The other girls in the dressing room looked just as tired as she did, and they all exchanged hugs and “Happy New Year” wishes as they left for home one by one. Joey had four thousand dollars in her knapsack that she didn’t have when she first came in, which officially made it her best night ever at the Cherry. All she wanted to do was get into Chaz’s car and go home. Hopefully he’d understand when she didn’t invite him in, and with any luck, she’d wake up on the first morning of 1999 thinking the whole thing had been a bad dream.
But apparently, the nightmare wasn’t over yet. When she finally stepped out of the back entrance and into the cold night air, the first person she saw was Drew. Standing next to Chaz.
Neither man looked happy.
After an awkward exchange, she said goodbye to Chaz and allowed Drew to drive her home. It should have been an opportunity for her and Drew to really talk, but the conversation didn’t go well. In the driveway, still reeling from the news that Drew had a baby on the way and was getting married, Joey had slapped him. Her hand stung once it made contact with his cheek, a sure indication that if it hurt her, it must have really hurt him. She’d only slapped one other person in her entire life, and she was ashamed to admit that it had felt just as good now as it had then.
And, like the first time, she regretted it immediately.
She waited inside her apartment door until she heard him drive away, then sat down on the stairs and sobbed. The only thing worse than Drew marrying Simone was Drew marrying someone else. And the only thing worse than that was the two of them having a baby.
Kirsten. Any girl with a name like that had to be tall. Athletic. Outgoing. She was probably bubbly as hell, with a hundred friends who all looked like her. Since they had met in graduate school, she was obviously smart and going places, a girl exactly on Drew’s level.
Joey had never hated someone she’d never met so much.
Wiping away her tears, she headed all the way down the stairs, peeling her clothes off as she went. She didn’t bother to turn on any lights as she walked straight through the pitch-black apartment to the bathroom. She wasn’t afraid of the dark anymore. There was nothing the dark could do to her that it hadn’t already done.
By the time she reached the bathroom, she was naked. She turned on the tub faucet and avoided her reflection in the mirror as she lit the three vanilla candles she kept around the sink, all in various stages of melt. The flicker was soothing, and when the tub was full, she sank into the warm water.
Joey was certain she would have felt okay if Drew was marrying Simone, but this other person, this Kirsten, was an … interloper. Someone who was trespassing on something that didn’t belong to her. Joey didn’t know a thing about Kirsten, but already she resented everything about her.
Even the baby. Which made her a horrible person, but she couldn’t help it. Drew and Kirsten’s baby would tie them together forever.
I’ll always be here for you, Drew had whispered in her ear as they hugged goodbye in the driveway the day he and Simone moved out. A year later, it turned out to be a lie. Because that’s what men do. They lie to get what they want. And once they get it, you’re discarded, like a shirt with a stain that won’t come out, even though the shirt is new, and they are the stain.
Clutching her knees to her chest, Joey found her wrist with her fingernail and started digging. And digging. And digging. She felt so dirty. Everything she hated about herself was written all over Drew’s face. She was disgusting. Unworthy. Stupid.
All the things Ruby always said she was.
* * *
When the bathwater cooled, Joey pulled the plug and reached for her bathrobe. She padded back through the dark apartment to her bedroom, and only then did she turn on a light.
She froze, taking in the scene.
Every drawer was open. Closet doors, too. The small desk in the corner had been ransacked. The floor was covered in her clothes, makeup, books. Just like the dressing room in the club, someone had been here, looking for something.
Vinny.
Of course it made sense that he would look for Mae here. Joey hadn’t been able to get a hold of her friend, and after she saw Drew at the club, she’d forgotten all about it. Mae did hang out here, not all the time, but enough that she knew what snacks were in which cupboard, and which drawer Joey kept her pajamas in. Occasionally, if they were watching a movie and it was too late to go home, Mae would borrow something to sleep in and crash on the sofa.
Vinny would know that. Which was why he’d come here.
But how had he gotten in? The door was locked when she got home. Shit. The spare key. Mae knew where she hid it, inside the base of the light sconce mounted on the brick above the side door. She must have told Vinny about it at some point.