Life Swap (21 page)

“Just when I was getting used to you.”

I ignore the wistful pang in my chest and quickly pull my jacket on. “You'll find someone else to keep you on the shooting schedule. Anyway, thanks for today. I had fun.” I open the car door, but he turns off the engine.

“Wait, I'll walk you up. It's late.”

“Oh. Thanks.”

I fill the space between us with project talk all the way into the lobby and up to my corridor. Edits and pacing are safe ground: details that won't belie anything other than professional interest in his opinion. Still, I swallow nervously as we reach my room. The whole day has been one long facade of a date, even though I know it's not real.

“So, I had fun,” I say again, stupidly. Ryan looks as awkward as I feel, shifting from one foot to the other in the empty hallway. I unlock the door and push it open to find an empty flat. Morgan is still out. “Oh, do you want that book I mentioned?”

“Sure.”

I flick the lights on and he follows me in. “It's here somewhere….” Browsing the stack on the bookshelf, I find the title—a critical look at comedy conventions. “It's not due back for another week.”

“Thanks, I'll make sure to get it to you in time.” Ryan takes it and scans the back cover before tucking it under his arm. There's a long pause.

“Back to work tomorrow, then?” I say, and immediately want to kick myself for stating the obvious.

“It won't be more than another two days,” Ryan offers. “You must be getting sick of me by now.”

“Surprisingly, no.” I try to sound lighthearted, but when I glance up, he's looking at me with an expression that's almost unreadable.

Almost.

My heartbeat begins to speed as I look into his eyes. Because I know that look, the type of fierce intensity. It's how Sebastian would stare at me when we came up for air: as if I'm the only other person in the world.

I take a quick breath. In a split second, it's as if I'm outside myself, racing to make a decision. I know that moments like this pass, and that if I don't act now, it will be over and he'll leave and nothing will happen between us. But if I make a move…

I take a step forward. In a fleeting thought, I wonder if perhaps those random party hookups were just practice for this, so that when it really mattered, my body would know what to do, even if my mind was still paralyzed. And then I close the last few inches between us and stop thinking.

His lips are cool and soft, and as I bring my hand up to his face, I can feel the slight scratch of stubble against my palm. For one panic–filled moment I stop, waiting for some reaction, but then he pulls me tightly against him and I melt into the kiss.

We fall backward onto the sofa: hands tangling in hair, legs twisting together, and tongues searching, hard and hot and, god, so delicious. I lose track of time, of everything—my mind shuts down.

Finally, I pull away, gasping for air. I'm lying beneath him, Ryan's body pressing me into the bed with a weight that's strangely satisfying. “Oh, wow,” I say before I can stop myself. I blush, but Ryan only laughs, propping himself on one elbow and carefully pushing my hair off my face.

“Yeah, that's about right.” He looks down at me with a warmth that goes straight to my stomach. “I didn't know if…”

“Nor did I,” I agree, still breathless. I lift my face and kiss him again, softly, almost to check that this is real.

It is.

“You didn't say—” The words die on my lips as I hear a rattle of keys outside the door. Ryan and I freeze. “Oh god, Morgan,” I gasp, but the footsteps move on and then the hallway is silent again.

I collapse backward, my heart racing in double–quick time. That was far too close. “You've got to go.” I begin to pull myself out from under him. “She could come back. We can't…”

Ryan sits up slowly and pulls his shirt back on. He glances over to me. “But you're OK with this….”

“Yes!” I lean in and kiss him again, savoring the feel of his skin on mine. “I just don't know how I'm going to tell Morgan.” I pause. “Or even if I need to tell her at all.” Something tells me I don't want to spend the rest of the time sleeping in a confined space with a girl bent on revenge.

“OK.” Ryan gives me a melting grin. “I'll see you tomorrow, in the editing room?”

I nod, shooting another anxious look at the door. “Tomorrow.”

I'm in such a hurry to get him out of the building before we're discovered that it's only when I'm alone again with nothing but a handful of ticket stubs and a diner menu to show for our day that I realize just what I've done. I kissed Ryan. Morgan's Ryan.

And I don't regret it at all.

The day of the big board meeting finally arrives, and I'm nervous as hell. Even a quick call with Em running through her ten–point public–speaking guide didn't make me feel any better. See, Carrie and Uma decided it would make our case stronger if it looked like we had a “coalition of the willing,” whatever that is, so they roped me into presenting a section of our case: talking about all the international schools that offer women's services as a given, and how Oxford doesn't want to look backward or sexist. I get that they want to bring up every possible reason to keep the center open, but I really doubt all the potential foreign students out there will be flipping through their prospectuses thinking, “Harvard, the Sorbonne, Oxford—no wait, they don't have a women's health center. I'll go to MIT instead!”

Either way, I'm part of the team, so that means come noon on Thursday, I'm hanging out in the cold stone hallway outside the meeting room with the rest of our group. I made sure to dress super–smart today, in a crisp blouse and tweedy style of skirt that could be right out of a Hitchcock movie, but that still doesn't stop me from feeling totally out of place. I figured I'd shaken my outsider instinct by now, but something about the importance of the meeting is bringing it all back again.

These girls are depending on me.

“Have we got the backup disc?” Carrie is fussing with our stack of materials. “What about a spare cable, in case the projector plays up?”

“Check and check,” DeeDee answers, a small smile on her face, like she's happy to see Carrie getting so worked up. I'm not. I've never seen her anything but casual and confident, and if our fearless leader is having some kind of panic attack, then that so doesn't bode well for the rest of us.

“You've been quiet, Natasha.” Louise nudges me. “You're going to be OK with your part?”

“I think so.” I'm clutching my notes tightly, hoping my sweaty palms won't smudge the writing.

“You know, you look rather pale.” She studies me. “Don't you think, Uma?”

“I'm OK,” I protest, but now the rest of the group is staring. “Well, maybe I'm kind of nervous,” I admit. “I'm not great with public speaking. Being the center of attention and all.”

It's crazy. I'm happy dancing on tables and parading around in my panties for charity runway shows, but put me in front of a panel of stern professors, and I'm reduced to jelly.

“You'll be amazing.” Louise gives me a supportive hug. “Don't worry.” I nod slowly, just as an older woman sticks her head out the door and beckons to us.

“We're ready to begin now.”

“All right.” To my relief, Carrie gets her game face on: totally focused and in control. “Let's go. Remember, the women of Oxford are relying on us.”

Way to pile the pressure on.

We file into the long room and take a row of seats near the front. There's a long table facing us at the head of the room, which I guess is for the board members to rule over us from, but to my surprise, the rest of the room is quickly filling up too—students and adults packing the rows of folding chairs and looking expectantly at the front.

At where I'm going to be standing.

Oh boy.

“I didn't realize there'd be so many people,” I tell Carrie in a hushed voice.

“Great, isn't it? And the
Oxford Student
is coming out this afternoon with a big article too.” She's beaming. “I talked to one of their reporters earlier in the week, and he seemed really interested in the issues. Maybe that will help sway them.”

“Uh–huh,” I murmur, running through my notes again. It's only a tiny part of our presentation, but I don't want to be the one to screw up, not when so much is riding on this. I may be flying back to my private health insurance in a couple of weeks, but I still remember Holly weeping in that bathroom stall and what could have happened if the center hadn't been there.

“Oh, here we go.” Carrie falls silent as that stern woman from the hallway takes her seat with the others at the long table and bangs her gavel. As she runs through a welcome and agenda, I take a quick glance at the panel who'll be deciding our fates. It doesn't look good. The guys are old, white, and serious, with that kind of pink–cheeked paunch that comes from drinking too much port. Out of the eight of them, only three are women, and they're the pinched librarian kinds who are wearing baggy cardigans and seem to have an average age of, like, sixty. I can't imagine the last time they ever needed contraception.

We're so doomed.

“Ready for battle?” Professor Elliot leans over from the seat behind me. I turn, surprised to see her—and a bunch of Raleigh kids packing the room. Holly gives me a thumbs–up sign, and I think I see Will sitting in a place by the back.

Now I'm
really
nervous.

“Absolutely!” Carrie answers. And then Stern Librarian Lady No. 1 must have said something, because Uma and Louise get up and I have no choice but to follow them all to the front of the room.

“Thank you for giving us the opportunity to talk to you today.” With a respectful nod at the board, Carrie begins. “We feel that an issue as vital as women's service provision must be debated in more detail before any cuts in funding are made….”

As she launches into her opening remarks, I force myself to look up from the floor. Bad idea. There are only about fifty people in the room, max, but it seems way more when they're all staring in my direction. Right now I'm kind of hidden behind a group that has great distracting props like charts and PowerPoint presentations, but soon they'll all be looking at me.

Just me.

I kind of blank out the next part of the meeting, trying not to panic, until I snap back into the room and find that Uma and Louise have said their parts. They've read the personal testimonies, shown the running cost breakdowns, and thrown a bunch of statistics about emergency contraception and sexual assault at them. That means there's only me left.

“…so next, we'll hear an international perspective. Natasha?” Carrie gently pushes me to the front.

I take a deep breath and ignore the crowd. “Oxford has a reputation as being a world–class college,” I begin, trying not to let my notes shake in my hand. “But it's also seen as being stuck in the past. By ignoring women's rights and health issues in this way, the university risks appearing archaic and”—I hear a rustle and then a low whisper from the audience—“alienating a more diverse student intake.”

There's another sound from the crowd, almost like laughter. I keep talking, but carefully reach down and make a slow sweep of the front of my body, making sure my shirt is buttoned and the skirt hasn't bunched up around my thighs. I saw the original
Parent Trap
once, and I swear, ever since I've been terrified of standing up and finding the back of my dress missing.

Nope, everything's where it should be.

“So the women's center is more than a health issue.” I can feel myself speeding up, rushing to be done. The whispers have turned into low murmurs, spreading across the room. I turn to Carrie, but she just shrugs and motions for me to keep talking. I swallow. “It could also be seen as a PR issue too, making sure Oxford can be associated with modern, forward-thinking campuses around the world.”

“Can we have some order?” one of the board members interrupts. There's an outbreak of giggles, quickly covered with super–fake–sounding coughs. I don't understand what's happening, but the sooner I'm done, the sooner I can get the hell out of this room and away from these people. I finish the speech on autopilot, blushing and stumbling over my words as my mind races to figure it out. The way they're whispering and laughing takes me right back to when the video broke, when I couldn't even walk into a room without feeling people's eyes on me, judging me and—

No.

Suddenly I can't breathe. I force the final sentence out, scanning the room for some sign that I'm crazy, that I'm paranoid. Any sign at all. But then I spot two girls in the front row staring at me, wide-eyed with that lip–curling mean look that can only mean one thing: major gossip.

And then I know.

“What's happening?” Carrie hisses at me. I shrug blankly.

One of the librarian ladies bangs the gavel again. “We'll take a short break now. I hope that this disruption won't be repeated when we resume.” She glares over her glasses.

“Come on.” Carrie drags me down the aisle and out into the hallway, the rest of the group following close behind.

“What the hell's happening?” Mary exclaims, closing the door behind us.

“I don't know.” DeeDee shakes her head. “It was all going so well, and then Natasha started her speech and…” She turns to grill me. “Do you know anything?”

I shrug. My insides are tangled in a terrible knot, squeezing everything so tightly I can't breathe.

“Go find out what's happening.” Uma sends Louise back into the room. I sink back slowly against the wall. It's cold, but I'm already numb, so I guess it doesn't matter. I guess nothing I do matters anymore.

“Now you're really pale.” Carrie looks at me carefully. “Don't worry, it's not your fault—whatever's going on. You did fine.”