Page 33 of Meant to Be

CHAPTER 9

Joe

It took more self-discipline than I’d ever used in my life, but I took Berry’s advice, and I didn’t call Cate. It was torture. I told myself that the feeling would pass, but I couldn’t put her out of my mind. I found myself looking for her in the city. Ideally, I wanted to see her in the flesh, but I scoured billboards, sides of buses, and subway placards, too. Once, I even picked up aVoguemagazine, flipping through the pages, hoping to come across her photo.

About a month later, Margaret and I went to The Odeon for dinner. Just after we finished eating, I got up to go to the men’s room. After I’d taken a few steps, it crossed my mind that the check might come when I was gone, and I hated for Margaret to pay for anything. I didn’t make much more than she did, and her trust fund was likely the same size as mine, but my mom had ingrained in me never to let a girl pay. So, I turned back to the table, removed my wallet from my back pocket, and handed it to her, telling her to use my credit card.

“I can get this one, Joe,” she said.

But I shook my head and insisted. Big mistake. When I gotback to the table, I saw her face and instantly suspected what had happened.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping that I was wrong.

But Margaret cleared her throat and said, “I swear I wasn’t snooping…. I was looking for your credit card—”

I nodded, believing this. My wallet was a mess, just like my desk, my apartment, everything in my life. I braced myself as she held up that damn business card. “But I found this.”

I nodded, reminding myself that I hadn’t done anything wrong.

“What is it?” she said.

“It’s a makeup artist.”

“Why do you have a makeup artist’s card?”

I swallowed, telling myself not to lie, that the cover-up is always worse than the crime. “It’s a guy I met on the beach. He was at a photo shoot,” I said.

She stared at me a beat, then flipped it over and read aloud: “Cate Cooper.”

My stomach fluttered hearing her name, but I said nothing, waiting.

“Who is she?” Margaret finally asked, answering the question I’d wondered in the prior weeks about whether Cate was famous. I guess this was my answer, though not necessarily conclusive. Margaret was often clueless about pop culture.

“She’s…a girl…who was with that makeup artist….”

Margaret nodded, staring into my eyes. She was never one to be jealous or suspicious—not even of Phoebe, whom we’d crossed paths with at a recent event—but she seemed to be both now. Or maybe it was just my guilty conscience.

“Did you ask for her number?” she said.

I hesitated, then told the truth, once again. “Yes,” I said.

“Why?”

“Oh, I don’t know…. She was nice…cool…you know….” I said, now completely flustered.

“Is she a model?” Margaret asked, looking so hurt.

“Yes,” I said. “But I never called her.”

She nodded slowly, as if taking this fact into consideration. “And when did you get this number? A long time ago?”

It felt like a trap. If I got it a long time ago and still had it, that didn’t look good. If I got it recently, that, too, was a problem. Once again, I went with the truth. “It was that weekend you were at a conference, and I was in the Hamptons with Berry.”

“Was Berry with you? When you met her?”

I shook my head.

“Does she know you got this?”

---