didn’t have the chance to tell him anything. As I was standing there, ready to lay myself bare in front of him, Eva had called, her voice frantic.
“Get in your room and stay there. You were with Chris yesterday and someone saw. It’s bad, Hallie. They know about Grace and there are pictures of you and Chris, the same ones I found and a couple of other ones. They’re making it seem like the two of you have been together for the last seven years, all the time while you were married to Ben. I’m not sure what I can do about it now. I’m not sure if there’s anything we can do about it now. I’m on the other line with Claire and we need to figure out a plan to get you out of this hotel as soon as possible. Give me five minutes. Get your things packed.”
I hadn’t seen the stories, but I didn’t need to. Most of it was probably true, except for the long-standing affair and the fact that I’m sure the stories were embellished with a series of adjectives that I really didn’t need to think about. Slut. Fame whore.
Grace is whining and I lean in to kiss her cheek. She’s still strapped in her car seat, wiggling impatiently to free herself.
“Mommy, why can’t we go to the zoo? You said we were going to see lions and tigers and bears. Oh my!” She rubs her eyes and her bottom lip wobbles. “I don’t want to go in the car. I’ve been in the car all night. Grandma said she wanted to get here early so we could go to the zoo. But now we’re not going to the zoo.”
“I promise, baby girl, that we will go to the zoo another day. We just can’t go today.”
“Why not?”
“Because we can’t, Grace.”
“Daddy would have taken me to the zoo,” she says in a quavering voice.
“He can’t take you to the zoo,” I say, my own voice shaking slightly. “He can’t take you because he isn’t here.”
I slam my hand into the side of the car and stare into her face, which everyone says is a carbon copy of mine. I’ve never been able to see it.
The only thing I see when I look into her face is Ben.
* * *
4 Years, 9 Months Earlier
Ohio
“Tell me. How did I turn into an angsty teenager? I’m almost 21. I thought I was too old for this crap.”
I toss my mom’s afghan to the side impatiently, and turn to face Ben, who’s sitting on the couch in his apartment, absorbed in his computer.
He looks up. “What do you mean?”
“You know, angsty. Angst-ridden, full of angst?”
I glance into his eyes and see that he’s trying desperately not to laugh. I’m not amused.
“In case you weren’t paying attention in high school health class, it means consumed with the weight of the human condition. More specifically, it means I’m obsessed with the relation of the human condition to my own messed-up life. It’s practically a stage of human development.”
I punctuate the statement with a smirk. Now I’m not the only one who’s annoyed.
“In case you forgot, I’m an English major, Hals. My senior thesis is basically a manifesto on the development of the angst-ridden hero in science fiction, so I’m well aware of the definition. But thanks.”
“Jerkface.” I flip him off, but that only makes him appear more like a jack-o-lantern. “I’m trying to spill my guts here and all you want to talk about man-eating dinosaurs or some crap like that.”
“So, spill your guts. It’s better than watching you mope in silence. I really hope we’re talking figurative gut-spilling here. Although I do have to admit, literal gut spilling would be more in line with this thesis that I need to finish.”
“No, no, it’s fine. I’ll just deal with my angst in silence.”
I’m only half-kidding. He had done more than his fair share of listening to me whine about my pathetic self. I had been unable to string a coherent sentence about anything interesting together for months now. I was basically a walking CW show and about two seconds away from referring to myself in the third person.
Ben puts his computer down and opens his arms in an invitation. He leans back on the sofa, his head tilted slightly to the side, and studies me cautiously.
“Come here, Hals.”
“I don’t want to.”
“Stop being petulant. In case you didn’t know, that means childishly sulky.”
I stick my tongue out at him, and we