Great, even Hannah is humiliated for me, I think to myself. Wow. Just wow.
“What… You guys didn’t know that?” Didi says innocently. “It’s no big deal… Lots of people don’t know how to come. I’m just saying that maybe Dr. Warner—”
Desi grimaces and blows me a pantomime kiss as I force myself to get up from the table and put my heavy oilskin trench back on. Suddenly it feels very conspicuous, and not like something I would even want to wear.
“I’ll see you at the gallery tomorrow afternoon,” Desi says in a low, sympathetic voice.
“Hey, you can’t leave!” Didi announces, too loudly. “You promised me that we would hang out and drink. You promised!”
I don’t even know what to say to her. I just back away and leave her sitting there with her mouth hanging open, too awkward to even respond. As I stomp toward the exit, I ignore the pain of the blisters that have definitely formed in my shoe, and head back out into the rain.
Chapter 3
Joe
The loading dock is flooded with morning sun as the delivery guys haul the giant wooden crate on skids. I just stand off to the side with my arms folded, supposedly supervising but really just trying to stay out of the way. My main function is to witness anything that might go wrong, so I can make statements to the insurance company.
Last night’s rain floats up from the alley in clouds, catching the sunlight and turning to golden mist. If it weren’t for the fact this is a filthy alley in midtown Manhattan, it could easily be mistaken for a setting in a painting. Fairies or heroes could step out from these brick doorways. Maybe a cherub should float by on one of these clouds.
“Just sign here,” one of the guys says to me, holding out a clipboard and a pen.
I gesture toward the gallery door with my elbow, not even bothering to uncross my arms.
“I can’t sign for that until it’s on the floor, sorry,” I shrug.
He raises his eyebrows briefly, then sort of tips his head to one side as though trying to catch my eye. I’m not in the mood. I’m sure he’s handsome enough—I caught sight of him under one of those glorious shafts of sunlight just a couple of minutes ago—but I seriously cannot even consider forcing myself to return eye contact with him right now. It’s probably not safe… for either of us.
“Yeah… Okay,” he finally mutters. “Hank! We gotta drag this into the gallery!”
I shuffle behind them, taking slow steps on my feet which still ache from last night. Today I’ve got on a pair of soft ballet flats, but it’s still pretty tough to walk around the blisters I gave myself in the rain. Normally I would think those peep-toe heels were totally worth it, but today…
And again, I’m flooded with that sick feeling of shame and humiliation. Didi was totally out of line. I can’t believe she would turn on me like that, but I should’ve seen it coming. I should’ve known that she was tipsy when I got there, and I should’ve seen that evil glint in her eye.
Her mom used to get that same glint when she would start on the Jack Daniels before we got home from school. More than once we came in the front door, still laughing or griping about something from our school day, when Didi’s mom would show up in the hallway. She’d be leaning heavily against the doorjamb with that glint in her eye, ready to call us out on what we were wearing, how we were talking, pretty much anything about us.
So I should’ve seen it coming, but I didn’t. I did promise her that we would go out, and stupidly, I promised to get drunk. But I assumed that was just sort of a joke. I didn’t realize she was going to hold it over my head all night.
And I certainly didn’t realize what was coming.
No, I’ve never had an orgasm. It’s not something I generally tell people, although it’s not something I’m particularly ashamed about either. I’ve had sex before. I’ve had pretty decent sex, I think. And I suspect that this earth-shattering experience she tends to go on and on about is exaggerated just to make me feel bad.
Maybe I’m just not made that way. I’ve read studies that say that a full third of women don’t have orgasms. Walking down the street, it doesn’t look like a third of women are hobbling around like unsatisfied zombies or anything. Somehow they manage to run corporations and families. Maybe Didi is just kind of a jerk.
I love her, but man, she really goes for the throat sometimes.
“I’m an asshole,” comes a quiet voice behind me.
My stomach instantly tightens, filling with acid. I hesitate for a moment and coach myself to just be nice, don’t say anything I will regret because she’s leaving, and we will figure out a way to sort this all out when she comes back.
But when I finally force myself to turn around, I am taken aback. She smiles sheepishly at me and shrugs her shoulders over the padded supports of a pair of crutches. Looking down, I see the cast that extends from just over her knee to her red-painted toenails.
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“My leg,” she explains.
“You broke your leg? As in, your actual leg?”
“Yeah…” she winces. “Sort of had an incident with a very tall curb and a very drunk Didi.”