By the time the bell rings, Ryan James is looking at me the way TSA looks at an unattended bag. Not that I can blame the kid. I'm a seasoned educator. I shape young minds for a living. Today, I'm living for a fire drill.
The hallway between second period and lunch is a gauntlet. The front-office ladies go quiet when I pass and then very loudly discuss the weather. Coach Reyes gives me a thumbs-up for no stated reason. Our custodian, a grumpy, gray-haired man who has not made eye contact with me in six years, tips his chin like we share a secret, and I realize with a full-body flush that my blasé attitude this morning when I glibly told Finn I didn't care if my busybody neighbor saw him leaving, has returned to bite me in the ass.
I make it to lunch anyway.
Annie is already in her classroom. I find her sitting on the edge of the stage with a salad in a plastic container, and she has very clearly been waiting all morning to have this conversation with me. The drama room smells like paint and old costumes. I sit down next to her and open my yogurt like a person with nothing to disclose.
"So," Annie says.
I stick the spoon into the cup and begin stirring. "So?"
"Mrs. Johnson opens her flower shop at seven-fifteen."
"Does she."
"She does. And at approximately seven-thirty this morning, a certain tall, criminally handsome man came down your stairs wearing yesterday's jeans and, per multiple corroborating sources, no shirt under his jacket." Annie stabs a crouton. "The town is calling it a walk of shame. Personally I refuse to see anything shameful in my best friend finally getting properly laid by a man who looks like he knows what he's doing and then some. But I'm only one vote."
I laugh. "I'm not confirming anything."
"You don't have to confirm anything. It's written all over your face. But in case there was any doubt, Betty at the pharmacy confirmed it. The UPS guy confirmed it, but he's only going off hearsay." She points the fork at me. "I can't believe you didn't personally confirm it with me the second you arrived this morning. Truly, I'm wounded."
My phone buzzes on the stage between us. Then buzzes again.
"Is that Cathy?" Annie asks, leaning in to get a look at my screen.
"It's Jules," I say, then I realize it's a group chat.
Jules:DARCY GABLE. I just heard that a man TRIED TO SNEAK out of your apartment at dawn and got caught by MRS JOHNSON.
Cathy:He didn't sneak. I heard he said hello to her and tipped a hat he wasn't wearing.
Jules:Did you bag your billionaire last night, D?
I snort-laugh, almost choking myself on yogurt. "Oh, God. Jules is calling Finn 'my billionaire' now. This is terrible."
Annie tilts her head at me. "Well, is it true? Are you and Finn Bardot a thing now?"
"No! I don't know." I bite my lower lip. "I mean, I don't think so. More to the point, I don't know if he thinks so."
"Want me to ask Evan?"
I gape at her. "Only if you never want me to speak to you again."
I type back to Jules and Cathy that I am at work and there is nothing to tell, which is half-true, at least. I put the phone face-down. Annie watches me do it and says nothing, which from Annie is a five-alarm event. When I look up her face has gone from theatrical to open and sincere, and just mine. My best friend since we were eleven, sitting on a plywood stage, waiting.
"Okay," I say. "Maybe there is something between us."
"Obviously! The man can't take his eyes off you whenever you're in the room, and based on the gossip mill today, last night all but seals it. You like Finn Bardot." She sing-songs the last part, looking far too delighted.
I go quiet, and she reaches over and takes my hand. That's how I know she's already seen the other thing—the thing underneath. Because Annie Felder has been reading me since before either of us could drive.
"You clearly do like him, so why do you look like you're doing sad math in your head?"
"Because I am doing sad math." I put down the yogurt. "He doesn't stay, Annie. That's not me catastrophizing, that's his actual life. He's got a company in Manhattan and land in Colorado and a whole world where he's Finn Bardot," I say,using air quotes around his name. "His life has a departure date on it somewhere even if I haven't seen the ticket. I keep catching myself counting his time here in Mattichogue like a prison calendar and I hate it."
"Okay," Annie says slowly. "And?"
"And I know how this goes." My voice stays level, which I'm proud of. "A man with somewhere better to be enjoys the town for a while, and then one morning he's gone, and everybody's very sorry, and the woman gets to spend a few years being known by the awful thing that happened to her. I watched my mother do it. Front row seat, remember?" I pick at the yogurt lid. "She kept his coffee mug in the cabinet for three years, Annie. I used to shove it to the back behind the good glasses, and every week it migrated forward again. Three years. I'm not doing it."
