Page 105 of Pierced

“‘Plan a Halloween party for me, Myrtle. You’re into that, right?’”

“I didn’t mean it that way.”

“‘We’re counting on you, Myrtle. To save the magazine. To keep people from being laid off after the holidays.’”

“Listen to me,” he says, taking my arm.

I shrug it off and shake my head. “I am a joke to you people.”

“You’re not a joke, I swear. No one thinks you’re a joke.”

“Fucking Myrtle,” Janet, the lobby receptionist says, coming up to me dressed in what everyone will be calling Myrtle-wear by Monday. “I always knew.” She laughs.

“Knew what?” I say, eyeballing Pierce to see what he’s going to do about this interruption that has no possibility of being productive to his cause.

“If I ever got invited to one of your parties, this is exactly what it would look like.”

“Is that so?” I ask, still waiting for Pierce to put a stop to this.

But he just stands there. Looking at her, then me, then back to her. Like he has no idea what to do.

“Say something,” I snap.

“Can we just… go upstairs and have a conversation?”

“That’s your reply to this?” I hold my hands up to indicate the entire fucking mess. “Let’s go upstairs? So you can what? Stop being embarrassed for me?”

“I’m not embarrassed for you—”

“Well, you should be,” I say. “Because…” I just shake my head. “I thought there was no way I’d ever feel as humiliated as that moment you had me hauled out of this room by security last summer. But you know what? I was wrong.”

I lift up my long skirt with my gloved fingertips, and start to make my way down to the coat-check girl to gather my things.

I feel Pierce’s hand on my arm.

“Hey, no, wait,” he says.

I look at his hand and then up at his face. “You know what’s really ironic?”

“… What?”

“Of all the things I may be—and God knows I’m a lot of things—I’m not a liar. I didn’t lie to you when you thought I was lying. I didn’t lie to you about the things I wanted from you. I didn’t lie to you… ever.”

“Myrtle… I didn’t lie. I mean I did, but not intentionally. It’s not that I lied exactly, I just…”

“You just… what?” His mouth contorts. He looks away. “You just… forgot?” I say.

“Yeah. I just kind of forgot about it is all.”

I nod slowly. “Right. Right. And as you told me… you only forget about things that aren’t important to you. So…”

I let it hang in the air, giving him ample opportunity to respond. But he doesn’t. I suppose he can’t. It’s not possible to defend against the indefensible.

I say, “I told you that something like what happened last summer can never happen again.”

“This isn’t like last summer.”

“Isn’t it?”