Amends: A Love Story (19 page)

I go back downstairs and look for a dance
floor. There's got to be at least one in a club like this. I'm
about to duck down another flight of stairs, when a strong hand
grabs my arm.

Startled, I yelp and pull away. "What the
fuck?" I ask, turning towards the wiry blond I winked at earlier.
Up close, I notice he's a lot older than I am. Thirties or forties,
at least.

He smiles and slowly raises his hands in the
universal gesture of surrender. There's something about his cocky
expression that reminds me a little of Ethan. His eyes roam from my
face to my feet and back up again.

"I've seen you walking up and down the stairs
on those endless legs. You're obviously looking for something," he
says, smirking. "Maybe I can help you find it."

"I'm not sure you can. I'm trying to find the
dance floor, and you look a little old for that." I deliver my
zinger without even the hint of a stammer, but it doesn't scare him
away. Instead, his grin broadens and deepens.

"Oh, there's one dance I'm not to old for,
young lady. But if you must bounce around to children's club music,
there are better places than this. Let me take you to once of
them."

I glance down at my watch, one of the few
things of Mom's I brought with me to Adams. It's ten p.m., which
means I have two hours to kill. I look back at the handsome, older
stranger. I wish I had my phone, but I do have a wallet bursting
with enough cash to cover cab fare to the moon—or, at least, to
Grand Central.

"Sure, I'll go with you. But I have to be
back here by midnight."

"I'll call you Cinderella, then," he
says.

"What's your name?" I ask.

"Just call me Joe."

I take his arm. It's a hard column of muscle
that reminds me of Laird. No, I tell myself, don't think about him.
Just have fun.

/////////////////////////

Three hours of dancing, drinking, and
shameless flirting later, I am back at the bar where Maggie asked
to meet me. I look around, and I don't see her anywhere. I'm about
to leave when the bartender—a thin, bald guy with facial piercings
that resemble whiskers—waves me down.

"Are you Amity Dormer?"

"Yes," I yell over the crowd and the
music.

"This is for you." He hands me a folded piece
of paper. It says:

So sorry, Ams. Darla's in a bad way.
Accompanied her to the ER to get her stomach pumped. Now she's
chatting with a shrink. Don't know when I'll be back. Go ahead
crash in my bed. My roommate will let you in. Love ya, you crazy
biyatch.

Joe sidles up to me and whispers in my ear.
"Looks like you've been stood up, Cinderella. What are we going to
do now?"

I take his hand in mine. "I think I've got an
idea," I say, hoping that a meaningless encounter with this
handsome stranger will help me forget about Laird.

/////////////////////////

Whoever he is, Joe is loaded. His townhouse
is huge, and four cavernous stories high. I remember calling his
name from the bottom of the staircase, just to hear the echo.

Now I'm sneaking out of his king-sized bed at
five-thirty in the morning. He's still asleep—or, at least,
pretending to be. I throw on my clothes without even bothering to
shower. I don't want him to wake up and ask for round two. Our
night together was yet another stupid mistake.

Joe is an obviously practiced lover with a
scary amount of experience. He pressed all the right buttons and
moved my limbs around into positions I didn't even think were
possible. He was also scrupulous about obtaining informed
consent—he even checked my driver's license. But the whole
experience was cold and clinical. The moment our clothes fell off,
the playful banter fell away. The connection that I'd had with
Laird just wasn't there.

I walk quickly down the stairs and emerge
onto the Upper West Side. I decide to go straight home rather than
drop in on Maggie. She must be exhausted after last night, and I'm
not in the mood for girl talk. I don't want her to know about my
ill-fated night with Joe. I don't even feel like telling her about
Laird. I'm done thinking about him, dreaming about him, and
especially talking about him.

/////////////////////////

When I get home, I see that
Darcy has left my phone on my pillow. It's blinking and chirping
with news. I drop my bag and look at my incoming texts. Three from
Gran. Two from Maggie.
And, oh my God,
there are seven from Laird!

Chapter 22: Laird

"Hey, man, can you spot me?" asks Teo,
struggling to push a one hundred and eighty pound barbell away from
his chest.

"Sure." I help Teo finish the movement and
rack the bar.

Teo sits and breathes for a few moments. His
black curls are damp and wild. "I don't know how you do it, man.
Football practice every day has got to be brutal."

I grab a forty-pound weight and do some light
bicep curls. "You get used to it. Anyway, the program here isn't
very intense. Our biggest game of the year is against Harvard.
Adams isn't exactly a feeder school for the pros."

Teo takes a forty-pound weight and struggles
to raise it. Huffing and puffing, he gasps out a question. "I don't
mean to stick my nose into your business, but, um, I haven't seen a
lot of ladies tiptoeing out of your room lately. Is everything, you
know, OK?"

I shrug and place my weight on the floor.
Everything is not OK. Not at all. Despite all my good intentions, I
finally broke down and texted Amity. I didn't know what I was going
to tell her about the accident or the money I gave her grandmother,
but I knew that I wanted to see her again. To hold her again. To
kiss her again. I craved her with a crazy intensity that blotted
out everything else.

I was shocked when she didn't text me back. I
tried her again and again and again. By the time the fever broke,
I'd texted her seven times. God, what a pussy I am. When I decided
not to text her after our night together, I told myself that all
she'd wanted was a fun, no-strings experience. I wonder if that
could really be true, and if I've just made a complete ass of
myself.

Teo waves his hand in front of my face. "You
there, man?"

"Yeah. I just kind of fucked things up with a
girl I like." Of course, I don't tell him the girl I like is Amity,
the one he thought looked like trouble incarnate.

Teo sits down on the bench across from me and
gives me a sly, knowing look. "Are you talking about the girl with
the stalker? The one you had the pledges follow around?"

"Yeah," I say, resuming my curls. "That's the
one. You saw her picture in my room once. You said she looked
complicated. That she was a bad idea."

Teo laughs. "Hey, man. Sometimes the worst
ideas can be the most fun. Want to tell me about it?" His
expression grows thoughtful and intent, like a doctor who's just
asked his patient to describe his symptoms.

I decide that I do, oddly enough, want to
talk. I try to simplify the situation for Teo. "Her name is Amity.
I know her from home. Our moms both died around the same time. Just
a weird coincidence, I guess."

Teo nods, inviting me to continue.

"I ran into her on Registration Day, and we
texted a little. Then I saw that guy—her stalker—bothering her the
Adams Apple. You remember the meeting when I ran out in the
middle?"

Teo laughs. "We all thought you had the
shits."

"No, I was following Amity and her stalker
into the alley. I scared him off, but I was still a little worried
about her. That's when I had the pledges start shadowing her.
Anyway, we had dinner last week—just hanging out—and things got,
um, physical. She was gone the next morning, and I haven't heard
from her since."

"Did you call or text her the next day? Or
the day after?"

"No," I admit.

Teo slaps his head with his hands. "You blew
her off after you did the deed. She's probably just paying you
back. Making you squirm. I'm sure you'll hear from her in another
day or two. Just keep your cool and don't, um, stalk her."

I'm about to say that I'd never stalk a
girl—especially Amity, who's already been traumatized—when my phone
vibrates.

It's her.

/////////////////////////

"You know, we don't have to do this. We can
just get out of here and go for p-p-pizza." I can tell from her
voice that she's nervous. She stammers a little and runs her words
together. It's as if she has an accent from another, better world.
I smile at her and stroke her hair.

"We've talked about this. I want you to meet
my brothers and feel welcome at the house," I say as reassuringly
as possible.

She smiles shyly and nods. "Let's do this
thing."

I take her cold hand in my warm one, and we
enter the frat house, this time through the front door. It's Raw
Friday, which means a sushi chef is making custom rolls for all the
brothers and their dates. The dining hall is already packed, and
the chef and his assistants are creating rolls almost as fast as
the brothers can order them. Pledges are scurrying about, taking
orders and pouring sake.

I bring Amity to my usual table. Teo and his
friend Torah, a sophomore who spent a year in the Israeli Defense
Force, are playfully insulting each other, while Caspar is feeding
a small blonde girl pieces of sashimi. Hoover is sitting between
two dark-haired twins and laughing loudly. His face is already
red.

I introduce Amity to everyone, and she
blushes prettily. We settle in beside Teo and Torah. A pledge comes
by to take our order and fill our glasses. Amity sips her sake and
listens to the conversation around her, nodding and smiling in all
the right places. When it seems like Amity is feeling fairly
comfortable, I squeeze her hand and whisper, "I'll be back soon."
Since I'd warned her ahead of time, she seems nervous, but not
terrified.

As frat president, I'm expected to make the
rounds at dinner, checking in with the brothers and calling out
lazy and inept pledges. I stop at a table of senior lacrosse
players and then break up a fight between two heavily muscled
sophomores over a bottle of Tamari sauce. I make a mental note to
find out if either of those guys are using steroids. A 'roids
scandal is the last thing the house needs.

When I make my way back to my seat, I am
pleased to see Amity taking part in a conversation that involves
the whole table. The dark-haired twins seem to be especially
interested in what she has to say. I sit down, and Teo beams at me
with a mischievous gleam in his eye.

"Your friend Amity was telling us about her
career as an exotic dancer," he says.

Oh, great, I think. I force myself to stay
quiet and let her speak.

"Strippers don't have sex with their
customers," she explains in a sweet, earnest voice. "The customers
aren't even allowed to touch them."

"I don't believe that," says Hoover,
practically snorting.

Amity shakes her head. "Go to a strip club,
try to touch one of the dancers, and see what happens."

"Can girls really make a thousand dollars a
night?" asks one of the twins.

"Sometimes," she says quietly, and I realize
my face may not have been as pleasantly neutral as I'd thought. It
also occurs to me that Amity doesn't know that her time at the
strip club is old news to me.

She looks me in the eye, daring me to
comment. "I'm not a stripper any more," she says. "I just did it to
save enough money that I could come here. I'm not ashamed."

I don't like the fact that Amity was a
stripper—and that now my friends know she was a stripper—but I have
no right to be angry. If it weren't for the accident that killed
her mother and tore her family apart, I doubt she would have ever
gotten near a strip club.

I put my arm around her and kiss her forehead
to make my allegiance clear. She relaxes against me, and gently
changes the subject when the dark-haired twins pelt her with
questions about pole dancing and strip club auditions.

/////////////////////////

We're lying in bed. Our bodies are warm and
connected. She strokes my face, and I pull her closer.

"I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable," she
whispers. "I should have told you I used to be a stripper."

"Nonsense. It doesn't matter." I kiss her
neck and feel her squirm against me.

"It does to me," she says. "I want you to
know that I'll never strip again. My grandmother won the lottery,
and she's going to pay my tuition."

I feel a surge of goodness and rightness as I
taste Amity's mouth, bruising her lips until she moans. I know I've
done the right thing. My burden of guilt is suddenly lighter—light
enough that I could carry it for the rest of my life. I wonder if I
can really have this lightness and Amity, too.

Then Amity rolls on top of me, and I lose my
doubts in her curtain of sweet-smelling hair. She covers me with
kisses and gazes into my eyes. Her pupils are wide with excitement,
and her cheeks are flushed from exertion. Her voice is husky and
breathless.

"There's something I should tell you about
the last time we were together," she says. "I really should have
said something earlier, but I didn't want to scare you away."

I have no idea what she's talking about. At
this point, nothing about her could frighten me. "It's OK, Amity.
You can tell me. You're safe here."

"I was a virgin. I know twenty—almost
twenty-one—is kind of old to have virtually no experience. I didn't
want you to think I was some kind of freak, so I didn't say
anything. Can you forgive me?"

A virgin? I had no idea, and now I feel a
thousand times worse for how I handled things afterwards. "You're
the one who should forgive me," I say, wrapping my arms around her,
and pulling her head to my chest. "Did I hurt you at all?
Physically? Or emotionally?"