Page 82 of Total Exposure

They were on opposite ends of the party. It was her wedding. And why Alexander invited us… I can only guess because he never said. I just showed up, and I’m pretty sure that was what Jordan was doing as well.

Augustine never even looked at me.

“I’m not going back tomorrow,” Evangeline says, obviously awake and walking down the stairs to the main floor.

I’d forgotten where I was for a moment. Lost in my last secret memory of Augustine. What’s her last memory of me, I wonder? Not her wedding, that’s for sure.

That day at the table? With the lawyers?

Or did she sneak in somewhere I was and see me from afar once?

I hope she did. And I hope it was a good memory. Maybe her wedding day? Maybe she did see me that day? Maybe Alexander told her I was there and she walked around, looking for me in the gardens?

Is it fate? Or irony? Or was it planned? The fact that Augustine got married at the Denver Botanic Gardens? The fact that Jordan put me here? Brought me into this new game of his. If all the world’s a stage, then how do you ever know what’s real?

“Did you hear me?” Evangeline yells as she reaches the kitchen. I watch for a moment as she spies the waiting book.

She looks down—hiding a smile, I’m sure of it, even though I don’t have a good view in here anymore—and then she takes the book and walks away to read it.

I let her go and press Jordan’s contact on my phone.

He doesn’t pick up. But I leave a message, so who cares. And the message is this: “Did you get what you wanted out of her? And that’s not sarcasm or cynicism. It’s an honest question. Was it worth it? Because it wasn’t for me.”

I wait, like he’s there or something. Like in the old days you could leave a message on the machine and wonder if the person just didn’t pick up and was standing right there listening as you poured your heart out.

But this isn’t those days. And no one has a machine anymore. So it’s just voicemail. Just some digital cloud that hears your desperate message and gives no shits whatsoever.

I end the call and look back at Evangeline, who is sitting on the couch in the ballroom, facing the windows that open to the backyard. She’s very absorbed in my story. It’s only a few paragraphs, so maybe she’s reading it twice?

I wonder if Augustine is happy with Alexander.

I heard they had a serious separation a few years ago, but got back together. Nothing since that.

Evangeline is talking again. “Where’s the rest of it?” she asks, holding up the book. “I want the rest of it.”

I press the button on the intercom and say, “Where’s the rest of your story? I want the rest of that too.”

She sighs. Loudly. Then says, “My story is a poem. It takes time to compose.”

“I never told you to write a poem, Evangeline. A few scribbled words will suffice.”

She just scowls at me. I can’t tell if that comment makes her angry… or sad.

“Go compose it then,” I say. “Leave it on the counter when you’re done and then go upstairs and wait for me.”

“Will you come up?” she asks.

I wonder if Augustine called Jordan when she and Alexander separated? I wonder if they got back together for those few months? I wonder if they talked about me?

“Why are you ignoring me?” Evangeline asks.

It’s such an honest question. And the desperate tone in her voice mirrors my own feelings at the moment. So I say, “I’m just admiring you,” and it’s a lie, of course. Because I’m stuck in the past, just like she is.

But it’s also sort of true. Because she is very beautiful. Especially when she’s emotional. It’s a tragic kind of beautiful. The kind that makes people look twice. The kind you see in perfume ads, or on a fashion runway with the too-skinny girls, dressed up as someone else, walking with hidden purpose that’s really nothing but obvious anguish.

Dark. And hopeless. And emotional.

My answer soothes her to the point of softening. She looks at our book in her hands. She’s sitting Indian-style on the couch, long, dark hair hanging to cover her pretty face.