The Dirty Truth, page 4
“You’re picking up on a little bit of everything.”
“What’s that saying? Fortune favors the bold?” She lifts a shoulder and gifts me with a reassuring smile as if it could possibly make any of this less nerve racking.
“Not trying to be bold or brave,” I say. “I was thinking about my obituary this morning, after I finished my article.”
She chokes. “Your obituary? Why?”
“I was thinking about what it would’ve said had I died two months ago,” I say before correcting myself: “I mean if I’d stayed dead.”
“Okay . . .”
“It would’ve mentioned my parents and my sisters and maybe my college and that I worked at a men’s magazine . . . but that’s it.”
Indie shrugs. “You’ve accomplished more in your thirty years than some people accomplish in a lifetime.”
“Maybe, but until you’re faced with your own mortality, you don’t realize all the time you’ve wasted on things that don’t matter. Meaningless things.”
“You think your life has been meaningless so far?” Her voice carries a delicate pitch.
“No,” I say. “Not entirely. Just parts of it. So I’m removing the parts that are meaningless and replacing them with things that have meaning. At least that’s my plan. I want to write think pieces. Articles that inspire people to take action and move them to change their lives or the lives of those around them. I want my work to have made other people’s lives better. Also, I want to make people’s lives better. And I can’t do that if I’m stuck behind a corporate desk five days a week.”
I’m fortunate to be able to work at all. Many people who have suffered my same fate can’t say the same. My recovery has been easier than most, which is all the more reason I should dedicate myself to more worthwhile endeavors.
Hunched over the counter, she purses her lips together. “Okay, so you had your three a.m. epiphany and quit your job.”
“Exactly.”
“And now you’re going to find a meaningful job that pays enough so we don’t get evicted and we’re not living on the streets by Christmas?” She tosses me a wink, though I’ve known Indie long enough to know she’s only half teasing.
“I promise no one’s getting evicted.” I draw an X across my heart.
“If anyone can make this work, it’s you,” she says with a resolved sigh, as if she’s conjuring nostalgic memories from our college-roommate days.
I first met Indie when she was in my Intro to Journalism class. It took her half a semester before she realized she was terrible at writing and better suited for graphic design. A few years later, when we were making our postgraduation plans, I talked her into moving to Manhattan, despite the fact that she’s very much a country girl at heart. It didn’t take long for her city wings to spread.
“And for the record,” she adds, “I can list a million things you’ve done in your life that are meaningful. But at the end of the day, all that matters is your list. I’m with you either way, okay? You’ve got my full support. Just don’t miss rent, okay?”
Shuffling across the room, I wrap my best friend slash roommate in a tight hug, breathing in her perpetual vanilla-apricot scent.
“Can I just say . . . I’m so glad you didn’t die,” she says.
Silence settles between us.
And then laughter.
“Same,” I say, wiping a happy-sad tear from my eye.
Breaking away, I head to the shower to clear my head and decide what to do with the next several hours of my life. My first taste of freedom may have started on a bitter note, but the second bite will be sweet—I’ll make sure of that.
CHAPTER FIVE
ELLE
“The hell are you grinning at?” A white-haired woman walking a fluffy apricot poodle shoots me a glare and clears the sidewalk as I pass. “Psycho!”
I resist a chuckle and continue making my way along West Fifty-Seventh, en route to a little coffee shop I’ve been wanting to try since last year but never could find the time since I was typically chained to my desk on the opposite side of town.
I’ve smiled at eight strangers so far this morning. Granted, it’s not a very “New York” thing to do, and they probably all think I’m certifiable, but that’s the whole point—I’m teaching myself not to care what people think. Smiling at passersby hurts no one. Sprinkling bits of kindness and humanity is the sort of thing we should all be doing.
“Morning.” I nod to an elderly gentleman, who spends half a second processing my greeting before his eyes spark. With a slight grin and a tip of his kelly-green fedora, he sends me on my way.
Warmth blooms in my chest as I continue on, squinting to read the street sign half a block down. To my left, a theater sign advertises a one-day-only sale on matinee tickets for some off-Broadway production I’ve never heard of. All these years I’ve lived in the city, I’ve maybe gone to a total of three shows, which is a shame.
It’s wild how a person can be surrounded by so much art and beauty and brilliance . . . only to forget that it’s there.
I stop at an automatic ticket machine and purchase a seat for the one-thirty showing of Unconditional Splendor, starring Lola Lourdes and featuring Billy Cordova. I don’t know who they are or what the show’s about, but I’ve no doubt it’ll be magnificent.
Pocketing my ticket, I head to the end of the block and turn left on Tenth. I toss a few more smiles at passing strangers—all ignored, not the end of the world—and continue past a quaint café that smells of cinnamon, cocoa, and fresh-brewed coffee. Seated across from one another at a corner table for two is a young couple holding hands among an assortment of water glasses and tea-light centerpieces. He hasn’t taken his eyes off her, and she hasn’t stopped blushing. For a moment, I’m reminded of my time with Matt—before I knew everything coming out of his mouth was a bald-faced lie.
I was still newish to the city when a handsome stranger bought me a drink and cozied up beside me at some trendy Lower Manhattan bar. Twelve years my senior, he worked in the financial district as a hedge fund manager, wore pricey tailored suits, towered over me at a perfect six feet two, and smelled like money and top-shelf cologne. He was charming and protective, and having grown up in the city, he loved nothing more than taking me under his wing and teaching me everything he thought I needed to know.
Unfortunately, in doing so, he left his mark all over my adopted stomping grounds.
Every restaurant, every shop, every park, every place we used to frequent now reeks of his memory. But my gripes are infinitesimal in comparison to what his wife must be going through. I can’t imagine building an entire life with someone only to have him take a steaming dump all over it.
I think of her often and what I would do if I ever ran into her again—though I don’t suppose there’s anything I can say that would change the circumstances or make her pain disappear. Sometimes I wonder if she thinks the same about me as well and what she might say if she were to see me again.
Peeling my attention from the lovey-dovey pair, I take a couple of steps only to realize my shoe has come unlaced. Shuffling to a park bench up ahead, I take a seat a couple of feet from a young sandy-haired girl in cutoff jeans and a floral crop top.
“Hi,” I say when I feel the unexpected weight of her watchful eyes.
Sniffing, she turns away . . . and I think nothing of it. The city is filled with Manhattanite progeny who ditch school to run amok on their parents’ dime. At least she has the street smarts to not talk to strangers.
Kudos, city girl.
“Hi.” A small voice offers a faint response.
Tugging the bow on my laces, I glance up—only to be met with mascara-streaked cheeks, a quivering lower lip slicked in cherry blossom lip gloss, and a set of glassy baby blues.
“Are you lost?” I sit up. She can’t be much more than fourteen, maybe fifteen.
She shakes her head.
“What’s wrong?” I angle toward her, crossing my legs and settling in.
“What isn’t wrong . . .” She huffs, dabbing a wayward tear with the back of her hand.
I refrain from informing her she reminds me of myself at that age—every setback was the end of the world, no matter how big or how small.
“Can I ask why you’re not at school right now?” I keep my tone soft so as not to put her on the defense.
Wiping a tear, she rolls her eyes. “Long story.”
“Well, it just so happens I have a little bit of extra time on my hands,” I say. “I actually just quit my job, so I don’t really have anywhere to be. Except at one thirty—I’m seeing a show. But until then . . .”
I offer a relaxed, gentle smile, studying the tiny quivering thing beside me.
She yanks her crop top down an inch and hunches over, elbows on her knees as she stares at the vintage-style apothecary storefront in front of us.
“I hate it here,” she says. “My school’s full of snobs and preps. I miss my old friends. And everyone in the city acts like they’re constantly having a bad day.” Turning to me, she adds, “I’ve lived here four months, and you’re the first person that’s said hi to me . . . the first person who didn’t look at me like I’m see through.”
I’d been here a year when someone told me people move here because they like to feel invisible. Some people want to blend in and not be seen, and you can do that in a city of millions.
“This place isn’t for the faint of heart. It’ll chew you up and spit you out if you let it,” I say. “Where are you from?”
The girl sighs. “Nowhere you’ve ever heard of.”
“Okay . . . so what brought you here?”
“No offense, but it’s personal.”
I lift my hands. “None taken.”
A quiet moment passes between us before she speaks again. “Why’d you quit your job?”
“Because it didn’t make me happy anymore,” I say. “And my boss was a . . . jerk. He was one of those people—like you said—who act like they’re constantly having a bad day.”
Her lips twist at the side, as if a little slice of validation was all she needed. “How long did you work there?”
“Five years,” I say.
“Where are you going to work now?”
I shrug. “No idea.”
“Aren’t you scared you won’t find another job?” she asks.
“Of course,” I say. “But it’s all about what you focus on. Fear or hope? Meaning or status quo? That kind of thing.”
She wrinkles her nose. “That’s weird.”
Chuckling, I nod. “It is. I know.”
Her phone buzzes on the bench beside her, and without hesitation she silences the call coming through.
“Someone’s looking for you,” I say. “Bet they’re worried.”
She blows a puff of air between her lips as a city bus hums past and comes to a stop at the corner light. Up ahead, a shoulder-to-shoulder sea of pedestrians crosses a busy intersection, headed this way.
“Oh shit.” The girl pops up, slipping her phone in her back pocket. “He found me. I gotta go.”
“Wait.” I rise. “Are you going to be okay? You’re not in any kind of trouble, right?”
Panic colors her baby blues a shade darker as her attention darts toward the crowd. For a split second, I manufacture a mental story about some midwestern teenage runaway being trafficked to New York—because that sort of thing happens more than people realize.
“Scarlett!” a man’s voice booms above the city symphony around us.
Glancing up, I see a dark-haired, clench-jawed Adonis in a three-piece suit stalking ahead of the pack, his familiar blue-green gaze piercing in our direction.
West Maxwell.
“You know him?” I speak out of the corner of my mouth, keeping my voice low.
Scarlett exhales. “Unfortunately.”
“Wait . . .” I stand frozen. But every second that passes only brings West Maxwell that much closer. “How do you know him?”
“That,” she says, her tone salty, “would be my uncle.”
Turning to me, she offers an apologetic half smile before dashing off toward him. Within seconds, he hooks his arm around her shoulders and hails a cab, and the two disappear inside.
Surreal.
Ten minutes later, I’m sipping an iced brown sugar latte and thinking about West Maxwell as an uncle. Which then makes me think of him as someone’s brother, someone’s son. It’s the strangest thing, imagining this larger-than-life asshole as just a regular guy with the same problems and interpersonal relationships as anyone else.
My thoughts wander, some sillier than others . . . What does he do for Christmas? What’s his star sign? Is he a mama’s boy? What’s his favorite movie? What makes him laugh? What kind of birthday presents does he give? Does he have any family traditions?
The idea of West as an everyman is pure comedy.
Everything I’ve ever gleaned about the man suggests he’s as cold as he is heartless, and everyone knows heartless people can’t feel a damn thing.
CHAPTER SIX
WEST
“Don’t be mad.” Scarlett trots toward me.
“Don’t be mad?” I repeat her question through clenched teeth. “What the hell are you doing here when you’re supposed to be in school? And not answering your phone when I call you—have you lost your damn mind?”
I’d love nothing more than to take that stupid device away from her as punishment, but seeing how it’s the only way I can track her down, it isn’t an option. I could ground her from her friends, but she claims she doesn’t have any of those. Short of making her scrub all ten thousand square feet of my town house on her hands and knees using a toothbrush, there isn’t much else I can do to help her realize the gravity of her actions.
Hooking my arm around her narrow shoulders, I direct her to the curb and hail a cab. A taxi screeches to a stop, and I yank open the rear passenger door.
“Get in.” I climb in beside her before slamming the door. “Highland Prep on Columbus.”
“I’m not going.” My niece crosses her arms over her barely there crop top and pouts her glossy bottom lip, a move that makes me realize she left the house looking like a five-dollar hooker today. I shrug out of my jacket and drop it on her lap. “Put this on. As soon as we get there, you’re washing your face, and then I’m personally escorting you to the principal’s office so you can apologize for ditching school . . . again.”
She begins to protest, but I lift a finger.
“You’re also going to tell him how much you love Highland Prep and how grateful you are to be a student there.” Pulling out my phone, I check my email. Tom was supposed to handle the Elle Napier fiasco this morning, but it’s been a solid hour, and he’s given me nothing.
“So you want me to lie.” Scarlett angles her body to face the window, refusing to look at me, as if it’s going to make a difference to her fate.
“No. I want you to grovel. They’re two seconds from kicking you out of that place, and the next best option has a two-year wait list. There’s a six-month wait at Kingman Hall, but that’s on the Lower East Side, and quite frankly, I’ve not heard amazing things.”
“I have an idea.” Her voice is overly chipper. “You could just ship me back to Nebraska.”
“Not in this lifetime,” I snap back. Sending her back isn’t an option, and even if it were, I wouldn’t. I refuse to fail Scarlett. I’m giving her a better life whether she wants it or not. Someday she’ll understand. Until then . . .
The taxi slams to an unexpected stop, and we brace ourselves on the seat back in front of us.
“Sorry,” the cabbie mutters, his eyes flicking into the rearview.
Ordinarily I’d have my personal driver running me around, but given the fact that Scarlett pulled this cute little stunt and I’d given him the morning off, grabbing a cab was the most efficient option.
“I hate it here,” Scarlett says under her breath.
“You haven’t even tried to like it.”
“I miss my friends.”
I chuff. “The ones who hung out at that abandoned railroad depot every night getting stoned? Or are you talking about those little eighth-grade boys who hot-wired that elderly woman’s Buick and went joyriding with a case of Busch Light they stole from their dad’s garage fridge?”
Silence.
“I refuse to let you grow up to be just another loser from Whitebridge. And you shouldn’t settle for that either.” A block ahead, her school comes into focus. “If you had any idea how lucky you are to be here. To live in this city, to go to one of the best high schools in the country, to have a wealth of opportunity and privilege at your fingertips . . .” I trail off because I know she isn’t listening. Or at least she’s pretending not to because she knows it gets to me.
The cab creeps to a stop, and I swipe my card to pay the toll before bolting out of the germ factory on wheels.
Scarlett takes her time getting out—to spite me, I’m sure. And keeps a careful distance from me, teetering on the curb with her arms folded and eyes averted.
“Put the jacket on.” I nod to my suit coat, the one currently crumpled in her grip.
“Absolutely not. I’m going to look ridiculous.”
“I’ll see if there’s a spare uniform when we get inside, but for now, you can’t go in there with a bare midriff. It’s against school policy.”
“Since when do you care about rules?”
I ignore her attempt at deflection.
Jerking the jacket from her haphazard hold, I drape it over her shoulders and escort her inside, then stop at the restrooms in the front hall so she can wash off her sticky CoverGirl face before we head to the main office.
“I’m not sending you back to Nebraska, Scarlett. Not now, not ever,” I tell her when she steps out, fresh faced and looking like a true fourteen-year-old. “The sooner you accept that, the easier this will be for you. There’s nothing you can say or do to change that. You may not understand it now, but someday you’ll thank me. Until then, you’re living under my roof, you’re following my rules, and you’re not to miss another day of school.”
