Eliot’s ability to disassociate was better than Liv imagined. Because how else could he enjoy dinner with a young woman while his wife and child were at home, oblivious?
“What was he like?” Liv asked. “Personality-wise.”
“He was… big.”
“Charming.”
“Yes.”
“Maybe a little manic. Scattered.”
“Yes.”
“And he made you feel like the most interesting person he’d ever laid eyes on.”
Savannah let out a soft breath. “Yes.”
Liv took it like a blow. “And so, dinner and then…”
“Liv.” Her name was a tiny sound, uttered toward the passenger window. Not even enough to fog the glass.
“Dinner and then…”
“I didn’t sleep with him after our first date, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“So after the second? Third?”
Savannah exhaled angrily. “Fifth, actually.”
Fifth. Well. “I slept with Eliot the first night we met.”
Savannah looked over. A small smile passed her lips. “Oh.”
“How many… I mean, how long did…” Liv braced herself. “How many times did you do it?”
“Five. And a half.”
Ugh. Eliot went to Kentucky ten times during his stint as a consultant for Savannah’s events company. Which probably meant they’d started dating the first or second trip. Liv tried to recall the sound of his voice when he’d call to speak with Ben—peppy? Relaxed? She couldn’t remember. She was too busy enjoying having the house to herself. Liv changed lanes. “So did he ever… mention me? Or Ben?”
“He said he had an ex-wife: that y’all were separated and getting a divorce.”
That prick. The pain of Eliot’s betrayal had lessened as time passed. But it still seemed so cruel. That he’d erase them so cavalierly from the picture of his life. In death, this was not possible. Liv had flown to Kentucky the day Eliot died. Middle seat, no movies, four tiny bottles of wine, a lot of dumbstruck staring. At the dinky, understaffed hospital, an orderly gave her E’s wallet, the money in his pocket, the wristwatch she’d given him for his fortieth birthday. She was the one who signed all the forms and called Eliot’s parents in Boston and flew his body back to New York. “It should’ve been me.”
“I’m sorry?”
“He should’ve… Even if he was”—in lieu of saying sleeping, Liv flicked her wrist—“with you. He should’ve died with— It should’ve been me.”
“Yes,” Savannah said softly. “It should have.”
Liv’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. “So why were you seeing him? Were you in love with him?”
There was a brief, noisy silence. Liv could hear Savannah breathing.
“No. I wasn’t in love with Eliot. I mean, maybe, if it had continued, and I did care about him. But no. Not when… when it ended.”
“When he died,” Liv said. “In the hotel room you screwed in.”
“Oh gosh, Liv! What do you want me to say? I didn’t love him! I was sleeping with your husband, and I didn’t even love him, that’s the truth. I’m twenty-three, I’m still figuring myself out!”
Savannah’s intensity stoked Liv’s own. “So what was it about? If you didn’t love him, what was it about?”
“I’m just trying!”
“To do what?”
“To fall in love!” Savannah cried. “But it wasn’t Eliot, and it was never going to be Eliot, but now I’m here and I’m with you, and maybe that’s how it was meant to end up.” She twisted to face Liv. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry Eliot lied to you, and I’m sorry Eliot lied to me. But I’m not sorry Eliot brought us together. That was the one good thing he did. The one thing.”
Liv kept her eyes on the road, breathing hard through her nostrils. After a minute or so, the hurricane inside her began to subside, and she was able to speak. “I believe you. I believe you didn’t know we weren’t separated.”
Savannah started to cry. Liv took a hand off the wheel and found herself awkwardly patting the girl’s arm. Her own eyes were watering, too.
For months, she’d wanted to hate the person next to her. But she was just a girl, flattered by a charismatic older man’s attention. When he was his best self, Eliot could be as bright as the sun. Where Liv saw a society run by corrupt politicians and greedy corporations, Eliot saw a world full of wonder, full of shining examples of human achievement. He loved people, and coincidences, and acts of bravery or kindness. His optimism lightened her pessimism. Without it, the last six months had been a brutal, lonely place as she sat at home alone and darkly processed the entire world.
And yet, there were his mood swings. The depression. High highs. Low lows. Eliot hated doctors, and the medical system in general, which is why Liv kept her theories about his mental health to herself. ADD, ADHD, even bipolar: she always suspected he was right on the edge of a diagnosis. But because he was responsible enough to co-own a business, and take Ben to baseball games, and make her laugh harder than anyone else, she let it slide, and focused on the good side. Her untamed wanderer. Her unpredictable dreamer.
He’d come alive like that for Savannah. On top of feeling sad and angry, Liv felt jealous that it was Savannah, not her, who’d gotten to enjoy that Eliot in his final days.
“So why did he do it?” Liv bashed away a tear with a fisted hand. “Why did he change his will and leave half the business to you?”
Savannah took a long moment to answer. “I’ve thought about that so many times. And I always get to the exact same answer.”
“Which is?”
Over the horizon, New York appeared, glittering against the night sky. From here, it was silent and monolithic, belying nothing of the grit, the heat, the weight of each city street. Each corner its own kingdom. With its own closely held secrets. “I have absolutely no idea.”
18
“What do you mean you almost kissed the waitress?” Dave’s incredulous voice reverberated through Clay’s earbuds. The shopper next to him at the busy Whole Foods threw Clay a suspicious look.
Clay returned it with a sheepish grin and moved to the next aisle. “I mean just that.”
“What happened to Operation Monk?”
The answer was simple. Zia happened. Clay met plenty of good-looking women. These days, it was part of the job. But no one had gotten under his skin as fast and hard as Zia Last-Name-Unknown. It wasn’t just that she was beautiful and smelled good and was possibly the world’s best shirt buttoner. She treated him like an equal, and Clay Russo didn’t get a lot of that these days. Her breezy attitude made him feel a decade younger, back when he had to work for women’s attention… and he liked the time travel. Zia was authentic and honest in a way that wasn’t just attractive but also felt necessary. Whatever it was, it’d snapped him like a cheap chopstick. Clay ambled into the supplements aisle, tossing things into his basket at random.
“I don’t know, man. The operation was temporarily disabled.”