“Okay, so how do I make this go away? How does anyone get over it?”
“There is no making,” he says with a sad looking smile. ““You gotta fake it. Fake it each and every day.”
“Pretend I feel okay? That’s your big piece of advice?”
“Fake it ’till you make it. And meantime, get back on the horse, so to speak.”
I huff a chuckle.
“Think of it as ripping off a Band-Aid. The longer you wait, the more painful it’ll be. Casual fucking is where it’s at, my friend. All of the pleasure and none of the pain.”
“What if I can’t move on? What if she’s the one for me?”
“We all think that at one time or another. You can’t resist her. Can’t think of anyone but her, like she was made only for you. But then later, you find out she was no siren. She was just a false alarm. Come back to Ardeo. You’ll see.”
“Those days are over for me. No more auctions. No more money exchanging hands, not matter how altruistic.”
“Noble exploits? Is that what you’re calling it?”
“What would you call it?” I ask, my voice dark, my hands tightening against the chair arms.
“Car, it was never about donating money to starving kids. It was just a way for you to torture yourself.”
34
Fee
Life returns to some semblance of normal, outwardly at least. On the inside, I feel brittle, like if someone were to lean on me, I’d shatter into a million pieces. But I don’t have to worry about that because I won’t let anyone get too close. Not again.
We’re settling into a new way of life that’s less than perfect, and Lulu makes no bones about her displeasure at the change. Though I can’t blame her, her crabbiness is wearing.
The apartment isn’t warm enough. Agreed.
She hates waking early and she detests the commute. So much this!
Her teacher is a poo-poo head. Mainly because he’s not Carson.
She hates sleeping with me. So I relegated myself to the couch.
New York is stinky and she wants to go back to France.
And that makes two of us, not that I’ll admit this out loud to anyone. Mostly, I just want to retreat somewhere where I don’t have to pretend to be okay. Where I could just hole up for a little until my aching heart heals. Where I could think of Carson’s expression at the door and wonder exactly what it all means. Why? How? I want so much to know. To hear him recount all the sordid details until his words make my ears bleed.
But I won’t ask him. I won’t belittle myself. I won’t allow his honeyed barbs to flay my skin. Ardeo is Latin for blaze, according to the internet. I certainly feel like I’ve been burned. Head down. Plough on. That’s the tone of my life from now on.
I remember when I didn’t want to move out of the maid’s quarters. I’d experienced a sense of not belonging on the fancy side of the apartment. That I’d be left with a bill I couldn’t pay. That feeling seems almost prophetic now.
There are small signs of improvement in Lulu’s mood, though they mostly occur when Sophia helps me out by doing the school pick-up. It means I’ve been able to go straight to Marta’s brother’s bar for my five-hour shift. I’d agreed to work Tuesday through to Thursday, and the same the following week. Only, when Friday comes along, I find myself rostered on again.
So here I am; day four of working a thirteen-hour day.
I remember vividly now what I hated about working in bars. The sticky floors, the drunk customers, the requirement to be nice to people who really don’t deserve it.
“What do you mean you’re not serving food now?”
I sigh and fix the man on the other side of the bar with the kind of look I ordinarily reserve for Lulu when she’s on the brink of a meltdown.
“Just what I said. As of ten minutes ago,’ I glance behind me to encourage him to see the time for himself, “the kitchen closed.”
“This is not fuckin’ acceptable,” he snarls, pointing a menacing finger my way. Or maybe he thinks it’s menacing. Personally, I think it makes him look like a colossal prick. “I want to see your fuckin’ line manager.”
“Hmm. Me too.”
“What?”
“I’d like to see her, too.” Mostly to help me load the mountain of glasses into the machine but unfortunately, she seems to be a little work shy and has buggered off home. I’m not sure she’s living up to her job title of supervisor, unless she’s doing it remotely. “I’m afraid you’ll have to come back tomorrow. She’s what you might call indisposed.”
She was also indisposed yesterday when her boyfriend turned up halfway through her shift. She skulked off early then, too. Either the security cameras are just bits of plastic or she’s counting on no one ever looking at the footage. But I’m not going to be here long enough to let any of this concern me. Just like I’m not going to let this cockhead spoil my cast iron cultivated zen, either.