struggled to find some way to land on my feet was no small reassurance.

We stayed like that for ages, our bodies pressed together tight, my head resting on his shoulder. Eventually, I turned in his arms, let him take my weight as I gazed out over the city. I might have been cold without Elliot to hold me tight.

“Do you want me to…?” he murmured against the shell of my ear. I felt his hand drift tentatively from my waist to the swell of my hip and down, cupping me through Penny’s PJs.

“Yeah,” I breathed.

I wanted him constantly, with an intensity that scared me. It didn’t matter that we were high up on a rooftop in the heart of the city, or that anyone with a pair of binoculars could likely see his hand slipping into my drawstring pants. I needed him and that was all there was to it.

The first press of his fingertips against my inner folds had me rising up on tiptoe, my breaths hitching in my throat. Elliot kissed my neck, the shell of my ear and though I couldn’t see his face, I had a feeling he was grinning. I rocked back into his lap in penance and was gratified when I heard him groan.

“Be still,” he growled as he sank two fingers deep into me, pressing his palm against my sensitive clit.

“Or what?”

There was no answer. Elliot wasn’t the tease between us and I didn’t want him to take on a role he didn’t feel comfortable playing. Instead, I gripped his forearm for support and played at using his hand for my own pleasure. As if the desire to touch me didn’t originate with him. As if those talented fingers curling so deliciously into me needed guidance.

I could feel Elliot’s cock swelling against my backside. He’d never ask for it himself, but if I offered—

“I want you to fuck me,” I said, throwing caution to the wind.

“Here?”

I nodded. Here, now, with our pants around our ankles and his breaths warm and harried in my ear. I wanted the cold bite of concrete against my palms. So what if we could be seen? I spread my legs as far as the pajama pants would allow and wriggled back until Elliot got the message.

He fumbled for a condom in the pocket of his jeans, the rustle of foil and denim music to my ears. I braced both against the concrete.

Elliot entered me in one clean stroke, gripping my hips for support. “Fuck, Miriam—”

“I know,” I wheezed. “I know. It’s good, right? It’s always good with you.” Part of me felt embarrassed to admit even that much, as if I was confessing some great secret. He must have known.

We didn’t keep tumbling into each other’s arms because it was unpleasant.

To any peeping Toms watching us from afar, perhaps it looked like Elliot had control of our lovemaking. It was true that for the first time since we’d met, I was bent over and he was behind me, setting the pace and stroking his fingers reverently down my spine. But I was also the one clutching at him from within and keeping him deep inside me when he made to pull out too far.

He set the pace because I allowed it. When he dug his fingers into my skin as he neared his peak, I knew I could deny him, ask him to restrain himself. It didn’t even cross my mind to try. Not tonight, not like this.

Elliot came first, spending himself into the condom, into my pussy as I reached back in an effort to bring him ever deeper into me. “Don’t move,” I bit out, when what I meant was Don’t leave me.

I had spent so much time telling myself that one of those was pathetic and the other had to be earned that I couldn’t remember which was which.

“May I touch you?” Elliot panted into the messy twist of my tangled hair.

I nodded fervently. I was too far gone to resist and I couldn’t muster the energy to play games. Elliot didn’t let me worry about that for long, though. He brought me off with talented fingers and a wet, sucking kiss against the column of my throat.

I nearly shouted his name as he stroked me past the point of no return. I came like that, holding onto Elliot and the rough concrete ledge, my hips twitching in his lap as his hands roamed, never still, over my flushed, sweaty skin.

Small, stubborn shivers arced through me like electric current in the aftermath. My body sagged into his hands, utterly limp. I didn’t lose my footing. Not even close. It was enough to know that there was someone to catch me on the off-chance my knees should give out.

Elliot held me tight until the eastern sky began to brighten, the first tendrils of a timid sun peeking over the rooftops. He didn’t let go, just like he’d promised.

 

* * * *

 

Penny and Elliot hit it off the moment I introduced them. By the time I was done with the eggs, they were discussing Vonnegut—a shared favorite—and picking apart Stanley Kubrick’s filmography.

“Let me give you a hand,” said Dustin, and joined me by the cooker. “I’ve never felt more like a third wheel in my life.”

I caught him smiling, though, so I knew there was no real aggravation behind the complaint. He was careful not to brush against me as he liberated a box of muesli from the cupboard. Penny was a vegan, as I remembered from our college days, but her husband was not. It should have been a problem, but somehow they managed to keep both lettuce and pork in the house without igniting a war.

“They’re getting along like a house on fire, aren’t they? I’m glad.” I split the bacon evenly between the three plates, having offered to cook breakfast to make up for inconveniencing Dustin and Penny last night. I was still a long way from making up the debt owed, but it was a start.

Dustin snorted under his breath. “He seems like a nice guy.”

“He is.”

“Too nice or just nice enough?” I shot him a glare and he put up his hands in mock surrender. “Can’t blame a guy for being curious.”

I didn’t. I was too busy feeling grateful that he didn’t hold my prior behavior against me. “Dustin, can I ask you something?” He nodded, the picture of openness and free disclosure. “About the wedding… Were you guys angry with me? I know I wasn’t the most supportive friend when Penny told me you got engaged…” It wouldn’t change anything, but I wanted to know. I’d had enough of secrets.

Dustin frowned. “The wedding?”

“I wasn’t invited.” Put like that, it sounded like such a petty thing to worry about, especially now.

“Oh, right.” Dustin seemed a shade embarrassed. “We had to make some hard calls as far as the guest list went, so we only ended up inviting family. I have twenty-five cousins just on my mother’s side,” he added, wincing. I knew full well that Penny also came from an equally large family. She had four siblings, three of them already married with children. Dustin bit his lip. “It was a money thing.”

I remembered Penny telling me about the honeymoon. They had stayed a handful of nights at the Clift rather than go anywhere exotic. I thought she’d mentioned it to confer that she and Dustin had a great sex life.

It hadn’t occurred to me that she might have been implying that they didn’t have the cash to invest in anything more grandiose. I had been so consumed with my own financial difficulties that I had convinced myself that everyone around me was swimming in cash. The reality was that I had no more idea what kind of struggles kept Penny up at night than I’d had of the reasons for my employers’ marital upheavals.

“Penny agonized about how to tell you,” Dustin murmured.

“She thought I was going to judge her?”

Dustin shrugged. “You’re Miriam Chase.”

“The unemployed nanny?” I ventured. There were no accolades beside my name, no PhD. And I certainly wasn’t a Rockefeller.

But Dustin was shaking his head at me, a small smile tugging at his lips. “The girl who’s afraid of nothing. You have no idea how much your opinion matters to Penny. Shit, even I find myself wondering what you’d think of my cello playing sometimes.”

“Seriously?”

To my surprise, Dustin nodded. “Only when I have an off day, though. The rest of the time, I know you’d agree that I’m totally awesome.” He grinned and took up the bowl of cereal and a little jug of soy milk.

I followed him into the breakfast nook with plates in hand and was amazed when I didn’t drop anything. It felt like someone had just pulled the rug from under my feet. I was free falling—in a good way, for once.

I felt Elliot’s hand on my knee under the table and smiled. I’m good. I was better than that. Stunned silly, but also flattered. Had I been peering in one of those funny, shape-distorting circus mirrors my whole life?

“So I was thinking,” Penny started, rousing me from my reverie. “We should go to the park today. It’s going to be crazy hot again. We can find a nice spot of shade and gorge ourselves on ice cream…”

We’d done it often enough when we were in college. Wasting time had seemed so easy then, so free of consequence. Sometimes I missed those carefree days, but not today. I shook my head. “I have to go by the house to get my things.” Whatever Mrs. Hamilton hadn’t burned in ritual cleansing, at least.

Penny bit her lip. “Are you sure you want to go back there alone?”

“She’s not going alone,” said Elliot and offered me a wan smile. “I’ll drive you.”

The back of his bike wasn’t very spacious. We wouldn’t be able to carry much more than my laptop, maybe a handful of clothes. It wasn’t the most practical thing and yet I found myself nodding along. “I’d like that, thanks.” If nothing else, the moral support would be welcome.

Penny hugged me tightly before we left. She even made me promise to call if things went badly. I couldn’t envision a scenario in which the next hour would be anything short of awful, but I held up my pinkie anyway. Penny laughed even as she laced our fingers together.

It felt good to straddle Elliot’s bike and put my arms around him as we moved through the morning traffic.

At every stop light, he would take one hand off the handlebars and stroke my knuckles. I thought it might be premeditated at first, but he did it so often I realized that he just couldn’t help himself. I didn’t mind. The caress brought me comfort, too.

As we turned left on Clay Street, my courage deserted me.

I wanted to ask Elliot to keep driving past the Hamiltons’ town house until we hit the Golden Gate. We could go to his dilapidated house and make love on the floor again. Sausalito was only a stone’s throw away. I bit back the cowardly impulse. I had to do this—better now than in two weeks’ time when Mrs. Hamilton would surely have disposed of my things.

Elliot pulled up to the curb, blocking the garage door. I noticed that Mr. Hamilton’s blue BMW was gone. The Audi was parked on the sloped driveway, though, so Mrs. Hamilton must’ve been in.

“Here goes nothing,” I muttered and slid off the helmet. I scrubbed a hand through my hair in a vague attempt at combing it into some semblance of order. I was sure it didn’t help much.

I hadn’t given much thought to how this confrontation was likely to play out, but I was still surprised that I could do the whole walking calmly up to the open door and rapping my knuckles on the tinted glass as if I was just another visitor. This had been my home for six months, but coming back now I felt like a stranger.

Only the touch of Elliot’s fingertips against my wrist helped steady me.

“Hello?” I called. The door was open, but there didn’t seem to be anyone around. “Mrs. Hamilton?”

“In here!” she yelled from the back of the house. “I’ll be right there—oh, it’s you.” She craned her neck around the staircase and I caught a flash of pink pearls under a perfectly pinned chignon.

It took me a moment to notice that she was walking backwards toward us, her Pilates-toned arms hefting the dining room table. Paolo came into view then, holding the other end.

“Well, come in,” Mrs. Hamilton snapped before I could think of anything to say. “We have eight hours to dress this house and the caterers have completely dropped the ball. I’m going to need you to run to the store, Miriam.”

“Okay…” I walked into the house on knees as soft as rubber. It was all very surreal. Did she expect me to work for her after she’d fired me? I slotted my hand into Elliot’s, who gripped it tightly when he noticed me seeking his support. “I just came to get my stuff.”

Paolo dropped the table, huffing. “Oh, I think I hear the phone ringing—” He beat a comically swift retreat. I tried not to resent him for it.

Mrs. Hamilton pursed her thin lips. “Really, now. You’d think he’s allergic to scandal.” She turned to me with eyebrows arched. “I see you’ve brought reinforcements. That’s clever. Hello, Elliot.”

“Bridge—”

She didn’t let him finish. I never expected her to. “You’ll be interested to know my husband has elected to go to Naachtun after all. He will be away for three months, after which time I will have packed most of his things and sent them on to his next address. The paperwork should be done by then, too.”

“I don’t understand,” I started.

“Divorce,” Elliot muttered under his breath, but that couldn’t be right.

Mrs. Hamilton snorted. “Don’t spit it out like that, Elliot dear. She’ll think you object.” Her smile seemed to soften a little as she met my gaze. “Mind you, if I hear he’s been spotted somewhere in San José while he’s supposed to be in Guatemala, I won’t be surprised at all. We didn’t spend much time discussing his destination, only the need for him to leave ipso-presto. It was a rather unpleasant row. Had you stuck around,” she told me haughtily, “you might have witnessed the whole affair. But you’ve always been an impulsive sort, haven’t you, Miriam?”

Me? “You threw me out,” I recalled, aghast. “You told me to get out—”

“No, I was talking to my husband. It seems he let his wandering hands wander where they shouldn’t. Again. I may not be very modern, but even I don’t tolerate that kind of behavior.” She gave me a second to digest the news. Just a second, but it was enough. “Now, if that’s all,” Mrs. Hamilton said, “I have furniture to move. Do you intend to stay and help or would you rather I write you a check?”

I hesitated. It seemed incredible to think that the power to choose rested with me. I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, for her to laugh and say Gotcha. But that wasn’t Mrs. Hamilton’s style. Whatever her flaws, she never behaved with anything less than the utmost dignity.

Despite myself, I glanced to Elliot for support. He shrugged. This wasn’t his call to make, but if he raised no objections and I couldn’t puzzle out the trap, then maybe there simply wasn’t one. What a novel idea—people behaving decently.

“Where do you want the table?” I asked and started rolling up my sleeves.