Автор: Lauren Weisberger
Издательство: HarperCollins
Жанр: Классическая проза
isbn: 9780007528400
isbn:
Miranda called six more times between the hours of six and nine in the evening – midnight to three A.M. her time – to have us connect her to various people who were already in Paris. I fielded them listlessly, uneventfully, until I went to gather my things and try to sneak out for the night before the phone rang again. It wasn’t until I was climbing exhaustedly into my coat that I caught a glimpse of the note that I’d stuck to my monitor just so this very thing wouldn’t happen: CALL A, 3:30 P.M. TODAY. My head felt like it was swimming, my contacts had long before dried to tiny, hard shards covering my eyes, and at this point my head started to throb. No sharp pains, just that nebulous, dull kind of ache where you can’t pinpoint the center but you know it will build and build in a slow, burning intensity until you either manage to pass out or your head just explodes. In the frenzy of all the calls that had produced such anxiety, such panic, from across an ocean, I had forgotten to take the thirty seconds out of my day and call Alex when he’d asked me to. Simply up and forgotten to do something so simple for someone who never seemed to need anything from me.
I sat down in the now darkened and silent office and picked up the phone that was still a little wet from my sweaty hands during Miranda’s last call a few minutes earlier. His home line rang and rang until the machine picked up, but he answered on the first ring when I tried his cell phone.
‘Hi,’ he said, knowing it was me from the caller ID. ‘How was your day?’
‘Whatever, usual. Alex, I’m so sorry I didn’t call you at three-thirty. I can’t even get into it – it’s just that things were so crazy here, she just kept calling and—’
‘Hey, forget it. Not a big deal. Listen, now’s not really a great time for me. Can I call you tomorrow?’ He sounded distracted, his voice taking on that faraway quality of someone talking from an international payphone on the beach of a tiny village across the world.
‘Um, sure. But is everything OK? Will you just quickly tell me what you wanted to talk about before? I’ve been really worried that everything’s not OK.’
He was quiet for a moment and then said, ‘Yeah, well it doesn’t seem like you were all that worried. I ask you one time to call me at a time that’s convenient for me – not to mention that your boss isn’t even in the country right now – and you can’t manage to do that until six hours after the fact. Not really a sign of someone who’s genuinely concerned, you know?’ He stated all of this with no sarcasm, no disapproval, just a simple summary of the facts.
I was twisting the phone cord around my finger until it cut off the circulation entirely, making the knuckle bulge out and the tip turn white; there was also a brief, metallic taste of blood in my mouth, the first realization that I had been gnawing on the inside of my bottom lip.
‘Alex, it’s not that I forgot to call,’ I lied openly, trying to extricate myself from his nonaccusatory accusation. ‘I simply didn’t have a single second free, and since it sounded like something serious, I didn’t want to call just to have to hang up again. I mean, she must have called me two dozen times just this afternoon, and each one is an absolute emergency. Emily took off at five and left me all alone with that phone, and Miranda just didn’t stop. She just kept calling and calling and calling, and every time I went to call you, it’d be her again on the other line. I, uh, you know?’
My rapid-fire list of excuses sounded pathetic even to me, but I couldn’t stop. He knew I had just forgotten, and so did I. Not because I didn’t care or wasn’t concerned, but because all things non-Miranda somehow ceased to be relevant the moment I arrived at work. In some ways I still didn’t understand and certainly couldn’t explain – never mind ask anyone else to understand – how the outside world just melted into nonexistence, that the only thing remaining when everything else vanished was Runway. It was especially difficult to explain this phenomenon when it was the single thing in my life I despised. And yet, it was the only one that mattered.
‘Listen, I have to get back to Joey. He has two friends over and they’ve probably torn apart the entire house by this point.’
‘Joey? Does that mean you’re in Larchmont? You don’t usually watch him on Wednesdays. Is everything OK?’ I was hoping to steer him away from the blatantly obvious fact that I had gotten too wrapped up at work for six straight hours, and this seemed like the best path. He’d tell me how his mom had gotten held up at work accidentally or perhaps had to go see Joey’s teacher for conferences that night when the regular babysitter canceled. He’d never complain of course – that just wasn’t his style – but he’d at least tell me what was going on.
‘Yeah, yeah, everything’s fine. My mom just had an emergency client meeting tonight. Andy, I can’t really talk about it now. I was just calling before with some good news. But you didn’t call me back,’ he said flatly.
I wrapped the phone cord, which had begun to slowly unravel, so tight around my pointer and middle fingers that they began to pulsate. ‘I’m sorry’ was all I could manage, because even though I knew he was right, that I was insensitive not to have called, I was too worn out to present a huge defense. ‘Alex, please. Please don’t punish me by not telling me something good. Do you know how long it’s been since anyone has called with good news? Please. Give me that at least.’ I knew he’d respond to my rational approach, and he did.
‘Look, it’s not that exciting. I just went ahead and made all the arrangements for us to go back for our first homecoming together.’
‘You did? Really? We’re going?’ I’d brought it up a couple times before in what I’d liked to believe had been an offhand and casual way, but in a decidedly non-Alex fashion he’d been hedging on committing to our going together. It was really early to be planning any of it, but the hotels and restaurants in Providence were always full months ahead of time. I’d dropped it a few weeks earlier, figuring that we would figure something out, find a place to stay somewhere. But somehow, of course, he’d picked up on just how badly I wanted to go with him, and he’d figured out everything.
‘Yeah, it’s done. We have a rental car – a Jeep, actually – and I reserved a room at the Biltmore.’
‘At the Biltmore? You’re kidding? You got a room there? That’s amazing.’
‘Yeah, well, you’ve always talked about wanting to stay there, so I figured we should try it. I even made a reservation for brunch on Sunday at Al Forno for ten people, so we can each gather up the troops and have everyone in one place at one time.’
‘No way. You did all of this already?’
‘Sure. I thought you’d be really psyched. That’s why I was really looking forward to telling you about it. But apparently you were too busy to call back.’
‘Alex, I’m thrilled. I can’t even tell you how excited I am, and I can’t believe you figured everything out already. I’m really sorry about before, but I can’t wait for October. We’re going to have the best time, thanks to you.’
We talked for another couple minutes. By the time I hung up, he didn’t sound mad anymore, but I could barely move. The effort to win him back, to find the right words not only to convince him that I hadn’t overlooked him but also to reassure him that I was appropriately СКАЧАТЬ