“Everything good?” she asked.
“Yeah, yeah. I want to talk to you about some potential post-Christmas travel plans I wanted to invite the kids to participate in, if you don’t mind sparing them for New Year’s.”
She could see it now: Reggie and Esme and Cal skiing while Blair drank too much as the pity invitee at Tiffany’s first New Year’s with her new boyfriend. Or, let’s be real, while Blair begged off said party and watched the ball drop in Times Square by herself and went to bed at midnight Eastern time.
Maybe by Christmas she would actually be able to go to a party. Mingle in public with people she didn’t know without fear of embarrassing herself.
Maybe that should be her goal: attend a party before the year was out.
“I’m thinking of Saint Lucia instead of Aspen this year,” Reggie said. “But we can talk about it later.”
“OK. Put the dates in the app.” In theory, they used a co-parenting app to talk about kid stuff. In practice, Reggie just called or came over. Just as she was about to disconnect, she said, “Wait. Reggie?”
“Yeah?” The forehead grew larger on the display that suddenly brought to mind a baby monitor. With the wrought iron bars of the front fence behind him, Reggie looked like a giant baby in a crib. She told herself to hold on to that image.
“Will you stop talking to the press about me?”
“I think Jack Branksome has that covered.”
“You read that?” Reggie was not theNew Yorkertype.
“Not initially. I heard about it from a few people, so I had Nancy get me a copy.”
Nancy was Reggie’s brisk, ultracompetent assistant. In some ways, in the practical sense, Blair missed Nancy more than she missed Reggie. If Blair were in a state to go out, she would ask Nancy to lunch.
Shewouldask Nancy to lunch, she vowed. Once she was settled in. There was another goal: a meal out at a restaurant.
“Well, if you know anyone who’s talking to the press about me, tell them to stop. It’s trashy.” She’d chosen her words carefully. Reggie wouldhatebeing called trashy. “I gotta go.” She lifted her finger from the button so he couldn’t talk back.
Sheshouldactually go somewhere. But she wouldn’t. Still, she had goals now: a party and a meal out before the end of the year. Those should be doable.
Right?
Chapter 3
Pain Points
The ding of an incoming text interrupted Blair’s dinner by the pool one evening in early October, triggering a series of analogous internal dings—the percussive soundtrack of dopamine hits resulting from having something legitimate to distract from her sad solo meal. Blair tried not to scroll while she ate. She always intended to read instead. Reading had always been such a respite. Yet there was her book, unopened, on the other side of the table, while her phone was at hand, requiring as much effort to resist as it did to use, commanding her attention even though it was only a dormant black rectangle.
But it wasn’t dormant now. She picked it up.
Do you think emotional or moral pain can manifest as physical pain?
Well, butter her butt and call her a biscuit. It was Jack Branksome.
She smiled. Of course she’d been hoping for Esme—or Cal, but Cal hardly ever initiated communication, even if he was warm enough in responding to her overtures. Jack, though. He would be… bracing. Not a lot about Blair’s life right now could be called bracing.
Blair:Yes.
Jack:Elaborate.
Blair:I don’t think it’s that complicated. The human mind is powerful.
Didn’t she know it?
Blair:I think it can hold us back in all kinds of ways, so, sure, maybe that stomachache is because you said or did something you’re not proud of or whatever.
Jack:I’m sorry the Books with Blair situation blew up the way it did.
