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That’s exactly what he does.
I’m torn between chasing after him and waiting for him to return, but Mr. Leblanc doesn’t come back.
Five minutes pass. The night air starts to feel cold. I can still see the lights from the restaurant. A few couples and groups pass me by. It feels perfectly safe, but painfully lonely. All I want is for one of the pairs of headlights to be his. All I want is for him to come back around the corner, apologizing for being an asshole and promising to take me home with him.
I’m not sure what I’d do then. I want the chance to tell him off, but more than that, I want to know what made him say those things. What made himthinkthose things. Greg was pleasant and clearly interested in me, but he was nothing compared to Mr. Leblanc.
Mr. Leblanc was all I thought about all through dinner. The heat of him a short distance away. The sounds he made in his office. The raw, intimate moments we had together.
It’s so embarrassing to stand there on the sidewalk that I start walking, not paying attention to the direction. A girl’s allowed to wallow in confused heartache for a few blocks.
I’ve only made it to the next intersection when a car pulls up alongside me. It’s the same one Mr. Leblanc sent to bring me to the restaurant. Same driver. He jumps out to the curb. “Ms. Anderson, I’m here to take you—”
“No need.”
“Mr. Leblanc sent me to—”
A city bus rattles down the street. “I’ll get home by myself. Thank you for coming, but I don’t need a ride.”
I turn my back on him and head for the bus stop, digging into my clutch purse for emergency fare. I wasn’t supposed to need a ride home. I was supposed to be with Mr. Leblanc.
Instead I climb onto the bus and sit in one of the hard plastic seats.
It’s crowded with people, but I feel totally alone.
15
WILL
Last night should have beenone of the best nights of my life.
It was one of the worst.
Physically, things were fine. Good. Fucking great. I ate fancy food next to a beautiful woman. I went home to a luxury apartment with two layers of paid security patrolling the lobby and blessed silence when I closed the door. No one was waiting to punch me in the face or shut me in a closet.
Many nights were like that growing up. Hungry. Violent. And I was the lucky one. My older brothers did their damned best to distract our father. To get in his way before he could get to me.
It was a nightmare in comparison to the dream I’m living now. Top one percent. A goddamn superyacht on the way.
A living nightmare.
But nothing came close to the constant hope and constant disappointment around my mother.
I thought she would come back.
Of course I thought she would. That’s what mothers are supposed to do. Come home. I imagined that when she did, she would be beautiful and kind and rescue us from our father. All my hope was built from a vague memory of a woman singing a song.
I can’t be sure that the voice in my memory is hers at all. It could be something I heard on the radio or TV. It’s not clear enough to identify. Not the tune. Not the words.
Just hope like a deep, spreading bruise. Hope that was beaten down again and again and again until we finally left home. By then, I knew how fucking pathetic it was to wish she’d come back. My mother is dead. Even if she were still alive, I wouldn’t recognize her.
Eight a.m., and I’m sitting behind my desk at Summit, an email response open on my computer screen.
It’s from one of the guys in the finance department. Yet another email about money.
Everything has to do with money.
How have I let this dominate my life?
