“I was going to talk to her tonight,” I tell him. “I was going to talk to her about finding a way to make this work.”

“Don’t you think that’s the kind of thing you might not want to leave for the last minute?”

“Okay, I get that you’re trying to help your friend here, but your folksy advice is really starting to piss me the fuck off.”

“Whatever,” he says. “Look, you had the chance to go with her, to figure something out before hand, but it doesn’t seem like it was important enough for you to—”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” I tell him.

His mouth is still open and, for a second, it looks like he’s going to start moving it again, but I’m ready to beat the shit out of him, and I think he can see it.

“Fine,” he says. “I told Leila I wouldn’t leave, but I don’t want to make things worse either. Just one more thing before I go?”

“What?” I ask, impatiently.

“Could I use your bathroom? I’ve really got to take a—”

“Get the fuck out of my house,” I repeat.

He leaves, and I start to feel bad. I don’t really feel bad for him. He was being an asshole, but I feel bad for talking to one of Leila’s friends—one who actually listened and followed through when she asked him to keep an eye on me tonight to make sure I was going to be okay.

Maybe I should have gone with her, maybe not. Whatever the case, Leila Tyler turned my life upside down in the best and worst possible way.

Now she’s gone.

Now she’s gone, and I’m calling Wrigley to see if she’d feel up to hanging out, maybe getting a drink.

It’s not that I have plans to get back with her; she’s simply the only person I can talk to right now. Before I slept with his secretary, I used to be able to talk to my friend, Derek, but he’s a little pissed at me right now.

I’m sure as hell not going to get Mike back up here.

“Hello?”

“She’s gone,” I start, but I can’t say anything else.

I take the phone away from my ear and drop it on the table.

Chapter Twenty-Four

Of Chlorine and Anger

Dane

It’s been a week now, and I haven’t heard anything from Leila.

Mike hasn’t stopped by again, but I’m not quite so upset about that.

I tried calling Leila a few times, but the phone always went straight to voice mail, and what I have to say isn’t something a recording can contain.

I’ve been talking to Wilks, trying to gauge his readiness in taking the kitchen entirely on his own, without any further input from me, but he’s nervous. I know it’s something he’s going to have to overcome, but even standing back, watching him, it’s clear he’s not quite ready.

I’m not sure that I am, either.

Right now, I’m at home with an old friend. Well, in truth, the only friend I have left.

“So, are we fucking tonight, or what?” Wrigley asks.

“That’s really not why I called you,” I tell her.

“I know,” she says, “but I bet it would cheer you up.”

“I bet it wouldn’t,” I answer, taking a shot of vodka.

“Pour me another?” she asks as I’m still breathing through mine.

I pour her another shot and start to wonder what the hell she’s doing here.

I know why I called her: I’m lonely, heartbroken and I have absolutely no one else to talk to about it. Unless she actually thinks I’m going to relent and we’re going to end up in the sack, however, I have no idea why she came over.

“You know what you’ve got to do,” she says and takes her shot.

“What’s that?” I ask. “Fuck my pain away?”

“Woo!” she says, slamming the now empty shot glass onto the table. “No,” she says, wiping her mouth, “well, it couldn’t hurt. What I mean, though, is that you’ve got to figure out a way to be all right with never seeing her again. How would you go about that?”

“If I had the answer to that question, I wouldn’t have a problem,” I tell her. “It’s not just some switch I can turn on and off at will.”

“It’s simpler than that,” she says.

“Simpler than flipping a switch?” I ask.

“Well, no,” she says, “but it’s not nearly as difficult as you’re making it out to be. All you have to do is get mad. Get angry at her for hurting you. You’ve heard of the five stages of grief, right? You know: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.”

“I’ve heard that they’re largely bullshit.”

“They’re not,” she says. “I mean, not everyone goes through every one of them all the time, and there’s not some absolute order to them, but they are a pretty common way that people deal with loss. You, my dear,” she says, “are stuck in depression. Have you even experienced anything else since she left you high and dry without so much as a phone call or a goodbye kiss?”

“I know what you’re trying to do,” I tell her, “but it’s not going to work. I love Leila, and I’m not about to get mad at her for following her dreams.”

“Oh, god, will you stop romanticizing the fact that she got a fucking job and moved to New Jersey?” she asks. “It’s about the least romantic thing there is. It’s just a thing. No, I’m not telling you to be mad at her for ‘following her dreams,’ I’m telling you to get mad at her for not wanting you to be a part of them.”

So far, I’ve been deftly avoiding Wrigley’s finer points, but that last part caught me off guard.

“She’ll call,” I tell Wrigley.

“She hasn’t yet,” she answers. “Why do you think that is?”

“She probably wants to make this easier on both of us,” I tell her. “I mean, if we’re not going to be able to be together, isn’t it better to—”

“Closure is better,” Wrigley interrupts. “That’s the one thing I will give you about the bullshit way you decided to stop giving mama the old in-out-in-out: At least you were upfront about it and were firm in your resolve. I’m not saying it’s been easy going back to less compatible man skanks, but at least you didn’t leave me hanging. I mean, that’s just fucked up.”

“Stop it,” I tell her.

“You’ve got to stop idealizing her as this perfect person who could never do wrong, who’s perfectly benevolent and holds the power to make your life better at a whim. That’s why people create gods.”

“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask.

She smiles.

“Nothing,” she says. “I’m just trying to tell you that the longer you put her on that pedestal, the less of her is going to be part of it.”

“What does that mean?” I ask.

“It means that the longer you idealize her, the less real memories you’re going to have to hold onto because they’ll all be slowly replaced by the fantasy. Memories are good, whether they’re of happy times or bad times. They keep things in perspective. If things are shitty, you can pull on a good memory to remind you that things aren’t always going to be shitty. If things are good, you can pull on a bad memory to remind you to keep your focus and not get complaisant.”

“Where do you get this shit?” I ask.

“I’m a social worker,” she says. “There’s a bit of psychological training that goes into that, you know.”

I stop to consider the fact that Wrigley has had substantial psychological training.

“How can I be mad at her, though?” I ask. “I’m just hurt. If anything, I’m mad at myself.”

“Why?” she asks. “Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve been around you enough to know that you’re pretty good at being stupid when you want to be, but that’s hardly a crime.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean it,” she says. “What did you do that was so terrible to deserve being abandoned the way that Leila abandoned you?”

“Will you stop saying shit like that?” I ask.

“Why?” she smiles. “Is it making you angry?”

“Yeah, it’s making me angry.”

“Good,” Wrigley says.

“How is that good?” I ask.

“It’s good because you’re allowing yourself to feel something else. You’re becoming more in tune with the larger reserve of emotion that you’ve been pushing down so you could wallow in your depression. Movement is a good thing.”