each other,” Sam said. “Real friends. Which, not surprisingly, you’ve never had, have you?”
Isabella looked for a second like she might cry, and then her face turned angry instead.
Sam pushed past her into the hall.
* * *
—
She called Maddie at lunchtime, not wanting to go back to the dorm to eat.
She sat in the grass outside the library, listening to the phone ring, terrified that it would go to voice mail.
Then Maddie picked up.
Sam heard an ambulance siren in the background. She heard Maddie walking down a windy city block, a sound like someone crushing a paper bag.
“Hey, what’s up?” Maddie said.
“Not much. Just my whole life is falling apart.”
Sam told her about the job offer, about her mother, about Elisabeth, and Clive and Isabella.
“In one day, I’ve gone from feeling like the luckiest person alive to like I can’t trust anyone,” Sam said.
“You can trust me,” Maddie said. “Are you and Clive breaking up for real?”
“I don’t know. What do you think I should do?”
“I can’t decide that for you.”
“Yes, you can. You know me better than anyone. Please.”
Maddie sighed. “Come here. Take the job. Live with me. You don’t have to stay forever.”
“Now that Elisabeth and I fought like that, maybe she called them back and said not to hire me. Maybe I don’t even have the job anymore.”
“Sam. You do.”
“I can’t afford to live there on what they’ll be paying me, and with my student loans.”
She wanted Maddie to talk her into it.
“Can I?” she added with a smile.
Sam could hear Maddie smiling back. “We all feel that way when we get here, but we manage. You’ll figure it out.”
“No one ever thinks they have enough money,” Sam said.
She plucked a gray, feathery dandelion from the ground.
“Good point,” Maddie said.
Sam blew the soft petals into the air.
“Elisabeth told me that.”
* * *
—
All day Tuesday and Wednesday, Sam wondered what would happen on Thursday, when she was next supposed to babysit. She waited for some sign from Elisabeth. She wasn’t going to show up and pretend nothing had gone on between them. Then again, she couldn’t imagine not showing up to work. She’d never done that in her life. And she needed the money. Not just her weekly pay, but whatever Elisabeth planned to pay her for the portrait.
By Wednesday night, she still hadn’t heard anything.
In the morning, she thought she had a sore throat. Maybe she was too sick to work. Maybe fate had decided for her. But no. After a shower and a cup of coffee, to her great annoyance, Sam felt fine.
Her heart raced as she walked to Laurel Street. When she pushed open the back door, she swore she could feel Elisabeth’s presence on the other side.
But she found Andrew in the kitchen instead, feeding Gil scrambled eggs.
“Elisabeth had an early call with her agent,” he said. “She went down to her office a while ago. She seemed nervous.”
Sam wondered how much he knew.
After a brief silence, she said, “I can take over from here.”
“Okay,” he said. “Great. Thanks.”
Elisabeth didn’t check in by phone or text like she usually did.
Sam was confused. She was the one who had been lied to, and yet she had shown up.
Andrew called the house while she was giving Gil his lunch.
“Can you stay late tonight?” he said. “Like six? Elisabeth has a friend coming into town for dinner, so I’ll be getting home before her. Sorry, she only just told me.”
“Sure thing,” Sam said.
So Elisabeth was leaving him to deal with the mess she’d made.
Would they ever speak again? Sam was mad enough that she almost didn’t care, but it made her sick to think of not seeing Gil after today. Was he old enough to wonder where she’d gone? All the times she had imagined the future, Sam thought they would send pictures and updates, maybe see each other once or twice a year, here or there, wherever there was.
She smiled through tears as she wiped his hands and face. She rocked him to sleep instead of letting him cry himself out, which was for some reason what you were supposed to do. Sam didn’t lay Gil down in the crib for his afternoon nap. She held him to her in the rocking chair until he woke up. They played for the rest of the day. She didn’t look at her phone once.
When Andrew got home, she said in a rush, “Would you mind paying me now for today and Monday?”
“Sure,” he said. “Let me