Chaz pauses mid-lock.
“Excuse me,” he says. “But did you just whinny?”
“No,” I say quickly.
“My mistake,” he says and goes back to work on his locks.
He finally gets his door open, and I follow him inside, pleased by the blast of cool air that greets me from his many window units. Unlike Luke’s mother’s apartment, which took on a sort of fetid quality to it once I moved out (Mrs. de Villiers eventually started sending around a cleaning agency, after a weekend visit to the city proved that her son couldn’t be trusted to handle the responsibility of doing the dishes or cleaning the toilet on his own), Chaz’s is super-clean… except for the stacks of books and student papers piled everywhere.
But at least they’re very tidy piles.
“So what’ll you have?” Chaz asks, going into the eat-in kitchen (a rarity in Manhattan; apparently it makes up for one of the advertised bedrooms being no larger than a closet) and opening the refrigerator. “I got it all. Beer, wine, soda, vodka, gin, juice… what do you feel like?”
“What are you having?” I ask, leaning my elbow up against the pass-through, on which are balanced several stacks of library books.
He grabs a Corona from a six-pack on the bottom shelf and looks at me questioningly. I shake my head and say, “White wine would be good.”
“Coming up,” he says, and pulls out a bottle of pinot grigio from inside the refrigerator door. It’s already uncorked. It’s probably what Valencia drinks. That bitch. He just has to pull the stopper and pour. “So I’ve been meaning to ask you. What did you do to Ava Geck?”
I take the glass he offers to me. “What do you mean? I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Yeah, you did. She’s not slutty anymore. She hasn’t been on the cover of Us Weekly with a big ‘Censored by Us’ over her crotch in months.”
I smile and take a sip of my wine. “Oh,” I say. “That.”
“Yeah.” Chaz, to my surprise, sets a glass of ice down next to my elbow. To go with my wine.
He remembered. He remembered that I like my white wine with a side of ice.
I tell myself it doesn’t mean anything, though. Just because Luke never remembers, and Chaz does, doesn’t mean a thing. It’s Luke’s ring I’m wearing on the third finger of my left hand, not Chaz’s.
Because Chaz doesn’t even believe in engagement rings. Or weddings.
“So what’d you do to her?” Chaz wants to know. “She’s boring now.”
“She’s not boring,” I say. I try to keep speaking in a normal voice so he won’t notice how nonplussed I am by the ice. “She’s classy. She’s acting more the way someone who is about to be married to a prince should act. I’m sure his parents are pleased.”
“They might be,” Chaz says. “But millions of Us Weekly subscribers like myself aren’t. How’d you do it, anyway?”
“I merely suggested to her that it might be in her best interest not to be photographed climbing in and out of cars and boats with her legs completely spread apart,” I say.
“Like I said.” Chaz shrugs. “Boring. You’ve personally robbed thousands—perhaps millions—of teenage boys who spend their time combing the Internet looking for glimpses of Ava Geck’s Brazilian of their only chance at seeing one. May I just say, on their behalf, a collective and sarcastic thanks. A lot.”
I tip my wineglass in his direction. “You’re welcome. They can just learn about feminine hair removal by looking at their dads’ Playboys, the way the rest of us did.”
“Oooh,” Chaz says, coming out of the kitchen and into the living room, then sinking down into one of the gold couches, which are left over from his father’s law offices before they got a makeover. “Is that how you found out about it? This is getting interesting. Tell me about it. What was that like for you? Did you and Shari used to look at your dads’ Playboys together?”
I laugh. Infuriating as he is sometimes, Chaz really can be funny.
“Speaking of Shari,” I say, joining him on one of the matching couches. “What’s going on with you? I hear y-you’re—” Here it goes. I take a long, fortifying gulp of my wine, hoping it will keep me from stammering more. “Seeing someone.”
“News travels fast,” Chaz says. “Yeah, I am. A woman from my department, Valencia Delgado. She’s meeting us at the restaurant tonight. I think you’ll like her.”
Uh, no, I won’t.
Where is this feeling coming from? The same place the loop-de-loop came from? What’s happening to me? How could I have been so good for so long—six months—only to start falling apart now, so close to the finish line… or what would be the finish line, if Luke and I had ever actually gotten around to making any wedding plans? Why am I freaking out over this Valencia Delgado person? Just because she’s bound to be incredibly beautiful and well read. Not at all like me. The last book I read was—God! An Agatha Christie novel someone left in the shop! What would someone getting his Ph.D. in philosophy ever see in a girl like me?
But wait… what does that matter? I’m not dating Chaz. He isn’t even my type! My type being the kind who actually believe in marriage.
“Wow,” I say, trying to sound unconcerned, although the truth is I’m consumed with gut-wrenching anxiety over meeting this woman. Which doesn’t even make sense. “That’s so great. I’m glad you’re not still upset over what happened with Shari… ”
“Actually,” Chaz says, “Shari and I are good now. We had lunch the other day—”
“Wait.” I am so astonished I completely interrupt him. “You and Shari had lunch the other day?”
“Yeah. And her friend, Pat,” he says. He’s reached up and is undoing his tie. His lovely yellow silk tie, the one that practically caused my heart to stop. “Sorry,” he says when he notices the direction of my gaze. “But this thing is driving me insane. I have to go change into real clothes. Do you mind?”
I shake my head. “Go ahead,” I say. Then, as he disappears down the hall, I call after him, because I can’t stand not knowing more, “You had lunch with your ex-girlfriend and her new girlfriend?”
“Yeah.” Chaz’s muffled voice floats toward me from his bedroom. “Only Pat’s not really Shari’s new girlfriend, is she? They’ve been together, what, like half a year now. Or more, actually.”
I am having trouble absorbing all of this. I dump some ice into my wine and stare at a pile of student papers sitting on the coffee table in front of me.
“So you guys are like… friends now?” I ask.
“We were always friends,” Chaz calls back to me. “We just had a period where we didn’t talk as much as we used to. And, of course, we no longer make the beast with two backs.
“So anyway,” Chaz says, coming back into the living room. He’s changed into jeans and a University of Michigan Wolverines T-shirt. One of his many baseball caps is back in its usual place. I know I should feel relieved that he’s out of his heart-fluttering finery, but strangely, all I feel is confused.
This is mainly because he looks as good to me in the baseball cap as he had earlier in the suit.
“She seems good,” Chaz goes on. “Shari, I mean. And Pat’s nice. For someone who clearly considers me one of the hetero male oppressors.”
“So,” I say, unable to stop myself. I try. I really do try. But before I can clamp my mouth shut, words are pouring out of it—words I’d give anything to stuff back inside it. “I know it’s none of my business, but I was just wondering if you had told Valencia your opinion on the whole marriage thing—”
“Lizzie.”
It’s no good, though. As usual, the words are just streaming out of me, like water from a fountain. And nothing can plug it, not even me.
“Because it really isn’t a good idea to lead her on,” I prattle away. “I’m just warning you for your own good, you know. I imagine a female tenure-track philosophy professor scorned is not a pretty—”
“Lizzie.”
For the first time in my life, something in another human’s voice actually causes my own to dry up. I close my mouth and stare. His eyes, for some reason, seem bluer than normal. His gaze blazes into mine from where he stands, looking at me from behind the pass-through.