Page 4 of One Little Favor
Tom
If you don’t want me to ignore you, stop being such a dick. I’m working.
Jeremey
You can give me 2 seconds of your time to respond to my messages.
Tom
I already did. Your 2 seconds are up.
Jeremey
Okay, so dinner it is. Sunday night. Anne has already made reservations for four. Then we’ll stop by your office Monday before we fly to Chicago.
I don’t want any part of this. I don’t want to see them, or have them here in my office, or eat a meal with them. Or hear whatever proposal Jeremy will have to entice me back to the family business.
But if I go, I will get them off my back for hopefully another entire year. If I don’t, it’ll raise all kinds of questions and then I’ll be inundated with text messages and calls from my family. The only person I can stand the thought of even talking to is my youngest sister, Abigail. Everyone else can go to hell for all I care. But I think about what it would mean to Abigail to hear that I’m happy and successful. To be sitting at Christmas dinner with the family I know she can hardly stand, but whom she’s dependent on because of her health, and to hear Jeremy say that he saw me in New York, and that I’m doing well for myself. Maybe it would be the sign she needed that she, too, could break away from our toxic family?
Tom
Can’t do dinner Sunday night. The girlfriend will be out of town visiting her parents for Christmas. Monday I have a deposition in the morning. You can stop by the office in the afternoon.
Jeremey
The girlfriend? Doesn’t she even have a name?
Tom
As if I’d tell you her name. I’ll see you Monday afternoon.
Jeremey
We are keeping the dinner reservation and you’d better show up. Anne will send you the details.
Jeremey
And bring the girlfriend. I don’t care if you have to send the family jet to pick her up and take her back to her parents’ house after. Bring her.
I slip my phone back into my pocket without answering, then sit in my white box of isolation, staring at the blank walls. It’s never bothered me before, but now that I see it as I know Jeremy and Anne will see it, I can’t wait to make some changes.
My chair hits the wall of windows behind me as it rolls back from where I’ve stood suddenly. Without thinking too much about it, I’m striding toward my door. Toward the one person I know can help make this right. She has a boyfriend, and she’s my employee, so I can’t ask her to pretend to be my girlfriend for a night, but at least I can ask for her help with the office situation.
Her voice carries through the door to my office as I approach it, so I crack it open quietly. Normally she’s so attuned to what I need that her head would snap up the minute my door opened even slightly, but she’s distracted enough by her phone call that she doesn’t notice me standing there.
Avery sits at her desk, her back ramrod straight like always, and her hair in the high bun she almost always wears in the office. I can’t stop imagining what it would be like to take the pins out and let her hair fall down, to wrap it around my fist as I tilt her face up to kiss her.
Shit, I need to stop picturing that before it’s physically obvious what I’m thinking about!
Her friend, that quirky girl who wears round Harry Potter glasses and suspenders with her skirts, is standing across from Avery’s desk—she’s hyperfocused on whatever is happening via this phone call, a look of concern on her face, and she also doesn’t notice me.
“Mom,” Avery says, but her voice sounds like she’s forcing cheerfulness into it, “this is going to be so good for you guys. Dad needs this trip.Youneed it. Go let someone else do all the work for a week while you and Dad soak up the sunshine and enjoy the Caribbean. Really, I will be one hundred percent fine.”
Really. There’s that word. When it comes out of Avery’s mouth, I always get the sense that she means the opposite.
In fact, the more she talks, the more she sounds like she’s sick to her stomach but pretending to be happy about it. I know she’s very close to her parents and was looking forward to spending next week with them. Now it sounds like they’re going on a cruise instead. I’d feel bad for her if this weren’t such a win for me right now.
“I am, Mom,” she says. “I’ve got to go, but I’ll call you tonight.”
