These Girls (21 page)

Annabelle drove the truck out of the kitchen, toward the living room.

“Hey,” he said, as if he was greeting Abby for the first time that day. His voice was gentle. He kept holding on to her wrist as he moved closer. He brushed the hair out of her face with his other hand, and for a moment—a crushing moment—she worried that it was a friendly gesture, not a romantic one. Then he leaned over and kissed her.

She lost herself in the kiss the way she never had with Pete. Time seemed to stretch and expand. His lips were soft and gentle against her own, and his fingers traced gentle, electric circles on her wrist. They broke apart after a few seconds, but kept staring at each other as Abby reached up with her fingertips to touch her lips, as if to seal the kiss there.

“Zoom, zoom.” Annabelle’s truck noises carried clearly from the living room, breaking the spell. Abby and Bob both laughed awkwardly.

Bob dropped her arm. “I’m so sorry—” he started to say, but Abby cut him off.

“I’m not.”

She left the room quickly, before he could respond.

Fifteen

CATE HAD FORGOTTEN THE
sheer impact of Trey’s presence; he seemed to fill up a room, simultaneously attracting all of the energy in it and pushing it back out, as if electric currents coursed through him. He leaned toward her, and she just stared up at him for a second before realizing he was trying to greet her with a peck on the cheek. She leaned in, too fast, and they nearly clocked heads. She pulled her eyes away from Trey to turn to Abby, who looked a little bit better. She finally had some color in her cheeks, but then again, maybe that was just from the walk over.

“Hi,” Abby said. She hesitated, then leaned forward and hugged Cate. Cate patted Abby’s back, feeling sharp, delicate shoulder blades that were as pronounced as tiny wings. What had happened to her? she wondered again.

When Abby released Cate, she held out the bouquet of flowers she was clutching. Outrageously expensive, decadent yellow roses—at least two dozen giddily overflowing from their crinkly cellophane wrapper. “These are for you and Renee,” she said.

“Oh, Abby,” Cate said. She knew Abby didn’t have a job—
didn’t have much of anything in life right now, except her few belongings. She wished she hadn’t spent so much money. But all she said was “They’re gorgeous.”

“They’re from Trey, too,” Abby said, smiling. “Actually, they’re mostly from Trey. But he made me carry them.”

“Hey, I’m loaded down,” Trey said, gesturing to the backpack, which looked comically small draped across one of his shoulders. “What am I, your Sherpa?”

But he ducked his head and gave her an embarrassed grin, and Cate found herself wondering whose idea it had been to buy roses.

“I’m going to stick this in my room,” Abby said, grabbing the backpack. “I mean, the guest room. Whatever you want to call it.”

“It’s your room,” Cate said and was rewarded with a smile, as quick and bright as the flash of a hummingbird.

“It smells great in here,” Trey said.

“I told you I cook a mean takeout,” Cate said. “You should see how fast I can dial.”

“No apron?” He grinned. “You’re amazing.”

Somehow the joke had just slipped out of her; she didn’t even have to think about it. What was it about Trey that simultaneously made her nerve endings tingle and put her at ease?

“Do you want a beer?” Cate asked. “Or some wine?”

Trey held up the bottle he’d brought. “I can open this, if you like red.”

“Love it,” Cate said. She went into the galley kitchen, laid the roses down next to the sink, and found two wineglasses in a cupboard. She tried to reach up to the next shelf to grab a few more—space was at such a premium in the apartment that anything not needed on a daily basis had to be crammed into any available nook or cranny, no matter how inconvenient—but her fingers couldn’t quite stretch that high.

“Let me,” Trey said. He came closer and reached up—no
tiptoes required—then cradled two more glasses in one hand. He twisted off the wine’s cap and poured a healthy splash into his and Cate’s glasses. “Tell me if it’s any good. I haven’t tried this kind before.”

She took a sip. “It’s wonderful.”

He hadn’t stepped away after retrieving the glasses. He was very close as he held her eyes and sipped from his own glass. “Not bad, huh?”

This was starting to feel like a date—the flowers, the eye contact, the light flirting. Renee was still in her bedroom getting ready—Cate could hear the distant roar of a hair dryer—but
she
should’ve been the one to accept the roses and taste Trey’s wine. Cate had invited Trey over here for Renee.

Hadn’t she?

She looked down into her wineglass and gave a quick swirl to the rich ruby-colored liquid. Fine, she was attracted to him; she couldn’t deny that. She thought about the way Trey had salvaged her story—maybe even her career. People thought Trey was a player, but seeing the protectiveness he felt for Abby made Cate doubt that. At heart, Trey was a loyal guy—a
good
guy. She might be imagining it, but she sensed the attraction was mutual.

But Renee had dated Trey first. More important, she still had feelings for him. Cate gave herself a mental shake. It was ridiculous to think she could have a real chance of winning Trey’s heart. Half the women in Manhattan probably nurtured that identical fantasy. She needed to stop
this
—whatever it was—right now.

“I’ll go let Renee know that you guys are here,” Cate blurted.

Trey took a step back. When he spoke again, the warm, teasing note was stripped from his voice. So he thought it was wrong, too; he knew flirting with Renee’s roommate was taboo. Cate was right; Trey
was
a good guy.

“Great,” he said, turning away as he reached for another wineglass to fill.

Why was Renee acting so nervous around Trey? Cate wondered. Cate knew their history. Renee had recounted their disastrous final date, milking the story for laughs on one of the girls’ nights out. But the last time Trey came by, Renee had acted casual. Now she seemed so anxious she literally couldn’t sit still.

She wasn’t eating, either. She’d scooped a few spoonfuls of chicken masala onto her plate, but she was rearranging her food instead of making it disappear. Cate’s heart contracted with pity as she remembered the awful messages on Renee’s blog. Tonight she’d find a way to really talk to Renee, to tell her that people who fired off anonymous, hate-filled notes on the Internet were the worst kinds of cowards. She’d seen how hard Renee had worked to avoid temptation the night they’d ordered Chinese food, and lately she’d been walking all the way home from work. Renee was obviously trying her hardest to lose weight. Come to think of it, she did appear a bit thinner—but Cate thought Renee had looked good before, too.

Renee had helped Cate feel so much better about Jane’s gossip. Now Cate wished she could do the same for her roommate. Well, she could start by staying away from Trey, she thought, glancing up at him and meeting his eyes again. She turned away, deliberately, without smiling.

Dinner had been a bad idea, she realized. She was almost as uncomfortable as Renee seemed to be. Trey was sitting directly across from Cate, which meant every time she looked up, he was in her line of view. Cate kept trying to think of things to say to Abby, but normal conversational channels were taboo. She couldn’t ask Abby about work, or whether she was dating
anyone, or even about her hometown. Anything could trigger a horrible memory.

Cate took a bite of samosa, but it seemed to expand, filling her throat. She managed to wash it down with a big gulp of water.

“More water?” Renee asked, hopping up for the fifth or sixth time. She’d already refilled Abby’s glass, gotten extra napkins, and poured Trey a second helping of wine.

“I’m good, thanks,” Cate said. She wanted to add something like “Just sit down and relax—you’ve been waiting on us all night!” But calling attention to Renee’s unease might only exacerbate it.

The silence stretched out again, broken only by the clink of silverware against plates. Then Trey spoke up.

“Did I tell you about the guy I’m heading out to interview in a couple weeks?” he asked.

“Nope,” Renee said. “Let me guess: He wrestles great white sharks? Sleeps in a bear cave?” She giggled, a high, loud sound that the joke didn’t merit, and Cate forced herself to laugh, too.

“Actually, your first guess isn’t far off.” Trey put down his fork, wiped his mouth with his napkin, and leaned back in his chair. “He chases giant squid. He’s completely obsessed. The guy has this rickety boat, and he heads out into the ocean with special drop nets and tries to capture these almost mythical creatures. People claim to have seen them—one competitor got a photo of what looks like one in his net before it slipped away—but no one has ever captured one.”

“So you’re going out on the boat with him?” Cate asked.

Trey nodded. “For three days. Most of the people I’ve been interviewing for the book take on incredible physical challenges, but I’m interested in this guy because of the mental adversity he’s got to be facing. He spends most of the year all alone
in his little boat, bobbing in the ocean, searching for something that might not even exist. The longer it goes on, the higher the stakes. He’s been thrown off the boat twice during storms, and he almost drowned. Once he got so sick when he was in the middle of the Pacific that he couldn’t stand up, so he strapped himself to the wheel with a leather belt. It’s just him against the water, and the odds are beginning to turn against him. He’s going to be sixty-five next month, and it seems like he’s only getting more and more intent on capturing this thing. It’s . . .
consuming
him.”

“All for a squid?” Renee asked, crinkling her nose. “I mean, so he catches one and it goes in an aquarium. Is that worth all the time he’s spent?”

“It’s about being first. Conquering something. Having faith and seeing it rewarded,” Trey said. “That’s what I’m going after in my story. Why do obsessions grab hold of some people and not others? And where would we be as a society if obsessions didn’t exist?”

“We wouldn’t have Mozart. Or lightbulbs. Or much of anything,” Cate said.

“That’s how I look at it, too,” Trey said. He sat up again and snagged a piece of naan off Abby’s plate.

“When we were kids, Trey always used to finish my dinner when I couldn’t,” Abby said, smiling at the memory. “He’d eat anything, even the gross stuff. Cabbage, lentils—you name it.”

“And I’d finish your breakfast. And snacks,” Trey said. “But you should be thanking me; I kept you slim.”

Renee didn’t react in any outward way, but Cate sensed a change in her—a shift as subtle as a quickened intake of breath. A second later Renee hopped up again. “Anyone want coffee?”

Trey stood, too, and rested a hand on her shoulder. “Let me get it,” he said. “Does anyone want more wine?”

“No thanks,” Renee said quickly, sitting back down. Her eyes
followed him into the kitchen as Cate watched.
Like her back,
Cate sent Trey a silent message.
Please.

Renee had an ironclad rule: She never let herself think about her third and final date with Trey. If she wanted another chance—which she did, desperately—she needed to scour every humiliating detail out of the corners of her mind. But tonight, when he asked if she wanted more wine, the memory had flooded back, as sharp and vivid as if it was unfolding for the first time . . .

A week or so after their second date, he called to suggest they meet for drinks. “I suppose I can squeeze it in,” she joked. She stood up and began to pace; she was too jazzed to sit still.

“Morrells at seven next Saturday?” he asked. Morrells was a wine bar midtown on the East Side, a cozy place with a wooden bar up front and little tables in the back. It was intimate yet unpretentious.

“Perfect,” Renee said. “I’ve got to go”—a lie! She wanted nothing more than to stay on the phone with him all night—“but I’ll see you then.”

Renee sensed this would be the night they would move toward something important. On their previous dates, she’d squeezed into a contraption from Spanx that started below her boobs and ended a few inches above her knees. If nothing else, it had guaranteed that she and Trey wouldn’t get too frisky; no way was he seeing her trussed up like a mummy. It was insurance to hold herself in check in more ways than one.

But this date . . . Well, meeting at a wine bar early in the evening meant the whole night would stretch out deliciously before them. If he asked, she’d go to his apartment, she decided, laying out her lingerie on her bed and selecting the prettiest pieces, a lavender, lacy bra and matching thong.

She prepared for the date with the intensity of a runner
training for her first marathon. She highlighted her hair with golden streaks—spending two hundred dollars she couldn’t afford—and read the front section of
The New York Times
every single day. She drank lots of water, went to bed early, and thought about Trey incessantly. In her dreams, he was leaning toward her, desire flaring in his eyes. She always woke up before he touched her, and then she lay in the darkness, smiling like an idiot until it was time to get out of bed.

When she walked into Morrells ten minutes late—she’d planned that, too—he was sitting on a stool up front rather than at a table. She didn’t let her face reveal that her heart was plummeting; straddling a barstool wasn’t nearly as romantic as leaning toward each other over a candlelit table.

“You look great,” he said, standing up and kissing her on the cheek. He smelled like lime and old wood, and there was just the tiniest cut on his chin from his razor. It was like the minuscule flaws Persian carpet weavers deliberately put into their gorgeous rugs so that they didn’t offend the gods by flaunting their perfection, she thought.

“Shall we grab a table?”

“Sure,” she said lightly, as though it didn’t matter either way. Trey held out her chair while she sat down, then they bent their heads close together as they pored over the long wine list.

“Should we take a dart and toss it?” Trey whispered.