Overdue - 2

I didn’t turn on the lights. I dropped my keys onto the table beside the front door where they belonged but only out of habit. I sank to my apartment floor in a puddle. Prickly carpeting smooshed into my face. I had sobbed and screamed the entire drive home— why the fuck did you do that, how could you be so fucking stupid —and now my body went into shock. I couldn’t remember the last time I had felt this humiliated or ashamed. How could I have misjudged Macon’s friendship in such a monumental way? It was such a rookie mistake, so pubescent.

The horror in his eyes.

My chest squeezed, and my arms went numb. I thought I’d triggered a heart attack until I realized the numbness was only because I was lying on top of them. I wiggled them out and let them tingle painfully. I relished the physicality of this pain because it aligned with what was happening to me mentally.

The floor vibrated beneath my cheek. A young couple who attended the local college lived below me, and one of them was walking from their bedroom toward their kitchen. The guy called out something that sounded like a question. His girlfriend gave a muffled response.

I fumbled for the phone in my bag, which had fallen onto the carpet beside me.

It was bad , I texted Kat. So bad. Going-to-have-to-get-another-job bad.

I stared at the screen, waiting for her usual quick response. It didn’t come, which meant she was probably commuting. We’d found each other nearly a decade earlier in the book circles of social media, and we often chatted during our overlapping waking hours. Despite the actual ocean between us, whenever I said or did something stupid, Kat was my first line of defense. But Cory was my second. He was the one who hugged me, who told me everything would be okay—and then reminded me of all the times that he’d done something similarly idiotic. It felt bizarre that he wasn’t here. That I couldn’t tell him about my day.

All of my muscles tensed as the incident replayed in my mind. Macon had run away from me. I cried again: for Kat, for Cory, for a time machine.

My screen lit up, and my heart leapt. Kat!

Did your car start? Are you home?

Macon.

Despite everything, he was still making sure that I was safe. My skin crawled with renewed shame. I wanted to ignore him, but he’d only drive back to the library and then retrace the route to my apartment, worried that I was stranded someplace with a dead phone. He had saved me from the side of the road before. I typed and deleted, typed and deleted, until I finally settled on this: I’m home. I’m sorry. I don’t know what I was thinking. All I can say is that it’s been a strange week. If it’s okay with you, let’s pretend that never happened.

It took a full minute—I watched the clock—before the three dots appeared. Unlike me, Macon thought about his reply before typing it.

No worries.

That was it.

God. What a disaster.

I hadn’t been exaggerating when I’d told Kat that I’d have to get another job. Returning to work and sitting beside him for forty hours a week was unthinkable. The level of not thinking that had gone into all of this was extraordinary. It wasn’t as if I hadn’t considered the possibility that he might turn me down, but … I honestly believed he wouldn’t. How could I have been so cocky, so overconfident to assume that my feelings were mutual? On what planet had I been living for all these years? I didn’t know if I could give Sue a single day’s notice, let alone a full two weeks. How would I explain my sudden departure to her? Where would I find another job? Would the library at the college hire me or would they require a more advanced degree?

My screen lit up again.

WHAT HAPPENED?

I scrambled to my feet, lurched onto my couch, and burritoed myself in a blanket. Can you talk? I asked, and my phone immediately rang with an incoming FaceTime call.

“It was bad,” I said through a fresh burst of tears.

“I can barely see you. Where are you? Are you all right?” Kat was standing outside her library. Her hair was in its usual practical ponytail, and her light brown skin was tanned and generously freckled. She glowed in the morning summer sun of the Southern hemisphere.

My own glow was pale and haunted, illuminated only by my screen. “Oh God. It was bad.”

“So you keep saying. What happened?” As I told her, she gasped in all the right places. “Are you sure he wasn’t just startled?” she asked, although her expression betrayed that even she didn’t believe this was a possibility. “Maybe he needs more time to think about it. About you.”

“He said the word no twice. He couldn’t have been clearer.”

“No, you’re right. No means no and all that.”

A thought, appalling and repugnant, seeped through me. “I’m one of those monsters—one of those hideous monsters who sexually harasses their coworkers.”

“You are not.”

“I am. Oh my God, I am.”

“Did you accept his no?”

“Of course, but—”

“Would you ever try anything like this again?”

“Of course not, but—”

“End of discussion.”

Seconds passed. I was finding it hard to look at her. “I fucked up,” I finally said.

“Yep.”

“It’s going to be so awkward at work.”

“Yep.”

I moaned. “What am I supposed to do?”

“About Macon?”

“Macon, my job, everything. All of it.”

“Cory?”

“What about Cory?” I asked.

Kat appeared to be searching for the right way to phrase her next question. “Are you sure this is something you still want to do? This arrangement with Cory?”

“Yeah, I just”—my voice lowered into a confession—“thought it would be easier than this.”

Her guffaw was sharp and unexpected, and she instantly looked repentant. “Sorry. But you know that’s absurd, right? Why do you think the dating industry is worth billions of dollars?”

“I know, but—”

“If you really want to do this, you’ll have to pull your shit together and get out there.”

“Says the married woman,” I said petulantly. Kat was a little older than me. When we met, she was already married, and they had a child now. I hadn’t witnessed her dating years.

“Well, you better believe Cory isn’t sitting alone in his Airbnb right now, sobbing to a mate on the phone.”

Reality dipped. I saw Cory in a crowded room with thumping bass, leaning in close to chat up an alluring woman. The temptress smiled back at him and licked her teeth.

Lightheadedness and nausea rolled through me.

“You need to leave your apartment”—Kat was getting bossy now—“and meet a man you don’t work with.”

“Okay. Okay.” I nodded even though my head was still swimming. “How do I do that?”

“You know, go to a pub or bar or whatever.”

“Alone?”

Her eyes widened in alarm. “No. You have to bring somebody, a friend to keep you company and help you watch out for scumbags.”

“Right.” I shook my head. “It’s been a long time since I’ve done this.”

“You’ve never done this.”

“Right. I’ve never done this.”

“Here’s what you’re gonna do: Wash your face, eat dinner, go to bed. And while you sleep, I’m going to come up with a brilliant plan.”

Panic bubbled back to the surface. “No, I need to go out tonight. Now.”

“You need to go to bed now.”

“I’m serious, I can’t stay here. I can’t sit with this. I have to get out.”

“Out to where?”

“To a bar! Like you said.”

“With whom?”

It was a good question, and it stopped my spiral. Sue and Alyssa were out of the question, and most of the other people I hung out with were actually Cory’s friends from work. “What if I went alone,” I said, “just for tonight—”

“Abso-fucking-lutely not. You’re a disaster.”

“Thanks,” I said, managing to feel even worse.

“Listen to me. I’m saying that it would be dangerous for you to go out alone tonight. You’re in a bad headspace, and I don’t want you doing something you’ll regret.”

This got through to me, and I relented. Deflated.

A flash of light, a reflection, shone behind Kat. My library overlooked a glorified pond while hers overlooked an entire ocean. “What about Brittany?” she asked.

I hesitated. “I don’t know. Cory and I are both friends with her.”

“But aren’t you closer friends with her?”

“I guess. Maybe.”

I was. When our former downstairs neighbors, Brittany and Reza Najafi, had moved into a house across town the previous autumn, I was the one who’d made the extra effort to stay in touch. Cory had only visited their new place once for their housewarming party, but I’d been over a few additional times to help them paint and decorate. I’d also helped Brittany scour some garage and estate sales for furniture to fill up all that new empty space.

“So,” Kat said, “claim her before Cory can.”

The notion chilled me. We hadn’t broken up, yet lines were being drawn. Kat wasn’t wrong, though. “I wish you could come with me,” I said.

Her face fell, and I knew she wished it, too.

“Stupid Australia,” I said glumly.

“Stupid America.”

“You have to get to work.”

“I do. Text me if you need me, all right?”

We hung up, and I called Brittany, no text beforehand, no chance to change my mind. She answered on the third ring, sounding worried. “What’s going on? Are you okay?”

It depressed me that most people assumed a call meant something bad had happened. Unfortunately, it was often true. “Yeah.” I sniffed. “I mean, no. But yeah.”

“Are you crying? Did your car break down again?”

Cory and Macon weren’t the only people who had saved me from the side of the road. Reza had jumped my car once in a Taco Bell parking lot.

“Is she okay? Where is she?” a voice asked in the background.

“I’m at home,” I said.

“She’s home,” Brittany said to her husband.

The whole complicated and humiliating story spilled out of me. Although I was speaking to Brittany, I was aware of Reza’s presence, too. They were shocked to hear about the situation with Cory and equally shocked that I had made a move on my own coworker.

“You have to help me,” I begged. “Go out with me.”

“To a bar?” Brittany asked.

“Yes! I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“And you think I do?”

The question was valid. One of the reasons we had all become friends was because we were the same age and in committed relationships when none of our other young friends were. We were all twenty-two at the time, fresh out of college. Brittany’s parents were devout evangelical Christians from Alabama, and Reza’s parents were devout Shia Muslims from Pakistan, and the only way they could live together without upsetting everybody was by getting married. So they did. Like Kat, they were already married when we met, but like Cory and me, they didn’t have children.

“Please.” My voice cracked, the dam readying to burst again. “I can’t do this alone.”

Resignation descended on the other line. “Fine. Once. I’ll be your wingman once . Wingwoman. Oh God. The wingwoman isn’t also trying to sleep with strangers, is she?”

Gratitude overwhelmed me. “I have no idea. But obviously mine isn’t.”

“So on Friday, we’ll find a bar or wherever single people go these days—”

“Friday?” My gratitude plummeted. “That’s three days away.”

“O-kaaay. We’ll go tomorrow—”

“That’s a whole twenty-four hours from now!”

“I’m sorry,” Brittany said. Not sorry. “You’re asking me to go tonight ?”

“Please.” I was on the verge of hysteria. From the heated silence, I could tell that Brittany and Reza were frantically communicating in some way.

“I can’t,” she said after a minute. “You can’t. For one thing, it’s snowing.”

“People in Minnesota drive in the snow every day, and they’re fine.”

“Everything will be closed.”

“No way. There are always people who need alcohol. Something will be open.”

More silence on the other end of the line. More assumed communication.

Reza picked up. “Hey, Ingrid.” He still had a light accent from his childhood in Karachi. “We understand your emergency, so here’s our offer. Brit isn’t comfortable driving in this weather, so I’ll come get you—”

“I don’t mind driving. It’s barely snowing.” It was snowing more than barely, but who cared?

“Ah, but you see, I do mind you driving to a bar in your crappy Volkswagen when there’s ice on the road. My Subaru has four-wheel drive. So I’ll drive you and Brit wherever you need to go, I’ll stay invisible and sober, and then, whenever you’re ready, I’ll drive you home.”

“Isn’t the point for me to go home with somebody else? Or for somebody to come home with me?” I wasn’t sure.

“She’s right,” Brittany said in the background.

“This is a nightmare,” Reza said.

Brittany texted when they arrived, and I dashed outside. Reza drove a truck—a package car, they called them—for UPS, so he placed a high value on speed and punctuality. Fear gripped me. As I’d cleaned myself up, I realized Kat was right. I should have gone to bed and cried myself to sleep. This was insanity. All of this could wait until tomorrow. But I had already begged, and Brittany and Reza were going out of their way to help. There was no backing out now.

A gust of snowflakes whirled in behind me as I slid into their back seat. Reza stared me down in the rearview mirror. “For the record, I still think this is a bad idea. I’m only here to make sure you don’t go home with Ted Bundy.”

“Understood,” I said.

“I mean, all of this is bad. This temporary breakup is a terrible idea. The worst idea I’ve ever heard.”

Brittany turned to face me. “Don’t listen to him. We’re just … a little weirded out. We support you—you know we support you and Cory—but…”

“I know,” I said so she wouldn’t have to finish the thought.

Reza shook his head but began to drive. “Where are we going?”

I was embarrassed not to have an answer.

“Also for the record,” he said, “I agree that every place will be closed because of the snow. I’m getting that out of the way now so I won’t have to gloat later when I’m right.”

“Oh, you’ll gloat if you’re right,” Brittany said.

“I will absolutely gloat,” he said.

Thankfully, Brittany had come prepared and was ready with the save. “I thought maybe that cider house by the river? The one with that giant Friar Tuck mural. I’ve never been there, but there are always tons of cars out front. I bet they’ll be open.”

“They will not be open,” Reza said. But he glanced at me for the okay.

“That’ll be fine.” I nodded vigorously. “That sounds perfect. Thank you.”

The large number of apple orchards nearby had given rise to Ridgetop’s unusual alcohol of choice, hard cider, and the town had several rival cideries. Locals and tourists flocked to these establishments year-round, but I generally only went when we were meeting up with Cory’s friends. I preferred going out for dinner, not drinks. Or even better, not going out at all.

I fidgeted with the large buttons on my coat. I had changed out of my work clothes—I would have to burn them— the horror in his eyes as he stumbled backward — No. Ingrid. No. —and into a cute thrifted dress and my nicest coat. I was paranoid that wherever we were going would be filled with carefree youths in trendy denim, but I also believed it was better to be overdressed than under.

Brittany turned to give me an encouraging smile. “You look great.”

“You do, too,” I said. She always did.

Brittany wasn’t merely beautiful; she was dramatically gorgeous. She was curvaceous and fat with tremendous breasts and a heart-shaped face. Her dark eyes and dark hair were always exquisitely made up, and because she was a seamstress, her clothing always hugged her in all the right places. Tonight her dress was violet with a pattern of flying cranes. The fabric looked like silk, and the neckline plunged, but she had paired it with a casual jacket that effortlessly toned the whole thing down. Her appearance was living and breathing art.

I was her physical opposite. When I was young and scrawny, my mother had assured me I would grow into my body in adulthood, and I mostly had. My hips had filled out, a little, and my breasts had rounded, a little. But I did have long legs for my average height, and my hair was naturally blond, a color that other women paid a lot of money for. The mole on my left cheek that I’d lobbied so hard to have removed as a teenager now added character, and my eyes were large and wide, which lent an unusual openness to my face. As a child, strangers had found it spooky and off-putting. As an adult, it made them want to tell me their secrets.

I had settled into a quiet type of pretty. Like a Scandinavian deer , Cory had said not long after we’d first met. I still treasured the compliment. I had felt gawky and gangly, eyes bulging and limbs knocking, and he’d been the first person to frame it as something beautiful and mysterious. He had changed the way I thought about myself.

“Just to be clear,” I said, scooting forward to talk to Reza, “Cory and I are still together. Earlier you called it a ‘temporary breakup,’ but we haven’t broken up. We’re taking a break. There’s a huge difference.”

“‘We were on a break!’” Brittany said in a very particular voice.

I flinched, and Brittany cackled.

“Is that Friends ?” Reza asked. “You know I’ve never seen a single episode, but even I’m aware that after Ross slept with somebody else, Rachel never forgave him.”

“Which is why Ingrid and Cory are both sleeping with other people,” Brittany said.

“And we planned this,” I said, grateful for the unexpected backup. “Ross and Rachel didn’t plan anything.”

“Ross and Rachel also hadn’t been together for over a decade,” Reza said.

“How do you know if you’ve never seen a single episode?” Brittany asked.

“Had they?” he asked, indignant.

“No.”

Brittany and Reza dissolved into the easy laughter of best friends. With a pang, I realized they sounded like Cory and me. Or Macon and me.

I needed to stop thinking about Cory and Macon.

The snow was still coming down steadily, and the streets were deserted, so it was a surprise when we finally caught sight of the cider house. Its parking lot was packed, and its windows blazed with life. The jovial friar painted on the side of the building was laughing and toasting our arrival with a sloshing tankard. Brittany crowed to Reza, “It’s open!”

But his eyes had already snagged on something else. “Uh, I don’t want to alarm anyone, but—”

The next four words reached me in a ringing haze.

“—isn’t that Cory’s car?”

It was Cory’s car. I could tell even with the curated mass of vinyl on his rear windshield—stickers of obscure DIY bands and comic books and demands to buy local—covered by snow. It’d been parked for a while. My vision dimmed, and I grew faint.

Reza slowed as he drove past it. “Now what?”

“Are you okay?” Brittany asked me.

“I need instructions!” he said.

“Go! Isn’t there another place just up the river? There must be a dozen of them around here.”

Their voices faded as I searched for the familiar figure though the crowded windows, which were framed in blinking Christmas lights. I couldn’t make out anything inside, but the lights flashed a redundant warning. Cory was in there, and I was out here, and our town was way too small.

The next several cider houses we tried were all closed, but Reza didn’t gloat. Seeing Cory’s car had shifted something inside him. He was serious now, more determined to help. Or perhaps his motivation stemmed from sympathy and resignation.

We drove around for half an hour before landing at Blue Glass Brewery. Even from the outside, the location wasn’t promising. Few cars were parked out front, and there were no friendly painted ambassadors to greet us. But the lights were on, and the door was unlocked. Desperation propelled me forward.

The microbrewery had all the bland hallmarks of modern design: polished concrete, reclaimed wood, chalkboard menu, Edison bulbs. The potent bleach smell underscoring the aroma of fermentation was the only thing that separated it from any other taproom in the country, not to mention any coffee shop or boutique hotel. Brittany and I selected a table in the warmest-looking corner. Remembering his role, Reza took a seat alone on a barstool overlooking the street.

“I’ll get us something to drink,” Brittany said.

Beer excited me even less than cider, but there was no way I could handle doing this sober. I supposed that was the whole point of meeting people in bars. Unfortunately, this one was quiet. There were eight other people here, seven of them men. The most attractive, who wasn’t even my type, was wearing a wedding band. The second most attractive was the bartender. I wasn’t positive, but it seemed like bad etiquette to hit on the person who was being paid to serve me. Another man was on a date. One was old enough to be my father, one was sloppily drunk and monologuing to the table beside him, and the two at that table looked like they might have stormed the Capitol building. My mood grew even bleaker.

I gave the bartender another look. He had a ring on, too.

Brittany returned with two glasses. “We suck at this. You should have been the one to go up there, not me. The bartender … he’s not bad.”

I gestured to my ring finger.

“Oh. Shit. I forgot to look for that.”

“I feel awful. Reza’s over there alone, drinking water.”

“He’s fine. He’s playing a game on his phone.”

“It was nice of him to drive us.”

“He’s the best,” she said simply as she scoped out the rest of the room. Her face slackened with disappointment.

“Yep,” I said miserably.

“So … we wait? For other people to arrive? Is that how this goes?”

“I don’t know. Maybe?” I sipped my beer. It was all wrong, too citrusy and sunny for a night and a place like this. “I guess we should have looked around before ordering.”

“That’s okay. This is how people learn, right? We’re learning.”

“I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do if I see someone I am interested in. Like, am I supposed to just … approach him? And what are we supposed to talk about?”

“I don’t know. Whatever you’d normally talk about, I guess.”

“Books? Somehow, I don’t think talking about books would be considered sexy.”

“For the right person, it would be.”

My heart sank. “Please don’t.”

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t say his name.”

“Who?”

“Macon.”

It seemed impossible that she wasn’t referring to him, but she looked genuinely confused. “Oh,” she said. “Right.”

I supposed she didn’t know much about him, though. Maybe she’d heard me mention him as a work friend, but she hadn’t heard of him as an object of interest until tonight.

“Maybe”—Brittany sounded hesitant—“you should go flirt with those men?”

She was talking about the insurrection guys. “Oh my God. No.”

“For practice!”

I glared daggers at her.

She shrugged helplessly. “It’s just that I’m still not sure what we’re doing here.”

“Well, I’m not sure either, okay?” I hadn’t meant to snap at her, and I shrank back and into myself. “I’m sorry.”

“Hey. Hey ,” she said, waiting until I looked at her. Her expression was serious, and for a moment, it grounded me. Then it reminded me of Macon again, and my heart cracked back open and bled. “We’ll figure this out,” she said. “Let’s give it some time.”

We drank slowly. The taproom was lackluster and quiet, and even the music was so low that I could barely hear it. I felt awful for dragging my friends into this listless hellhole. I checked my phone and found a message from Kat: How many men have you kissed so far?

None, but a guy my dad’s age keeps leering at Brittany.

“Look at us, hanging out at a bar and checking our phones,” Brittany said, and I wondered if she’d been texting Reza. I didn’t tell her about the lech sitting behind her, because I didn’t want to make her night even worse. “This place sucks.” She shoved her drink away. “Blue Glass Brewery. And yet our glasses are clear.”

I pointed at an industrial pendant light. “They couldn’t even make the fixtures blue.”

“I’m so sick of these places that look like they were designed by one of Zuckerberg’s shitty algorithms.”

I pushed my drink across the table and clinked it against hers in a low-key cheers.

The brewery had a drafty chill. I stood to shrug my coat back on, giving up on looking cute, and noticed Reza still sitting by himself. I headed over to his barstool. He glanced up from a colorful jeweled puzzle game, and I jerked my head toward our table. He slipped his phone into his pocket, grabbed his sparkling water with lime, and joined us.

“We were just talking about how awful this place is,” I said, which made Brittany sort of laugh, so I sort of laughed, too. “God. What did I expect would happen?”

“That you would meet some strapping bar hunk who would whisk you back to his place and fuck your brains out?” Reza said.

My laughter grew louder as humility mixed in with my humiliation. But then my emotions turned again, and I started crying and gasping, and nothing was funny at all.

Reza placed a solid hand on my back. “Breathe. Breathe.”

I couldn’t. I couldn’t.

“You don’t have to do any of this tonight,” Brittany said, hastening to my side and whispering the permission I needed. “We can leave right now.”

The moon’s reflection on the fallen snow illuminated the town with an eerie brightness as they drove me home. It looked like the midnight version of high noon. In the raucous cider house, phantom women circled Cory. Maybe he’d already taken one of them back to his place. Or maybe he was inside one of their apartments, naked and warm and tangled into a new position, something I wasn’t flexible enough to achieve.

I saw Macon stumbling backward against the doors. No. Ingrid. No.

The snow was coming down harder. My cold fingers grasped each other. I held my own hand because no one was there to hold it for me.