Free The Law of Loving Others by Kate Axelrod Page B

already?”
    â€œI’m not.”
    â€œHow was your mom today?”
    I shrugged. “It’s whatever . . . She’s whatever.”
    â€œEmma, come on. Tell me.”
    â€œI really just don’t feel like it right now.”
    I knew that he was trying, but right then I didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to think about it. I wanted to be the girl who didn’t care about anything, who was wild and fun, who could try coke like it was no big deal. I wanted to be the girl who gave her boyfriend a blow job in the bathroom of his parents’ house, while family and friends milled outside the door, sipping their drinks, examining a painting that hung on a nearby wall, wondering if it was an original.
    I started to undo his belt buckle, slipped the little leather knot out of its loop.
    â€œYou seriously want to do this now? My grandparents are like twenty-five feet away.”
    â€œUgh, fuck you.” I wanted so badly to lose myself in recklessness, but I just couldn’t quite get there.

    I walked into the kitchen, where the caterers were circling around each other, grabbing platters of miniature tacos with slices of sirloin steak, eggplant puff pastries, chicken teriyaki skewers. I saw Daniel’s mother feeding herself a tiny potato pancake with a dot of sour cream in its center. She stopped me.
    â€œLet’s go into the den and talk for a minute?”
    I was starting to feel jittery and my heart was beating heavily, pounding. I didn’t need to talk, I was fine.
    â€œAre you feeling okay? Do you want to talk? Daniel’s filled me in on what’s going on. It sounds like you’re going through a hell of a lot right now.”
    I was fine. Fine. Fine. Fine.
    â€œI’m okay,” I said. “Thanks, but I really am.”
    She looked at me in this knowing way.
    My heart was starting to slow, and I felt something else, something like emptiness, creeping in.
    â€œOkay, sweetie. Well, I’m not going to push you, but I’m here if you need to talk. And if not me, I could find you someone else. This is serious business, okay? You need to take care of
yourself
, too.”
    She was wearing a chain with two gold letters dangling from the middle.
D
and
L
for her children.
    â€œAll right,” I told her. “All right, thanks.”
    My high was coming down and I felt the faintest headache lurking somewhere in the back of my brain, waiting to rear its head. I poured a couple of shots’ worth of whiskey into my wine glass and kept sipping.

    I woke up at five or six on Christmas morning. I was naked and felt drool caked onto the side of my face, which was pressed against Daniel’s bare back. The heater was making a loud gurgling noise, and it felt like a hundred degrees inside his bedroom. I felt sick and needed some fresh air. I whispered to Daniel that I had to go, would call him later, and happy Christmas. I slipped out the door. The doorman downstairs was asleep; his eyes fluttered open and he apologized profusely at the sight of me. “No, no,” I said. “Please, it’s fine.”
    I felt awash in cold when I stepped outside. The sky was mostly a dark blue but was beginning to lighten. The street was empty, except for an old man walking a dog on the corner. She was a big German shepherd and they both walked gingerly, then the dog paused to pee, and a stream of yellow pooled on the curb beside her. The owner patted the dog’s waist. “Good job, my girl, good job.”

chapter
7
    CHRISTMAS night, Annie and I went to dinner at an Indian restaurant in Mamaroneck. It was nestled in a strip mall where everything else was closed—a nail salon, a Hallmark store, an enormous Staples, all empty and dark. We were the only two people inside the restaurant, which had plush burgundy walls and brown velvet curtains separating the dining area from the kitchen.
    â€œCome in” the waiter said, “anywhere