Page 129 of Our Last Resort

It’s a knowledge deprived of assumptions. Sharpened in the tricky, humbling world of logistics.

The kind of knowledge that comes from experience.

40New York City And New Jersey

Almost Nine Years Ago

When my phone buzzed at eight one Saturday morning, I answered groggily. I’d graduated the previous May and was almost five months into my job at the bank, meaning I’d worked until two the previous night.

“Annie? Is everything okay?”

“No!” she yelled. I held the phone away from my ear. There was no need to put her on speaker, she was so animated. “I’m on my way to the city. We need to talk. He’s done it this time. I’m done with him. DONE!”

“What’s the—”

She hung up.

I pinched the skin between my eyebrows. That was it for sleep. I dragged myself into the shower, put on jeans and a black T-shirt. (How I wished I had a sense of style. After the drab clothes of Émile’s world, after the years I had spent doing my laundry in a sink, I badly wanted to figure it out, this boldness, this artistry that enabled some people to put together Outfits with a capitalo.But it never clicked.)

There were dishes in the sink, dust on my shelves, streaks on my mirror. I needed to wash my sheets. A pile of unopened mail sat on the kitchen counter.

I typed a text to Annie:Can we go to a café or something?

But I knew there was no way she’d say yes. Annie did what she wanted to do, however she wanted to do it. I deleted the text without sending it.

That was my first lucky break, not sending that text. If I had, what would she have written back? Something damning, like:No. You’ll want to hear this in private. Better for all involved.

I straightened up my studio as best as I could, but Annie must have been driving like a madwoman. She knocked just as I wrestled my comforter out of the duvet cover.

“Coming!”

I opened the door to find a disheveled, clearly distressed Annie, dressed in leggings, a loose T-shirt, and clogs. She wasn’t wearing any makeup. I was pretty sure it was the first time I’d seen her without even a bit of concealer on.

She walked straight to the couch. As soon as she sat down, she buried her face in her hands. It was like she didn’t even see me, or the mess in my studio, or anything that wasn’t in her direct line of sight.

“Can I get you some water?” I asked. “Or maybe some coffee?”

“Your brother,” she said.

She looked up.

“I think you should sit down,” she said.

So I did. On a barstool across from the couch.

“Last night,” she said, “Gabriel came home drunk. Again.”

Damn.

“Does he have a…problem?”

She nodded.

“Probably,” she said. “And it’s like you said. Abysmal tolerance. He goes to the bar thinking he’ll have a couple of beers to unwind. What he doesn’t realize is that two beers for him is like seven vodkas for me.”

Well, he never was good at math.

“But that doesn’t matter,” Annie said, her voice shaking. “I really don’t fucking care about that right now. Sorry.”

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