Keep Me Posted (20 page)

I shook my head at the sky, and Sal said exactly what I was thinking. “What a stupid thing to say.”

“Sal, this is my neighbor, Jenna, and her daughter, Valentina.”

“You know them?” he asked, disgusted that I would associate with such low-grade characters. I smiled and shrugged at Jenna, who stood there, mouth agape. “Leo’s uncle,” I said, by way of explanation. This was the most fun I’d ever had with Sal.

“Cassie, I’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Is everything okay?”

“Yeah—why?” I said.

“Oh—I’ll talk to you about it later. But wait—you have a sister, right?”

“Yeah,” I said.

“What’s her name again?”

“Why?”

“Ride’s here!” Sal interrupted.

I looked up to see Mary Costa’s black Suburban pulling up.

I don’t know who I was expecting—some crony of Sal’s with a limp and a gold tooth, or even Deena. Mary was definitely a surprise.

“Okay, well, I’ll talk to you later,” said Jenna. And then, “Oh—your sister’s name?”

I pretended not to hear her, which wasn’t a stretch since Sal was shouting, “Bad news, Mar. We gotta take this thing back to Hoboken.”

“Hoboken! We were just there!” Mary yelled back. “Hi, Cassie, sweetheart. Where are the boys?”

“They’re at the park with the sitter. But wait. I thought you guys knew this table wasn’t for me,” I said.

“You said it was for your upstairs neighbor!” Mary yelled.

“Naw. I remember now. She did say this gal had moved to Hoboken,” Sal yelled back, although Mary was now two feet in front of us.

I noticed Jenna and Valentina turning to leave.

Mary threw her hands up to the sky and then slapped her thighs like an umpire calling a play. She looked from Sal to me, and I got the impression that she was expecting an apology. Normally I would have obliged, but I had plenty of real apologizing to do, and I was not about to start handing them out for free.

“Arright, hon. You know where this thing needs to go? You hop in and show us the way,” said Sal.

I let out a groan. But they were doing this for me, so I ran upstairs to get my phone and my purse. I had a sick feeling in my stomach that I hoped was hunger, so I grabbed the only food I had in the apartment—that box of Peanut Butter Panda Puffs—locked the door, and then ran back down and into the back of Mary’s truck, not bothering to say anything to Jenna when we passed in the hall.

I texted Wanda, asking if she could stay an extra hour and maybe even later. And instead of wondering whether Mary was also a mobster and if she had ever transported any dead bodies in this very truck, I was anxious about the radio thing and what to do about Jenna, who almost definitely had seen the blog. The phrase “lucrative book deal” also bobbed around inside my head, tempering the stress and dread with a mysterious thrill.

“So, Wednesday, when are we gonna get to that blog?” Sal
shouted. I reacted as if a tarantula had just landed on my shoulder. Luckily, I didn’t have to speak, because Mary started in.

“Blogs,” she said. “I don’t get it. Why do people think their every thought needs to be out there for the world to see? It’s ridiculous, if you ask me.”

“No one asked you,” Sal shot back. “Oh, Jesus, why the hell are you driving uptown? The Holland Tunnel is right around the corner!”

“I told you I hate the Holland Tunnel! When you drive, you can take whatever tunnel you want. Hell, take a boat, for all I care. I always take the Lincoln. So shut up and let me drive,” Mary yelled.

He looked back at me and pointed at Mary. “Some things never change. She’ll always be my big sister.” I had to smile, because the subject had changed, and because I was thinking the same thing, that there are only a few people in the world you could talk that way to and not have it damage your relationship. If you’re lucky, a sibling is one of them. In some ways, I envied the relationship Mary and Sal had. They saw each other all the time and seemed to have no secrets. Maybe they were a bit abrasive and careless with each other’s feelings, but beneath it there was genuine affection.

Through the tunnel, I read Rachel’s address off to Sal, who laboriously punched it in the GPS mounted to Mary’s dashboard, even though I told them I knew how to get there.

I was still unsure as to the origins of the table and whether I was paying for it or not. “So how much do I owe you for the table?” I asked Sal.

“Don’t worry about it. You help me set up my blog, and we’ll call it even.”

“My blog.” Mary shook her head and snickered.

“Are you sure, Sal?” I asked.

“Sweetheart,” Mary interjected. “If you’re lucky enough to have people to help you out of a tough spot, just go with it.”

Fair enough,
I thought, and took out my phone and began searching ALM’s website for “sisters,” “communication,” and “slow news.” When nothing turned up, I started an e-mail.

Dear Caroline,

Thanks for your interest in my blog. I’m a huge fan of your program and completely tickled that I’m even on your radar. Unfortunately, I cannot participate in your segment. In fact, I’m writing to implore you not to even mention my blog. The truth is, it was never meant to be public. It’s a long story involving privacy settings, a server crash, regret, etc. Maybe one day I’ll be able to tell the whole story, but if I did it now, it would cause too much pain to the people I love. I hope you understand. Please let me know what you decide to do.

Kind regards,

Cassie Sunday

Once we got the table into Rachel’s place, I felt fairly certain that hers had been a fake. The one we brought—a real one, or a very good counterfeit, with legitimate-looking papers from Herman Miller and a little signature on the side of the thick plate glass—looked significantly better than I remembered hers looking.

Rachel must have thought so, too, because she let out a gasp when we set it down. Then she started gushing. “Oh, thank you so
much. It was really sweet of you to bring it over. I didn’t realize how much I missed it until just now.”

I suspected that she was slowly figuring this out and hadn’t deliberately bilked me for a sixteen-hundred-dollar table, but still, I found the whole display so off-putting that I doubted our friendship would survive.

Mary asked Rachel where the Windex was and gave the table a shine herself before we went on our way.

I felt a bit sick over the whole thing.
Is Rachel purposefully duping us, or is she innocent? What is wrong with her that she’d let my mother-in-law clean her table? Are Mary and Sal sketchy or just helpful? Do I have only myself to blame, literally lying down on the job while my son seriously injured himself, setting this whole chain of events into motion?
At any rate, I couldn’t bear to be around any one of those people a second longer. I convinced Mary and Sal to drop me at the PATH station and let me take the train back home, saving them the trip.

Before I went underground, I texted Leo to see if he could meet for lunch, so I could come clean to him before I left.

Sorry. Swamped all day. Hopefully not too late tonight
,
came his response.

Okay, I will just have to tell him tonight
, I thought.

Stevie and Emma’s place was just around the corner, so I decided to drop in on them. I might need Emma in my corner in the near future. If the family found out while I was in Singapore, she would need to be prepared.

U home?
I texted her.

Yep. Need to talk to u.

I rang her doorbell, opened the door a crack, and immediately kicked myself for having been so engrossed in my phone that I hadn’t noticed Mary’s car parked outside. I could hear her talking
right away. Emma appeared, shooing me back out, and hissed, “What is going on? Becky just showed up here, running her mouth about your diary being online. She’s got everyone gathered at the computer.”

“Who’s at the door?” hollered Mary.

“None of your business,” singsonged Emma, audible only to me.

“Nobody!” she yelled back next.

“Is it true?”

“Well. Sort of. But it’s
gone.
I swear. So I don’t know what she’s showing them.”

“Maybe you should get out of here,” she said. “Becky wants your head. I’ll call you when they leave.”

When I exited the train back in Manhattan, I called Emma right away. She didn’t answer but called me back two minutes later.

“So apparently Becky’s friend e-mailed her a letter or something that she claims you wrote, where you call Becky a bitch and talk about having sex with Leo in a taxi. She said it was on some blog, but Becky couldn’t find it.”

“Fuck. What did Mary say?”

“She was like, ‘Are you sure? That doesn’t sound like Cassie.’ But Becky’s obsessed, so she’s rooting around the Internet, trying to find this blog and prove that it’s real. Honestly, everyone’s kind of lost interest, and now it’s just her sitting at the keyboard and texting her friend nonstop.”

“Okay. Listen, it’s all true. All of these letters between my sister and me
were
on the Internet—but they’re gone now. Jesus. Do what you can to cover for me, would you? Leo doesn’t even know yet. I’m telling him tonight. But there is a ton of incriminating shit on there. I’m going to Singapore tomorrow to talk to my sister about it.”

“Oh my God. Okay, Cassie. I’ll see what I can do.”

“I love you.”

“Love you, too, Cass. Can I help with the kids while you’re in Singapore?”

“It’s all right. My mom’s coming.”

“Okay, well, keep me posted on all of this.”

“I’ll tell you everything when I’m back.”

I was packed and ready by the time Mom arrived. I hadn’t slept a wink the night before. Leo finally came home again well after midnight, and though I
had
managed to tell him that I was going to Singapore, he’d immediately assumed it was to be a shoulder to cry on for Sid, which put me in an awkward position. He seemed exhausted from his day, surprised that I was leaving on such short notice, and a touch annoyed that he and my mom were going to be roommates for the next four days. Instead of just telling him then, I suggested we meet for a coffee in Union Square before my three p.m. flight the next day.

During the short taxi ride to Union Square, I wished I’d chosen a less frumpy outfit than my old leggings and hoodie and taken the time to dry my hair or put makeup on my face, which bore the marks of sleep deprivation and stress. I sighed and shook my head; this was really a conversation I should have looked my best for. I was also worried that it would seem to Leo like I was squeezing him in for a hasty or offhand apology before Sid’s. To be fair, I thought Sid deserved to know first; they were her letters, after all.
Plus, I needed her on my side before I faced him. Of course nothing about any of this was going as planned but there was no way to delay telling him any longer, lest Becky or Jenna get to him first.

Leo and I found each other near the Gandhi statue and kissed hello. I handed him the coffee I’d just purchased from the Mud truck.

“Where’s yours?” he asked.

“I didn’t think I could carry two,” I said, nodding to my roller bag.

“Hang on. I’ll get you one,” he said, running over to the truck. I stood there, scanning the benches for a place to sit where we’d have the most privacy. When he returned with my coffee, I led him to the spot I’d identified. Afraid that I’d lose my nerve if we started chatting about something else, I got right down to business.

“Okay,” I said, taking a deep breath and looking him in the eyes. But the intimacy of that was too much, and I shifted my gaze to a bird’s nest built into the “A” of the Shoe Mania store across the street. I stared at that nest hard and launched into a presentation of my misdeeds.

I was careful to be factual and get everything out so I had to do this only once. I covered setting up the blog with care to make it private, the server crashing, the reason I didn’t see the e-mail alerting me to the problem, and then moved on to the blog going viral, the letters that contained sister-talk about our marriage and sex life, and the kiss with Jake.

At one point, Leo got a confused look on his face and turned around to see what I was staring at, prompting me to do the adult thing and look at him in the eyes again, just as I was getting to the part about the kiss.

“And that’s what I needed to talk to you about,” I finished. And then I added, “And why I’m going to Singapore. I have to tell Sid.”

Leo opened his mouth to speak. I don’t think he said anything, but I can’t be sure because my heart was beating so loudly in my ears. Then, as if to check my hearing, he let out a short burplike sound, a quick stop that emanated from his throat.

Made nervous by his silence, I spoke again. “I know. The whole situation is crazy.”

It sounded glib, and I immediately regretted saying it.

Leo didn’t respond, so I continued.

“I need you to know that there is
nothing
going on with Jake. I deeply regret the kiss, which was a stupid mistake that I barely even remember.” And then, realizing that I hadn’t yet said the most important thing, I added, “I am sorry, Leo. I am so sorry.” The more I said, the shakier I felt.