Page 68 of The Girl You Left Behind
“Before or after you jumped his bones?”
Liv sips her coffee. “Guess.”
“Oh, ouch. Was it that bad?”
“No, it was great. Well, I thought it was. Admittedly I haven’t had much to go by recently.”
Mo gazes around her, as if looking for clues. “You put your pictures of David away, right?”
“Of course I did.”
“And you didn’t, like, say David’s name at the crucial moment?”
“No.” She remembers the way Paul had held her. “I told him he had changed the way I felt about myself.”
Mo shakes her head sadly. “Aw, Liv. Bad hand. You’ve just been dealt a Toxic Bachelor.”
“What?”
“He’s the perfect man. He’s straightforward, caring, attentive. He comes on superstrong until he realizes you like him, too. And then he runs a mile. Kryptonite to a certain kind of needy, vulnerable woman. That would be you.” Mo frowns. “You do surprise me, though. I honestly didn’t think he was the type.”
Liv glances down at her mug. Then she says, with just a hint of defensiveness, “It’s possible I might have talked about David a bit. When I was showing him the painting.”
Mo’s eyes widen, then lift to the heavens.
“Well, I thought I could just be straightforward about everything. He knows where I’m coming from. I thought he was okay with it.”
She can hear her voice: chippy. “He said he was.”
Mo stands and goes to the bread bin. She reaches in for a slice, folds it in half, and takes a bite. “Liv—you can’t be straightforward about other men. No man wants to hear about how fantastic the one before was, even if he is dead. You might as well just do a whole spiel on Enormous Penises I Have Known.”
“I can’t pretend David isn’t part of my past.”
“No, but he doesn’t have to be your whole present, too.” As Liv glares at her, Mo says, “Honestly? It’s like you’re on a loop. I feel like even when you’re not talking about him you’re thinking about talking about him.”
That might have been true even a few weeks ago. But not now. Liv wants to move on. She had wanted to move on with Paul. “Well. It doesn’t really matter, does it? I blew it. I don’t think he’ll be coming back.” She sips her coffee. It burns her tongue. “It was stupid of me to get my hopes up.”
Mo puts a hand on her shoulder. “Men are weird. It’s not like it wasn’t obvious that you were a mess. Oh, shit—the time. Look, you go out for one of your insane runs. I’ll be back at three o’clock and I’ll call in sick to the restaurant and we can swear a lot and think up medieval punishments for fuckwit men who blow hot and cold. I’ve got some modeling clay upstairs that I use for voodoo dolls. Can you get some cocktail sticks ready? Or some skewers? I’m all out.”
Mo grabs the spare key, salutes her with the folded bread, and is gone before Liv can respond.
•••
In the previous five years TARP has returned more than 240 works of art to owners, or descendants of owners, who had believed they might never see them again. Paul has heard stories of wartime brutality more appalling than anything he encountered while working in the NYPD; they are repeated with a clarity of recall that suggests they might have happened yesterday rather than decades ago. He has seen pain borne like a precious inheritance through the ages and writ large on the faces of those left behind.
Hearing the stories of horror and betrayal, of families murdered and displaced by the Second World War, and knowing that those victims still lived with the injustices every day, he has relished being part of some small degree of recompense.
He has never had to deal with anything like this.
“Shit,” says Greg. “That’s tough.”
They are out walking Greg’s dogs, two hyperactive terriers. The morning is unseasonably cold and Paul wishes he had worn an extra jumper.
“I couldn’t believe it. The actual painting. Staring me in the face.”
“What did you say?”
Paul pulls his scarf up around his neck. “I didn’t say anything. I couldn’t think what to say. I just... left.”
