“Thanks for coming,” he says as he reaches the table.
“No problem,” I say. “I appreciated the call.”
After lowering himself into the chair opposite me, he peels off his overcoat. Underneath he’s wearing a black-and-white plaid shirt and gray wool tie. He crosses his arms on the table and leans forward a little, leveling his gaze at me.
Could he have been watching me on the street? I wonder. Had he spotted me on Broadway and followed behind at a distance to guarantee I was the first to arrive? That’s not his MO, though. At work he was always strategic—clever, a chess player at heart. But not in his private life.
“I was really worried about you, Ally.”
His comment—and the softness in his voice—throw me. I figured that last Thursday must have been unsettling for him, but what could I mean to Damien Howe at this point in life? Maybe all I’m seeing is simply concern for a former colleague.
I smile wanly. “It was a pretty scary experience.”
“You look a lot better now.”
“Do I? That’s good to know, though I bet most anything would be an improvement.”
The waitress sidles up at this moment, and after I ask for a macchiato, Damien turns to her and tells her to please make it two.
“You bet,” she responds, taking him in appreciatively—his deep blue eyes, the hawkish nose, and that hair. He’s almost forty now, and though his hair isn’t as long as it once was, it’s still that crazy honey-gold color.
“I tried the hospital that morning,” he says, after the waitress moves off. “But they wouldn’t even admit you were there. At least I knew you were getting medical help somewhere. . . . Are you feeling as well as you seem?”
“Still a little wobbly, but much better overall. I’m sure I created quite a stir that day. Were people buzzing about it?”
“Don’t worry about that. As far as anyone knows, you and I had a meeting in my office, and you fainted. Did the doctors figure out what the matter was?”
“It’s something called . . . dissociating. I lost my bearings and didn’t remember certain things. I was actually missing in action for two whole days, apparently roaming the city on my own.”
“That’s awful. Your husband must have been going nuts.”
Husband. He knows, of course. But so weird to hear him utter that word.
“He thought I was out of town giving a speech,” I lie. I’m certainly not going to reveal anything to Damien about my marital issues. “He didn’t know until the hospital called that there was something wrong.”
“Fortunately, Caryn’s still the office manager and she’d heard through former staffers what your husband’s name was and what he did. My assistant found the number for his office online.”
“That ended up being a lifesaver. I appreciate all the effort.”
I need to arrive at the business at hand, but I don’t want to rush him. I watch as he takes a sip of his macchiato, his fingers encircling the cup rather than holding it by the handle.
“So had something happened to you, Ally?” he asks after a moment. “To cause this thing?”
“Probably. An incident—or some combination of factors—must have stressed me out pretty badly, and it seems that part of my mind shut down as a way to cope.”
“But you’re not sure what it was?”
“No. I’m working with a therapist, but I still haven’t remembered.”
For a moment I consider sharing that my fugue state might be related, directly or not, to Jaycee Long. I’d told Damien about her not all that long after we started sleeping together. He’d made pasta for us one night at his place, this dreamy spaghetti carbonara with a sauce I fantasized about for weeks, and later—after sex and before more sex—we put on the TV to find a movie to watch. There was one, whose title I can’t remember now, about the disappearance of a young child, and as Damien read the description aloud, I felt myself freezing up. “What’s the matter?” he’d asked me, stroking my hair. And I’d told him. It had been easy to tell him anything.
But what’s the point of resurrecting it now for him? This conversation is a one-off.
“Is there anything I can do?” he asks.
“There is something, yes,” I say, glad he’s given me an opening. “I’m trying to get a handle on why, in this midst of basically losing myself for two days, I went to Greenbacks. Because maybe figuring that out will help me understand the rest.”
He leans back in his chair, and for a brief moment, his knees brush mine. Startled by the touch, I shift my position slightly.
“And you thought I might have an idea?”
“I was hoping so, yes.”
“All I know is that you seemed to believe you still worked there. You said something about it being your first day back.”
I summon an image from that morning, of me stepping off the elevator. Yes, I’d had the sense that I’d been away for a while, but certainly not for years. “Like I’d been on vacation?”
“Right.”
“But . . . but why Greenbacks? There are so many other places I could have gone that day. Like my own workplace.”
He narrows his eyes and crosses his arms against his chest.
“You tell me, Ally.” All of a sudden, his tone has cooled.
“Tell you what?” I ask, flustered by the sea change.
“Why do you think you showed up there?”
“Damien, I haven’t the foggiest—that’s why I’m asking you.”
“It wasn’t because of the story you’re doing?”
“Story?”
“The woman who handles our PR says that someone who works for you called her a week or so ago. She said she was doing research and wanted to speak to the person on staff who oversees the financial advisory end. Maybe that’s why we were on your mind.”
I frown, momentarily at a loss. “It must have been my researcher, who’s helping me on my next book,” I tell him. “But I can’t imagine why she’d want to speak to someone in that role.”
He doesn’t respond, simply studies me. The silence unrolls like a ball of yarn.
“Damien, I never suggested she talk to anyone at Greenbacks,” I continue, more insistence in my voice this time. “So that call doesn’t explain why I showed up out of the blue. And you and I didn’t have any contact prior to this, did we?”
Another few beats of silence.
“We haven’t talked since you left,” he says coolly. “Per your request.”
“Per my request? What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You made it clear after you broke things off that you didn’t want any personal contact with me.”
I nearly gulp in surprise. I have no clue where this is coming from.
“Damien, I wasn’t the one who ended things.”
“No?”
“All I did was suggest that we take a break since people seemed to be wise to us.”
“Kind of a breather, then? And we’d pick up again after the gossip died down?”
“Until I found another job. Or went out on my own.”
“Months later.”