“Not why does the cook drink,” I say. “Why would anyone cover a salad in cubed ham?”
“If I knew the answer to that, Stephens,” he says, “I’d have ascended to a higher plane.”
At this point, he notices something on the ground and ducks sideways, picking it up. “This yours?” He hands me my phone. “Wow,” he says, reading my reaction. “What did this phone do to you?”
“It’s not the phone so much as the sociopathic super-bitch who lives inside it.”
Charlie says, “Most people just call her Siri.”
I shove my phone back to him, Dusty’s pages still pulled up. The furrow in his brow re-forms, and immediately, I think, What am I doing?
I reach for the phone, but he spins away from me, the crease beneath his full bottom lip deepening as he reads. He swipes down the screen impossibly fast, his pout shifting into a smirk.
Why did I hand this over to him? Is the culprit here the martini, the recent head injury, or sheer desperation?
“It’s good,” Charlie says finally, pressing my phone into my hand.
“That’s all you have to say?” I demand. “Nothing else you care to comment on?”
“Fine, it’s exceptional,” he says.
“It’s humiliating,” I parry.
He glances toward the bar, then meets my eyes again. “Look, Stephens. This is the end of a particularly shitty day, inside a particularly shitty restaurant. If we’re going to have this conversation, can I at least get a Coors?”
“You don’t strike me as a Coors guy,” I say.
“I’m not,” he says, “but I find the merciless mockery from the bartender here dampens my enjoyment of a Manhattan.”
I look toward the sexy TV bartender. “Another enemy of yours?”
His eyes darken, his mouth doing that grimace-twitch. “Is that what we are? Do you send all your enemies Bigfoot erotica, or just the special ones?”
“Oh no,” I say, feigning pity. “Did I hurt your feelings, Charlie?”
“You seem pretty pleased with yourself,” he says, “for a woman who just found out she was the inspiration for Cruella de Vil.”
I scowl at him. Charlie rolls his eyes. “Come on. I’ll buy you a martini. Or a puppy coat.”
A martini. Exactly what Nadine Winters drinks, whenever she doesn’t have easy access to virgin’s blood.
For some reason, my ex-boyfriend Jakob flits into my mind. I picture him drinking beer from a can on his back porch, his wife curled under his arm, swigging on her own.
Even four kids in, she’s laid-back and absurdly gorgeous, yet somehow “one of the guys.”
The Anti-Nora.
They always are, the women I get dumped for. Pretty hard to learn to be “one of the guys” when your entire experience with men growing up was either 1） them making your mother cry or 2） your mother’s dancer friends teaching you how to step-ball-change. I can be one of the guys, as long as the guys in question have a favorite song from Les Mis. Otherwise I’m hopeless.
“I’ll have a beer,” I say as I pass Charlie, “and you’re buying.”
“Like . . . I said?” he murmurs, following me to the peanut-shell-strewn bar.
As he’s exchanging pleasantries with the bartender （definitely not enemies; there’s a vibe, by which I mean he’s fifteen percent less rude than usual）， I glance back toward the bathroom, but Libby still hasn’t emerged.
I don’t even realize I’ve gone back to rereading the chapters until Charlie tugs my phone from my hands. “Stop obsessing.”
“I’m not obsessing.”
He studies me with that black-hole gaze, the one that makes me want to scrabble for purchase. “I’m surprised this is such a problem for you.”
“And I’m shocked your artificial intelligence chip allows you to feel surprise.”
“Well, hello.” I flinch toward Libby’s voice and find her smiling like a cartoon cat whose mouth is stuffed with multiple canaries.
“Libby,” I say. “This is—”
Before I can introduce Charlie, she pipes up, “Just wanted to let you know, I called a cab. I’m not feeling well.”
“What’s wrong?” I start to rise but she pushes my shoulder back down, hard.
“Just exhausted!” She sounds anything but. “You should stay—you’re not even done with your burger.”
“Lib, I’m not going to just let you—”