Page 15 of One-Star Romance

“They’re not going to pull someone over for going ten over the speed limit.”

“You never know. And the time lost if we get pulled over will add up to much more than the time we’d save by speeding.”

Nat could feel her hands balling into fists. Patience. She was doing this for Gabby. She thought of the owls. Once, years ago, she’d mentioned to Gabby that she thought owls were majestic creatures. And ever since, Gabby had bought her owl trinkets whenever she stumbled upon one—mugs and dish towels and nonfiction books about the hunt for a particularly elusive species. Sometimes, even though they lived in the same city, Nat would get a package in the mail and open it up to find some necklace with an owl charm on it and a note from Gabby: Saw this and thought of you!! At one point, years into the owl gifts, Nat had mentioned to Gabby that it was so thoughtful of her, and she absolutely did not want to seem ungrateful, but she had to come clean: she didn’t actually care about owls that much. Gabby had nodded, but there had been a wicked gleam in her eyes, and a few weeks later, Nat had opened her door to a delivery of a five-foot-tall painting of Natalie surrounded by owls that Gabby had made for her.

For this woman, Nat could sit in a car with a silent, scowling man. For this woman, Nat could do a lot of things. Gabby was getting married today, and marriage could make a friend disappear into a little world of two. But if Nat helped the wedding go off as well as it could, Gabby would remember that. And maybe she would have a harder time leaving Natalie behind.

At the store, Nat and Rob loaded pallets of bottled water into a cart with silent efficiency. “I’ll look for umbrellas,” Nat said, terse.

“I’ll find fans,” Rob said with a grunt.

On her way to meet back up with Rob, having cleaned out the umbrella section, Natalie passed the books aisle. She couldn’t stop herself. A siren song called her to check for her own. It wouldn’t be here—this was a small selection, made up mostly of bestsellers and mass-market paperbacks—but still, there was a chance, and how nice and validating that would feel. Clutching her armful of umbrellas, she scanned the shelves, looking past what felt like a million copies of The Girl on the Train, All the Light We Cannot See, and Refractions, that sophomore effort from Young Male Intellectual that had gotten breathless reviews in every newspaper of note, that nobody except Nat and fucking Addison K seemed to think was overrated. But not a single copy of Apartment 2F. Of course not. Because it was a one-star book. She felt her chest deflating. She’d put her whole self into this novel, all the most interesting thoughts she’d ever had, and if that wasn’t enough…

Stop that! she told herself. Don’t let this random stranger destroy your sense of self. Then, But maybe strangers are the only ones whose opinions you should trust—

Rob wheeled the cart up to her, now crammed with boxes of battery-operated fans. “We should get going,” he said.

“Right.” She shook herself out of her funk. His eyes briefly landed on the Refractions display, and he made that scoff-like noise that seemed more natural to him than laughter.

“What?”

“Nothing,” he said. Then, after a brief pause, “That’s one of the most pretentious books I’ve ever read.”

“Yes, thank you! I could barely get through it. And whenever I hear anyone else talk about it, I feel like I’m living in an alternate reality!”

He shrugged, a flush coming over his face, then turned the cart toward checkout.

As Rob began to bag up their items and the cashier told them their total, Natalie pulled out her wallet. “Okay, can we put the eighty dollars on the debit card here, then the remainder on this credit card? Oh, but if the remainder is over a hundred, actually, I should put the last bit on a different card instead.” She fumbled around in the mass of cards and receipts. “Hold on, I have it in here somewhere.”

“Stop,” Rob said. “Just put it on mine.” He took his wallet from his back pocket, pulled out a card, and handed it to her as he continued to bag their umbrellas.

She glanced down at the card as she passed it over to the cashier. Simple, black, with his name printed on it: Robert Addison Kapinsky.

ROBERT. ADDISON. KAPINSKY. She froze with the card still in her hand, the cashier reaching out to give it a tug. She was barely aware of letting go; her mind began to spin.

Addison was not the most common name in the world. That opinion about Refractions was not the most common opinion. And not that many strangers had heard of her book. It made sense that Rob would use his middle name and no profile picture for something like a Goodreads account—he was a private person who didn’t even have social media. It was him. It had to be.

She thought back to the timing. He’d submitted the rating shortly after their strange encounter at the rehearsal dinner.

She looked at him as he continued to bag, a great rage rising up in her.

What the actual hell? This was a mistake. It had to be. Right? Because people were allowed to rate books any way they wanted. Of course they were! But polite society dictated that you didn’t savage a book by someone you knew. Unless you knew them because they were your nemesis or your high school bully or had stolen your dog.

But when you were maid of honor and best man at a wedding together? When you would literally have to walk down an aisle arm in arm while people watched and took pictures? It was the height of incivility! (“The height of incivility”? Who did she think she was, a Jane Austen heroine?) Fine then, rude. Not only rude but idiotic, showing a startling ignorance of how people should treat one another.

But then again, this man hadn’t shown himself to be a model of social grace up until this point.

She followed him back to the car in stunned silence.

Maybe this was why he’d been so brusque with her at the dinner. Her work had been so bad, had created such offense to his taste, that he didn’t even want to look her in the eyes.

No. She refused to let this man steal her pride in all that she’d done. What had he ever done? (Most of a PhD, apparently. But that was different!) Cold, pretentious Robert Kapinsky did not get to decide her value as a person.

The Fiona Apple album started up again automatically when he turned the car on. So, Rob thought that some women were allowed to express their feelings in art. What would he rate this album? He left it on this time, apparently thinking that they wouldn’t have much to say to each other, but she pressed pause.

Being extremely pleasant wasn’t enough anymore. She would kill him with kindness. Yes, she would absolutely murder him. She made her smile so full and enthusiastic that she could feel crow’s feet forming as a result.

“Robert,” she said, “you didn’t ask me what I’ve been up to for the past two years.”

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