Dirty Read online

  Marcy had convinced me to go out to lunch with her and take advantage of the last bright days to eat outside. Now I couldn’t escape her, and not even the four coats of mascara she wore on each eye could keep her from peering right inside me.

  “When did you go to Aruba?”

  “I haven’t, yet, but I’m going there on my honeymoon.”

  I drank more coffee, though by this point I was so wide-eyed from caffeine I wouldn’t have been surprised had my lashes met my hairline. Then it registered, what she’d said, and I looked to her left hand at the new diamond ring she wore. I put down my cup with a thunk.

  “Marcy! You’re engaged?”

  She beamed. “Yep.”

  She told me how Wayne had gotten down on one knee and proposed. Our food came and she talked as we ate, her fork waving animatedly and earning her bemused looks from the table next to us. I sat and listened and nodded, her pure, giddy joy infectious.

  Finally, with cheesecake clinging to the tines of her fork, she paused for air. “This is my last cheesecake until after the wedding. I want to lose at least ten pounds. But, Elle. How are you doing, honey?”

  I studied my own, half-eaten dessert. “I’m all right. Thanks for the card and the plant.”

  She smiled. “Wayne thought you might like the plant better than flowers.”

  “I did. You can tell him so.” I poked a hole in my cake. “It was very thoughtful of both of you. I really appreciate it.”

  “Sure.” She chewed, swallowed, sipped her coffee.

  I felt the weight of her eyes on me but didn’t look up. Marcy, however, was not to be deterred by something so simple a social-avoidance technique like avoiding eye contact.

  “You know you can talk to me, if you want. About anything.”

  I nodded. “Thanks, Marcy, but my dad was sick for a while. It wasn’t a surprise.”

  Her concern hadn’t made me look up, but the aggravated sigh she gave now did.

  “I wasn’t talking about your dad.”

  “You weren’t?”

  She shook her head and popped the last piece of cheesecake between her lips. “Nope.”

  I sat for a moment, staring, then forked a bite of cake into my mouth. Sweet sugar, gooey chocolate…my mouth applauded.

  “I saw Dan downtown last weekend.” Marcy wiped her fingers on her napkin.

  I made a noncommittal noise. Marcy pinned me with her bright-blue gaze, her spangled shadow glittering. She wore a new shade of lipstick, today, her mouth pursed. I braced myself for the lecture.

  “He said you two broke up. That you wouldn’t answer his calls.”

  I meant to laugh, I really did, but the sound came out somewhat strangled. “Broke up?”

  “Did you?”

  “We weren’t—”

  “Elle.” Marcy put her hand over mine, and I put down my fork. “What happened?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.” I looked into her eyes.

  She squeezed my fingers. “Okay.”

  “I mean, even if I had anything to say about it, which I don’t, really.” It wasn’t often that my mouth outraced my mind, but it did that day. The more I said, the more I felt I had to say. To explain. To deny, postulate, consider. To justify.

  Marcy sat and listened, silent for once.

  “He wasn’t my boyfriend. We were just having a good time. It wasn’t serious. I don’t get serious. I told him right up front, that it wasn’t going to be a relationship. I don’t do that. I told him that. He said it was all right.” Words, like raindrops on a windowpane, sliding down, dividing, branching out, always one more showing up when it seemed they’d all disappeared. “It’s not my fault he misunderstood, I was honest with him. I was always honest, right from the start. He knew. I knew. We both knew. And now it’s over, but really, can something be over that never started?”

  “You tell me,” Marcy said gently, sitting back in her chair and looking as calm as though someone verbally drenched her every day.

  “Yes,” I said firmly. “I mean…no.”

  She smiled. “Elle. Honey. Sweetie-pie. What’s so wrong with being happy?”

  I didn’t have an answer for that at first. The cake sat in my stomach like a rock. I finished my coffee, even though it was cold.

  “I’m afraid,” I whispered at last, ashamed.

  “We’re all afraid, honey.”

  I looked up at her with a heavy, heavy sigh. “Even you?”

  She nodded. “Even me.”

  That made me feel better, a little, and I smiled. She smiled back. She reached for my hand again, linking her fingers through mine.

  “Look at those two old guys over there,” she said. “They’re anxiously awaiting some girl-on-girl action.”

  She won a laugh from me. I didn’t let go of her hand. “Except in their version, there’ll be pudding involved.”

  “Oooh, pudding,” Marcy said. “I could get into that.”

  We shared another smile, and something in me eased. I reached for my fork again. We signaled for the check.

  “Listen, I can’t pretend to be the queen of good advice, here. I’ve had more boyfriends than I can count, and I’m not so sure that’s any better than not having any. But I do know this. When you find someone who makes you smile and laugh, when you find someone who makes you feel safe…you shouldn’t let that person go just because you’re afraid.”

  “Is Wayne that person for you?”

  She nodded, and every line of her expression softened with joy. “Yep.”

  “And you’re not afraid of it ending?”

  “Sure I am. But I’d rather have something this good for a little while than have nothing forever.”

  I finished my dessert and wiped my mouth. “Thanks for the advice, but I think it’s over. Dan, I mean.”

  “He’s a good man, Elle. Won’t you give him another chance?”

  Her assumption that I was the one who had the right to give him anything surprised me. “There’s nothing to give. He didn’t do anything wrong. He’s not the one who…he didn’t—”

  While only moments before, my mouth had spewed word after word, now my lips moved but nothing came out. I was wordless. I couldn’t think of what I meant to say.

  Marcy, heaven bless her, didn’t need me to say anything.

  “You could just call him, you know. Talk to him. Work it out.”

  For a moment, the thought of doing that lifted my spirits, but it passed as soon as it came. “No. I don’t think so.”

  “Oh, Elle.” She seemed disappointed in me, and that stung more than I expected it to. “How come?”

  “Because,” I said after another long pause. “I don’t have enough of myself to give to anyone else. And until I do, Dan deserves better than someone with only half to give him.”

  She studied me, then nodded slowly. “Did you kill someone?”

  “What?” My cheeks bloomed with heat and I coughed. “Jesus, Marcy!”

  “Did you?” She asked calmly. “Because I can’t really think of anything else that would be so bad you couldn’t forgive yourself for it.”

  I gaped, my mouth working but nothing coming out for a second. “What if I said yes?”

  “Did you?”

  “Maybe I did!” I cried. “Yes.”

  “Did you?” She asked again, frighteningly perceptive. “Shot them? Stuck a knife in their guts? Poison?”

  My voice sounded flat and faraway. “No. I just didn’t pick up the phone and call an ambulance when I knew I should.”

  “That’s not killing someone,” she shot back. “That’s letting someone die. There’s a difference.”

  I blinked, wishing for a drink to wash away the taste of sugar and coffee and anger. “There was still blood on my hands.”

  Her steely gaze gave me no release. “Nobody likes a martyr, Elle.”

  My body reacted faster than my thoughts could catch up. I pushed my chair back and stood so fast my hand knocked my mug to the floor. It broke with a solid