After he left, I turned off my lights and lay there staring at my now spinning ceiling fan. The bathroom light turned on, the amber glow seeping under the door to my bedroom.
The shower door creaked, and the water began to rain down. I listened to the sounds of his feet on the tile and drawers opening. The scent of cucumber melon unfurled into my room. He must have lit his candle. The shower door creaked again and then shut.
It felt suddenly humid as I was enveloped in the smell of sandalwood mixed with the cool scent of the candle. I knew that what he’d said yesterday about me deserving more than being Brody’s assistant had more to do with his beef with Brody than it did with me, but it had been enough to spur me on to tinkering with myWunderkindnotes for a bit today. For the first time in a very long time, I felt excited about what I might create.
And now, another kind of excitement fluttered in my lower abdomenas I wondered what it might feel like to touch that doorknob and step inside that bathroom. The two of us standing under the warm spray of the showerhead until my skin had absorbed the smell of him. His fingers connecting the dots of my freckles. His lips following close behind.
My fingers dragged down the length of my stomach until they slipped under the waistband of my sleep shorts. Most of my memories of him were sour, but the few hours I spent as Eli Buckley’s wife would forever be seared into my memory so permanently that it might as well have happened yesterday.
My fingers slipped through my soft, wet center, and I thought of Eli. I thought of the shortest honeymoon of all time. I thought of him in the shower and how maybe he was stroking himself right now. Just on the other side of the door. So close and still impossibly far.
My chest heaved as the shower turned off. The light from under the door flickered as he seemed to pause there for a moment before walking away.
Come in, I nearly begged.Please come in.
A moment later, the light from the bathroom shut off and I closed my eyes. The moment was gone.
I slipped my hand out of my shorts. I’d almost gotten off to the thought of Elias Buckley and that terrified me.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Monday felt like going back to school after a long break. Like I’d been gone for enough time to become a different person.
When I got to my office, the door was already unlocked and I immediately recognized the sequined head wrap and silk muumuu–clad person waiting behind my desk.
“You know,” I told Ruby, “this office does indeed have a lock and I’m pretty sure it was in use.”
She crossed her legs with her arms draped on the armrests of my chair like she was the president. “Gavin in maintenance is a big fan ofProm Queen from the Swamp. I’ve signed his entire DVD collection of my oeuvre and gifted him a few signed headshots. He was kind enough to let me into my own granddaughter’s office.”
I dropped my tote bag on my desk and sat in the chair across from her, bracing myself both physically and emotionally. “You know that just because I work at your senior living facility doesn’t mean you can go into my locked office, right?” This felt pretty on par with working at your kid’s school.
Ruby gave me a sharp, feline-like smirk. “Well, one weekend out from under my roof and you really do have a sudden sense of boundaries, don’t you?”
“Sorry, sorry,” I conceded. “I just want to make sure people take me seriously, and that’s hard to do with you tromping into my office like you own it. Of course I don’t care that you’re in here, but it also feels a little like Take Your Grandmother to Work Day every day. And I know how much you hate identifying as a grandmother.”
Her lip curled with offense. “Do I look like I would ever agree to work in an office without natural light?”
I held one hand up and then walked two fingers through the air. “This is you.” I moved my fingers faster. “And this is you speed-walking past the point.”
“How were the first few days living with Dr. Buckley?” she asked so loudly I swore I heard a group of giggling women in the hallway fall silent. “I’m curious to know: Does the good doctor prefer boxers or briefs? How does he take his morning coffee? With or without a shirt?”
I hopped up and closed the door, my cheeks flaming red. “Could you please be a little more discreet?” Though that was asking a lot of Ruby. Discretion was not something she came by easily.
“Shacking up with your ex-husband is hardly discreet. But leave it to you to steal my fun.” She rolled her eyes and then cleared her throat dramatically. “Anyway, I have big news.”
I held my hand to my chest and fanned myself. “I think I’m having a stress response to the thought of you and big news. Did you sell my car? Donate Marlon to a science research facility? Am I the secret love child of a politician who believes we didn’t land on the moon?”
“It’s a wonder you never went into acting. You’re more dramatic than Susan Lucci.”
“Susan Lucci was dramatic for good reason. They should do anthropology studies on what the Emmys did to that woman. So, what’s the big news?”
“I’ve been invited to Global Horror Con in New Orleans as a guest of honor.” To the untrained eye, Ruby looked cool and indifferent, but I could sense the nervous excitement thrumming there, beneath the surface.
“That’s great, Rubes,” I said. Ruby had done a couple handfuls of conventions over the last few decades, but the requests had certainly dwindled recently. Global Horror Con was a biggie, though.
“That’s not the news,” she said, clearly annoyed that I hadn’t given hersufficient time for the big reveal. “They’ve giving me a lifetime achievement award. And it’s about goddamn time that someone did! I’m not getting any younger.”
“That’s—that’s amazing!” I leaned over the desk to hug her. Neither of us had ever been physically affectionate with each other, but this was the kind of occasion where Mom would have made a cake or at least ordered baklava from Ruby’s favorite bakery down the street. It fell to me now that it was just the two of us, and the reminder sent my stomach plummeting. With Mom sick for so long, people would tell me all the time that she was out of her misery and that it was okay to be relieved and that caretaking wasn’t easy. But I’d do it all again for tonight and for her to be here so that Ruby and I could fall into our usual roles—the ones we’ve been rehearsing for years. But instead, we are this indecipherable jumble of mother, daughter, and granddaughter.
