On Second Thought
Page 51

“Great. Sweet as ever. Perhaps a little confused.”
Eric looked down for a second. “Maybe I’ll come see him before I leave.”
“Still planning to go to Alaska, then?” Jonathan asked.
“Of course.” He looked meaningfully across the table. “I made a commitment to Nathan’s memory. I’m doing this for him, on some level.”
“What about your commitment to me?” I couldn’t help saying.
“We didn’t have one.” He gave me a sad smile. A sad, fake smile. My fists clenched in my lap.
“A trip that big must take a lot of preparation,” Jonathan said, and Eric lit up and started talking about walking sticks and ice picks and the best kind of tent.
Our drinks came. Mine went down fast.
“I don’t know if I told you, Ainsley,” Eric said, “but I may have a book deal in the works! Isn’t that great?”
“So great.”
“It’s about my cancer journey and, of course, the trip to Denali. My agent is fielding offers.”
He had an agent now?
“Congratulations,” Jonathan said. “And it brings up the reason we’d like you to stay with Hudson Lifestyle. Obviously, your column struck a nerve.”
A nerve right in my heart, you asshole. I narrowed my eyes at Eric, who just smiled back.
Jonathan looked at me. “Ainsley? Why don’t you tell Eric what we have in mind?”
“Before you start, Ains,” Eric said, “I just want you to know that my agent is in talks with Outdoor Magazine, GQ and Maxim.” He smiled. “So Hudson is feeling a little...provincial.”
“That’s incredible,” I said. “I mean, they were never interested when the blog was just about you and your testicle. It was only when you crapped all over our relationship that things heated up. How will you sustain interest? Just keep dumping women after they’ve given you everything?”
“I understand your anger,” he said. “Thank you for sharing it with me.”
“And thank you, Eric, for so generously understanding.”
Jonathan took a sip of his scotch and said nothing.
It didn’t take a shrink to figure out why I was really here. I wanted to see him, to see if he was really sticking to his corpse guns.
God. What if he did come back to Hudson Lifestyle?
On one hand, it would be nice to be able to edit Eric’s column each month, which would consist of me putting a big red X through it and saying you can’t write for shit in a helpful, constructive way.
“A very big raise.” Jonathan’s voice was extremely quiet.
Eric frowned. “Excuse me?” he said.
“Nothing,” Jonathan answered.
My ex-boyfriend looked pissy at that. “Tell me why I should stay with your magazine,” he said, sitting back with his girlie grapefruit drink. He smiled, fully prepared to enjoy our sucking up.
I fake-smiled right back. “Well, Eric, as you no doubt recall, Hudson Lifestyle gave you a column when no one else would. You might remember that you did indeed pitch many magazines and blog sites to carry The Cancer Chronicles, and no one so much as returned an email.”
His smile slipped for a second, then returned. “Times have changed. Fox News said I was the voice of the modern male.”
“Actually, it was a reader comment on the Fox News website—in Sioux City, Iowa, that is—who said you were the voice of the modern male,” I corrected. “Other commenters had more colorful names for you, which I’d be happy to list. Or maybe I’ll start my own blog about men who exaggerate when they’re sick.”
A nudge from my boss.
“Anyway, Eric,” I muttered, “we hope you’ll do the honor of staying with us.”
Eric cocked his head. “But why would I?”
“Gosh. I don’t know,” I said. “Maybe you owe me. I was the one who wiped your fevered brow, remember?” He’d had one fever. One. “I cleaned up your puke after the bad sushi... I mean, after your chemo. I wrote on your scrotum so the doctor would be sure to take out the correct testicle.”
Jonathan choked.
“You were very good to me, Sunshine,” Eric said, and I wanted to break my martini glass and stab a shard into his neck. He never called me Sunshine in real life. Never. “But I don’t operate in a world of debt anymore. I have to do what’s right for me. I know you don’t want to take advice from me, Ainsley, but I think you have to try harder to—” he paused for dramatic effect “—live life large.”
“Good God,” muttered Jonathan.
“And you should release those toxic feelings, babe. They’ll eat you alive.”
The rage that had been building in me rose like a fireball. I slammed both hands on the table, rattling the glasses. “You know what, Eric? You’re unrecognizable to me. To me, who’s loved you for eleven years. I’d give anything to see that terrified, weepy, shaking guy who cried for three days straight after his diagnosis instead of the ridiculous, self-centered, smug asshole I see before me.”
“I’m sorry you’re feeling so victimized,” he said. “I choose not to move through life that way. Getting cancer was the worst thing that ever happened to me, and yet it taught me so much. There’s only the now, only answering the inner voice.”
“Let’s go,” Jonathan said. “Thank you for your time, Eric.”
I stood up, shaking with rage. “Getting cancer wasn’t the worst thing that ever happened to you, Eric. Getting over cancer was. Admit it. You loved having cancer. It gave you permission to worship yourself, and you haven’t stopped yet. You’re breaking your parents’ hearts, and you broke mine. I don’t even know how you look at yourself in the mirror.”
Eric took his phone out, clicked a button and spoke into it. “Getting over cancer was the worst thing that ever happened to you. Worshipping yourself. Breaking parents’ hearts.” He clicked again, then looked up at me. “Thanks for my next blog.”
I lunged.
Luckily, Jonathan grabbed me around the waist, stopping me before I made contact. “We’re leaving,” he said, dragging me back a few paces.
“Then she attacked me,” Eric said into his phone.
“Attempted to attack you,” I said. “Lucky for you, someone stepped in, because God knows, I could take you.”
“And threatened me, even though I’m still in the recovery phase.”
“No, you’re not!” I yelled, in case there weren’t enough people looking at me. “You recovered six months ago, and it’s driving you crazy!”
Jonathan towed me away. “Let’s go before we’re thrown out, shall we?” he murmured.
“Did you hear him?”
“Inside voice, and yes. Come on.”
The air was cool and rich with the smell of New York—that strangely sweet tang of subway, food and exhaust. “Let’s walk,” Jonathan suggested, and I stomped down the street, my thoughts just an angry, pulsating red smear. Turned on Fifth Avenue and headed uptown, plowing through the crowd.
Powered by fury, my legs ate up the blocks, arms swinging, bag hitting my hip, my leopard-print shoes biting my heels, cramping my toes.
I hated him. Who the hell was that? What had happened to the gentle, funny, loyal man who hugged his parents and told me on more than one occasion that he’d be nothing without me? Where was he?