Page 35 of And Then There Was You
“Sure, that would be good,” she said, swallowing against the dryness in her throat. The words felt small. Perfunctory. She knew this Sean, she knew he bounced on his toes when he wanted to be somewhere else. Clearly he’d done what he needed to do: apologized, made a show of goodwill. Box ticked. And now, she would quietly return to the footnotes of his university memories, a minor character in the early chapters. Sean gave her a little salute before heading back down the corridor toward the party, his walk relaxing into more of a swagger the farther away he got.
Chloe didn’t follow him. She needed a moment. The sounds of the party were muffled and distant, as if someone had closed a door between her and the room. What had she expected? To turn back the clock? To magically be his best friend and writing partner again, for him to be the key that was going to help unlock whatever was blocking her? She wiped two fingers beneath her eyes. She didn’t want to cry. She was too emotional about this stuff. She needed to grow up. She tugged at her dress, smoothed her hair, took a deep breath, then headed back toward the party. At least she knew where she stood. Sean didn’t needher anymore; he didn’t want to reconcile. She just needed to survive the weekend, be civil, give him McKenzie’s script, and that would be it. Chapter closed.
Back in the hall, she scoured the crowd for Rob. But the drinks reception had taken a rowdy turn. Someone had pumped the music up, and everyone had moved to the edges of the hall to make room for people to dance. Rocco Falconi, always the life and soul of any party, had started a dance routine to “Thriller.” Sean, Mark, and Colin came to join in, and the crowd squealed in delight to see them attempt some coordinated moves.
“Dance off!” someone yelled, and now the music flipped to Rihanna’s “Umbrella.” People cleared the floor for Colin, who started breakdancing, his blond hair, scraped back into a ponytail, already slick with sweat as he twirled around the floor on his back. Everyone whooped and cheered, but then he stopped, shook his head, clutching his back as though he’d tweaked it. Someone switched the music again, a hidden feud over whose playlist was linking to the speakers. As Daft Punk’s “Harder, Better, Faster, Stronger” came on, Sean moonwalked into the middle of the floor, then launched into his signature dance move, the robot.
Chloe looked around again. Where was Rob? But when she turned back to the dance floor, she found him, center stage next to Sean, copying his moves. Oh no. If Sean was good at the robot—and he was—Rob wasspectacular. His arms moved back and forth with mechanical precision, held stiff, then jerking at the elbows. His legs moved in sudden, robotic steps, and he closed his eyes, as though his face had powered down, devoid of all emotion. The crowd around him went wild. Sean laughed, saw he was outgunned, and quickly conceded the floor. “Who is that guy?” someone whispered. “Chloe’s boyfriend,Rob,” someone else said. And soon the crowd was chanting, “Rob! Rob! Rob!”
At first, Chloe felt alarmed by what he was doing—it wastoogood; he would give himself away. But then he caught her eye and winked, and she couldn’t help laughing. Everyone was too impressed to question how he was doing this.
When the song ended, Rob’s face reanimated into a smile. He tried to move away, to give someone else a chance in the spotlight, but the crowd wouldn’t have it and pulled him back to the center. “Do it again, do it again!” they cried, and now everyone wanted a lesson from him on how to do the robot.
He looked up and caught Chloe’s eye, checking she was okay with this. She could only nod and laugh. If she’d brought Rob here to impress everyone, then it was mission accomplished. As she watched him try to teach Harriet, Elaine, and Amara, she noticed Sean on the sidelines with Colin. He rubbed a hand along his jaw, briefly glanced across the dance floor at her, then turned and put an arm around Colin. Too busy to reply to her email when he hadtwoPAs. Well fuck you, Sean Adler.
Chloe’s new dress suddenly felt uncomfortably tight; she had drunk too much wine, she needed some fresh air. As she walked outside into the mild evening, she felt the quiet like a refreshing wave, washing off all that pointless small talk. She wandered through Grove Quad, keen to get away from the noise of the party, then almost tripped over something on the path. Looking down, she saw Richard the whippet, looking up at her expectantly.
“What are you doing out here alone?” she asked, bending down to stroke his ears. He stepped forward and prodded her armpit with his nose, as though he was trying to hug her but lacked the arms. This almost unbalanced her and she burst outlaughing. “Someone’s happy to see me.” Was there any greater salve for sadness than the cold nose of a friendly dog?
“Miss, you can’t have that dog in here,” came a stern voice from the other side of the quad. Chloe looked up to see one of the porters coming toward her with a torch. She instantly felt nineteen again, in trouble for flouting the rules.
“Oh, he’s not my dog,” she said, stroking Richard, because now he looked anxious, with his tail tucked beneath him, ears pinned back.
“How did he get in here?” the porter asked, as he headed toward her. When he got close, he reached out a hand to take Richard by the scruff of his neck.
“Oh, no, I know who he belongs to. He’s allowed to be here, he’s a support dog,” Chloe said, pulling Richard toward her. The porter, who looked a lot younger than she remembered porters being, gave her a skeptical look.
“Is he registered in the logbook?”
“I expect so. He’s John Elton’s dog. He’s on the alumni committee.”
“John Elton?”
“I know it sounds like a made-up name, but that really is his name.”
The porter checked his watch. “You’ll need to take responsibility for him, or I’ll have to shut him in the office. He can’t be running loose around college.”
“I’ll take him,” Chloe said, hugging Richard. The porter gave her a curt nod, then marched back toward the porter’s lodge.
“Looks like it’s you and me, my friend,” Chloe said, bending to take her heels off, enjoying the feel of bare feet on cold paving stone. Richard tried to lick her face, and she cradled his facebetween her hands to stop him, laughing at this enthusiastic display of affection.
The night air cooled the heat on her skin. Somewhere in the distance, she could still hear the music, but it felt faraway—a different world. She ran her hand along Richard’s velvety back, relishing this moment of peace. Here, there was no need to explain herself. No version of her to be edited. Maybe John had the right idea with Richard: dogs accepted you as you were, you didn’t need to impress them, and they didn’t require batteries.
“There you are,” came a voice behind her. She turned to see John, out of breath, running through from the front quad.
“The porter was about to throw him in dog jail,” Chloe told him.
“Sorry, thank you, he slipped his collar. Something must have spooked him,” John said, bending down to put the collar over Richard’s narrow head. “What were you running from?” he asked Richard, but Richard couldn’t explain. As John caught his breath, his shoulders dropped. She could see he was relieved to be reunited with his dog.
“What are you doing out here?” John asked her. “Was there an intermission in the awards ceremony of who’s winning at life?”
“You mean the yearbook? I think that was just a bit of fun,” Chloe said. She didn’t know why she was defending it. It hadn’t felt at all fun to her. John cleared his throat.
“Your boyfriend certainly made an impression,” he said, and she couldn’t read his tone. “I meant to ask, whereabouts is he from in Ireland?”
Oh no. Questions. She wasn’t prepared for questions.
“Um, the south,” she said.
