I wasn't ready to hand Audrey a yes I hadn't finished holding.
I set the phone face down on the table.
I picked up the wine glass I hadn't drunk and poured it down the sink.
The phone buzzed against the table.
Easton
Saturday, 7. I'll pick you up.
The dots came up under the line. They went away. They came up again and went away again. He typed something and deleted it. I watched the dots come and go three times before I put my thumb on the keyboard.
Astrid
I'll be ready.
I sent it before I could edit it. The read receipt landed. The dots came up. They stayed for a second. They went away. They didn't come back.
He didn't need to say anything else.
I set the phone face down on the counter.
The cat was asleep in the crate by the radiator. Moose had moved from the rug to my foot and put his chin on the top of my sneaker. I picked up the herb jar he'd knocked off the windowsill and put it back where it went. I looked at my own kitchen—mine, all of it—and at the dark window over the sink with his lit porch behind it across the street.
On Tuesday night, with a dog on my foot and a cat in a crate and a man's thermal still on my body, the thing I was scared of was Saturday.
CHAPTER 11
Astrid
I'd forgotten I owned earrings.
I found them in a velvet pouch at the back of the dresser drawer, the small gold hoops my mother gave me at sixteen that I wore through college. They didn't make the move to Boston. They didn't make the move back. They'd been here, in this drawer, in this house, for the entire run of the Calloway years, waiting for me without making a thing of it.
The dresser also held Easton's stack. The thermal sat at the bottom of his pile after I'd let myself wear it twice. The sweatpants on top of it were folded smaller than they needed to be. The T-shirt under the thermal. The cotton socks rolled into neat balls. I hadn't given the stack back yet. I'd told myself I'd do it after Saturday.
Audrey was on speakerphone on the bathroom counter, her voice coming through tinny and certain.
"The green one."
"Audrey."
The hoop in my left ear caught for a second on the curve of my lobe. I worked it through.
"The green one, Astrid. The green dress with the neckline. Don't make me drive over there and put it on you myself."
"It shows too much."
"It shows exactly enough. It shows what God gave you and what I've been waiting seven years for you to show somebody other than your gynecologist."
"Audrey."
"What? I'm telling the truth. You're putting on earrings you haven't worn since college. You're nervous. The green one is the dress that calms a panicking woman down."
"I'm not panicking."
"You are. And you're wearing the green one. I'm driving home, and I'm hanging up if you don't tell me you have it on by the time I park."
