Amy Inspired - Bethany Pierce [96]
The night air had cooled. That wasn’t why she shuddered, but I flicked the floor heater on anyway.
She stared out the window. “I think about Chelsea every single second of every single day. Sometimes I just want to go and be with her. I think I would do anything to be with her.”
I considered this young woman who knew a grief I couldn’t imagine. I thought of Fay and of Zoë.
“Ashley—you’ve never thought of hurting yourself.”
She turned to face me, sincere or very well-rehearsed shock on her face. “I wouldn’t, I swear,” she said. “Ms. Gallagher, I couldn’t do that to my dad.” She ran her hand through her hair. “Look, forget I said it. It was a stupid thing to say.”
“It’s all right. I believe you.”
She was the one to break eye contact. “I should get going.” She reached for her bag and stepped daintily onto the sidewalk, but before leaving she peered back down inside the car. “Ms. Gallagher?
I’m really okay. Honest.”
“I said I believed you.”
“Okay. See you around?”
See you around. Verbal clutter for good-bye.
She walked up the sidewalk, heels forcing her to walk with a decided strut. She could pass for a Leslie, for any of her self-conscious, vapid girlfriends, and I wondered how many people would take the time to see past the pretty face and recognize what lay beneath.
I knew she wouldn’t come back to the Baptist church, that she and I would probably never talk again like we talked now. We might see each other once, maybe twice, only from a distance, and only if I stayed in Copenhagen long enough.
I couldn’t save Ashley. But I hoped I was the first of many people who would lead her step-by-step until her fledgling wonder turned to faith and took flight, one of the many believers burning in rows like lights illuminating the length of an airplane runway.
21
I made Brian promise to come and stay with me in Copenhagen for a night. Class was over and I had grading and more grading to finish by the end of finals week. The prospect of spending hours alone in the apartment, slogging through the mountain of paper was unbearable.
On the phone, we negotiated the terms of his visitation.
“I have to study,” he said.
“I know. I have to grade.”
“You can’t distract me.”
“I’ll be quiet as the grave. Circumspect as a monk.”
“And I need to sleep.”
“You can have Zoë’s bed. I promise, you’ll sleep like a baby.”
“And I have to get up early.”
“Done.”
He arrived Saturday afternoon, laden with equipment: a computer bag slung over his shoulder, a thirty-pound book bag on his back, and a duffel bag stuffed with dirty laundry he hoped he could wash at my place—he was flat out of quarters. He unloaded his books on the kitchen table and set to work. I separated his darks and lights and made popcorn for brain food.
“What are these?” I pulled two bridal magazines from his duffel bag where I’d been searching for the dryer sheets he insisted he’d brought.
“Oh, I was going to take those back to Marie. She keeps leaving them at my place. You watch out,” he warned. “Those magazines are poison. They bite.”
“I’ll be careful,” I said solemnly.
The first magazine was two inches thick. The woman on the cover smiled with Julia Roberts wattage. She was sitting in a field of sunflowers, crowded by shouting headlines:
450 New Gowns
LOOKS YOU’LL LOVE FOREVER
REAL ADVICE FOR HOW TO DEAL WITH
IN-LAWS
Best Dressed Moms
GLUTES, THIGHS, AND ABS
the ultimate pre-wedding workout!
I read about Jessica and Brad’s “modern and elegant” nuptials in the luxurious Ritz-Carlton resort in Naples, Florida. I read about Melanie and Mike’s carved melon toothpick holders and how the air smelled of lavender and eucalyptus at Chloe and Jerome’s outdoor sunset ceremony.
I drew a beard on Jerome with a black pen, which improved him significantly.
The men in bridal magazines were practically invisible in their uniformity, the same JCPenney underwear models in the same tux, the features of their smiling faces symmetric and attractive in a completely underwhelming way.
“These men all look alike to me,” I said to Brian. “Is it the