“I’ll let you know before you finish eating,” Carson says. She flags the other barback, Jaime, who is a girl and not a kiss-ass, to cover her, grabs her bag, and goes to the bathroom.
She takes one bump, then another. Tomorrow, she’ll have to call her guy. She needs to get back out there and finish the dinner rush strong, but she sees her phone and it’s like falling into a hole. She checks her texts.
Can I see you tonight? End of Kingsley?
We should probably talk.
Carson’s head pitches forward; she loves her phone so much in that moment that she’d like to take a bite of it. These texts are like cool water on a bad sunburn, like a soft pillow when she can’t keep her eyes open. A balm, a relief. He wants to see her.
She sends back a text: No.
She counts to ten, which is all it takes for three dots to appear. And then—
I can’t go another day without seeing you. Meet me, please.
She hesitates. Giddiness bubbles up inside her; she’s a shaken can of seltzer about to spew. But no. It has to end. While it’s still a secret. They have done enough damage. Her mother is dead.
Okay, she texts back. See you at midnight.
Carson heads back out to the bar. Marshall finished his dinner and Jaime has gotten him a fresh drink.
“I can’t meet you tonight,” Carson says. “But maybe another time. And, hey, your dinner is on me.” She takes his tab and slips it into her apron pocket.
“There’s no need—”
“Oh, but there is.” She winks at him. “We have to take care of each other.” She heads to the other side of the bar to take orders. When she comes back, Marshall is gone. A fifty-dollar bill and a napkin with his phone number are in his place.
Carson shakes her head. Bold move; she likes it. She throws the napkin away, tosses the fifty in the bucket, and rings the bell.
Midnight finds her in cutoffs and Chuck Taylors walking down Kingsley toward the dead end. There’s a space in the bushes big enough （almost） to hide one car and that’s where Zach Bridgeman is waiting for her in his Audi Q7. She climbs into the back seat with him, and when she sees him, smells him—he smoked a cigarette on the way over, another secret he keeps from his wife—she starts to cry. He gently takes her face in his hands and licks her tears and then they’re kissing like it’s the only thing keeping them alive. Carson wants to straddle his lap; she wants to wriggle out of her shorts or even rip them in half to get them off; she wants to slide down on top of him and bounce up and down, his hands grasping her ass, until they both climax in a burst of heat and light.
But instead, she pulls away. “She’s dead.”
“I know, baby. I’m so sorry.”
“And I have nobody to hold me.”
“I’ll hold you.”
“This is our fault.”
He flinches at this as she knew he would. Zach refuses to acknowledge the dark side of what they’re doing. All he ever talks about is how happy Carson makes him, how his life has new meaning, how each day is filled with possibility instead of despair. He’s the one who’s married; he’s the one who has to lie, sneak out, delete everything on his phone. But he would never accept that their union was evil enough to bring about this kind of retribution.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Carson. Our relationship has nothing to do with your mother.”
“I believe otherwise. You can tell me I’m wrong but you can’t prove I’m wrong.”
“I came to the service,” Zach says. “I was in the back. I could only see the side of your face, but I was there. I cut out of work. I left Yeats in charge, which was irresponsible, but I needed to see you, if only from afar.”
He does this all the time, speaks like he’s writing a sonnet. If only from afar.
“I specifically asked you not to come. I don’t know why you think I would be happy to hear you came anyway.”
Zach sighs, rests his head against the seat. His skin is pale and beautiful in the dark. He has long, thick eyelashes and a few gray hairs around his ears. She is twenty-one years old and her lover has gray hair. But his age is third or fourth down the list of what makes him inappropriate.
“Let’s say what we’re doing has nothing to do with my mother’s death. There’s still no good ending to this, only destructive, scandalous endings. We need to walk away tonight and never speak of it again.”
“What about the ending where I leave Pamela and we run away together? Hawaii, Alaska, Paris. I can find work anywhere. So can you. Peter is going off to college in eight weeks. Can’t we hang on for eight weeks?”