Page 77 of Fox
“So, be ready, Lucy Vidal Bennett, because I’m going to sweep you off your feet.”
“You’re very sure of yourself,” she teases.
“I’m sure of you,” I retort.
“Okay,” she says with a broad smile, and I can see she’s feeling better. “Now that you’re being so understanding about so many things, may I drive the?—”
“No, I will drive you there.”
She sighs. “You’re so…controlling.”
“Get used to it.” I open the passenger side door for her. “You’re stuck with me for life.”
28
THIS IS A DINER
LUCY
Dina’s apartment is above the restaurant, which is either convenient or inescapable depending on your mood, accessible by a staircase on the outside of the building that Dina and I decorated with potted plants and string lights.
It’s filled with the accumulated evidence of a person who buys things she loves without worrying about whether they match.
We have a Persian rug next to a mid-century chair next to a lamp Dina found at an estate sale in Brentwood. Books everywhere, the same eclecticism as mine, which is probably not a coincidence given that we have been exchanging books since we were twelve.
I don’t sleep well the first night.
I’ve gotten used to sleeping with Fox.
I’ve been sleeping with him for two years now. And these past weeks have been especially wonderful. I’ve been seen. Taken care of.
I lie staring at the ceiling, not sure if I’ve made a mistake by leaving.
“You want your marriage to work, so you left?” Dina asked me when we dug into the mango sorbet I made before the accident.
“When you put it that way, it doesn’t make sense.”
“Explain this to me, babe.”
I licked my spoon thoughtfully. “We both were lying and the accident and time after feel like a time out…a parallel universe situation. But now we’re back in the real, actual universe where I had moved out, and I just need us to find our footing again, honestly.”
Dina sighed. “Honestly, you both are a freaking train wreck. The cutest one I’ve ever seen. You love each other, and I think you both could be really happy.”
“How?”
“When you both can get out of your own way or pull your heads out of your respective asses,” she said with no little frustration.
Sleeping in this bedroom in some ways feels like I have returned to myself after a long trip. The jet lag is still present, but I at least know what time zone I’m in.
I feel the absence ofhim.
This is an annoying fact.
After tossing and turning and getting maybe four hours of sleep, I wake up when the alarm goes off, with no one—specifically Fox—saying, “Wake up, sweetheart.”
I get up and go downstairs to work, where I start with coffee.
My plan is simple. I get back to work. I rebuild the life that’s mine, independent of anyone else’s, and I think.
