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Back A Small Affair Save as PDF
Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. Praise
  3. Dedication
  4. About the Author
  5. Part One
  6. 1
  7. 2
  8. 3
  9. 4
  10. 5
  11. 6
  12. 7
  13. 8
  14. 9
  15. 10
  16. 11
  17. 12
  18. 13
  19. 14
  20. 15
  21. Part Two
  22. 1
  23. 2
  24. 3
  25. 4
  26. 5
  27. 6
  28. 7
  29. 8
  30. 9
  31. 10
  32. 11
  33. 12
  34. 13
  35. 14
  36. 15
  37. 16
  38. 17
  39. 18
  40. 19
  41. Part Three
  42. 1
  43. 2
  44. 3
  45. 4
  46. 5
  47. 6
  48. 7
  49. 8
  50. 9
  51. 10
  52. EPILOGUE
  53. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
  54. Booklist

Elena thought for a moment. “Oh yeah. You have trouble getting her records up or something?”

Odilie shook her head. “No. We were just chatting in the parking lot. She was friendly.”

Elena flicked a crumb into her mouth. “Oh funny. She’s new. I’ve never dealt with her before. She’s definitely loaded, though. Forsyth said she was coming in again in three weeks. For no damn reason.”

Odilie nodded and thanked Elena, threw out the wax paper the Danish had come in and went behind her desk to check the calendar; Elena was right. Peri was due back in three weeks.

Gumption. Three weeks from now, she’d have the gumption to ask what Peri meant. That was a promise to herself.

2

VERA

Present day

The days are somehow lonelier in the city than they were at my mom’s. It’s strange how that works, maybe because of the juxtaposition of my idleness with Quinn’s waking up every morning and getting ready for work, leaving the apartment for the day. It occurred to me that in my old life, I barely spent time here. I mean I did, to eat and sleep and watch TV, but the walls and corners, the little crevices where the light and shadow play, I never knew them as intimately as I do now.

I itch to text old friends, those people who didn’t know how to handle my sudden notoriety. But it’s like time has created too much of a rift; I was barely around before, and now, when I need companionship the most, I’m both too prideful and too afraid to reach out for it. I don’t want to expose my desperation, and at the same time I don’t want to be rejected.

I leave the apartment, occasionally, to take walks in Prospect Park, to wend my way through my neighborhood, Prospect Heights, Park Slope. I apply for jobs. I get a couple of interviews at apparel-adjacent companies, a marketing position for a beauty-supply brand, a sales position at a retail tech start-up. They all go fine, but no one calls me back.

Sometimes, after Quinn leaves, I sit in our living room underneath the green blanket on the couch and pull down the shades, engulf myself in darkness, like I’m in a cocoon. Fortunately, that activity grows old quickly, late spring’s sunshine always seeping through the windows to remind me that I shouldn’t self-isolate, that pitying myself was never a good option, anyway.