Page 94 of Your Every Wish
“But why?” I can understand if it’s Madge, who calls incessantly, asking whether Kennedy has found the money yet. At first, I thought it was because Madge was worried about Kennedy. Then I came to realize it isn’t that at all. It’s about Madge and what she wants to do with Kennedy’s money, nattering endlessly about the house, the car, the clothes, the timeshare in Hawaii she’s already picked out to buy.
Now, I’m not saying Madge is a bad person or a bad mother. Clearly, she loves her daughter and Kennedy loves Madge like crazy. But she’s selfish, self-entitled, and frankly a headache.
“Because no news is good news.” Kennedy points at her cell, which I’m now holding.
I want to sayJust because you don’t answer the phone doesn’t mean there’s no news. If a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it . . . Hell yes, it still makes a sound. “At least check your voicemail. It could be important. Like, what if Brock Sterling is no longer with us?”
“As in dead?” Kennedy says.
“Why do we have to put it that way? How about he’s gone away on a long trip, and no one has heard from him since?”
“Yeah, except he didn’t. He’s still in Chicago. I checked this morning.”
“How do you check that? Never mind, I don’t want to know.” Because I’m visualizing Kennedy calling him at his office from a burner phone and hanging up as soon as she hears his voice. Or worse, she’s sweet-talked someone from Caesars security to track his every move.
“Oh shit.” Kennedy is staring at her watch. “I’ve got to go. I promised the canasta ladies I’d sit in for Dorrie. She’s in Bakersfield, visiting her son.”
“Do you even know how to play canasta?”
“No. But how hard can it be?” Kennedy dashes out of the bathroom, swipes a jacket off her bed, and is out the front door before I can even say goodbye.
I spend the rest of the afternoon doing light housekeeping, so Dex doesn’t think we live like pigs. He’s fussy about neatness. I always tell him that it’s easy to be spotless and organized when you’ve got someone on the payroll who cleans up after you.
That’s how we met. I had just graduated from college and was working part-time for Twinkle Time, a housekeeping agency, while applying for journalism jobs. Dex had just started as a junior trader at BTIG and could afford someone to clean his apartment twice a month. Back then he had a four-flight walkup in a dicey area south of Market. It wasn’t much but it was better than the two-bedroom flat I shared with four roommates and a labradoodle named Wolverine.
He’d purchased the “Executive Package,” which in addition to cleaning included laundry and grocery shopping. All I had was a bike, so depending on his order it could take me several trips to and from the market to fill his fridge.
But it was the laundry I hated the most. The machines were in the basement—otherwise known by my friends and me as “serial killer central”—and almost always in use. Half the time, people stuffed in a load, then left it sitting in one of the machines for hours at a time before coming to retrieve it. Once, I found the same dryer full of laundry from two weeks before still in the machine.
I quickly copped the attitude that if you snooze you lose, dumping any laundry left for more than an hour in a washer or dryer on the dusty folding counter. While I’d found a way to deal with inconsiderate residents, I never got the hang of ironing. And ironing came with the “Executive Package,” not to mention that it was top on Dex’s to-do list. To this day, he likes his creases crisp, and his collars starched and flat.
After he complained to the agency that I’d scorched three of his Brooks Brothers shirts, I knew my days were numbered at Twinkle Time. And while scrubbing toilets and plucking hair out of shower drains wasn’t my career of choice, my only prospect of a journalism job had been writing clickbait headlines for an online entertainment site that paid ten cents a word. No way was I making rent on that salary.
So I did what I had to do. I showed up at Dex’s studio apartment when I knew he’d be home and I begged him to take back his complaints and tell Twinkle Time that if they fired me, he would in turn fire them and leave an awful Yelp review accusing the agency of being a sweatshop because it kind of was.
He surprised me by agreeing. But only on one condition: I learned how to iron. Then he ordered a pizza, broke out a nice bottle of Barolo, and proceeded to teach me the fine art of pressing his clothes. Everything I know about crease-free garments I learned from Dex.
And here we are more than nine years later. I smile at the memory, knowing that one day it’ll be the story we tell our children and grandkids of how we met, charming them with the romantic nature of it all.
Then there’s Kennedy, who would probably puke if I tried to regale her with the beginning to Dex’s and my love story.
* * *
Dex comes bearing gifts. He’s brought all my favorites: mac and cheese from the Tipsy Pig, passion fruit cake from Tartine, and a box of Recchiuti Confections chocolates.
“Wow, you went all out,” I say, wondering if nuking the mac and cheese in the microwave will make it rubbery.
“I figured by now you must be really jonesing for this stuff.”
The truth is I haven’t thought about San Francisco much. There’s plenty of good restaurants and bakeries and sweet shops here to explore. Just the other day, Liam and I found a wonderful candy shop on Main that makes its own gummy ghosts (Ghost, get it?). We nearly made ourselves sick eating them while strolling the entire pedestrian square.
“It was very thoughtful of you,” I say, sounding obnoxiously prim and proper.
He reaches over and kisses me, slowly at first, then, cupping the back of my head, he takes the kiss deeper. It’s such a good kiss, the kind that you log in your long-term memory as the gold standard of kisses—and yet, there’s something missing. Something contrived about it, like this is how it’s done if you want to make a statement or mark your territory.
I tell myself this is all Misty’s fault. She’s made me question whether Dex’s newfound passion for me is real or magic. And since I don’t believe in magic, I should take Dex’s feelings for what they are. Real.
We’ve been together for nearly a decade, after all. Of course he loves me. And the kissing, gifts, and extra attention are all due to distance. Maybe not having me at his constant beck and call has opened his eyes to what he’d be missing without me.
