Good for You: A Novel (4)

And then . . .

Well, and then Aly had no recollection of what happened next.





THREE


Crap. Not this again. It had been years—decades, even—since Aly’d had one of her little memory incidents. There were parts of her childhood she literally couldn’t remember, but since they were the worst parts, she’d never had a problem with that.

Well, there’d been that fight with her closest friend in high school, Jill, that she completely spaced on. Afterward, Jill had accused Aly of lying when she confessed that she didn’t know what they’d squabbled about, and they never really talked again after that. Aly had been mortified, but she’d told herself it was a one-off.

Except now it clearly wasn’t. Aly’s ears were ringing as she made her way through the lobby, but her thoughts were clear. Shouldn’t I feel dizzy or something? she wondered as she stepped into the elevator. Because obviously something’s wrong with me.

As the elevator ascended, it occurred to her that there had been another incident fairly recently. She and Seth almost never fought, but last fall, they’d gotten into an argument before bed. And when he brought it up the next day, she had to pretend she knew what he was talking about until she could patch together that they had fought about how he felt like she never wanted to sleep with him. But that was not long after Luke died, and in addition to being numb from her navel to her knees—as she still kind of was, truth be told—she’d felt like someone had filled her head with gravel. Now, nine months later, she could hardly chalk today’s memory lapse up to grief.

Which meant the stress of the job was officially getting to her. In fact, the conversation with James was probably directly responsible for her brain short-circuiting. If this had happened at any other point in her career, she would’ve taken a vacation, or at least a few days off, to get her head on straight.

It was a shame that was neither financially nor logistically feasible right now.

Well, whatever Aly said at the salad place—whatever she did—couldn’t have been that bad, she reasoned as she strode to her office. She’d speak to Meagan and Ashleigh as soon as they got back to their desks. Okay—maybe at the end of the day after everyone had time to cool down. And if they couldn’t own up to their role in this little kerfuffle, she was willing to take one for the team and move on.

But what, exactly, was Aly apologizing for? And why did her mind refuse to rewind and show the footage between when she volleyed Meagan’s insult back at her and when she fled the scene?

It couldn’t have been more than some quick venting. An angry sentence or two; nothing more. Aly had to believe that. Because otherwise something was seriously wrong with her. She’d been stone-cold sober (she hated feeling even slightly out of control, so neither drugs nor alcohol held any appeal). And her everyday memory was usually airtight—she always remembered where her keys were, and she could usually recall where Seth had set his, too.

She wondered how many people in the restaurant had overheard her. No more than fifteen, she calculated as she turned on her computer monitor. Maybe twenty, twenty-five tops. Most of them probably had no idea who she was, anyway.

Her head had that gravel feeling again. But whenever you couldn’t think straight, you could still read—that was another Luke-ism. They’d spent many a miserable afternoon cuddled together in the corner of their small, shared room—him reading to her before she could read herself, and later poring over their books “alone together,” as her favorite Frog and Toad book described her ideal state of being. So Aly pulled a printout from the top of the wire basket on the corner of her desk, grabbed her red pen, and began to review the August pages.

She quickly lost herself in the gloriously tedious process of editing. Cut this sentence, swap that photo, use this headline instead—the work required a clear vision, a gimlet eye, and a true passion for producing copy that, if you got it right, actually improved readers’ lives. Though she sometimes felt she’d walked into a party she hadn’t been invited to, Aly was born to do this work. And as much as she enjoyed fashion magazines shilling clothes that she would never wear, and gossip rags filled with celebrity fan fiction, All Good had always been her favorite. With its photo spreads of serene spaces, articles offering simple solutions for everyday problems, and scrumptious recipes that somehow managed to mostly be good for you, the magazine showcased the sort of life that was the exact opposite of the first eighteen years of her existence.

She was so engrossed in her pages that she started when her phone vibrated on her desk. She knew it wasn’t Harry—as a corporate lawyer, his insane hours meant he was text-only until around eight every night. She sort of hoped it was Seth. Maybe talking to someone would jog her memory.

But it was her mother. And though she’d repeatedly asked Cindy not to call during her workday, Aly answered. “Mom, I’m kind of in the middle of something. What’s up?”

“Finally. I was starting to think I’d have to send a search party to find you.”

“Ha. You’re welcome to come to New York any time.” This was a lie and they both knew it. Then again, it was more likely that Cindy would visit Manhattan than Aly return to Michigan. To her, the state was one big unhappy memory. And now that Luke was gone, she was never going back there again.

“I’m busy, too, you know. They’re working me to the bone at the supermarket,” said Cindy. She paused, and Aly braced herself for what was coming next. Sure enough: “And it’s way past time for us to deal with the house.”