“Cool. So you have time for pizza. ”
“There’s always time for pizza. ”
Tori takes a big bite of one of her slices of pizza. I say “her slices” because we have two very distinct sides to the pizzas we order from the gourmet Italian place down the street. Her side is loaded with every kind of meat available, plus pineapple and black olives. My side has grilled vegetables on it.
“Who’s opening for them?” I keep my voice upbeat, even though the last thing I want is to be stuck in this apartment alone tonight. It’s selfish of me, I know, but I don’t want her to go. Not tonight. Not when so much of my well-ordered life is already disintegrating around me.
Tuesday-night movies are one of those things Tori and I don’t normally mess with. Plans on any other night of the week are subject to change, but since we first started rooming together at the beginning of our freshman year of college, Tuesday night has been our catch-up night. The night where we sit around, drink a little—or a lot, depending on how things are going—read gossip mags, watch movies, eat too much, and generally tell each other everything that’s happened over the last week.
And while I don’t know if I was really planning to tell Tori about what happened in Ethan’s office today—I can barely wrap my head around it myself, let alone expect her to—it still would have been nice to have had that option. To maybe drop it into the conversation after we’d each had a couple of glasses of wine and had chilled out some. Maybe even ask her advice about what to do. Now I won’t have the chance.
“Some band I never heard of. That’s why we’re blowing them off,” she tells me when she finishes chewing. Then she looks at me, really looks at me. I shift uncomfortably under her scrutiny, even before she asks, “Hey, are you okay? You look upset. ”
“I’m good. It’s just been a long day. ”
“I bet. How did Ethan take the return of his blender?”
“Better than I expected. ” In fact, now that I think about it, he never even mentioned it. Of course, that could be because he was too busy giving me an orgasm to think about fruit smoothies, but no need to tell Tori that.
“Really?” She sounds a little disappointed. “I expected him to get pissed off about it. Or at least to argue with you about it. ”
Me too, actually. And maybe he’d planned on doing just that when he chased after me this morning, only to be distracted when I nearly plummeted down half a flight of stairs to certain bone breakage. Now I guess I’ll never know.
The thought is oddly depressing. But then, everything is this evening. I decide to chalk it up to girls’ night being canceled. On the best of days I’m not great with routine changes. After a day like today, it’s no wonder that I’m feeling a little discombobulated. Keeping my life ordered, routine, is the only thing that helps me deal with the chaos of my past. The puzzle pieces that I just can’t make fit together, no matter how hard I try.
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty Dumpty together again.
The old nursery rhyme runs through my head as I dish up my own piece of pizza and sit back to listen to how Tori’s day was at the advertising agency where she’s been working this summer. Most days I can fool myself, pretend that everything’s fine. That everything’s normal. But today isn’t most days. From the moment Ethan kissed me, I’ve felt my brokenness keenly. Felt the cracks in the placid calm of my surface.
Maybe it’s good Tori isn’t going to be home tonight. After she leaves, I can have another glass of wine, watch some TV, then have an early night. And while I do all those things, I can work on shoring up my defenses. On getting rid of the cracks, or at least burying them so deeply that it will be another five years before they resurface. Maybe even longer.
Tori takes off about eight-fifteen to pick up Lisa before heading downtown to the concert. She invites me to go with her, tells me she’ll buy a ticket and let me have the free one, but the last thing I’m up for tonight is loud music and a crowded venue where I can’t even hear myself think. Besides, she’s already doing so much for me. There’s no way I’m going to take her free ticket and make her buy another one. And since I can’t afford to buy one on my own—not with how much they cost and how broke I currently am—I’m going to just sit this one out. Let her have some fun. God knows she deserves it.
But Tori’s been gone only a few minutes when the front doorbell rings. Figuring it’s one of our neighbors stopping by to hang for a while—Tori’s an extrovert who has somehow managed to make friends with half the building in the year she’s lived here—I almost ignore it. The last thing I’m in the mood for is having to entertain someone who really only stopped by because they wanted to hang with my best friend.
&
nbsp; Still, I go to the door. Check the peephole. Just in case it’s Marta from down the hall. When she stops by for girls’ night, it’s usually with some fabulous creation from the bakery where she works. And since a big slab of sugar and fat sounds incredibly appealing tonight, I’m almost hoping it is her. If nothing else, an hour listening to the latest stories about Marta’s messed-up love life will keep me from brooding.
But it’s not Marta at the door. Instead, it’s a delivery man, carrying a medium-sized box and an electronic clipboard. I’m suspicious—less of the delivery man than of the package—and I almost let him walk away with it. If this is another present from Ethan, it would be better for both of us if I just refused to accept it.
There’s no guarantee the package is from him, though. Tori is always ordering things online—the delivery could just as easily be for her. It’s a galvanizing thought, one that has me opening the door, despite my misgivings, just as the delivery man is turning away.
“Can I help you?” I ask.
He turns back to me. “Package for Ms. Chloe Girard. ”
So much for the online-ordering theory. I take the box gingerly, glance at the return address. Sure enough, it’s from Frost Industries. And it’s heavy.
Despite my best intentions, a hum of excitement works its way through me. Ethan sent me another present. Ethan is thinking of me. Quite a bit, if the speed of this delivery counts for anything. I only left him a little over an hour ago.
I sign the clipboard before carrying the box into the apartment. I set it on the dining room table and then just stand there staring at it for long seconds, trying to decide if I want to open it or if I want to leave it exactly as is.
I know it sounds crazy, but in my experience, sometimes not knowing is better than knowing. Not knowing is filled with possibilities, questions, suppositions. But once you take that final step to find out the truth, then the suppositions fall to the wayside. You lose the chance at what could be, get caught in what is. And in my experience, what is is rarely as glamorous or fun or exciting or real as what could have been.
In the end, though, curiosity gets the better of me. I head into the kitchen for a knife—something that will make it easier to open the box than damn manicure scissors. As I cut through the tape I think of everything that happened today. Everything that passed between us despite my best efforts to keep our interaction purely businesslike, and try to figure out what this gift might be.
Yesterday proved that Ethan doesn’t give gifts just to give them. There’s a reason behind what he does, a method to what he chooses.