9
She didn’t cry while she cleaned out her desk, and she didn’t cry when Security walked her to the 23rd street entrance and took her badge and swipe card. She didn’t cry on the subway, sitting there with her sad little shopping bag of personal items in her lap, and she didn’t cry even when she finally reached the shelter of her apartment building.
She did groan a little as she pushed through the big glass doors into the lobby, because Mrs. LeFevre was standing there in the foyer, gathering her mail out of the mailbox. It was only the threat of imminent collapse—a collapse she did not want to have in a public place—that forced her to smile wanly at the old woman and head for the elevator, hoping against hope for a clean getaway.
It was a rookie mistake.
“Girl!” Mrs. LeFevre shrilled across the lobby, and slammed the door to her mailbox. “You are holding that elevator if it comes, eh?”
Lily sighed and hit the Up arrow. According to the lights, the elevator was on the 25th floor.
“Yes, Mrs. LeFevre,” she called back. “You’ve got time.”
The old woman made her laborious way over, planting her four-footed cane carefully with each step. She'd taken a nasty spill down here in the lobby a few months ago; since then, she'd been about as swift as a snail in molasses.
And she hadn’t exactly been speedy before.
“That elevator,” the old woman said, a little less loudly now that she was making some progress across the room. “Never seen anything slower and that’s a fact.”
Lily refrained from making any remarks about pots or kettles, and simply waited, wondering if she was going to make it to her apartment before she broke down in tears and very much fearing the answer was no.
The elevator was at the 8th floor, and Lily had started to have some actual hope she might hold it together just long enough, when Mrs. LeFevre came to a stop beside her.
The old woman looked her up and down. “You peaky, girl? How come you ain’t at work? Have—oh!” And she broke off, staring wildly over Lily’s shoulder. “Now who went and let that cat right in the building?”
If the woman had had any pearls to clutch, she would have; instead, she pointed a tremulous finger. Lily turned listlessly around, but there was no cat to be seen and the question about work destroyed what little of her composure there was left.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mrs. LeFevre,” she choked out, “but I can’t really talk about this right now. If you’ll excuse me?”
And she fled to the stairwell, rather than risk being followed into the elevator. It was only fifteen floors to her apartment and the old woman wouldn’t be able to keep up with her on the stairs.
She somehow managed not to start crying until she hit the fourth floor.
* * *
When the doorbell rang, Lily was so immersed in her own misery she didn’t hear it. It must have been going on for a full minute before she finally became aware that, yes, it was her doorbell ringing, and she should probably answer it.
The clock above the television said it was 5:45, which meant she’d managed to spend the entire day wallowing in self-pity. Probably a trip to the unemployment office would have been smarter, she thought, but that just made her start to cry again. Did they even give you unemployment when you got fired for being a skank?
She supposed she’d find out tomorrow, since she was going to have to at least try.
She shuffled to the door, a wad of tissues in one hand, and opened it to find Miri on the other side, carrying a liquor store bag.
“I told you not to come over,” she said, sniffling.
“Yeah, like that was gonna happen.” Miri pushed her aside and stalked into the apartment. “Don’t tell your best friend you don’t need her when you just got canned. It doesn’t work that way and you know it.”
“But you had plans with Matthew—”
“And Matthew is a big boy who can handle a little disappointment and can cook himself dinner,” Miri said sternly, and set the bag on the counter. “Get me the blender. I brought booze and cake.”
Lily did as she was told, retrieving the blender from the high shelf in the bathroom cabinet. Miri gave her a little side-eye and Lily shrugged. “Creative storage. I live in a shoebox.”
Her apartment wasn’t bad, really. She had a huge closet in her bedroom—for that matter, she had a bedroom—and a nice set of built-ins in the living/dining area. But the kitchen had clearly not been a priority, and space was at a premium.
“It’s summer,” Miri said, dumping the ingredients onto the tiny counter. “We’ve got three months of frozen mudslides and margaritas ahead of us. Put the blender on the counter, and the mixer can go in the bathroom.”
“What if I want to make cookies?”
“Exactly how many cookies are you going to bake in the next two months?”
“Potentially quite a lot, now that I’ve got nothing else to do all day.” Lily felt tears welling up again. “Then after that, who knows, because I won’t be able to pay the rent.”
“Stop it,” Miri commanded. “Get me some ice cubes.”
Ice cubes she had in plenty, so she dumped a couple of trays into a bowl for Miri and tried to stop leaking as she watched her quickly and efficiently start measuring out Kahlua and Bailey’s. Matthew might be boring and a pothead, but he’d certainly taught Miri how to make drinks. “Miri, what am I going to do?”
“You’re going to put some chocolate syrup on the bottom of these,” Miri said, reaching into the cupboard over the sink and handing her two heavy tumblers, “and get the vodka out of the freezer. I’m gonna make us some creamy grownup Slush Puppies, then we’re going to go sit on the couch, binge-watch Buffy, and drink until we can’t feel our toes.”
Lily thought about arguing, but since the alternative was sitting alone crying about her job and wondering how she was going to pay the bills, it actually sounded like a fabulous plan.
Her toes went away after the third mudslide, but she drank another just to be sure. Somewhere along the way, Miri heated up a frozen pizza and they ate that plus an entire bag of salt-and-vinegar chips—and most of the cake, which was triple chocolate—but the food didn’t do a whole lot to soak up the alcohol. Miri matched her drink for drink; by ten o’clock, they were both truly and completely tanked.
“Do you want me to stay the night?” Miri asked, boozily.
“What? No.” Lily used the remote to switch off the TV and rolled her head to the left to look at Miri. Some time between mudslides three and four, her best friend had become two best friends—which was awesome, if you thought about it. “Matthew would hate that.”
“Matthew is, as I said, a big boy,” Miri said, then giggled. “And I mean that in every possible sense.”
Lily giggled, too. “Stop it!” she said, flapping her hand weakly to ward off the information. “I have to be able to look him in the face and talk to him, you know, and I can’t do that if I’m thinking about—”
“I can hardly think about anything else, sometimes,” Miri confessed, then laughed even harder.
“Tramp,” Lily said affectionately.
“Look who’s talking,” Miri said, then, immediately: “Oh my God, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean—”
Lily waved her concern away. “I know. And anyway, you’re kind of right. I mean, what the hell, Miri? When have I ever acted like that?”
Miri shrugged. “That guy— I don’t know. He’s … exceptionally hot, yeah. But it’s not like you’re a manatee, Lily. You’ve dated hot guys. What’s the deal with this one?”
“I don’t know,” she said, miserably.
Neither of them said anything for a minute, then Miri broke the silence.
“Listen … and this is just a thought, okay? But when I told Matthew what had happened, he said … well, he asked me if I kept a good eye on your drink.”
Lily looked at her, shook her head. “That’s crazy. No way.”
“Maybe,” Miri said. “Maybe it is. I just … you know, I can’t swear I had my eyes on your drink the whole time we were there. And yesterday— I mean, did he give you anything then?”
She thought about her bottle of water, how she’d wandered away and left it on the bar. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, he did, and yes, he had access to it when I wasn’t around.”
Miri shrugged again. “I can’t say. I mean, what do I know? But it’s something to think about. Because it wasn’t like you, that’s for sure. You were practically humping him on the dance floor, and then—”
Lily closed her eyes and held up a hand. “Yeah, I know.”
“Maybe I’m way off-base,” Miri said.
“And maybe you’re not.”
But she couldn’t think about it right now; she had to think about updating her resume and how to spin getting fired. She bundled Miri into a cab, with promises to call tomorrow as soon as she was done at the unemployment office, then drank an enormous glass of water in the hopes of staving off a hangover and tucked herself into bed.
But sleep wouldn’t come. She lay there, going over the events of the day in her mind until she wanted to scream from the sheer repetition. She’d already lived it once and revisited it a dozen times; did she really need to have it on repeat play when all she wanted was the sweet oblivion of sleep?
Her thoughts drifted to Gabriel, and Miri’s suggestion. That was crazy; that was a story that happened to people on TV. It wasn’t something that happened to people she knew. To her.
He could have done it. Miri was right about that. The timing was tight, but not impossible. Easier still if one of the bartenders was in on it.
Somehow, though, she couldn’t bring herself to believe it. A guy like Gabriel didn’t need to slip something in a girl’s drink to get some play; hadn’t she overheard him and the bartender talking about how he could have any girl he wanted?
And he’d wanted her.
When she finally did slip into sleep, he was waiting for her. And her dreams were very sweet indeed.