Page 53 of Charm City Rocks
Having an assistant is a godsend, but it’s weird having someoneelse control her schedule. She had to email Trevor last week and have him block out ninety minutes, like a permission slip.
“Cool,” he says. “Anyone comes looking, I’ll fight ’em off. I’ll text you if there are any emergencies, but only as a last resort.”
“Thanks, Trevor.”
This is usually when he shoots Robyn with finger guns and walks briskly back to his desk. Instead, Trevor lingers.
“Anything else?” she asks.
He touches his tie, which has little crabs on it. “Um,” he says, “can I ask you something?”
She glances at the clock. No, he can’t; there isn’t time. “Of course,” she says.
“It’s kinda not work related.” He looks back through all the glass, and Robyn wonders what he’s going to say. She knows very little about him, aside from his collection of ties. He loves tennis. He’s gay, dating a guy with a German shepherd. His name is Grant, she thinks. The guy, not the dog.
“Some of us were wondering. You know, the assistants. You were married to him, right? Billy Perkins?”
Robyn stifles a sigh. Of course that’s what he wants to talk about. It’s whateveryonewants to talk about lately. “Not married,” she says. “We were together when I was younger than you. In other words, a long time ago. Now we’re friends. Co-parents.”
“And you live in Roland Park, right?”
The news and gossip sites have been vague about exactly where Margot is staying. Baltimore is a small town, though. A middle-aged rock star shuffling up and down Roland Avenue en route to the coffee shop every morning gets some attention. Last week, theBaltimore Sunprinted a picture of her in the style section petting a dog in front of Eddie’s Market. Neighbors have started slowing when they pass Robyn and Aaron’s house on their morning jogs and evening walks.
“Hey, Aaron. Hey, Robyn. What’ssss…uhhh…new with you guys?”
She tells Trevor yes, that she lives in Roland Park, hoping to leave it at that. He takes a step closer, though. “What’s she like?” he whispers. “Margot Hammer. Is she, like, cool?”
Yes, sheiscool. Margot Hammer is impossibly cool, with her roughed-up jeans and tattoos and windswept hair. She’s also quiet and weirdly stone-faced. Robyn is nervous around her because she’s never been around a famous person before. And she’s prettier in person than Robyn gave her credit for when Robyn was young and jealous. Margot’s eyes are striking, and she gives off this aura of not caring about anything, which is intimidating. She has laugh lines, but she makes them look badass. And she and Billy play music together on the other side of the driveway at all hours, and sometimes she hears them laughing.
The other day Robyn made up a reason to go to the garage, and she stood perfectly quiet looking up at the garage ceiling, wondering if Margot and Billy might be having sex up there. Because that’s what new couples do: they have sex. She wondered if that applies to people in their forties, though. She also wondered what it would be like to have sex with Billy when you’d previously had sex with Lawson Daniels. Is it possible to enjoy it, or does having sex with Lawson Daniels render all other men simplynotLawson Daniels?
Robyn doesn’t go over any of this with Trevor, because it would be wildly inappropriate, particularly the sex part. Plus, she needs to leave immediately. She stands and grabs her jacket. She considers switching to the cushy sneakers she keeps under her desk but opts to stay with the heels she’s wearing. She may not be a rock star, but her legs look great in these awful things. “Weren’t you like five years old when she was famous?” she asks.
Trevor laughs. “Um, not sure if you’re on the socials much, Robyn, but…she’s pretty famous again.”
—
In the elevator, Robyn digs her phone out of her purse. Caleb taught her about the search functions on Twitter and Instagram the other day, so she’s advanced from social media voyeurism to full-on cyberstalking.
She thumbs out “Margot Hammer” and sees pictures of the drummer in Roland Park and videos of her playing at the Horse. There’s Margot writing in a little notepad at the coffee shop. She sees a picture posted by someone she doesn’t know in which Margot is standing under Caleb’s basketball hoop looking up at birds.I saw her!the caption reads, and there are tongue and guitar emojis. The post has 427 likes. “Jesus,” says Robyn, because she is 100 percent certain that she doesn’t even know 427 people.
At the crosswalk outside her building, she types “Margot and Billy,” and there they are, no last names required.
Luv them.
Good for her.
Go Margot!
Team Margot 4LYFE
Is it weird that this gives me hope?
Suck it Lawson Daniels!
Find a guy who looks at you like Billy looks at Margot!!!!
That last one was posted by HellaBella93, and she has a point. In the image, Billy is looking at Margot the way an infatuated teenager would, and it’s impossible not to remember when Billy used to look at Robyn like that.
