New York Billionaires Series

Audrey: Keeping track of your employees, are you?

Carter: Someone has to. Are you following a lead?Nôvel(D)ra/ma.Org exclusive © material.

Audrey: Yes. It’s leading me all the way to the dentist’s office. I have the honor of losing two wisdom teeth.

There’s a two-minute break before he replies, and I imagine him listening to someone pitching ideas, to Wesley talking in his ear, fingers tapping against a desk.

Carter: I’d make a joke about that, except nothing about it is funny. Sorry, spitfire. Taking tomorrow off too?

Audrey: Working from home. Or I’ll at least attempt to.

Carter: The paper will survive without you.

Carter: I realize how that just sounded. You’re crucial for the Globe ‘s success, but not so crucial that you can’t rest after surgery.

Audrey: Not offended. Just determined to cut your negativity out of my life. Don’t text me again.

I’m grinning as I write that, standing on the subway platform. This, I know how to do. Talk about nothingness with him until I can forget the sound of his hoarse breathing in my ear.

Even if it feels burned into my memory and stamped on my bones.

Carter: Fair. This is the final text before I leave you alone forever. Is someone picking you up afterwards? You get pretty out of it from the drugs they give you.

Audrey: My brother was supposed to, but he just cancelled.

Carter: Damn. Tell me the name of the clinic, at least? Just in case. Someone should know.

I consider it for one whole subway stop. Is it a good idea? But he’s right. I’d wanted my brother there, but he couldn’t make it now. Nina, my best friend, is still painfully far away after her job transfer to DC. My other friends in the city are all at work.

So I text him the address. Just in case.

Much later, a kindly nurse leads me into the waiting room. “Have a seat for a while,” she tells me. Her voice comes from far away. “I’ll get you a glass of water. It says on your sheet that your brother is coming to pick you up?”

“Oh, he’s not,” I say. My voice sounds bouncy. I say the words again, just to hear them soar.

“I’m sorry? He’s not?”

I shake my head, and the sensation feels weird. Even bouncier than my voice. “He had a gig in Hoboken. It was only a lunch gig, but his entire band is counting on him. Even though I counted on him first.” I laugh, because that almost rhymed. “Why? I don’t know.”

“Miss,” the nurse says, and now her voice sounds sharp. “We wouldn’t have proceeded with the anaesthesia and surgery if we knew you didn’t have anyone to escort you home.”

It’s difficult to parse her words. Too many of them. “You speak very sharply,” I tell her. “You sound like… a squid. Every direction. They’re pointy, too, their tentacles. God, I want ice cream.”

“You can’t eat any solids for another twenty-four to forty-eight hours. Honey, please let me call someone for you. A friend or a colleague? Maybe a neighbor?”

I close my eyes at the waiting room’s bright lights. It’s hard to focus on them and her voice at the same time. How do other people do both?

“I’m here to pick her up,” a voice says.

The nurse releases my arm. “Oh, thank goodness. Honey, your boyfriend is here.”

That makes me giggle, and then I can’t stop, even though my mouth feels round and cottony and like I’ve swallowed a hippo. Carter is standing in front of me, with an oddly concerned look on his face. I’ve never seen him look concerned before.

“Audrey,” he says. “It’s me.”

I giggle harder, until it wheezes out of me. As if I wouldn’t recognize him. But he seems to be waiting for something, and the nurse peeks around his shoulder too.

I form words. “Hello. You’re skipping work too.”

His mouth softens at the corners. “Yes. Don’t tell my boss.”

It takes a few seconds to make sense of the words, but when they penetrate I dissolve into laughter again. He means himself. “You’re funny. Why are you always so funny?”

Carter’s arm slides around me, and then we’re walking. “And you thought you’d be able to get home by yourself,” he mutters.

But I’m still on his last joke. “Stand-up,” I tell him.

“Stand up?”

“I’m already standing. So are you.”

“No, you and stand-up! People would love it. I’d be… I’d sit… front row.”

Carter snorts. It makes him sound like a horse, and my mind races to the memory of a family vacation. We’d been in Arizona and Kevin had begged, so we’d all gone on a horse tour along the canyon.

Wide-open spaces. It had been so beautiful.

“I prefer to perform my comedy in private,” Carter says. “Don’t worry. I’ll always save you a front-row seat.”

I shake my head. “We need to go to the canyon.”

“The… canyon?”

We’re moving. An elevator, I think, and then a lobby. His arm is strong around me. “This way,” he says. “Now what’s this about a canyon?”

“I don’t have one,” I say, and the thought makes me sad. They are so far away. “It’s been forever since I saw the red earth. The desert wind.”

“Okay, you hippy. If you really want to visit a canyon we can go to one.”

I shake my head. “They’re all disappearing.”

“They are? Where are they going? Come on, this is my car. Let’s get in.”

I duck my head and settle in the leather backseat of his car. The smell feels sharp in my nostrils. I lean back against the seat and close my eyes.

Wow, I’m tired. Exhausted. Can’t feel my mouth either.

“Miss Ford’s apartment,” Carter says. Then he says my address.