Chap­ter 23

On Sun­day after­noon, I get two pieces of good news:
First, Andrew man­aged to refund the tick­ets and I won’t have to work for free.
Sec­ond, Cecelia is going to be gone for two whole weeks.
I’m not sure which of these rev­e­la­tions I’m hap­pi­er about. I’m glad I don’t have to shell out mon­ey for the tick­ets. But I’m even hap­pi­er that I don’t have to wait on Cecelia any­more. The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree with that one.

Cecelia has packed enough lug­gage to last her at least one year. I swear to God, it’s like she’s put every­thing she owns in those bags, and then if there was any space left, she filled it with rocks. That’s how it feels as I’m car­ry­ing the bags out to Nina’s Lexus.

“Please be care­ful with that, Mil­lie.” Nina watch­es me fret­ful­ly as I sum­mon super­hu­man strength to lift the bags into her trunk. My palms are bright red from where I was hold­ing the straps. “Please don’t break any­thing.”

What could Cecelia pos­si­bly be car­ry­ing to camp that’s so frag­ile? Don’t they most­ly just bring cloth­ing and books and bug spray? But far be it from me to ques­tion her. “Sor­ry.”

When I get back in the house to retrieve the last of Cecelia’s bags, I catch Andrew jog­ging down the stairs. He catch­es me about to lift the mon­strous piece of lug­gage and his eyes widen.

“Hey,” he says. “I’ll car­ry that for you. That looks real­ly heavy.”

“I’m fine,” I insist, only because Nina is com­ing out of the garage.

“Yes, she’s got it, Andy.” Nina wags a fin­ger. “You need to be care­ful about your bad back.”

He shoots her a look. “My back is fine. Any­way, I want to say good­bye to Cece.”

Nina pulls a face. “Are you sure you won’t come with us?”

“I wish I could,” he says. “But I can’t miss an entire day of work tomor­row. I’ve got meet­ings in the after­noon.”

She sniffs. “You always put work first.”

He gri­maces. I don’t blame him for being hurt by her comment—as far as I can tell, it’s com­plete­ly untrue. Despite being a suc­cess­ful busi­ness­man, Andrew is home every sin­gle night for din­ner. He does occa­sion­al­ly go to work on the week­ends, but he’s also attend­ed two dance recitals this month, one piano recital, a fourth-grade grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, a karate demon­stra­tion, and one night they were gone for hours for some sort of art show at the day school.

“I’m sor­ry,” he says any­way.

She sniffs again and turns her head. Andrew reach­es out to touch her arm, but she jerks it away and dash­es to the kitchen to get her purse. Instead, he heaves the last piece of lug­gage into his arms and goes out to the garage to dump it in the trunk and say good­bye to Cecelia, who is sit­ting in Nina’s snow-col­ored Lexus, wear­ing a lacy white dress that is wild­ly inap­pro­pri­ate for sum­mer camp. Not that I would ever say any­thing.

Two whole weeks with­out that lit­tle mon­ster. I want to jump with joy. But instead, I turn my lips down. “It will be sad with­out Cecelia here this month,” I say as Nina comes back out of the kitchen.

“Real­ly?” she says dry­ly. “I thought you couldn’t stand her.”

My jaw drops open. I mean, yes, she’s right that Cecelia and I have not hit it off. But I didn’t real­ize she knew I felt that way. If she knows that, does she real­ize I’m not a big fan of Nina her­self either?

Nina smooths down her white blouse and goes back out to the garage. As soon as she leaves the room, it’s like all the ten­sion has been sucked out of me. I always feel on edge when Nina is around. It’s like she’s dis­sect­ing every­thing I do.

Andrew emerges from the garage, wip­ing his hands on his jeans. I love how he wears a T‑shirt and jeans on the week­ends. I love the way his hair gets tou­sled when he’s doing phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. I love the way he smiles and winks at me.

I won­der if he feels the same way I do about Nina leav­ing.

“So,” he says, “now that Nina is gone, I have a con­fes­sion to make.”

“Oh?”

A con­fes­sion? I’m mad­ly in love with you. I’m going to leave Nina so we can run off togeth­er to Aru­ba.

Nah, not too like­ly.

“I couldn’t get a refund on those show tick­ets.” He hangs his head. “I didn’t want Nina to give you a hard time over it. Or try to charge you, for Christ’s sake. I’m sure she was the one who told you the wrong date.”

I nod slow­ly. “Yes, she did, but… Well, any­way, thank you. I appre­ci­ate it.”

“So… I mean, you should take the tick­ets. Go to the city tonight and see the show with a friend. And you can stay at The Plaza hotel room overnight.”

I almost gasp. “That’s so gen­er­ous.”

The right side of his lips quirks up. “Well, we’ve got the tick­ets. Why should they go to waste? Enjoy it.”

“Yeah…” I toy with the hem of my T‑shirt, think­ing. I can’t imag­ine what Nina would say if she found out. And I have to admit, just the thought of going gives me anx­i­ety. “I appre­ci­ate the ges­ture, but I’ll pass on the show.”

“Real­ly? This is sup­posed to be the best show of the decade! You don’t like going to shows on Broad­way?”

He has no idea about my life—what I’ve been doing for the last decade.

“I’ve nev­er even been to a show on Broad­way.”

“Then you need to go! I insist!”

“Right, but…” I take a deep breath. “The truth is, I don’t have any­one to go with. And I don’t feel like going alone. So like I said, I’ll pass.”

Andrew stares at me for a moment, rub­bing his fin­ger against the slight stub­ble on his jaw. Final­ly, he says, “I’ll go with you.”

I raise my eye­brows. “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”

He hes­i­tates. “I know Nina has jeal­ousy issues, but that’s no rea­son to let these expen­sive tick­ets go to waste. And it’s a crime you’ve nev­er seen a show on Broad­way before. It’ll be fun.”

Yes, it will be fun. That’s what I’m wor­ried about, damn it.

I imag­ine my evening unfold­ing. Dri­ving out to Man­hat­tan in Andrew’s BMW, sit­ting in the orches­tra for one of the hottest shows on Broad­way,