Page 24 of We Could Be So Good
“Oh, Andy, howareyou?” Jeanne sounds like she actually cares. One of the strangest complications of this whole mess is that this person he was ready to regard as a sister for the rest of their lives is now demoted to being a near stranger, and they’re both supposed to act like it isn’t a loss.
“I’m fine. I called to see how Emily was. She didn’t seem— Well, honestly, Jeanne, she seemed awful on Friday. I’m worried, but I can’t call her myself, and I’m not sure that I even want to. I’m not even sure it’s my business how she’s doing.”
Jeanne sighs, and through the line he hears the flick of her lighter. “She’s better than she was last week. She really got her heart trampled on by that fellow.”
“I’d ask if there was anything I could do, but I think we both know the answer to that is just to keep away.”
“I’m so sorry, Andy.”
After hanging up, Andy looks up and sees Nick leaning against his own desk, his eyebrows raised.
“I had to know how she was doing,” Andy protests. “I can’t pretend I don’t care.”
“You don’t have to explain to me,” Nick says, holding his hands up. “I called yesterday while you were in a meeting and made Jeanne put her on the line. Is that okay?”
“You don’t have to stop being friends with her just because...”
“Just because she broke your heart?”
“Well, yes.” The fact is that Nick and Emilywerefriends. Andy had liked it so much—he liked the idea that they all fit together. Usually bringing a date to meet his friends felt like brokering peace at a NATO summit, but if NATO were made up entirely of twelve-year-olds at their first mixer. It wasn’t at all like that with Nick and Emily.
“Just so you know,” Nick says, “if I’m ever in your place, I expect you to hold a grudge for the rest of your life. Give them the evil eye when you pass on the street. Spit after you say their name.”
Any man who breaks Nick’s heart will be lucky if all Andy does is give them the evil eye and hold a grudge, but he doesn’t say so.
***
At eight thirty in the morning the newsroom is always like a coiled spring, still lacking the movement and energy of later in the day, but with plenty of latent force if you know where to look. Most reporters, except those on the night desk or manning the wires, don’t wander into work until ten or eleven, but Andy getsin before nine in order to match the schedules of marketing and circulation, then usually stays until the paper goes to print—about nine at night. It’s a long day, but he’s never minded because it beats the hell out of his empty apartment.
Now, though, Nick is mirroring his schedule.
“It’s not like I can go back to sleep after you crash around the kitchen,” Nick grumbles, which is a lie, because Nick wakes up first every day and starts a pot of coffee. “So I might as well go in.”
Whenever Andy attempts to protest, Nick shuts him up with a glare, making Andy suspect that Nick secretly likes waking up early. This is the most disturbing thing he’s learned about Nick or possibly anyone.
That morning, there’s a manila interoffice mail envelope sitting on Nick’s desk when they get in. Andy brings a paper cup of coffee to his mouth and absently watches Nick unwind the string from around the button and empty the contents onto the desk.
What falls out is a book. Usually interoffice mail envelopes bring nothing but rejected expense reports and a stapled packet of receipts. He tries to remember if Nick mentioned ordering a book for one of the stories he’s working on, but even if he had, it wouldn’t likely be about Roman chariots or whatever this is.The Charioteerby Mary Renault.
Nick opens the book and almost immediately slams it closed.
“Something wrong?” Andy asks, even though it’s pretty obvious that there is.
“No,” Nick growls.
“Who sent it?”
“Doesn’t matter.”
“Is someone bothering you?” A list of people who could blackmail, extort, or otherwise harm Nick spools out in Andy’s mind.The police. Whatever mob connections dirty cops inevitably have. The mobsters who run half the queer bars in town. An ex-lover.
“No, Jesus. Leave it be.” Nick drops the book and the envelope in a desk drawer, then slams it closed.
Nick puts a sheet of paper into his typewriter even though they both know he doesn’t have anything to write at the moment. Andy watches him expectantly.
“Fine. Christ,” Nick says after a few minutes, leaning back in his chair and looking at Andy in a long-suffering way, as if Andy’s been interrogating him this whole time. He opens the drawer and takes the book out like he’s handling a live grenade, shoving it across the surface of both of their desks. Thank God the newsroom is mostly empty, because the whole operation looks deeply suspicious.
Andy picks it up. It’s a perfectly ordinary book—not photographs of Nick doing something incriminating, not a threat, not a demand that Nick drop that evidence story.
