The amount of grief Ezra had given him was laughable now. Not so long ago, Mal had worried that he could never give Jo what Ezra had at his fingertips. He needn’t have wasted his energy.
“You don’t actually love her,” Mal said. He watched Ezra’s expression tighten with indignance. “Because if you did, you would have figured something out by now.”
Then, bumping his shoulder, Mal walked away, leaving Ezra behind to ruminate. He was almost down the hall when he heard Ezra call out his name.
“Malcolm,” Ezra said. “Wait. I have an idea. Can you help me?”
Chapter Thirty-Three
Jo
My first Adelman family dinner was not at a high-end restaurant, or even in the ornate, rarely used dining room of their Chicago penthouse. Instead, it was at their large kitchen island, seated on the high leather-cushioned barstools. I had nowhere to go for winter break my freshman year. The dorms were closing, and in preparation for my temporary eviction, I’d found a cheap sublet near campus. Back then, my friendship with Ezra was new and intense, his omnipresence in my dorm room causing a visible tension between me and my roommate, who seemed disturbed that he didn’t seem to remember her, despite being the one to “introduce” us. I hadn’t yet fully trusted him with the details of my estrangement from my family. When he discovered my plans to be alone for the holidays, he subverted them immediately.
“Are you kidding me, Jo?” Ezra had said, righteously indignant. “I’m not leaving you here alone. Just come home with me.”
Renata was Jewish, Paul Christian, and so the Adelman residence was decorated in themed rooms to celebrate both religions: an elegant golden menorah in front of the grand stairway, a gargantuan Christmas tree almost scraping the twelve-foot ceilingof the living room. I hadn’t been quite sure what to expect; my interactions with Ezra’s father had been minimal and awkward, and Renata, though she’d never been anything other than doting toward me, still terrified me.
But then we’d arrived in the home to find Renata behind the stove, her usually elegantly coiffed hair tied into a messy ponytail high on her head, a violently stained apron tied around her waist, and what appeared to be a bloodbath in her kitchen. The moment we entered, suitcases squealing behind us, Ezra laughed so hard that he nearly choked.
“Are you...” he said in horror, “cooking?”
Renata folded her arms, successfully smearing what I realized was beet juice onto the unshielded sides of her shirt.
“What?” she said. “Why can’t I cook? How do you think I survived before you?”
The oven beeped, and she ran across the room, pulling out a lumpy piece of what was supposed to be challah bread from within it.
“We needed a home-cooked meal,” Renata explained. “I told Charlotte”—their cook—“that I could do it. I used to make borscht with my mother, you know. It tastes better when you do it yourself.”
It did not taste better, but the warmth that had traveled from my throat and into my fingertips had been worth the damage the rock-solid bread did to my teeth. I’d never had a meal like that. The three of us, sitting at an island, giggling in between oversalted slurps. Not trying to scarf my food down as quickly as possible. Feeling safe. Loved.
Mal’s roast, on the other hand, was delectable. The meat was perfectly melt-in-your-mouth tender, the potatoes well-seasonedand crispy, even the carrots flavorful. In a sharp departure from our many cooking lessons over the last weeks, he had insisted on making everything himself, and once he’d finished up writing for the day, tied an apron around his waist and got to task. Across the table, his gaze was plaintive, eyebrows turned up, brown eyes wide like a child caught in his mess.
I lowered my fork, sighing. “What did you do?” I said.
Mal jolted.
“What do you mean?” he said, and I comforted myself with the knowledge that he would forever be incapable of hiding anything from me, by virtue of being the worst liar I’d ever met.
“You’re being weird,” I insisted. “Acting guilty. Can you please fess up? Did you talk to media, or—”
As if on cue, Mal’s phone buzzed. I peered at the screen, seeing a name that looked suspiciously likeEzra Adelmanflash across the screen.
“Why is Ezra texting you?” I asked, stunned. I knew that they’d run into each other before, but there was no reason for Mal to have Ezra’s contact.
“Ah,” Mal said, his eyebrows traveling even farther into his hairline, just as the notifications began to roll in.
They came fast, buzzes, dings, and pings, banners in all colors of the rainbow flashing across his screen. I sucked in a breath, disoriented by the onslaught. My panic crystallized, lodged itself in my throat, and I looked to Mal, searching for an explanation.
“Mal,” I said, my fork falling to my plate with a clatter. “What is going on?” When he didn’t answer, I ran to my bedroom, stepping through my newly organized closet until I reached the phone that I’d tossed into the back weeks ago. My heart leaped in my throat, and I didn’t bother counting out my pulse, didn’t try tocounteract my dread as I waited for it to turn on. Miraculously, it did.
“What the hell,” I said, scrolling through my own notifications with my mouth ajar. My phone, despite my many fail-safes, had blown up similarly. My work email in particular. Denise was passing on interview invitations like her fingers were on fire, every subject line with a copied and pastedI just think you should see this!
Then there were the news headlines, the social media posts, tags more numerous than I could count. My Instagram ballooning to nearly nine hundred thousand followers, another two hundred thousand people appearing on my page like they’d materialized out of thin air.
And finally, there was Mal, sitting at my dining table and looking unsurprised by all of it.
“Are you going to explain what’s going on?” I asked him.
