who worked for Dad. “I love this city,” he kept saying, as though trying to convince himself. “I love the Upper West Side.”
Mostly we snuck out into the atrium for drinks, our first trip right after the salads. We ducked behind a big pillar decorated with fake orange lilies, our buzzes escalating at the same time in a whirling rush.
He leaned toward me and winked. “You are the fairest of them all, milady. Ma’am. Your Honor.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, fluttering my eyelids. I kissed him, noticing how every angle of his body inspired a crazy-making, lustful lurch inside me. I wanted to step into him. Just get in him and live in there. I leaned against the pillar, cold against my bare back.
“You know, I love you so much,” Will whispered, brushing his lips across mine just like he did when we had sex. Even then I knew that chances were, I loved him more. Will was drunk. It reminded me of when I was younger and Dad hadscrawled the words
I love you more than you can dream
on the back of a picture of me in our living room one night when he was bombed out of his mind. I’d come home from school and found it, next to an ashtray filled with butts, the table sticky with beer from the previous night’s all-nighter. I had crossed it out, making deep, pissed-off Bic-pen indentations into the cardboard. I remember thinking he could only bring himself to love me when he was shit-faced.
Still, I loved hearing Will say he loved me, over and over.
“Will, I have to tell you something,” I said.
“What,” he said, kissing my neck and pulling the chain around my waist.
“I’m still pregnant. I didn’t go through with it, that day I was supposed to. I couldn’t.”
He looked at me and his body seemed to lurch backward in slow motion.
“I didn’t mean to hide it,” I said. “It’s hard for me to explain.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. I tried to find a trace of something I could recognize, in his eyes, in his expression, but his face reflected back only the worst—that I’d done something very wrong by not telling him.
Someone had made an announcement I didn’t hear and everyone started to file back into the dining room.
“I’m out of here,” Will said. He started for the elevators, then kicked open the fire-exit door and let it slam behind him before I had a chance to call his name.
19.
The tangle of Mom’s belts hung off my desk chair when I woke up the next morning. A couple of them were on the floor. Mom loves her clothes and preserves them fastidiously in her closet like museum pieces. My first thought was actually to get up, roll the belts and put them on my desk before she saw them like that. Then I remembered the previous night and wondered if I could just close my eyes again and have everything end right there. I felt like someone had run a bulldozer over my body and wondered how I was ever going to get out of bed, get clothes on, deal with Mom in the kitchen and get out the door to school. I remembered Dad’s face when I went back into the dining room and told him that Will had gotten sick and that I was going to take him home. He’d sat back and laid his dessert fork down as if he were trying not to wake someone, even though the room was ringing with the sound of silverware through the drone of voices. “Okay,” he’d said flatly, taking a sip from his sweaty water glass, and I could read his thoughts like a news feed running across his face: Here we go again, Thea’s up to her old tricks—she’s drunk and her boyfriend’s drunk and she’s let me down once again. I’ll let her go before she embarrasses me any further.
I told Mom that the party was fun and that Will loved my dress and that I was late for zero period, slathering some peanut butter on a piece of toast I knew I would throw into the junk-mail can in the lobby.
I somehow made it to school, to my spot on the floor in zero-period gym as Mr. Boone paced and talked about muscle recovery.
“When you work a
Mostly we snuck out into the atrium for drinks, our first trip right after the salads. We ducked behind a big pillar decorated with fake orange lilies, our buzzes escalating at the same time in a whirling rush.
He leaned toward me and winked. “You are the fairest of them all, milady. Ma’am. Your Honor.”
“Gee, thanks,” I said, fluttering my eyelids. I kissed him, noticing how every angle of his body inspired a crazy-making, lustful lurch inside me. I wanted to step into him. Just get in him and live in there. I leaned against the pillar, cold against my bare back.
“You know, I love you so much,” Will whispered, brushing his lips across mine just like he did when we had sex. Even then I knew that chances were, I loved him more. Will was drunk. It reminded me of when I was younger and Dad hadscrawled the words
I love you more than you can dream
on the back of a picture of me in our living room one night when he was bombed out of his mind. I’d come home from school and found it, next to an ashtray filled with butts, the table sticky with beer from the previous night’s all-nighter. I had crossed it out, making deep, pissed-off Bic-pen indentations into the cardboard. I remember thinking he could only bring himself to love me when he was shit-faced.
Still, I loved hearing Will say he loved me, over and over.
“Will, I have to tell you something,” I said.
“What,” he said, kissing my neck and pulling the chain around my waist.
“I’m still pregnant. I didn’t go through with it, that day I was supposed to. I couldn’t.”
He looked at me and his body seemed to lurch backward in slow motion.
“I didn’t mean to hide it,” I said. “It’s hard for me to explain.”
“Jesus Christ,” he said. I tried to find a trace of something I could recognize, in his eyes, in his expression, but his face reflected back only the worst—that I’d done something very wrong by not telling him.
Someone had made an announcement I didn’t hear and everyone started to file back into the dining room.
“I’m out of here,” Will said. He started for the elevators, then kicked open the fire-exit door and let it slam behind him before I had a chance to call his name.
19.
The tangle of Mom’s belts hung off my desk chair when I woke up the next morning. A couple of them were on the floor. Mom loves her clothes and preserves them fastidiously in her closet like museum pieces. My first thought was actually to get up, roll the belts and put them on my desk before she saw them like that. Then I remembered the previous night and wondered if I could just close my eyes again and have everything end right there. I felt like someone had run a bulldozer over my body and wondered how I was ever going to get out of bed, get clothes on, deal with Mom in the kitchen and get out the door to school. I remembered Dad’s face when I went back into the dining room and told him that Will had gotten sick and that I was going to take him home. He’d sat back and laid his dessert fork down as if he were trying not to wake someone, even though the room was ringing with the sound of silverware through the drone of voices. “Okay,” he’d said flatly, taking a sip from his sweaty water glass, and I could read his thoughts like a news feed running across his face: Here we go again, Thea’s up to her old tricks—she’s drunk and her boyfriend’s drunk and she’s let me down once again. I’ll let her go before she embarrasses me any further.
I told Mom that the party was fun and that Will loved my dress and that I was late for zero period, slathering some peanut butter on a piece of toast I knew I would throw into the junk-mail can in the lobby.
I somehow made it to school, to my spot on the floor in zero-period gym as Mr. Boone paced and talked about muscle recovery.
“When you work a
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