Move the Stars (Something in the Way 3)

“It’s a crapshoot. Sometimes the radiator works, other times it doesn’t.”

“I can fix that,” he said.

Fix it, I thought. Fix me. Tape my paper heart back together. My resolve cracked a little. Letting him in didn’t mean I forgave him. Maybe spending time with me would remind him of what he’d given up and of all the pain I’d hopefully stuck him with when he’d returned from his honeymoon to find me almost three thousand miles gone.

“Do you have tools?” he asked.

I was used to the cold. I had blankets and sweatshirts and earmuffs and mittens but the truth was, nothing kept out the chill like the radiator. I moved back a few steps, an invitation. “In the closet.”

While Manning jimmied the front door shut, I put my heels and purse in my room. As I stepped out, he came down the gray hall toward me, his shoes echoing on the hardwood floors. I didn’t stop him. I didn’t say a thing as he removed his coat and folded it over the back of a brown leather loveseat Corbin had found and carried upstairs for Val and me.

Manning took it all in, though there wasn’t much to see—a bedroom, bathroom, and a kitchenette separated by a breakfast counter. Pictures of Val, Corbin and me with our friends hung on the fridge next to take-out menus under magnets. His eyes landed on the disheveled futon in the living room. “That’s Val’s,” I said. “She’s my roommate.”

“Your mom mentioned.”

With Corbin and I both on the east coast, my best friend Val had lasted one semester in California by herself before she’d transferred to New York Film Academy. This city suited her best of the three of us—she fit with New York the way I did with Newport Beach. Or used to, anyway. Val had loads of friends, events to attend, and an on-again, off-again boyfriend who gave her nothing but grief. Currently, they were on again, which meant she was at his place most of the time, leaving me the apartment’s tiny bedroom.

Manning walked over to the laminate coffee table that held pink bottles of Victoria’s Secret lotion and perfume, loose change, and paycheck stubs. On the floor underneath, Val had stacked Vogue magazines and videotapes hand-labeled “Buffy” and “Empire Records.” None of our furniture matched, but Val and I had gotten every piece on our own, and that was important to me. I knew Manning wouldn’t see it that way, though. His eyes stopped on a lighter and half-smoked joint forgotten on the folding table where we sometimes ate.

His examination slid under the surface of things, the way it always had with me, reading not just my body language but my most intimate thoughts. Taking in not just the mess around us, but the details of my seemingly little life.

“What is this?” he asked about all of it and nothing in particular.

“You told me to soar.” I opened my arms to indicate the things around me. “That’s what I’m doing.”

Since the gray day darkened the room, he reached up to switch on an overhead lamp and my eyes went right to the spot his wedding ring should’ve been. The realization that he wasn’t wearing it caught me off guard and I looked away quickly, hoping he wouldn’t see that I’d noticed.

His eyebrows met in the middle of his forehead. “It’s a fucking dump, Lake.”

Even though I knew he’d say it, my face heated. “At least it’s my dump.” The phone rang, piercing the stillness of the room. I ignored it. “I didn’t run to Daddy for help. I didn’t latch onto the first man who came my way.”

“Is that what you think your sister did?”

“Go to hell.” How fucking dare he bring her into this apartment? This was my home. My dump. My shitty city. I loved it here because it was mine, not theirs. Trying to hide the way I shook, I went to the phone, picked it up, and slammed it back down to stop the ringing.

“Lake—”

“I don’t need your pity,” I said, turning back to him.

“I wasn’t going to give it to you.” He rubbed the back of his neck. “I was just going to ask which closet the tools are in.”

“Forget the heater,” I said. “We can fix it ourselves.”

“Then why haven’t you?”

Because I couldn’t do it myself, and Corbin wasn’t all that great with handiwork, and the landlord did nothing for us unless Val distracted him into agreeing to help. That usually involved her pulling down her top until her boobs were nearly out.

“Tell me where the tools are for my sake,” Manning said. “I spent all of yesterday in airports and on planes, and I need to do something with my hands.”

The thought of him doing anything with his enormous bear hands made my stomach tighten, but so what? He had some nerve coming in here like this, telling me what he needed. “Don’t fix my heater. Don’t check on me. Just go.”