Love, Accidentally (13 page)

“I wanted to show you this layout,” he’d said. “What do you think? Do you see anything that troubles you?”

It felt like a trick question—did he want her opinion, or was there something wrong with the page, something she was expected to catch?

To buy time, she’d taken a sip of the Starbucks latte she’d picked up on her way in.

“Is everyone in our office addicted to this stuff?” he’d asked, picking up an identical cup from his desk and taking a sip.

Just as Cate had laughed, Jane had popped her head into the office.

“Sorry—I didn’t know you were busy,” she’d said.

Cate could see how the scene appeared from Jane’s perspective. It was 10:00
a.m.
on a Saturday and no one else was at the office. She and Nigel had both just arrived. Did it seem like they’d come in together, maybe stopping for coffee on the way?

It had looked bad.

“It’s okay,” Cate had called after Jane, but she didn’t seem to hear.

Could people suspect Cate and the editor in chief had something going on? No one else had heard that low, appreciative noise he’d made, but his appetite for young women was common knowledge.

Why
had
she gotten the promotion? Cate wondered again.

Cate had finished talking to Nigel quickly—she’d told him the truth, that she loved the layout—then she’d gone to her office and worked straight through until it was dark outside. As she was hailing a cab to go back to the apartment to meet Renee, inspiration had struck. She hadn’t yet assigned the cover story for her first issue as features editor. As usual, they were spotlighting a celebrity—a young singer named Reece Moss, who’d burst onto the scene with the voice of an angel, face of a cover girl, and moves of a pole dancer. She’d bring some star power to the issue, but what about getting Trey to write it? It wasn’t the sort of thing he usually did, but even though she didn’t know him well, she could try to convince him. And her gut told Cate the singer might open up a bit more with a gorgeous guy hanging on her every word. Trey could turn a routine story into a coup.

Getting an outside writer to pen the cover story might cause some grumbling within the magazine, but Cate couldn’t worry about that. This issue had to quash anyone’s—especially her own—doubts about Cate’s ability.

From the moment they’d arrived at the party, she’d been tracking Trey with her eyes, waiting for a chance to pull him aside. But apparently she wasn’t the only woman with that agenda; he was constantly surrounded—filling drinks, laughing, and switching around the music when a tipsy woman hung on his arm and complained about the Death Cab for Cutie song that replaced the jazz.

“We need something sexier,” the woman breathed, her glossy red lips practically touching Trey’s cheek, and Cate barely refrained from snorting. She glanced at her watch and covered a yawn: It was almost eleven o’clock. She needed to get Trey alone soon.

Renee had been pulled away by friends the moment they’d arrived, but now she walked back over to Cate’s side. Renee looked especially pretty tonight, Cate thought. She had the lush figure of a forties pinup girl, her blond hair was shining, and her eyes were bright.

“Isn’t this place amazing?” Renee asked. “You can tell a lot about someone by seeing their living space. If we’d walked in here and discovered he collected Precious Moments dolls, I never could’ve looked at him the same way again.”

Cate laughed, thinking for the hundredth time how much she wished Renee’s easy warmth was contagious. It seemed like she never stopped smiling. Even now, while talking to Cate, Renee was interrupted by someone shouting her name in greeting across the room, and a gay photographer named David who worked for the magazine leaned over and pinched Renee’s butt. Instead of reacting in shock, like Cate would have, Renee goosed him back, admonishing, “You little tease.”

“Did you think I was Trey?” David asked.

“In my dreams,” Renee responded. “I would’ve superglued his hand there.”

“You and me both, honey,” he said. “Another drink? What are you having?”

“Vodka on the rocks. Dieting.” Renee sighed.

“I keep telling you, girl,” David said. “You wear your curves well. You need to embrace your inner Marilyn Monroe.”

“It’s my outer Marilyn I’m more worried about,” Renee said. “Cate, how about you?”

Cate held up her half-full beer. “I’m good.”

“So I saw the note from Naomi,” Renee said as David wandered away. “I can’t believe she’s leaving in two weeks.”

Cate nodded. “But she paid rent through the end of the month. She can’t ask for that back.”

The ice clinked in Renee’s glass as she drained her drink. Someone jostled her as they squeezed behind her to pass, and she spilled the last sip of vodka on her shirt.

“Damn,” Renee said, swabbing at the mark with a napkin.

“It’s just vodka, right? It won’t stain,” Cate said.

Renee nodded. “God’s way of telling me to stay away from fattening sangria, clearly. Everyone’s a critic. So any ideas about who to ask to move in? I just hate the thought of getting someone we don’t know. What if she gets all single white female and tries to kill us with a stiletto?”

Cate laughed. “We could put up an ad on the Listserv at work. It worked for us.”

It was true—that was how Cate and Renee had connected.

“Maybe even start spreading the word tonight,” Renee said. “There could be someone here looking, or someone who knows someone . . .”

Cate nodded, then reflexively glanced back toward Trey and saw him moving quickly across the room. Renee’s words trailed off as she turned to stare, too.

A thin woman with long dark hair, maybe in her late twenties, was standing in the doorway. She was wearing jeans and carrying a backpack, and her eyes were huge. She didn’t shut the door or step forward; she just froze, like she’d entered the wrong doorway and the ground behind her had disappeared and now she was trapped, unable to move forward or back.

“Abby?”

Cate could hear Trey’s voice cut through the crowd. It seemed like the whole room went silent—laughter abruptly falling away, conversations halting in midsentence—as everyone turned to watch.

“Abby?” Trey repeated, as if he couldn’t really believe she was there. He practically ran toward her.

The dark-haired woman said something too softly for Cate to hear, and Trey wrapped his arms around her and lifted her up off the ground. Cate sensed, rather than saw, Renee stiffen beside her.

Something was off about the woman, Cate realized. She was so pale, and the expression on her face was identical to the one Cate had witnessed years earlier when she’d stopped to help a woman whose car had skidded off the road and crashed into a tree.

“It’s okay,” Trey was saying. He gently slipped off Abby’s backpack and placed it on the floor just inside the door. He kept an arm around her shoulders, and she leaned against him as he practically carried her out into the hallway, shutting the door behind them.

“Who was
that
?” David the photographer was back, holding out a fresh drink for Renee.

Cate saw Renee’s shoulders slump as she blinked a few times, then took a long sip of her drink. When she finally answered, she said, “Whoever she was, she’s important enough to make Trey leave his own party.”

Advance Praise for
These Girls

“Sarah Pekkanen’s latest celebrates the healing power of female friendship for three very different young women sharing a New York City apartment. At turns bittersweet, laugh-out-loud funny, and painfully real, you’ll wish you could move in with these girls.”

—Jodi Picoult,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Lone Wolf
and
Sing You Home

Praise for Skipping a Beat

“In this compelling and satisfying read, Pekkanen offers relatable characters that move you and an ending that surprises and pleases. Highly recommended.”

—
Library Journal,
starred review

“This portrait of a couple forced to take responsibility for the breakdown of their relationship is at once heartbreaking and familiar.”

—
People

“Intelligent and entertaining.”

—
The Washington Post

“Original, engaging and soulful,
Skipping a Beat
explores the complexity of marriage and what it really means to share a life.”

—Emily Giffin,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Something Borrowed

“Tender and funny in turn, Sarah Pekkanen has made modern marriage exciting in this imaginative and heartfelt tale of love and healing.”

—Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, #1 bestselling authors of
The Nanny Diaries

Praise for The Opposite of Me

“Pekkanen’s wry voice and engaging characters—the bumbling parents are especially lovable—keep things fresh.”

—
People
(3.5 out of 4 stars)

“Sweet, smart, and funny.”

—
Cosmopolitan.com

“With her smart, soulful novel, author Pekkanen explores the place where self and sisterhood intersect.”

—
Redbook
 

“Sharp-tongued . . . a spot-on portrayal of the existential dilemmas of young adulthood.”

—
The Washington Post

“Fresh and funny and satisfying. A terrific book about sisters that actually made me laugh out loud. I was completely drawn into Lindsey’s world and rooted for her from beginning to end.”

—Jennifer Weiner,
New York Times
bestselling author of
Best Friends Forever
and
In Her Shoes

About the Author

SARAH PEKKANEN
is the author of
The Opposite of Me, Skipping a Beat,
the short story “All Is Bright,” and the forthcoming
These Girls. 
Her work has been published in
People, The Washington Post, USA Today, The New Republic,
the
Baltimore Sun, Reader’s Digest,
and
Washingtonian,
among others. She is the winner of a Dateline award and the Paul Miller Reporting Fellowship. A former D.C. model, Sarah lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with her husband and three young sons.

Atria Books/Simon & Schuster Author Page

authors.simonandschuster.com/Sarah-Pekkanen/60375198

Author Website

www.sarahpekkanen.com

Facebook

facebook.com/pages/Sarah-Pekkanen/215202723761

Twitter

twitter.com/#!/sarahpekkanen

About Washington Square Press

Since becoming part of Simon & Schuster in 1959, Washington Square Press’s mission has been to bring the best in contemporary and classic literature to the widest readership possible. Upon Atria’s founding in 2002, WSP became the trade paperback home of some of America’s most talented contemporary storytellers, including Jodi Picoult, Jennifer Weiner, and Kate Morton, joining such WSP backlist luminaries as Pearl Buck, Carlos Castaneda, Jim Harrison, Walter Mosley, and Wally Lamb.