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$19,585.33—per week.

By the time Avril presented herself it was almost eleven thirty. She’d dressed in one of my favorite outfits of hers, a peasant skirt with patterns of turquoise, pekoe brown, and simple white. The look was very California and completely disregarded all the New York rules about fashion she’d given me my first night in the city.

“You’re looking colorful this morning.”

“I had to. It’s a bad biorhythm day, and I’m trying to overcome the gloomies with a big dose of LA.”

I followed Avril into the kitchen where she got out the orange juice from the fridge and poured a glass. She took down several bottles of vitamins from the cupboard over the coffeemaker and began taking them with the juice.

“What’s got you so down?”

She shook her head, still swallowing a vitamin, then answered. “I couldn’t get a hold of Jon on the phone this morning. I think he’s mad at me.”

“Why?”

Avril leaned against the counter, a pill in her left hand, the glass of juice in her right. “I finally tried telling him about the show yesterday, and he didn’t take it very well,” she said, her brow furrowed with worry. “I don’t understand it.”

“How did you tell him?”

“I just told him about some of the things I’ve done, and he seemed fine at first, excited about it. But when I mentioned I was performing in
Apartment 19
, he just froze. He started getting mad and asked me why I hadn’t told him about it before. I tried to explain it was just a question of timing. Maybe I hadn’t spoken up when I should, but I
was
telling him.”

Avril looked hurt. She put down her juice glass, and I gave her a hug.

“Did he seem upset that you weren’t more up front about everything?” I asked, parting again.

“He accused me of keeping secrets.” Avril started crying. “And I just said I was sorry, that I didn’t mean to hurt him, but he was so upset with me.”

I looked around the kitchen for a box of tissues, but remembered they were still in my bedroom from a few nights ago.

“I thought you should have said something earlier, but I didn’t think he’d take it like this. Have you spoken to him since?”

Avril shook her head. “I tried calling him last night, and texting him this morning, but nothing.”

Avril let out a long, trembling breath. She moved toward the paper-towel roll and swiped off a large square to dab puffy eyes. She took the last vitamin, placed it on her tongue, and washed it down with juice.

“I
know
how important it is to be honest, but I don’t feel like I was keeping a secret.”

I took hold of her hand, trying to comfort her. “Avril, he’ll come around. You guys have been seeing each other for two months. He probably just feels like you should have trusted him more.”

“I know,” she said.

“What are your plans for today? Do you want to go by the theater with me and maybe grab lunch?”

“No, I wouldn’t be good company. I thought I’d run by Cafés on Fifty-second Street and see if Jon’s there. I just don’t feel like I can do anything until we talk and I can explain everything.”

~
Seventeen
~

After calling Ben and explaining my money situation, he agreed to meet me in the Carney’s office. I carried the signed contract with me, feeling it represented my half of the exchange and finalized the nuts and bolts of Sydney’s business dealings.

It was Tabby, however, not Ben who met me outside the Carney. She let us in through the side stage door with her ring of keys and led us back to the office.

“Looks like someone’s going shopping,” Tabby said, tearing the long pale blue check from the ledger book and handing it to me like a parent hands money to a child for the movies. But instead of five dollars for a matinee, I was given an advance of five thousand dollars.

“Tabby, I meant to thank you for the other night, for what you said to me before I went onstage.”

She blew it off. “It’s no big deal. You’d be surprised how many nervous actors I’ve had to prod onstage. It’s all part of the job.”

Tabby got up from the desk, a signal that meant our conversation was over.

“You said ‘I can’t do it.’”

“What?”

“When you helped prod me on. You said ‘I can’t do it.’ What did you mean?”

For the first time since I’d met her, Tabby seemed at a loss for words, flustered. She finally turned to face me, crossing her arms against her body, constricting herself.

“Acting, I suppose.”

“Were you ever an actor?”

“Once, very briefly,” Tabby confessed. “Until I realized I lack the natural ability to be free spirited, to forget myself and become someone else. But I recognized I was good at organization, something most actors stink at. So, instead of becoming the worst actor in New York, I decided I’d become the best producer. Any more questions?”

“No, I just appreciate what you did. It seemed kinder than someone just doing her job. Maybe I’m wrong about that, but I still wanted to thank you.”

I opened a checking account at First Bank of New York on Broadway, depositing the advance Tabby had handed to me, and left the FBNY equipped with a modest stack of starter checks and a wallet filled with cash.

In an afternoon shopping splurge, I purchased two sacks of groceries, meats, fruits, and veggies. I tucked a few hundred-dollar bills into an envelope to repay Avril for the clothes she’d thoughtfully purchased for me and to catch up on rent. The windfall also seemed like the perfect opportunity to buy myself something nice. The single purchase item topping my fantasy list? I didn’t even have to think twice about it. An Apple MacBook. Some people see themselves behind the wheel of a brand-new cherry-red convertible, cruising the countryside, zipping down the highway with the wind in their hair. I pictured myself reclined in one of the oversized lime-green chairs at Vibe, the coffee shop across the street from our apartment building. I could see myself indulging in a venti cappuccino with my feet up on a square block coffee table, and reading the latest message from James or Luke on LoveSetMatch.com without a worry in the world.

I also wrote out a check for five hundred dollars, ten percent of my advance, not to put too sharp a point on it, but the number fit so I stuck it in an envelope. When I decided I couldn’t wait until Sunday to deliver it, I bought a card for David and Katie and stuffed the folded starter check inside, pushing the sealed envelope through the letter box in the church’s Roman arch door.

After my visit to the computer store and Fellowship Community Church, I stopped at Vibe to live out my fantasy. There I popped the lid off a steaming cup of tea and kicked my feet up on a small table against an exposed brick wall. As promised in the ad, my new laptop was up and running in minutes. I logged on to LoveSetMatch.com to check for updates and saw the flame was on again next to Luke’s ID. Then his message appeared on-screen.

Luke:
Hey, Harper. Are you online?

Harper:
Yes. Hi. Are you back from your pizza delivery?

Luke:
Just barely. I busted a ski on impact while landing. The pizzas were fine though, no pepperoni were lost in the mishap.

Harper:
I thought I saw you online this morning.

Luke:
I was, but only for a minute. My uncle Don called. There was a small problem at the plant, and now that I’m back in Wasilla, he wanted to talk to me. What’s new on your busy island?

Harper:
A few things worth mentioning. I’m writing from behind a new Apple MacBook, and my work has changed considerably since we last IM’d. Giants are in the playoffs.

Luke:
A new computer? That’s very interesting. Does that lend itself to seeing more messages from you in the future?

Harper:
Possibly … would you like to see more messages from me?

Luke:
Yes, especially if they’re accompanied by more photos. You just have one posted, you know.

Harper:
I can probably handle that, but as long as we’re on the subject, I’ve missed seeing a message from you.

Luke:
That means you like talking with me. Good. I wasn’t sure.

Harper:
I’m sure. Your absence over the past few days made me sure. This isn’t exactly talking though. It’s more like typing.

There was a pause, the kind of moment when you know instinctively what the other person is thinking. At least, I felt that way with Luke.

Luke:
I have a cell phone number, if you’d ever like to call me. Some people communicate this way, I hear.

Now I was the one on pause. He’d introduced a new level of communication, but I didn’t know if I was ready for that. Avril would be. Who was I kidding, almost everybody would be.

Harper:
Okay, sure. I don’t know when I’ll call, but it might be nice to have your number if ever the mood strikes.

Truth be told, I was scared to call.
I was bluffing
. Pretending to be cool, completely comfortable about dating,
Internet dating
, as if I did this sort of thing all the time.

Luke:
Okay, here’s my number. Remember, I always carry my cell with me. So, if you ever want to talk to me, and I’m awake, I’ll answer it.

I copied the number Luke sent and pasted it in a Notepad program on my MacBook.

Harper:
Thanks, Luke. For some reason I like having your number. It kind of makes my day.

Luke:
Well then, my good deed is done. I took the day off to work on my plane so I’d better get to it.

Harper:
Right, I didn’t mean to keep you.

Luke:
You didn’t keep me, Harper. You just gave me some things to think about while I’m working. Talk to you later.

I closed out our instant message session, his words “you didn’t keep me” oddly hanging in the air. I wondered if Luke, but for the distance, wasn’t the kind of man a woman tried hanging on to. I noticed it was getting late and wondered how Avril was doing, if she’d caught up with Jon and worked things out. I hoped so.

I stuffed the MacBook back into my canvas shoulder bag, an olive-green carrier with a distinctive Brazilian stitching along the flap, and exited Vibe heading back across the street to the apartment.

I rattled my key into the lock outside and turned open our door. The sound of a frail whimper coming from the living room was my first clue something was wrong.

“Avril?” I called out.

I closed the door and crept deeper into the apartment, following the moaning, and found Avril curled up in a ball on the living room floor. She was sobbing. Her limbs were rigid like those of a victim who’s fallen from a great height. Her face was twisted into a vacuous, lifeless stare, and her eyes were drenched with tears, as pink as cotton candy.

“What’s the matter?” I asked, rushing to her side. I knelt down and picked up her hand. It was as cold and as lifeless as a rag doll’s. Avril shuddered. She didn’t answer me.

“Avril, honey, what’s the matter? Are you hurt?”

“Jon and I broke up,” she said. Her lips were dry, cracking, and pale, and the lower one trembled as she lay there.

My heart broke at the sight of her, even as my head was thinking,
No, no, you didn’t do this over Avril not telling you she was an actress.
I ran my hand over Avril’s forehead, brushing away perspiration and strands of wet hair. Her petite body heaved in and out, swallowing tiny gulps of air.

“What happened?” I asked.

Avril pinched her eyes closed, and when she did, two droplets streamed from each and ran in jagged lines across her scarlet face. She’d fastened her eyelids down with so much intensity, I wondered if they’d ever open again. And when she finally spoke, I understood the reason.

“He’s married.”

The two words collapsed Avril’s mouth into a strained frown, an uncanny likeness to tragedy’s mask, and a sound escaped from a heart so broken it seemed to have come from a wounded child.

“How do you know? I mean, could there be a mistake?”

“I saw them together,” Avril said. “Jon and his wife, and their son.
They have a child.
”

Avril’s chest heaved again like she was trying to blow out a fire, but couldn’t draw enough oxygen to dowse the flames. Her chin dropped against her chest in defeat, and she covered her face with both hands.

“They … they were eating breakfast in the front window of Cafés in midtown. I was standing, across the street, waiting to cross … and I saw them. They were smiling and laughing together.”

“Did he see you?” I asked, trying to get the basic facts. “Did he know you were there?”

Avril stared off into blackness, replaying the scene in her mind.

“Not at first, but he looked up, and then he
saw me
.”

“He saw you? How? What did he do?”

“That’s just it,” she said. “He didn’t do
anything.
” Avril was numb with shock and grief. “He didn’t react at all. He just stared back at me, standing there on the other side of Fifty-second Street, like he knew he was caught but he didn’t care.”

“Did you go in and talk to him?”

“I couldn’t,” she said. “I wouldn’t know what to say. They were just having a normal breakfast. A
family
breakfast.”

Avril sat up, shaking her head and wiping away tears with the back of her hands.

“I was so stupid. All the classic signs were there. He’d never take me to his place, he never gave me his home or work number, only his cell. He used his work as a cover. Such a cliché.”

Avril stood up, looking a bit lost and unsteady on her feet.

“They’re in my room, Avril,” I said, reading her mind.

She came back from my bedroom, a tissue box pinched under her right arm, wiping her nose with a tissue in her left.

“He just made up a persona online, and I bought it. He was running a con game,” she said in disbelief. “All the things he said to me, all lies, all fake. Every time he said he loved me … ”

“Do you know this for certain? That it was all fake?”

“What does it matter? He’s married,” she said.

“You’re right, I guess it doesn’t matter.”

She sat in her favorite easy chair, plopping the box of pink tissues down in her lap, shaking her head.

“Why can’t anybody love me?” Avril whispered to no one. She looked down at the new computer slipping out from my satchel.

“Avril, what Jon did to you is so wrong, but don’t think it says anything about you. He lied. How could you have known?”

For almost an hour I stayed beside Avril smoothing her, telling her everything would be okay. At 5 p.m., she took a shower and some aspirin and got ready for the theater.

“Are you sure you can go on?” I asked.

“No, but I’m a pro. I’ll do what I have to.”

Avril brushed her hair in the bathroom mirror. I watched her from a bar stool at the black granite island. She didn’t deserve to be hurt like this; no one did. How could anyone be so selfish? So cruel? She stepped out from the bathroom, ready to go to the Carney. I wondered how she could leave the apartment, let alone act onstage. Every emotion in her soul had been cauterized.