Truly (New York 1)

Yeah. He was really mad at her, and she deserved it.

“I’m sorry about this whole thing with Dan.”

He looked at her, accusation in his eyes and the planes of his face. “I am so fucking sick of hearing about Einarsson. This ‘whole thing’—” He made air quotes with his fingers. “—it has nothing to do with him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean you were done with him the minute I met you. This is about you, May. Letting people push you around. Just because your sister says, ‘Ben has to stay, Ben has to be Andy’s PA,’ you think that means shit? I didn’t do it because she said I had to, I did it for you. I thought—”

Nancy tapped into the room with an armful of tulle, and Ben abruptly stopped talking. In the silence, May heard train noises. A puff of vented steam. The hiss of the brakes. A low whistle. The museum must pipe the sounds in over loudspeakers.

Last night, she’d lain awake in bed, listening to him breathe and thinking Maybe he’ll stay.

She despised that thought. That small, desperate hope that if Ben stuck around long enough, he would find life in Manitowoc, Wisconsin, utterly irresistible. He would stay with her. Choose her.

Ha.

One more fantasy. May’s disease. Every time life presented her with an obstacle, her mind took flight and soared over it on a magical path of twinkling stars. Ben doesn’t have to leave! He’ll stay forever and live in your house! He’ll start

a little restaurant downtown, and it will be a smashing success! Your parents will forgive him for lying to them and embrace him as their own! He’ll never be angry again, the sex will always be fantastic, and everything will be woooonderful!

Last night, she’d pressed her palms against her ears and whispered, “Shut up shut up shut up shut up,” over and over into the darkness until all that hopeful nonsense suffocated, because it was a cheat. It cheated her of the enjoyment, the anger, the frustration that came with really being alive.

She’d sworn an oath. When it comes, you’re not going to fall to pieces, and you’re not going to try to pin him in place with crazy dreams. You’re going to be honest and real, and you’re going to tell him how you feel.

But it was easy to make promises to yourself in the night. The trick was figuring out how to keep them. What was she supposed to do, tell him she loved him? Now, in the reception hall of the train museum, when he was pissed at her and Allie was two degrees away from losing it and Dan was on his way? What good could it possibly do?

“I’m worried about Allie,” she blurted.

Ben rubbed a fake daisy petal absently between his fingers, frowning at her radical change of subject.

May raced ahead. “I think she doesn’t want to go through with this. I keep waiting for her to say something, but she hasn’t said boo to me since I’ve been home. It’s going to be too late if I don’t ask her soon.”

She’d allowed this to happen. Yesterday had been so hectic. She’d spent most of the morning trying to recover from losing her purse—visiting the DMV to get a new license, changing her online passwords—and what time was left she’d wasted running all over town on her mother’s errands.

She’d let it be hectic. She’d broken her promises to call Dan, talk to her mother, be honest with Ben. She’d lost her courage, left it behind in Manhattan, and life without it was even more suffocating than she’d remembered.

“It’s her wedding day. Maybe the last thing she needs is you telling her she doesn’t want to get married.”

May snuck another peek at her sister. Allie still had the staple gun in her hand, and she looked homicidal. It seemed possible that if May walked over there and suggested Allie consider calling off her wedding, her sister would staple her to the wall and leave her hanging.

“She won’t be mad at me for asking,” May said.

“If you’re sure.”

She wasn’t, though. May felt like one of those cartoon characters who ran off a ledge and then windmilled her legs in space, unaware that the earth had dropped out beneath her.

Those cartoon characters always kept running. As long as their legs were moving and they didn’t look down, they wouldn’t fall.

“Go on,” he said. “When you get back, we can go to lunch or something. Take a walk.”

Say goodbye. That was what he meant.

“Okay.” Now or never. Keep windmilling. “I’m going in. Stick the buckets wherever. It doesn’t actually matter all that much.”

“Good luck.”

Allie didn’t look up when she approached.