A Special Place for Women, Laura Hankin [brene brown rising strong .txt] 📗

my screen as the three dots that meant Libby was typing appeared. Part of me hoped that she wouldn’t be stupid enough to trust me.

But then the words came through: Thanks lady, fingers crossed!

Caroline clenched her entire body—her jaw, her fists. Then she gave a little sniff out of her nose, turned on her sensible heels, and walked back into the main gala space. I followed her out, watching as she glad-handed and checked in with her invited guests, all the while making her way toward Libby, who was standing at the bar, trying to figure out how to insert herself into the conversations that various groups were having around her. As Caroline approached, Libby lit up, waving. I grabbed another glass of champagne from a nearby tray and tucked myself into a corner close enough to hear their conversation.

“Whew,” Caroline said. “What a night.”

“Everyone is having the best time!” Libby said.

“Honestly, I’ll be relieved when it’s over. I’ve been so consumed with planning that I’ve barely thought about anything else, and now Thanksgiving is just around the corner.”

“I know!”

“Will you be spending the holiday in New York?” Caroline asked innocently, tilting her head to the side.

Libby paused, for just a second, and then said, “Hmm, I think so? I’ve been dying to see the parade in person, ever since I was little. I always thought it would be so fun to perform with one of the marching bands! I actually used to play the tuba, and I’d—”

“Interesting,” Caroline said, her tone grown cold. “Excuse me, I need to announce dinner.” She walked away and Libby stared after her, befuddled by the abrupt shift in energy. Caroline passed by me on her way to the dining room and shot me a glance. You win, it seemed to say, but it gave me no pleasure. I felt only a chill, as if all the blood pulsing inside my body had been sucked out and replaced with ice, as Caroline approached a microphone and announced that dinner was served.

•   •   •

The rest of the gala, I sat through the food and the speeches, through the auction where the attendees pledged hundreds of thousands of dollars for the cause. (And yet people pledged much less than they had the year before, now that there was no Nicole to pin their hopes on.)

That invisible string unspooled and connected me to Miles. Whenever I turned to look over at the press table where he was sitting, he was looking back. At one point, my phone buzzed in my purse and I pulled it out to see a text from him: Dammit, Beckley. I’m an ass. Forgive me?

But other strings tugged on me too, from so many directions—Margot and Caroline, conferring in a corner. Raf, next to me, his leg brushing against mine under the table, sending aftershocks of our kiss rippling through me. And always, Libby, who chatted with the elderly couple seated next to her with only a fraction of her usual animation, sensing that something, somehow, had gone amiss.

As Raf and I were waiting in line to get our coats at the end of the evening, Margot passed by, touching my shoulder lightly.

“Whatever you did worked,” she said to me, and a brief, unguarded smile—full of joy or maybe triumph—flashed across her face. “Will you be sleeping at your apartment the next few nights?” I nodded mutely.

“Good,” she said. “Make sure you’re alone.”

THIRTY

The night after the gala, worn out by stress and shame, I fell asleep earlier than I had in weeks, at the entirely reasonable hour of eleven p.m. Who was I, a retiree?

I dreamed of Margot, underwater, her toes just barely kissing the sand beneath her, her cloud of hair rising up above her head as she beckoned me. I was underwater too, trying to get to her, a humming, groaning noise all around us, everything greenish, brackish, and somehow, despite the water, I could smell her. I blinked, and she flickered, and then she wasn’t Margot anymore but my mother. She reached out an arm toward me, and her arm was healthy, not stick thin like it had gotten over the years of chemo. I tried to swim to her but I couldn’t breathe, and I woke to find that I couldn’t breathe because a hand was covering my nose and mouth.

There were people in my apartment.

Before I could consciously make sense of anything, a yell from some primal, terrified place tore through my throat. But the calloused hand over my mouth muffled it, and I knew that nobody would come to help me, that I was finally in that moment so many women experience, the moment when our luck runs out.

Then, the familiar jasmine scent of Margot’s hair, and her voice in my ear. “We’ve come for you.” In the faint light from the traffic outside my window, the dark figures around me came into focus, their faces hidden by hoods. Maybe six or seven of them? I saw them only for a second before one of the figures tied a cloth over my eyes, and then I couldn’t see anything at all.

Someone slid a pair of shoes onto my feet. Then, mute, efficient, the figures led me out of my apartment and into the back of a vehicle. The seat was rough under the thin leggings I’d worn to bed. One of the women closed the door after me, sliding it instead of slamming it. So we were in a van, one that smelled faintly of paint and sweat. Maybe the sweat smell was coming from me.

The engine roared to life, and we began to move. From outside came the nighttime noises of New York: the honks of warring taxis, people coming home from the bars, others rowdily heading to a second location. But inside the van, all was silent except for some faint rustling, shifting of the bodies around me. “I’ve gotta say, I give