Chapter Twelve
Flick had a good weekend. The bike shopping was tolerable and she could do it online. She made it to the short list for an apartment in Anacostia within walking distance to the metro line, and when she went to her postbox it was to find Coalition for Humanity had reached out with a welcome letter that made her want to be there now.
Saturday night the work crew took her to dinner at the Purple Pig. It was a fun night. She was desperate to leave them, but would miss them terribly.
And best of all, on Sunday Tom got back smelling like the woods, with a suntan and two days of stubble that made him look darkly dangerous instead of broodingly uptight.
And he wasn’t weird with her.
He did this elaborate designed-to-be-funny inspection of the apartment, looking for ways she might’ve sullied it. He checked the fridge and the pantry, found no contraband box mac and cheese, professed himself pleased and then asked if she was planning to vibrate again tonight, with a completely straight face.
“Was it too much?” One of the most fun things she’d done not having sex with a man. If he’d hated it, she’d be a little bit destroyed.
“It was different.”
He’d chosen that word carefully. “You mean hot.” Knowing he was just next door, hearing her pleasure, hearing him grunt through his, and then letting him know she knew they’d been in it together. Too delicious. Her face flushed thinking about it.
He thought it was hot too because he couldn’t keep neutrality in his eyes in the same way he could force it into his body, into the detached expression, straight spine and folded arms. She liked how molten those burnt brown eyes got, how they fixed on her as if she was the only thing in the room he didn’t understand and wanted to make a study of.
“You’d have emerged from the womb a boundary pusher.”
Not quite. She was the shy, ignored youngest. She’d had to learn how to get what she wanted. “You must’ve heard Josh. He must’ve heard you. Or you were both having the world’s most constrained sex. Tragic.”
Constrained Tom was also hot, but only because he was looking for an excuse not to be that way. Flick was the definition of to-the-moon-and-back happy to give him one.
“For all Josh’s pedantic ways, he liked his sex spontaneous and in locations designed to thrill. He never brought anyone home. I like hotels.”
“I can see that. Anonymous and housekeeping tidies up.”
“Priorities,” he said, cutting his eyes away.
“Did you make any decisions while you were striding up mountains?” If he wanted to try sex again without a wall between them, she’d be on board with that. If he’d decided to quit Rendel, he’d have to explain his plan because she wasn’t letting his pride throw him under a career bus.
“I stayed on the flat.”
“Safety first.” Classic Tom. “Which means talking about quitting was all beer.”
“All beer until I hear what the top headhunters say.”
She tapped the side of her head. “That’s my roommate. Smart and sexy.”
He closed his eyes and shook his head as if she was just too much. She’d gotten humor but no smile. A smile would take that darkly dangerous thing he had going on and make it heart-flipping adorable.
Huh. Tom O’Connell, adorable. Not two concepts she’d imagined holding in her head simultaneously.
“I’ve been walking for two days and I have an early meeting. I’m going to crash,” he said.
“I’ll try to keep it down.”
He didn’t respond, other than to show her his back as he went toward his bedroom.
“Or should I turn it up so you can play too?” she called after him.
He laughed. He tried not to, there was a strangled sound, and he gave it up, making a glorious bull-stuck-in-the-mud frustrated bellow that was better than any smile.
And she gave it a rest that night. Which meant she was battle-ready for the text war with Elsie Monday morning.
With Tom gone early, she had the apartment to herself, and since she didn’t need to worry about keeping out of his way she planned to take her time with breakfast on the balcony. She had feeds, news and social to check, but made the mistake of looking at her texts.
The bikes are wrong.
She’d had them delivered.
Broken?
Wrong. They’re the same.
She should have called, but talking to Elsie would disturb that peace. What’s wrong with that?
They can’t be the same.
She looked at those words while she ate a banana. They made no better sense after the injection of potassium. Why not?
Because you can’t tell them apart.
The dumb thing was asking. Wasn’t that the point, for neither kid to feel more special? That’s why one new bike had been an unacceptable solution. After an hour of research into the best, safest options, she bought two nine-speed Cleary Meerkats in gender-neutral very orange. Not the most expensive bike at six hundred dollars, but not the cheapest, like they stocked in Target. It was meant to be good for two years’ worth of heavy-duty use.
Put different stickers on them. Paint one black and add a skull and crossbones or whatever the junior school version of that was.
That doesn’t work. You just don’t get it.
She opened the phone keypad, then closed it. Talking to Elsie would ruin the morning. She only had a small quota of Chicago mornings left to enjoy. The kids had new bikes that would get them to school and home again. They’d work out how to tell them apart, or not. They were the same, it hardly mattered. She pushed the phone away and stretched. Five more minutes of peace and she’d get dressed, and go join the rat race.
Even the bing the phone made to indicate Elsie wasn’t leaving it alone was annoying. She didn’t have to read that next text. She did a half-hearted sun salute and let the phone do its thing unattended. She didn’t get how Elsie could make her feel bad when she’d done what was asked of her. Families were supposed to support you. The Dalgettys existed to make her feel inadequate either because she wasn’t generous enough, or she didn’t deserve what she’d made of herself.
Sucker, sucker, sucker. She picked up the phone and opened Elsie’s text stream.
You think the world should revolve around you.
Always did.
You want to run off and be a do-gooder but you let your own family hang out to dry.
You act like we embarrass you. You’re not better than us.
All right, enough. She typed a response. We don’t like each other. We don’t have to. But we’re sisters and we need to respect each other.
Elsie must’ve been poised over her phone. I respect what you can buy my girls.
Oh hell. Would be better to leave this alone. But not in the least satisfying. She typed, Mercenary bitch. It must sting to have to ask for my charity.
That might end it. She stepped inside the apartment and then went back for the banana skin and the coffee cup. Shouldn’t have answered the phone when it went off.
“It’s not charity. It’s family, fucking slut.”
“Fuck you, Elsie. You’re due a wake-up call. What are you doing with your life? Living off Mom. Do you think I’m going to support you forever?”
“You feel guilty because you got out. You think I don’t know how to use that against you.”
Shouldn’t have answered the phone but enough, enough of allowing herself to be manipulated. “You forgot the only reason I got out was because I was ruthless. Don’t call me again.”
She disconnected, clenching the phone so hard it might’ve cracked. But enough. If she never spoke to Elsie again it would be too soon.
She was going to be late. But heck, what were they going to do, fire her? She made a second cup of coffee in Tom’s Keurig. The reason she’d run off with Drew was no mystery. He’d been a friend, a replacement parent, unselfish and supporting. Those years between them meant nothing in the face of the security he’d provided. The phone kept binging and vibrating. She picked it up, knowing it could be the office, but was most likely a screed of new messages from Elsie, a lecture on her failings she didn’t need to read.
Drew would be on his way to the college he taught at. He’d have time to talk. She speed-dialed him and the call went to voice mail.
“This is Drew Howell. I’m in the classroom teaching America’s next great novelist the value of the Oxford comma. Leave a message and as soon as I’m able, I’ll return it.”
Ah well, it broke their three-calls-a-year arrangement anyway. But if she didn’t leave a message, he might worry.
“Hello, teach. Your all-time favorite student checking in. Thought of you this morning and called on a whim. I’ll call again on your birthday and we can have our regular catch-up. I have news—no, I’m not in love and I’m not pregnant, you’ll have to wait. Hope the suspense doesn’t kill you. Be well. I still love you.”
Hmm, that felt better. It also crystalized the problem she was having at work. Time to be ruthless.
Flick had no desire to burn her bridges with Cassidy Strauss, but after having gone from trying to tempt her, to trying to guilt her into staying, to squeezing every last drop of energy and attention from her, they’d slid right on into “let’s ignore you’re outta here in six weeks.”
Ruthless started at ten because she didn’t hustle to get in. At 10:15 she stood outside Charles Strauss’s office and didn’t take “come back later” for an answer. She didn’t take him towering over her in an attempt to get her to back away either. She had no spoons left to give for people who wanted to push her around today.
“I wanted to remind you that I’m out of here in six weeks.”
He sighed. “I know that, Flick. Didn’t your team take you to dinner to celebrate? I heard it was a good night.”
“Yeah, thank you. I will miss my team terribly. What I won’t miss is the Grayson account, the Farmer’s Union or the Blenhelm business park plan. But you might, because those projects won’t be near finished in six weeks and I can’t image it’s going to go down well with those clients when their projects grind to a halt.”
Charles sat on the edge of his desk, legs outstretched in a “see how unconcerned I am” posture. Another tall-man power move. The opposite of what the other tall man in her life did. Tom never used his body to deliberately intimidate. “I’ll get you someone to hand over to.”
“You’ve been saying that for two months.”
“Flick, a good handover will only take you a week.”
He was looking at her chest when he said that. “A good handover isn’t about leaving those client issues in my hands when my head has already left the building. I’m not working another eighty-hour week for the rest of my notice period. That’s just me telling you how it is because my head might’ve left the business but my heart hasn’t, and I want the Grayson, Farmers U and Blenhelm people to have the best of Cassidy Strauss, not the unfocused last dregs of me.”
“You’re never unfocused.”
Maybe if she flashed him she’d shock him into changing his mind. All it would take was three buttons. “You’re taking advantage of me.” She put her hand to the collar of her shirt. Wouldn’t be the most outrageous thing she’d done.
“I’m doing nothing of the sort. You’re working out the contract you signed with us.”
Wouldn’t be the most outrageous thing she’d done this week. Or even in the last thirty-six hours. She undid a button and Charles’s brow went up above the rim of his glasses. Bastard would probably enjoy her Simone Perele revelation full-cup underwire, and that wasn’t going to help.
“I’m slacking off. That’s what I came to say.” She lowered her hand to her side. “You should’ve expected it. You’re banking on me being a good soldier and not dropping my bundle, but I’m dropping it right now. I’m working standard office hours from here on in and taking lunch.” She turned for her dramatic but fully clothed exit and said over her shoulder, “You don’t get to say you weren’t warned.”
“Felicity.”
Not turning around for that. He pulled that disciplinarian act when he wanted obedience and she’d had to stomach it for years. She didn’t have to anymore.
“Flick.” She stopped but didn’t turn. “I’ll have a handover plan next week.”
He might. If he didn’t, it was explicitly on him.
The rest of the day was notably easier to get through than the morning had been, and true to her word she quit the office at five thirty and headed straight home and for the gym and maybe the chance to eat with Tom.
Drew called while she was on the street. She could barely hear him. “It’s not Christmas or my birthday or yours either. You didn’t have to call back.”
“I wanted to. Can you talk?”
She ducked into an alleyway, where she could stand without someone walking into her and not have to shout to be heard. “I can now.”
“Where are you?”
“Just left work. You’re not getting my big news early.”
“Flicker, you’ve got to give me your news. I need it now.”
He’d said less than a dozen words and nothing particular about them was unexpected, but she went cold from the feet up. His voice—it wasn’t so much that the street was loud, it was that Drew’s voice shook.
“What’s wrong?”
“Tell me your news. Don’t hold out on me now.”
Unexplained fear laced her heart, making it hard to find words. She told him about Coalition for Humanity, and moving to Washington, about how excited she was and what it meant to be able to share that with him.
“I’m so proud of you, Flicker.”
“I can do this because you saw I could be something.”
“You were already something before I ever set eyes on you. A flicker of brilliance, no one can ever put out.”
That’s all she’d been. A flicker of defiance and undirected anger. Without Drew, she’d have flickered out. “You’re scaring me. You don’t sound right.”
“I’m sick. I’m in the hospital.”
“Oh sweet Jesus. What is it?”
“Cancer.”
He told her what kind and where it was in his body, how he’d been sick for years and why he didn’t tell her before. Lots of words in a voice racked with pain and the certainty he was dying that hit her like a hail of ice bullets, left her shivering and aching.
Her analytic brain kicked into high gear. “But there’s treatment.”
“Some. We can slow it down, manage the pain. I’ll have good days and bad days.”
“How long?”
“Today was a good day because I got to talk to you.”
Oh dear God. “You can talk to me any day. This thing we do, only talking three—”
“Was the right thing to do, to stay in touch.”
“How long?”
“Maybe not long enough to wait for your news. Maybe longer. It’s hard to say.”
Her birthday, eight months away. “No.”
“I’m ready.”
“No. It’s not right.” There had to be something else, new treatments, something he hadn’t tried. “There were things you wanted to do. Jeannie, the kids. You were going to write a book.”
“I was never going to write a book. Not every ex-journalist come English teacher has a book in them. You wanted that for me. Enough ambition for both of us.”
“That’s not true.”
“It’s true now, Flicker.”
All the ice traveling in her blood made it hard to stand. She had to use the dirty brick wall behind her to stay upright. “I’m coming to see you.” She’d burn whatever bridge she had to with Cassidy Strauss to take the time to be with Drew, to see Jeannie and the kids.
“No. I’m not strong enough for that. I don’t want you to see me. Not like this. I want you to remember me how I was, younger.”
“Handsome. You’re still that way.” Grayer each year, in the Howell family holiday letter, with more laugh lines, but still a man to look at twice.
“I had hair.”
Meaning he didn’t now. “Oh, Drew.” There was ice on her face, rivers of it.
“Flicker, listen to me. We might not talk again.”
“Yes, we will. Every day.”
“No.”
“You can’t cut me off.” She was sobbing now, he might not have understood.
“Don’t, Flicker. Don’t. I don’t want you to be sad. I don’t want you to look over your shoulder and worry. You go to Washington, you make that city yours. You be brilliant.”
“None of that matters.” Forget Washington, this was more important. She’d tell Coalition for Humanity she had a family crisis and had to decline their job offer.
“All of it matters. But what matters most is that you let me make this decision.”
“You don’t want to see me.” That was it for her knees. Jelly.
“I want to see you more than I can bear, my darling, but it would only make it harder on both of us, and I need to give all the energy I have left to Jeannie and the kids.”
“You can’t—” Cut her out. Leave. Die. Flick slammed her hand over her mouth. The words pouring out of her needed to stop. She had to pull it together. She had to sit, here in the alley, on the filthy cement curb, her shoes in the gutter.
“You’re not going to be alone.”
“You would say that.”
He laughed softly. “I get a free pass. The world is full of brilliant people. You’ll find your someone. You’ll find them when you’re ready, when they show they’re worthy of being in your life.”
She wiped at her face. “You’re lucky you get a free pass, because that’s magical thinking and you’re better than that, Drew Howell.”
“I must’ve been once because I got to love you.”
If her throat closed up any tighter she’d be unable to breathe.
“Flicker, are you there?”
“Do you know—” She coughed, cleared her throat, dug her fingers into her thigh. “I’m wearing my favorite skirt and I’m sitting in a gutter in some dirty alley I’ve walked past for years and barely noticed. My favorite skirt.”
“Ah, I’m sorry. I’ve been a coward about telling you. Part of me didn’t ever want to have this conversation, didn’t want you to know, to be sad.”
“You were never a coward.” He’d been a journalist when she met him. She’d interviewed him for the school paper. He lost his job over taking her in when his paper’s owner didn’t like the stink caused by Drew “shacking up” with a woman half his age. He’d been told to marry Flick or he’d be fired. Flick had bought a white dress at the Goodwill but Drew quit, went freelance. He was the first one to teach her the value of principles. To teach her she was worth something. “What happens now?”
“I go home, be with my family for as long as I can.”
“And us?”
“We say goodbye.”
A stomach full of ice and fear and sadness, and she was going to be sick. “When?”
“Now.”
“No, no, no. It’s too soon. I’m not ready. I can’t sit in a gutter in an alley in my favorite skirt and say goodbye to you.”
“Ah, Flicker, it’s just a word. It comes from God be with you. It’s not what defines us. I’ll always be with you.”
He was the part of her that believed she could do work that mattered because she mattered, but she was still a scrappy, sometimes angry, selfish person. “I called Elsie a mercenary bitch this morning.”
He laughed. “She hasn’t changed then.” He sounded like himself.
“I don’t want you to go.” She wanted to hear him laugh again, to live to do that for a long time.
“You don’t need me any longer, Flicker. You haven’t for years. It’s my turn to push you out now. Go on. No more tears. Stand up, straighten that skirt. Jeannie will call you.”
He didn’t say when he was dead, but that’s what he meant. All she could do was sob.
“Keep that up and you’re going to make me cry too.”
Flick knew of nothing more heartbreaking than two people who loved each other and needed to separate, unable to talk through their own tears. Drew recovered first. “Do you have someone you can go lean on?”
“Yes.” A lie, what Drew needed was a lie and that made it all right.
“I love you, Flicker. Then, now. Always. You go and be brilliant and a little piece of me will go with you. Promise me you’ll shine.”
Lips numb, body shaking, she couldn’t. Drew had built her new from promises. He’d used them like challenges. Promise me you’ll stop caring what people say about you. Promise me you’ll focus at school. Promise me you’ll make the most of college. Promise me you’ll choose friends who are true. She’d promised her way from defiant and rebellious, and scared, from bitter and lashing out and lacking choices to everything she was today. He’d taken her in believing she was a victim. He’d shown her she was the one in control.
“You make it happen. Promise me.”
The script on her ribs. The promise of her life. “I make it happen.”
She sat in the gutter in the alley for long enough after Drew hung up that a woman stopped to ask if she was okay.
“I just learned my best friend is dying.”
“Oh, that’s terrible. Can I get you anything?”
She was older, this woman, carrying shopping. She had someplace to be, people waiting on her.
Flick got to her knees, then her feet, a hand to the wall for support. “I’ll be fine, but thank you.”
She went home to Tom’s in a daze. Showered, put her PJs on and lay in bed. Tom came in earlier than he usually did. He called her name and she contemplated not answering. She got up, poked her head out the bedroom door. “I have a bad headache. I’m lying down.”
She didn’t wait for him to answer. But forty minutes later he knocked on her door.
“Go away, Tom.”
“I didn’t hear that. Be decent. I’m coming in.” He pushed the door open, a tray in his hands, a steaming plate of mac and cheese. “Oh shit, what’s wrong? It’s not a headache.”
She’d only managed to struggle into a sitting position before he came in. She used the words he’d used when his promotion went south. “I had a bad day.”
“It’s more than that.”
Her breathing was uneven. Her bottom lip had a life of its own and she couldn’t hold it still.
“Your family?”
“I don’t want to—” couldn’t “—talk about it and I don’t think I can eat.”
Tom backed out, and came in again without the tray. He stood by the door. He’d changed out of his suit into sweats and a T-shirt. “I’m going to be here with you, because you’re scaring me. You look like you’ve had a shock.”
A horrific gulp of sadness and desperate loss and loneliness erupted from her and she pitched forward to hide her face in her hands. He was beside her in seconds, arms around her.
“I’ve got you. I won’t let you go. You let it out, Flick. Scream if you have to, I don’t care what you need to do, I’m with you.”
It was enough to pull her back around. Tom wasn’t her someone. He didn’t need to see her breakdown and he didn’t deserve to be freaked out by her grief.
“Drew has cancer. He’s dying. We said goodbye today.” Saying it brought on a wave of nausea.
Tom swore, shifted closer and held her tighter. He was a great wall made of strength and softness folded around her, keeping her from falling apart.
“I’ll be all right.” She’d promised. She didn’t break her promises.
“You’ll be whatever you need to be. And I’ll be here.”
“You don’t have to.” Not her someone, but a good man, a worthy man. She needed to find a man like Tom.
“Yeah,” he said. “My roommate got some bad news, so I do.”
He climbed in behind her, pulled the covers over them, shuffled her close. His steady breathing was a current, his arm around her a necessary anchor, but she didn’t sleep. Too many memories. Too many mistakes. It was a mistake to leave the state while Drew was sick. Somewhere around four she started crying and couldn’t stop, and Tom rolled her onto his chest and did everything he could to soothe her, to help her gather her grief and sob for its pain, until it exhausted her.
When she woke, he was still there, spooned behind her, his thighs tucked up under hers. The clock said eight. It was late; they’d both be stuck in commuter hell.
“Tom.” She wriggled against him and he stirred. “It’s late.”
“Hmm.” Sleep-crackly voice, deep and warm, a heavy arm dropping over her waist. “Not for you. You’re taking a day of bereavement leave. And heck, nothing will fall over because I’m late one morning. Did you sleep at all?”
“A little. Thank you for staying with me.” She brought his hand to her lips and kissed the back of it, and then her stomach gurgled.
“Could you eat?” he said.
He was right about taking a day, and food might stop the sick feeling in her gut. She’d never expected him to stay the whole night, to make it easy to want him there.
He gathered her close again, his chin knocking on her shoulder. “You had a rough night. Are you going to be okay today?”
“You had a rough night too. This is not what you expected.”
“I didn’t lose someone.”
“I keep thinking I should go to him. That maybe he wouldn’t hate it. I don’t think I can take the job. I should stay in the state until—” Her voice broke.
“Flick, you can stay with me as long as you need, another month, as many months as you need.”
She turned in his arms. He was rumpled, tousled and whiskery. He looked wonderful. “You’d do that for me?”
“You’re my roommate.”
He said it with such quiet conviction, an unshakable faith that this care was what she deserved. Roommate wasn’t the right label for what they were. Ex-lovers, friends. She buried her face in his neck and let the size of him fortify her, the soapy-clean wood-chip smell of him make her believe in a world that could be good enough without Drew in it.
“Ricotta honeycomb hotcakes.”
He rumbled that in her ear as she was almost asleep. She looked up at him. “You’re looking at me strangely, Tom O’Connell.”
“It’s my ricotta honeycomb hotcake look. You know you want some.”
“God.” She shoved against his chest, needing an outlet for how he was making her feel, like she was held in the palm of his hand and nothing she didn’t want would get past him. “If you keep being so nice to me, you will make me cry again. My protective coating is faulty this morning.”
“Ricotta honeycomb hotcakes will put so much happy in your mouth they will make the whole day seem less terrible.”
“Do you promise?” The phrase slipped out, under her guard, and the sting of tears was so quick it made her clutch at his arm.
He brushed his knuckles on her cheekbone. “I guarantee it.”
She ate Tom’s hotcakes wrapped in a blanket on the balcony. He sat beside her. He didn’t try to make her talk or babble to fill the silence. He didn’t do anything except eat his breakfast and drink his coffee, but reassurance flowed from him like sunlight, coating Flick with calm.
He made her a second cup of coffee and returned with it, dressed for work. He was brushed and shaved and buttoned up, smelling of a citrus aftershave. Flick stuck a fork in her mouth and sucked on it, so she wouldn’t ask him to stay. It was what she wanted, but it wouldn’t be fair and he might feel obligated, and he’d already done enough.
“Will you be okay?” He went to his haunches so he looked directly in her eyes when he said that and she couldn’t guard herself against his scrutiny. She wanted to wrap her arms around his neck and her legs around his middle and make him stay because she was scared of being alone with her thoughts.
“I’ll sleep.” She’d try at least. She no longer felt as queasy.
“I called Cassidy Strauss, spoke to Charles and told him you wouldn’t be in until further notice.”
She gasped. “How did he take that? We had words yesterday, he’s going to think—”
“That you had a family emergency, because that’s what I told him.”
“Oh.” That would work. Tom wasn’t just any roommate making a courtesy call; his words had weight.
“You have my cell number. I expect you to call me if you need anything. If you want to talk.”
That made her smile. Roommates who share cell numbers for something other than dark-side-of-the-morning balcony-lock-out emergencies. “Is it possible we’re becoming friends, Tom O’Connell?” Having Tom as a friend would be better than having him as an occasional guilty hookup. Friendship was guilt-free and came without the complications caused by distance.
He ruffled her hair on his way upright. “The wild thought had crossed my mind.”
Shoving hair out of her eyes, she looked up at him. “Bet that freaks you out.”
He bent and kissed her forehead. “Not nearly as much as you’d think.”
Flick did a lot of thinking. About Drew, about what losing him meant, about delaying, canceling her move to Washington. If Coalition for Humanity couldn’t wait a few more months for her, then it wasn’t too late to ask Charles for her job back.
She thought about Elsie and Mom and predicted a stolen bike and planned to start a college fund for Kendall and Krystal because they were going to need that more than the next must-have object.
And she thought about Tom. Mac and cheese and peach pie, a cooked breakfast and comforting hugs, and counted the hours until she’d see him again.
And she thought about what that meant and didn’t have the answer.