“I have no intention of firing you. You’re too good at your job. If you want out, you’re going to have to quit.” She reached for my phone because hers was in her bag in the back seat.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Chris.”
I grabbed the phone before she did. “Are you still high? You’re not calling him! Do you hear me? You’re not going to take him away from me!”
She turned her head and looked at me fully, for as long as she could before it became dangerous and she had to look back at the road, and I almost thought she was going to pull over so she could stare at me some more.
The truth of the matter had dawned on her though. “I get it,” she said. “For you, this is a choice. It’s me or him.”
“Yup,” I said sharply.
“And you choose him.”
I nodded. “I choose him.”
I saw that hurt her. Finally. And my numbness had obviously turned to malice, because I distinctly remember feeling victory over that. I had wanted to hurt her. I wanted her to hate me.
For the rest of the way, we drove in silence. And when we pulled in to Mill Valley, I said, “Drop me off at Equator.”
She parked across the street from the coffee shop and said, “Don’t leave. Please. We need to talk.”
I grabbed my backpack from the back seat. Before I got out of the car, I said, “Don’t tell him. There’s nothing else to talk about.”
She glared at me. “You don’t get to tell me what to do, Joe. You don’t get to be the only one who has a say in what’s happening between us.”
“There is no us!” I shouted. “That’s why there’s no point in telling him. This is nothing. And if you hurt him for nothing, then you’re just cruel.”
I got out of the car, walked across the street and into Equator; only then did I look back to see if she’d driven away.
She had.
I didn’t order any coffee—too many people in line. I sat at one of the small tables against the wall of windows and waited for the queue to die down. It was a warm, sunny Sunday, and the place was packed. To my left, a mom was cutting up a waffle for her young daughter. To my right, a couple in yoga clothes were discussing their food allergies with the gravity of a United Nations Security Council meeting. A group of guys in cycling gear were loitering out on the sidewalk with little cups of espresso. Everyone talking and snacking and living the lives they wanted to be living, and I was alone.
I took out my phone and sent Cal a text that said: All is well here. We miss you, brother.
I saw Rae’s car turn the corner and head out of town.
I looked down at my jeans, pressed my thumb onto the black fingerprint above my knee, and imagined October could feel it on her leg.
Pathetic.
SEVENTEEN.
There’s a type of spider native to southern Africa. It’s called the wheel spider, and it cartwheels away from threatening situations when it senses it’s in danger. In fact, it’s so adept at getting away from perilous circumstances that it can do almost fifty cartwheels a minute to escape.
I was the human equivalent of the wheel spider, constantly tumbling away from anything that had the potential to hurt me. Because I can talk until I’m blue in the face about how I hadn’t wanted to hurt Cal, and that was true, I would have rather cut off my strumming hand than betrayed him again. But I had a hunch that even if October’s boyfriend had been a stranger to me, even if she hadn’t had a boyfriend at all, I would have made up a dozen other reasons to spin away from her.
Later that afternoon, when I got back to Casa Diez, October was in the yard with Diego, playing the wolfhound version of fetch. Wolfhounds aren’t known for their retrieving skills; every now and then Diego would go get the ball if you threw it, but he wouldn’t bring it back. He would just hold it in his mouth and circle you in big, gawky gallops, trying to coax you into chasing him for it.
Diego dropped the ball and ran to my side when he saw me, his tail wag like a whip against my leg. October stood still, arms crossed in front of her chest, watching me.