Chapter Sixteen

SIXTEEN

On Beach House Monday, I arrive early to catch up with Cassie before Eric gets home.

"Third place is pretty impressive considering I'm the only one who's never watched the show before." I blow on my tea and sink into the couch cushions.

"Very impressive," Cassie says from the bedroom, where she's changing out of her work clothes. When she returns to the living room, she's wearing leggings and a hooded sweatshirt, fuzzy socks on her feet. "I'm going to check on the food."

"What are we having?" I ask. "Can I help?" A lid clinks as Cassie sets it on the counter.

"Oh, no ."

I set down my mug on a coaster and crane my neck to look. "Not done? Can you turn it up to high?" I'm only vaguely familiar with the settings of a slow cooker, not being the kind of person who has the eight hours of foresight necessary to use one.

Cassie pops her head around the corner, one hand pressed against her forehead, the other brandishing a pair of tongs. "I must've forgotten to turn it on this morning! I was on the phone with one of the junior associates on my new case while I was getting everything ready and I was so distracted. It's been sitting here all day at room temperature."

I make a sympathetic noise. "That sucks. Should we order takeout?"

Something visibly cracks inside Cassie, and her shoulders sag. "All I want is to cook for my friends once a week. Is that so much to ask? I don't think so." She waves the tongs like an angry fencer. "This is my one thing. My. One. Thing. The one thing I do just because I want to. Because I like to have one nice evening cooking something delicious and watching my favorite show with the people I care about. And I'm so tired and busy all the time I can't even do it right."

Her voice wobbles, and she blinks rapidly, her eyes shining with tears. This obviously isn't just about tonight's dinner. Something is wrong, has been wrong for some time, and I missed it. Dammit. I've been so preoccupied with my own life I missed the warning signs.

I jump up and cross the room, squeezing Cassie's shoulder and gently sliding the tongs from her grasp before they slip from her hand and fly through a window. "Hey, hey. No. First of all, you're an amazing human being. Second of all, forget the takeout. We have"—I check my phone—"ninety minutes. You have me, I'll be your sous chef, we'll throw something together. Ninety minutes, it's doable, right?"

"Okay." Cassie nods, inhaling and exhaling in a controlled manner. "You're right. We'll make—let's see." She returns to the kitchen, opening cabinets and peering into the fridge. "Wait, how about your lasagna? That's good for a group."

"Uh." There's not enough time to make pasta from scratch, so we'll have to use store-bought noodles. I let out a tortured gurgle and cover it with a cough. Cassie is a better cook than I am in general, but I only have the one good dish in my repertoire, so I'm normally precious about it. But I'm not about to tell Cassie no. I grit my teeth. "Sounds great. Can I borrow your car to run home? I have frozen Bolognese we can use."

Later, when we're working together to assemble the layers in two glass baking dishes, I glance up at her. "You okay?"

Cassie methodically pats the sauce into the corners of the pan with the back of a spoon. When she speaks her voice is quiet. "Just stressed. I'm not good at turning things down at work. New cases, more mentoring, pro bono stuff. I always say yes." She looks up. "I don't know if I've ever told you this, but sometimes when I'm overwhelmed I think, ‘What would Annie do?' You're good at setting boundaries. It doesn't work for me."

Here Lies Annie Radford: She Knew How to Say No to Life. It's not even true anymore. If only Cassie knew how bad I've been at setting boundaries lately. "Please. You don't want to channel anything I do." I wipe a splash of sauce from the counter. "It sounds like something needs to change. At least you love what you do, right? That's why you keep taking on more. I think you'll be better at the parts of your job that you love most if you can find a way to say no to the parts that are bullshit."

Cassie shakes her head. "Half the reason they want me there is to deal with the bullshit. I thought you of all people would be telling me to quit."

Ouch. That feels like a slap, but Cassie has no way of knowing it. It's like Donna dismissing any possibility of me being emotionally vulnerable, like Ben calling me cynical. I've insisted to everyone for so long that I'm a certain type of person and now I'm disappointed to learn they've all believed me.

I smile through it. "If you want to quit, I would support you. Not financially, I mean, I don't make that much money. But emotionally."

We finish our work in silence and Cassie slides the pans into the oven. "I'm glad you came early to hang out tonight. I've been so jealous that Eric gets to see you more than I do."

"I know. The whole reason I moved out here was so I could spend your first year of marriage with you guys, like you always dreamed. But I see way too much of Eric and not enough of you."

Cassie folds a dish towel into a neat rectangle. "I don't even know what's going on in your life. Anything exciting other than work?"

"Nope," I say with an affected shrug. "Just basketball." It's not a lie, exactly. So why do I feel a twinge of guilt saying it? Either way, there's no way I can talk about Ben to Cassie, not with her sense of caution and rationality. Not right now.

Cassie goes to the living room to fluff the throw pillows. I stay in the kitchen, scrubbing the dishes with a concentrated vigor, until the skin on my hands is pink and soggy.

In the middle of the episode, Eric checks his phone and announces that Blake lost another game, which means Ardwyn has clinched the regular-season conference title. Everyone whistles and applauds loud enough for the neighbors to hear, even Cassie's friends, who don't follow basketball at all.

Ben and I are silly and hyper on the walk home, immune to the cold, spinning imagined scenarios about different people's reactions to the news. Ben thinks Coach Williams probably grunted and gave his son a lecture on how the only title that matters is the national championship. I prefer to envision a secret second world for him, one in which he gathered his family around to celebrate with ice cream sundaes. Ted Horvath is already on a conference call with the fundraising team, telling them about his kitchen renovation, and Donna's popping lozenges to prepare for the onslaught of well-wishing callers she's going to have to yell at tomorrow.

"Look," Ben says, waggling his phone at me. "Williams is already messaging us with a lecture."

"While he finishes his banana split, I bet," I say, peering at the screen. There's a long block of text about heads staying down, long roads ahead, and keeping a foot on the gas.

I'm reading it out loud when a notification pops up, a familiar icon in marigold and white. A dating app. "Oh!" I avert my eyes and thrust the phone back at him. "Sorry."

He looks at the screen and slides the notification away. His face is completely unself-conscious, as if it were a notification from the Weather Channel about tomorrow's chance of precipitation. Embarrassment pours over me like cold water. The possibility that Ben was seeing other people never once crossed my mind. But of course he is. He's trying to find a girlfriend or get laid like most single people, not obsess over innocent text message exchanges and incidental physical contact with his coworker.

He glances at me as if to continue our conversation, but something must show on my face. He freezes, his expression turning distressed. "Sorry," he repeats after me, and I don't know why either of us is apologizing.

"No need." I give what I hope is a cool shrug. It's not like I want to be his girlfriend. I like him too much to ruin things with a feeble attempt at dating one month before one of us is probably forced to leave this place. Not to mention the Maynard-shaped grenade buried in the space between us.

I won't make the same mistake I made with Oliver. There was a moment one night on his balcony in Florence. We were drinking Sangiovese, watching the sun set over a sea of terra-cotta roof tiles and talking about our childhoods, when I thought, It can't get better than this. And I was right. If we'd allowed it to be the dreamy summer fling it always should've been, I could've avoided a lot of heartache. I might've looked back fondly on it as a youthful adventure.

This is a wonderful surprise of a friendship in the middle of a wonderful surprise of a basketball season. That's enough. When it's over, we can both walk away intact.

But if somebody gets to be so blasé about it, why is it him?

His dark eyes are fixed on me. "I thought you read it. It's telling me it's been a while since I logged in. I don't really date during basketball season."

Oh. I attempt a detached nod as the tense knot inside me unwinds.

"Maybe that sounds bad. Our schedule is just too hectic to meet someone and start a relationship. I don't bother with these apps between October and March."

A six-month window to meet someone, otherwise it's better luck next year ? "Well, that's a little depressing."

"You're dating right now?" A stricken look passes over his face that I enjoy more than I'd like to admit.

"Obviously not. I'm stuck with you eighty-seven hours a day. No time for swiping."

His phone buzzes, and he looks at the screen. "I have to get this," he says. There's nowhere for him to go for privacy, so we continue walking together while he talks and I pretend I can't hear his mom's voice coming through the phone.

The call is apparently one he's been expecting, about a big meeting at the high school today. Ben's sister, Natalie, was accused of sharing an essay with another student, a boy, who copied it word for word. Amateur. They got caught, and the school threatened to sanction them for honor code violations and notify their colleges. Ultimately, they let Natalie go with a warning and a community service project.

Ben keeps asking questions about proof. Maybe she didn't give him the essay. Maybe he took it from her backpack without her knowing. How do they know? She's a good kid, she wouldn't do that. His mom sounds a little scatterbrained. She doesn't know anything about proof, didn't ask. It's not until the end of the call that she mentions that Ben's sister confessed to her crime.

Ben sputters a bit. It's so like him, to assume the absolute best of someone he loves. To give her the benefit of the doubt at everyone else's expense. His sister probably is a good kid, a good kid whose teenage brain said yes when a cute boy asked to see her homework.

When he hangs up, it's clear he needs to simmer in his thoughts, so I let him. We're on Ardwyn Avenue now. Through the window of a bar, a television plays the Blake highlights while clusters of students chat over bottled beer and do a blunted, sober-ish version of dancing. Just a little sway; it's only ten thirty.

"My mom had me young," he finally says. "My dad was in and out of our lives for a long time. Sometimes for years. I've had to look after Natalie for as long as I can remember, and I'm glad to do it, don't get me wrong."

I don't say anything, just look up at him and listen.

"Lately I've been wondering if leaving Ardwyn even if Natalie goes to school here wouldn't be the worst thing. For me, and for her. But now, after this? She's not ready to be on her own. How can I leave?"

"Callahan." I squeeze his arm. "She'll figure it out. You've stayed in a job that doesn't make you happy for a long time, just for her, when you could be doing what you want instead. It's so sweet it makes me want to puke. But it's time."

He nudges me with his elbow. "You're saying that because I'm the competition."

"I'm saying it because you taught Lufton to be proficient in Excel without banging your head against the wall, and he's an English major. There are kids out there who need a good coach, and they deserve someone like you." As long as they don't go to Arizona Tech.

His cheeks turn pink. "Work has been okay lately, though."

Yes, it has. "The team is really fucking good. That always helps."

He laughs.

This is not a one-off. It's a personality trait. He's doing the same thing with Maynard, putting him on a pedestal, brushing aside his own concerns because of some sense of ancient obligation. Does he even want to live in Arizona? He's so loyal he chains himself to people. He'd keep himself chained to them even if they were sinking to the bottom of the ocean.

We're coming up on my building. Here on the side street the night is empty, stripped bare now that the snow has melted. Everything is flat: the dormant grass, the sidewalks clear and dry, the street dead of traffic. The knobs and points of tree branches provide the only punctuation in the cloudless sky. The moon is nearly full, so the whole wide unbroken scene is silver-lit as if from within.

"Do you want to know what your problem is?" I ask.

"Go ahead, tell me."

He stops walking. I whirl around and we're face to face.

This is not a position I'm used to being in with Ben. Usually there are walls and hallways between us, or phone screens, or at least a desk. Sometimes we're next to each other, sitting on the bus or the plane or watching The Beach House or walking. But now he's standing in front of me. His body, my body.

His arms are crossed and his eyes sparkle, like he's humoring me. I smile, like I'm only needling him, even though I mean what I'm about to say.

"You spend so much time worrying about what you're supposed to do for other people. About what you owe them. Don't you ever do anything for yourself? Just because you want to? Turn off that brain of yours and tell me, without thinking. What would you do right now if you could do anything you wanted?"

He looks at me. I expect him to throw his hands up or shrug or make a joke about going to Wawa. Anything but answer the question. Instead something dangerous flickers in his eyes, an intention manifesting that makes me want to run. Toward him or away from him, I'm not sure.

When he moves, I'm disoriented at first. Because all he does is lift his hands to my collar and pinch the drawstrings of my coat between his thumbs and forefingers.

I fall completely still. How close can I get? This is not what I meant to incite with my rant. Or maybe it was. Understanding my own objectives is not my strong suit. Either way, it's the perfect distance, the last acceptable distance. Nothing has happened, but almost. Almost.

"Radford." His voice is low and unsteady as his fingers move down the drawstrings. When they reach the end, he'll be able to grab the little knots and tug me closer, too close, and then something will actually happen. It's like watching the wick of a cartoon bomb burn down to an explosion, except the bomb is a sex bomb.

He's watching his hands and I am too, and I'm not making any sort of decision, only listening to his breathing and smelling his soap and the cold and feeling the closeness of him. My heart is thwacking away at my breastbone. He has nice thumbnails, I notice, and just before he reaches the knots I turn my head slightly, out toward the road. Just my chin, just a couple inches. A car glides by lazily, kicking up some slush.

"I should get inside," I say to the car.

He backs off immediately. Don't go, I want to say. He rubs a hand over his remorseful mouth.

"Sorry."

"For what?" I try.

He shakes his head. "You don't have to do that."

"Nothing happened."

"It won't happen again. I thought—I misinterpreted things. But that's on me. The last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable."

"You didn't," I say, supremely uncomfortable, but not the way he thinks. "Okay, well, good night!" I don't look at his face or wait for him to reply. I turn on my heel and flee into the building, flying up the stairs until I'm sure he can't see me anymore through the glass. The whole way up I skim one palm along the handrail. I squeeze the knots on the drawstrings tight in the other fist.