over who’s going to pay. They all whip out their gold credit cards and beg to foot that gigantic bill. There’s a part of me that wants to offer to pay too, just to see the look on their faces, but if they somehow agreed to let me pay, I’d have to go to the bank to take out a loan or something. Luke paid last time, so somehow Carter wins out.
“I made after dinner reservations at the Dubonney Club,” Carter says. “I thought we could get some drinks there.”
“Fantastic,” Peter says. “Luke, are you coming?”
“No, that’s all right,” Luke says. “I’ve got an early meeting tomorrow morning.”
Carter grins. “You work too hard, old man. You gotta enjoy life more. Meet more women. Stay out late.”
Luke just shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s all right. Thanks anyway.”
I want to be a good girlfriend and encourage Luke to go, but he seems like he wants the evening to end as much as I do. As we drive back, he’s practically fuming. “I hate those guys,” he says.
I laugh. “I hate them too. But I wouldn’t have minded if we went to that club.”
“They didn’t want me to come,” Luke says.
“How do you know?”
“Because the Dubonney Club has like a million stairs and no elevator,” he says. “And they know it. We went once and I was stuck in the lobby while they went upstairs to try to figure out if it was worth staying there. After thirty minutes, I gave up and left.”
“Why do you bother seeing them?”
“I don’t know,” Luke says. “Force of habit, I guess. Plus, this year, I wanted to… you know…” He grins. “Show you off. Sorry, is that insulting?”
“No, it’s not.” In fact, I can’t help but feel flattered. Nobody’s ever thought of me as someone worth showing off. I can’t believe he thinks I’m in any way comparable to those two models. “By the way, those two guys are jealous as hell of you.”
“Yeah, right.”
“They are,” I insist. I can’t believe that Luke, with all his intelligence, can’t see that. “They think you’re much more successful than they are. That’s why they’re such assholes to you.”
Luke laughs. “I don’t know if you’re right about that. But thanks for saying so.”
“By the way,” I add. “If you want to know why I wouldn’t go out with you in college, that’s why.”
“Oh, come on. I wasn’t that bad.”
“Of course you were.”
“That’s only because you didn’t know me.”
“No.” I look at his perfect facial profile, contrasting with his hunched shoulders. “You’re different now.”
He shrugs.
“Hey,” I say. “I wanted to ask, when you… got hurt, were you rock climbing with Carter and Peter?”
Luke nods. “Yeah, I was climbing with Carter. Somehow he always manages to bring it up.”
My eyes widen. “Was it his fault that you got injured?”
“Christ, no,” he says. “It was my own dumb fault for being careless and thinking I was invincible. Carter tried to warn me to be careful, and after I fell, he made sure not to move me and he ran to get help. I think he was more freaked out than I was. But it was always weird between us after that.”
Luke is quiet for a while after telling the story. I don’t say anything and finally he says, “I still remember lying there on the ground and not being able to move my arms or legs. It never even occurred to me for a second that my injury could be permanent. I just figured I’d go to the hospital and they’d fix me. And now whenever I hear about some new experimental treatment to ‘cure’ spinal cord injury, I know it’s bullshit. I’m going to be in a wheelchair for the rest of my life. This is it for me.” He shakes his head. “Maybe you’re right. Maybe I am different than I was back then.”
“That’s a good thing, you know,” I tell him.
“Maybe,” he says quietly.
I guess I can see his point. Luke is by far a better person now than he was in college. But I can see how it might be nice to go through life as an oblivious jerk.
Chapter 22
The next weekend, I convince Luke to go out to Boston Common and the frog pond when he says he’s never been there. It’s hard to believe there’s anywhere in the greater Boston area that he’s never visited, but he says he’s been too busy with work. “You never went during college?” I ask him incredulously.
He shrugs. “Never got