“Where to?” the driver asked.
Bianca though about it. Where, indeed? Two of her half-sisters and their husbands, and both of her brothers and their wives had pieds-à-terre in the city, but there wasn’t a way in hell she was going to show up on their doorsteps and try to explain what had happened to her.
“Lady? Where you wanna go?”
To a hotel, but not to the one she’d stayed at with Chay. Still, it was the only name she could come up with.
So she told the cabby to take her there, and when she got to the front desk, she asked for a room. Not the kind she’d shared with Chay. She couldn’t afford that, and she didn’t want to be assailed by memories.
The clerk smiled. Nodded. Checked her in.
“Have a pleasant stay, Ms. Wilde,” he said, and smiled again. “I remember you from a couple of weeks ago, and it’s my pleasure to have given you an upgrade.”
• • •
Oh, God! It was the same room.
The exact same room. The room she’d shared with Chayton.
The bellman hoisted her suitcase onto the luggage stand. Played with the blinds, the lights, the thermostat, until finally Bianca tuned in, took out her wallet and handed him a five dollar bill.
Then, mercifully, he left.
And she was alone with her memories. With Chay.
And wasn’t that foolish? Any number of guests had stayed here since then. The room had been dusted. Cleaned. Vacuumed. There was nothing of him in it.
She sank down on the edge of the bed. The bed where they’d first really made love.
He was still here. If she shut her eyes, she could see him. That beautifully masculine face. That hard, work-toned body. She could hear his voice, feel his hands on her…
A choked sound burst from her throat.
“Chayton,” Bianca whispered, and that was when the tears finally came.
• • •
By the time she showed up at the office Monday morning, she’d made a lot of progress.
She’d left a message for the head of the psych department explaining, briefly and succinctly, that she would be happy to come in to meet with him to determine whether she needed to arrange for a new adviser or not.
She’d gone online to StreetEasy and to Craigslist and found at least five apartments that looked as if they might work.
She’d found a moving company, also online, with a price list for packing and moving. Even at the room rate the hotel clerk had given her, she wouldn’t be able to stay here more than a couple of weeks. She needed an apartment, and a job.
Finding a job would be harder.
In fact, it might be really hard. Who knew what the people in her tight little academic world were saying about what had happened to her? None of it was her fault, but she knew that didn’t always matter.
In that same way, she had no idea how she’d be greeted at East Side Associates.
With caution, was the answer.
Lacey hugged her and led her into the conference room. There were cupcakes and bagels on the side table, coffee and tea. Someone—probably Lacey—had put up a sign that said Welcome Home! Her colleagues applauded and cheered and said things like We’re so happy to see you and What a terrible ordeal for you to have gone through. They used words like shocked and stunned and they all said they were so, so sorry this had happened, that no one could have possibly anticipated it, that they were sure it must have been devastating…
Then the room fell silent.
People looked at each other. At the walls. The table. The ceiling. At the new guy in charge, who kept moving his mouth as if he were chewing on words he knew he had to spew, sooner or later.