I’m usually up and changed by 7:30 am nowadays too, so it must have worked out perfectly.
What?
If you’re wondering, yes, I’ve become an early rise ever since I walked away from Arsen and his alter-ego King Henry and quit working at Simulated Pleasures.
I think it has to do with the fact that I’m not…you know, getting fucked. At least that’s what Arsen would say if he were here. And I’d scowl at him and he would smirk at me.
Stop it!
“You’re thinking about your man?” Yasmine asks me standing at the entrance to my door. She’s wearing surprisingly modest clothes—skinny jeans and a tank top with a fur lined jacket. She’s got her Louis Vuitton bag, and her gold hoop earrings, but that’s the only level of ostentatiousness that she’s displaying today. She could be a typical New Yorker from below 14th Street with that outfit. I back up and let her into the apartment. She comes in and promptly drops her bag on the floor and stretches out on the couch.
“Here,” she says, pulling an envelope out of her bra and handing it to me. “Your man asked me to give this to you. Says you won't take his calls, that you’ve blocked his number and his email from reaching you.”
It’s true. I’ve blocked all aspect of Arsen from contacting me. The rational part of my brain says I did it to not have to deal with someone who deceived me so cruelly. But the reptilian part of my brain is telling me it’s because I wanted him to come to me. Apparently I didn't figure he could go through my friends to reach me.
I take the letter and against my better judgment start reading it. It’s only a few lines, scrawled in the confident, collected hand of Arsen Hawke.
“He gave it to Gerard last night to give to me,” Yasmine says yawning on the sofa and kicking off her boots. “Told him to tell me to give it to you. I told him it felt like high school, passing notes along in recess, but you know how guys get.”
I’m reading it.
And it takes everything I have to not cry.
I try to compose my thoughts, but my brain is going a mile a minute. My heart is beating even faster.
I pull open my laptop sitting on the dinner table and open the spreadsheet. Call it a habit, but I kept track of every minute I spent on the phone. I do some rough calculations and all of a sudden it makes sense to me.
Everything makes sense.
“Yasmine,” I call out. “I need to go see your man.”
“Whaaaa….” Yasmine drawls and I can tell she’s falling asleep.
“Where is Arsen’s lawyer?” I ask. “Where’s Gerard?”
“He’s usually playing racquetball in the mornings…I think,” Yasmine says in a whisper. “New York Health and Racquet Club.”
I thank her and get my coat as well as the letter that Arsen wrote me.
By the time I’m out the door, I can hear the soft breaths coming from Yasmine as she falls into sleep.
The New York Health and Racquet Club is located on 51st Street Between Park and Madison Avenues. It’s also one of those old boys clubs that doesn’t allow women. So I wait.
Around 8 am, I see the front desk man point to Arsen’s lawyer as he emerges from the interior of the club and approaches me.
“Can I help you, Ashley?” Gerard asks.
I take a deep breath. We’ve never actually formally spoken. Sure, Arsen’s mentioned Gerard in almost every other conversation and I’ve seen him around and been in his presence numerous times. He even saw me almost naked during a video conference after our first night being together. But we’ve never directly spoken.
Now, however, we have cause to.
I hold up the letter Arsen sent me.
“Do you know what’s in this?” I ask.
Gerard looks at the letter and then he looks at me. “I do not, but I can only assume it’s Arsen trying to give an explanation of his behavior.”
“Let me read it to you,” I say and I pull open the letter. Gerard takes my arm and takes me over to a sofa so I can sit down.