Page 75 of Pas de Don't
“I love you, too. Thanks for feeding me.”
“I’ll be back tomorrow, but only if you promise to clean this place up,” Alice said as she walked to the door. “It’s starting to look like an audition video forHoarders.”
“Love you, too,” Marcus called at her retreating back, then lay back down on the couch. He’d stay here one more day. And tomorrow he’d clean up and do laundry at last and wash the scent of Heather from his sheets.
Heather was the first to wake the next morning. After taking a quick shower and watering ZZ Pot, who was thriving, she ventured downstairs to the closest bodega and bought two bagels and two iced coffees. She walked slowly back to the apartment building, feeling every step of her closing night performance and every hour of travel in her hip flexors and lower back.
Had it really been just over a month since she’d left this place? She had forgotten how narrow the sidewalks were here, and the way the streets of New York smelled like hot trash by 9:00AMin early September. The morning light seemed flatter and duller than she remembered it, or perhaps the light in Sydney had been sharper and brighter, and she’d simply become accustomed to it without realizing.
Unbidden, the image of Marcus’s face swam into her mind, the way the morning light found every freckle, and every yellow-gold fleck in his eyes. Her heart twisted in her chest. She hadn’t heard from him since that last, awful phone call, and she didn’t expect to.
Heather gripped her coffee tight, exhausted by the conflicting emotions that had been swirling through her for days now. Pride at her success in Sydney, and anger that he hadn’t understood how important it was to her. Mortification at how her time at ANB had ended, misery that she’d let him down. And an enraging sense of powerlessness when she thought about the choice she’d been forced to make.
“Honey, I’m home,” she called as she stepped into the apartment, slightly breathless from five flights of stairs. “And I brought bag—”
The words died in her throat when her eyes fell on the woman sitting on the couch with Carly, her eyes swollen and a glass of water clutched in her hand.
Melissa.
Heather’s stomach dropped as the young woman stared at her, trepidation in her pretty, round face. Heather looked at Carly, who sprang to her feet and physically put her body between her and Jack’s new girlfriend.
“What is she doing here?” Heather’s heart raced, and hot anger crawled up the insides of her ribs.
“I asked her to come,” Carly said quickly. “I had an idea late last night, and I was going to tell you this morning, but she arrived a little early.”
“Why didn’t you tell me last night?” Heather hissed.
“Because I knew you’d say no,” Carly said firmly. She glanced behind her at Melissa, whose eyes were now fixed on the water in her glass as they talked about her like she wasn’t there.
“Why are you here?” Heather managed. She fixed the younger woman with the steeliest glare she could manage through her shock and jet lag.
“Because we need her help,” Carly sighed. “And she needs ours.”
“What the hell are you talking about? Why would we help the woman who slept with my fiancé and ruined my life? And what could she possibly do for us?”
“Fine, it’s not for us,” Carly shot back, “it’s for me. So I can get my job back. I’m sorry I sprang this on you, but would you please just listen?”
“Carly, it’s okay,” Melissa said to the floor, so softly Heather barely heard her. “This was a bad idea. I should just go.”
Heather opened her mouth to agree, but something about the flat, defeated tone of Melissa’s voice stopped her.
“Fine,” she said, making sure to direct her words at Carly, not Melissa. Heather set down the bagels and coffee before the shake in her hands could drop them, then took a step backward and pressed her shoulders against the living room wall, putting as much space as she could between herself and the younger woman. “I’ll listen.”
“Thank you,” Carly said, sounding relieved. She lowered herself slowly onto the arm of the couch, as though moving too quickly would fracture the fragile peace.
Melissa took a deep breath and dragged her gaze up to meet Heather’s eyes.
“First,” she started, softly, “I’m sorry about what me and Jack did. About what I did. It was wrong, and we shouldn’t have done it. I hate the idea that you hate me, because I’ve looked up to you for so long, ever since I was a kid in the NYB school. I really am sorry, but you have every right to hate me forever.”
Heather scoffed. Like she needed Melissa’s permission to hate her forever. Carly raised her eyebrows and shot her a look that plainly said,Would you please just give her a chance?Heather rolled her eyes in assent, and Melissa went on.
“Second”—and now Melissa was looking up at Carly—“I’m sorry for what he did the other night. And what he said to you. It was awful, and I tried to stop him from coming over here, and from going to Mr. K, but he didn’t listen to me. He never listens to me.”
Heather had forgotten how high Melissa’s voice was, how girlish. She was so young, Heather thought, looking at her smooth, round face. Younger than Heather had been when she and Jack got together, by several years. When Heather’d found out about the affair, the thought of Melissa’s youth had enraged her. Now it just made her feel a deep, heavy sadness for her, and a roiling, nauseated disgust at Jack, who had once again taken advantage of someone vulnerable and naive. Melissa’s slim, hunched shoulders accentuated the sharp poke of her collarbone revealed by her tank top. Heather had the feeling that if she hadn’t been gripping her glass with both hands, she would have been wringing them.
“That son of a bitch. That actual son of an actual bitch,” Carly growled, but Melissa said nothing. She took another deep breath, this one shakier than the last.
“The things he called Carly,” she said to Heather, “he’s called me them too. A dumb bitch, a worthless slut.” She swallowed hard but kept talking. “Sometimes to my face, when he’s drunk and I’ve done something to make him angry. It feels like I’m always doing something to make him angry.”
