Page 68 of The Way I Am Now
you need to let the cake cool for at least
two hours before frosting it. Let it sit out
at room temperature for 30 mins and
then you can put it in the fridge for the
rest of the time. Love, Mom
If this wasn’t so new for us, maybe I’d poke at her, say something like,you don’t have to use formal salutations in your texts. But I just write back:OK, I will. Thx
I follow the directions, step by step, measuring out and mixing in the peanut butter, whipped topping, chocolate syrup, and mini peanut butter cups. I set it in the fridge to chill and sit down on the faded red couch while I wait for the cake to finish baking.
Twenty-three minutes still left on the oven timer.
Twenty-three minutes to just sit and do nothing.
My brain jumps on the opportunity to terrorize me with doubts and questions I don’t have answers to. I pull up the emails from Lane that I’ve been avoiding looking at over the past month. She’d offered to hop on the phone with me multiple times to talk through the hearing process. And it’s only right now, at five thirty on the last Friday before everything begins Monday morning, when she’s sure to be out of the office, that I finally feel the urgent need to talk to her. Today’s email from Lane:
Happy Friday, Eden:
Just a reminder that we’re touring the courthouse/courtroom at 8AM Monday. Try to spend some time this weekend reviewing the police report and the statement you gave Det. Dodgson so it’s all fresh in your mind. I know DA Silverman sent over a hard copy, but attached you’ll find a pdf for your convenience.
Make sure you dress in something comfy and natural (modest, for lack of a better word). Think business casual. Let me know if you have any questions.
See you soon,
Lane
I wonder if she sent Mandy and Gennifer the same thing. There have been so many times I’ve wondered if the lawyers would really know if we talked, wondered if we could get around the rules. Because on some very deep level, I wanted to know what he did to them, and I wanted them to know what he did to me. Not the details, but more thehowof it. I’m not sure why—I guess because I’m still not sure even, all these years later, how it happened to me.
But I resist.
Instead, I search the term business casual and see a lot of blazers over brightly colored tops. I’m thinking anything bright is not the way to go. And I do not own a single blazer.
I finally text Amanda back now. I think about apologizing for taking so long. Trying to come up with an excuse for why it’s taken me a month to get back to her, but she probably doesn’t care about that; she just wants my answer, so I give it to her.
Yes. I’ll be coming back.
I immediately see the three dots beside her name, dancing like excited atoms. I wait for a response. It doesn’t come.
The oven timer goes off. I toss my phone on the couch and run over, opening the oven door and reaching in, forgetting the brand-new set of oven mitts I’d lain out on the counter.
“Shit!” I hiss. “Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck,” I whisper as I turn the faucet on and run my hand under the cold water. I look back at the cake sitting there, the oven door wide open like a mouth, and then I watch as two red lines bloom across the palm of my left hand, a bite mark from some kind of rabid animal.
JOSH
She knocks on my door at exactly seven forty-five. I open it, ready, but not prepared for how she looks. “Oh wow.”
She laughs. “Oh wow to you too.”
“Sorry, but you look . . .” She glances down at herself. She’s wearing a dress—the only time I’d ever seen her in a dress before was the first time she ever came to my house. It was supposed to be our first date, except she didn’t want to go anywhere. “You look really . . .”
“Really?”
“Really amazing.”
“Youlook really amazing,” she says, and pulls me close to her for a kiss. “You ready?”
