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Forty-Eight
Four days later
“You sure you can’t join us for a birthday bunk off?” Simon pulled several American bills from his wallet to pay the waitress.
“Yeah, c’mon, Lex! Say hi to Lady Liberty with us.” Freddie set his fork down on his empty breakfast plate. Just fifteen minutes earlier, it was heaped with heuvos rancheros.
“I wish, but I have to finish edits on Suffragettes and send them to the Lyric Hammersmith before noon, so I’m under the gun.” She licked maple syrup off her thumb. “Lucy said she’d FaceTime me after that.”
“Best leave you to it.” Simon paid the bill and stood up from the bench.
They headed outside into the sunny sauna on Gansevoort Street.
“Thanks for breakfast and my present.” Alex pointed at her summery dress with its thin straps and star print. “I love my Simon Desjardins original!”
Simon beamed. “I just hope the shop on the Bowery likes my designs as much as you do.”
“What time you headed there?” asked Alex.
“Meeting’s at four.” Simon put on his sunglasses. “I’ll pop back and grab my designs around half three.”
“Okay.” She nodded. “You know where you’re headed?”
Simon pointed past Freddie. “Yeah, that way, give or take. It’s been ten years since I’ve been here, but it’ll come back to me.”
“Well, if you need anything or get lost, text me, okay?”
“Oh, I plan to get very lost,” said Freddie. “There’s no better way to get under the skin of a new city, especially one with mega pretzels beckoning from every corner.” He squinted through his camera. “Ooh, and that Shake Shack place. Food hug!”
Alex raised her eyebrows at Si and mouthed, “Good luck.”
Simon chuckled, steering a camera-wielding Freddie towards Washington Street. “Cheers, Lex!”
Alex broke out into a light jog back to the loft. With only two and a half hours until her deadline, every minute counted.
• • •
A click of her finger—send. The edits on Suffragettes zoomed across the Atlantic Ocean with five minutes to spare. Alex pushed her chair back and stretched. If the Lyric Hammersmith approved these rewrites, the play could be in front of London audiences late next year.
A FaceTime trill on her tablet interrupted her reverie. Right on time, Lucy. Alex’s eyes lazily left her laptop, landing on her iPad.
Mark Keegan would like to FaceTime.
WHAT? Oh, God!Alex flinched.
She sat up straight, licked her lips, and ran her fingers through her hair. In the five days since Mark’s New Year’s acquittal, she’d half-expected a text or email from him. Just something to soothe the hurt, make amends, but nothing came…until now.
Breathe, Alex. Breathe!
She leaned away from her tablet. Time to yank the reins. Her heart was galloping full speed ahead in a direction that felt familiar for all the wrong reasons. She would always love Mark, but she couldn’t be with him. Their lives were like pieces from different puzzles, impossible to fit together. She knew that; her heart bore the scars.
Ignoring the call wouldn’t erase the questions that were gnawing away at her. Fuck it. She grabbed the tablet and hit accept.
Niamh popped on screen, sat in her wheelchair in her bungalow’s conservatory.
Oh!Alex exhaled, disappointment and relief leaving her lungs. Mark’s mum smiled, her eyes crinkling in the corners—just like her son’s. Damn. Had Mark put her up to this? Why else would she call—on her son’s tablet?
“Alex! Happy twenty-fifth birthday.”
