Luckiest Girl Alive

by Jessica Knoll

  Mr. Larson’s appeal was that he was there for it all. He saw me at my stray dog lowest and still he stood behind me, did everything he could to help me. He imagined the future I could have before I even wanted it for myself, and he was the one to push me toward it. That’s faith. Growing up, I thought faith was about believing Jesus died for us, and that if I held on to that, I’d get to meet him when I died too. But faith doesn’t mean that to me anymore. Now it means someone seeing something in you that you don’t, and not giving up until you see it too. I want that. I miss that.

  “Why do you need it?” Luke argued when I asked for Mr. Larson’s e-mail address. Not suspicious. But not thrilled either.

  “What do you mean why?” I spat at him, like I would at an intern who questioned the assignment I’d just given her. What about this don’t you get? “It’s insane that we ran into each other like that. He’s doing the documentary. I want to know if we’re filming at the same time. What he’s going to talk about.” Luke’s face wasn’t giving, so I went for melodramatic. “Everything, Luke. I want to talk to him about everything.”

  Luke thumped his arm on the couch and groaned. “He’s my client, Ani. I just don’t want things getting . . . messy . . . like that.”

  “You just don’t get it,” I sighed. Walked forlornly into the bedroom and quietly shut the door. When I asked for the e-mail address again the next day, Luke wrote me back with just that and nothing else.

  With Mr. Larson’s address in the To field, I channeled my inner Prom Queen and wrote him a sweet, spirited e-mail. “I can’t believe we ran into each other the way we did! Small world, right? I’d love to catch up sometime, I feel like we have so much to talk about.”

  I clicked refresh eight times before Mr. Larson’s reply appeared. I opened the e-mail, my cheeks hot with hope.

  “How about coffee?” he wrote back. “Would you be comfortable with that?” My eye roll must have burned off the calories in the grapes I’d snuck. Coffee? He was still treating me like his student.

  “I believe drinks would make both of us more ‘comfortable,’” I wrote.

  “You had that bite even when you were a kid” came his reply, the word “kid” making me bristle. But he agreed.

  On the day we were to meet, I wore an oversize leather T-shirt dress and peep-toe booties to work, thinking, This is what someone with “bite” wears in the middle of summer.

  “You look fantastic,” LoLo said when she passed me in the hallway. “Did you get Botox in your forehead?”

  “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me,” I said, and LoLo cackled with laughter the way I knew she would. I thought we were just exchanging pleasantries, but LoLo slowed to a stop and took a few steps backward, beckoning me into a corner. “So that ‘Revenge Porn’ piece of yours is brilliant. Really brilliant.”

  I’d lobbied hard for that idea, for six pages in the feature section to report on the women who had been made victims by vindictive ex-boyfriends, on the way privacy and sexual harassment laws hadn’t caught up with technology, so that, technically, there was nothing law enforcement could do to help them.

  “Thank you.” I beamed.

  “It’s amazing, you really can do anything,” LoLo continued. “But I think it will have more of an impact at the you know what than it will here.” Her eyebrows struggled to go higher on her forehead, then gave up.

  I would play. “It’s a timely article. I wouldn’t sit on it for long.”

  “Oh, I don’t think we’ll have to.” Her smile revealed a row of coffee-drinker teeth behind a coat of Chanel lipstick.

  I matched my expression to hers. “That’s fantastic news.”

  LoLo wiggled her darks nails at me. “Ciao.”

  It felt like a good omen.

  Through the Dionysian fog of the bar, Mr. Larson’s Clydesdale back appeared as if a mirage. I wove through the happy hour release of Theory pencil skirts and bankers with wedding rings in their pockets, heels sounding a chant, “Be real. Be real. Be real.”

  I tapped his shoulder. He either had removed his tie or hadn’t worn one that day, and his shirt opened in a little V right at his throat, the small sliver of skin there as shocking as the first time I saw him in jeans. A reminder of all the ways I still didn’t know him. “Sorry!” I lifted one side of my mouth in a contrite smile. “I got stuck at work.” I blew a strand of hair out of my mouth to prove how frazzled I was. I’m so busy but I made time for you.

  This was not true, of course. I’d started getting ready in The Women’s Magazine bathroom at approximately 7:20. I’d put on deodorant, brushed my teeth, held mouthwash in my cheeks for so long my eyes watered. Then it was on to the makeup, the pains I took to appear as though I wasn’t wearing much at all. It was 7:41 when I left the office. One minute behind schedule, the schedule I’d determined would place me at the bar in Flatiron at 8:07. “The perfect late to show he doesn’t hang the moon for you,” Nell says.

  Mr. Larson’s lips hovered at the edge of his tumbler. “I should make you run laps.” He took a little sip, and I noticed how low his scotch was, realized he was already warm.

  The idea of Mr. Larson telling me what to do now, screaming at me to run faster, pick up the pace, don’t phone this in, TifAni, prickled the skin at the nape of my neck. I busied myself settling into the stool next to him. I couldn’t let him see me prickled. Not yet.

  I tucked a panel of hair behind my ear. “You know I still do your hill workout at least once a week?”

  Mr. Larson sniffed out a little laugh, and even though the skin bunched around his eyes, his face had remained boyish, unfazed by the gray hair at his temples. “Where? The one thing about this city—it’s so flat.”

  “I know, nothing can hold a candle to the hill on Mill Creek. I’m in Tribeca, so I have to make do with the Brooklyn Bridge.” I sighed, glibly. We both knew that living in a sleek one-bedroom by the Brooklyn Bridge was superior to living in some threadbare mansion in Bryn Mawr.

  The bartender took notice of me and asked me what I wanted with a nod. “Vodka martini,” I said. “Straight up.” That was my glossy editor drink. I don’t crave martinis the way I do, say, an economy-size bag of chocolate-covered pretzels, but when I need a warm blur to descend on me, and fast, it’s my elixir of choice. Sometimes it even tricks me into thinking I’m the kind of tired that will lead to sleep.

  “Look at you.” Mr. Larson leaned away to take in everything I’d put together for him. The wicked leather dress, the bar of black diamonds in the ear I had purposely exposed to him. I caught a spark, amusement and approval fusing together in his eyes. It was only a slap shot of a moment, but it was unbearable in a way, like touching a hot stove by accident. The response in your body overwhelming all systems. “I always knew this is who you would be.”

  I could have burst, but I clung to deadpan. “A lush?”

  “No, this.” He sliced his hands sideways at me. “You’re one of those women that people look at on the street and wonder who they are. What they do.”

  My drink slid in front of me and I took a blazing sip. I needed it in case I didn’t stick the landing of what I was going to say next. “What I do is write a lot of blow job tips.”

  Mr. Larson looked away. “Come on, Tif.”

  The sound of my old name, the disappointment in Mr. Larson’s voice, it was like Dean’s hand across my face all over again. I took another big sip that left my lips slippery with vodka and tried to recover. “Too much from your old student?”

  Mr. Larson rolled his glass between his palms. “I hate hearing you cut yourself down like that.”

  I dug my elbow into the bar, swiveling on the stool so I could face him and he could see I was entertained by the whole thing. “Oh, I’m not. If I can’t have my journalistic integrity, then at least I can have a sense of humor about it. Believe me, I’m fine.”

  Mr. Larson turned his eyes on me, and I could hardly stand the knowing there. “You certainly seem fine. I guess I’m just trying to
figure out if you really are.”

  The martini hadn’t taken hold yet, and I wasn’t quite ready to get into this. I thought we’d start out slow, a few sexually charged, self-deprecating jokes from me about my job, Mr. Larson seeing through my aw-shucks routine to the ambition, the savvy that I had and his wife lacked. Did I feel that Luke was lacking in some way too? I do, I do, I would say, sadly, maybe spring a few tears to my eyes. He just doesn’t understand. So few people do. A pointed look at Mr. Larson—assuring him he was one of the few.

  “Okay, okay,” I laughed. “This documentary thing, it has me out of my mind.”

  Mr. Larson matched me with his laugh and I was relieved. “I know what you mean.”

  “I’m wary of it,” I said. “But I’m still dying to do it.”

  Mr. Larson didn’t appear to understand. “Why would you be wary?”

  “Because I don’t know what the bent is. I know what the editing process can do.” I dropped my voice and leaned in closer, like I don’t admit the next thing to very many people, but for Mr. Larson I would make an exception. “I mean, I manipulate the hell out of what I write. I know exactly how I want something to turn out before I even do the research and call up Dr. Hack from the Today show. If what he tells me doesn’t fit, I just ask the question a different way. Or”—I tilted my head, remembering the other option—“I try Dr. Hack from Good Morning America and get him to give me something that will fit.”

  “So that’s how that works.” Mr. Larson’s eyes tapered in at the corners, carefully, like he was squinting through the peephole in my entire facade. That direct line he had, it was the spider crack that would eventually make the windshield cave in.

  I smirked at myself. “I’m just saying. I can’t hang all my hopes on this.”

  Mr. Larson’s shoulder sloped down lower, right by mine. His breath was on fire with Lagavulin. “No, you can’t. But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I think they’re interested in the story no one’s heard, which is yours. That said”—he leaned away, taking all his peaty heat with him, and it was like I waded into a cool pocket in the ocean—“nothing’s a guarantee. You have to know that no matter what they say about you, all that matters is what you know about yourself here.” He covered his chest with his hand. It was such an earnest, after-school-special thing to say I would have mocked it had it come from anyone else. But it had come from Mr Larson, and I would remember it fondly, repeat it whenever I questioned if I’d made the right decision, for many years to come.

  I fiddled with the wet corner of a cocktail napkin. “Mr. Larson, there isn’t much to comfort me there.”

  Mr. Larson sighed, like he had just received some really bad news. “Tif, my God. That wrecks me.”

  I was furious with myself for the way my face puckered up, wrinkled and hideous. I slapped my hand to my forehead, shielding the carnage.

  Mr. Larson hunched down low, got underneath the visor of my hand. “Hey,” he said, “come on. I didn’t mean to upset you.” And then there was the perfect pressure of his hand on my back, a little lower than it needed to be, that feeling between my legs, so desperate I craved a swift end, so delicious I would miss it when it was gone.

  I gave him a wobbly smile. Everyone loves a trouper. “I swear I’m not a mess.”

  Mr. Larson laughed, and his hand went higher on my back, rubbed encouragingly, fatherly. I cursed myself for playing it wrong again, but I made a mental note too. He likes me broken.

  “So what’s the deal?” Mr. Larson asked, removing his hand entirely and straightening up. “You going back there in September to film?”

  A logistical question. Not much opportunity to unravel there. “I am. Are you?”

  Mr. Larson shifted on his barstool and grimaced. It was too small for someone like him to sit comfortably. “Same.”

  The bartender came by and asked if we wanted another. I nodded, eagerly, but Mr. Larson said he was fine. I slunk in a little and tried not to show it. “Is Whitney on board for it?” I exhaled, irritably. “Because Luke isn’t.”

  “Luke doesn’t want you to do it?” I could see this bothered Mr. Larson, and I was glad.

  “He just felt like it would take me back to a very dark place. And while we’re planning our wedding, no less.”

  “Well, he’s concerned about you. I can see that.”

  I shook my head, excited for the opportunity to expose the great St. Luke. “He just doesn’t want to deal with me and my silly hysteria. Nothing would make him happier than if I were to never mention Bradley again.”

  Mr. Larson traced his finger along the rim of his glass, tenderly, and I could feel him smoothing a Band-Aid over the tear in my face that night in his apartment. Saying, “There,” once it latched tight on to my skin. He spoke into his empty glass. “Moving on doesn’t mean you don’t talk about it. Or hurt about it. It’s always going to hurt, I imagine.” He glanced at me, almost shyly, to see if I agreed, which is a courtesy Luke never pays me. No, Luke just gets up on his soapbox, purports to tell me exactly how I should metabolize that cruel slice of my life. Why do I need to do the documentary? I shouldn’t care so goddamn much about what everyone thinks of me. Easy to say when everyone fucking loves you.

  “I don’t mean to speak for you,” Mr. Larson said, “I’m sorry.” His apology made me realize I was scowling.

  “No.” I blinked Luke away. “You’re exactly right. Thank you. For saying that. No one ever says stuff like that to me.”

  “I’m sure he does his best.” Mr. Larson reached for my hand, and I was so surprised all my limbs stiffened and he had to fight a little to get it, to hold my hand up in the air like a man leading a woman to a dance floor in Victorian times. “He obviously loves you.” He pressed his thumb to the evidence on my finger, twisted the stone just a little, and raised his eyebrows at me.

  It was the perfect moment to be bold. “But I want someone to get me.”

  Mr. Larson placed my hand on the bar, carefully. I wondered if he had picked up on it, the pulse of every last nerve he had hit. “That’s a two-part deal, Tif. You have to let yourself be got.”

  I leaned my head on my hand. Spoke the line I’d rehearsed in my head so many times ever since our meet-cute. “Mr. Larson,” I said, “you really don’t want to call me Ani, do you?”

  “Is this your way of asking if you can call me Andrew?” His lip curled into the arch that’s always there whenever I picture him at the front of the classroom. This man really could not be hustled, and I was inflamed with a need for him, as basic and savage as thirst. “Because you can.”

  Andrew’s shirt pocket suddenly lit up bright like Iron Man’s heart. He removed his phone, and I caught “Whit” on the screen. The absence of the last three letters of her name read like a betrayal. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m meeting my wife for dinner after this. I didn’t realize the time.”

  Well, of fucking course he’s meeting his wife for dinner after this, Ani. What did you think? That the two of you were going to declare your true love for each other at a soulless, charmless wine bar in Flatiron and go and get a hotel room? You’re disgusting.

  “I just want to tell you something quickly,” I said, and it dragged Andrew’s eyes away from his phone, at least. “Something I’ve wanted to say for a long time. I’m really sorry. About what happened in Headmaster Mah’s office. How I backed out on you like that.”

  “You don’t have to apologize, Tif.”

  “Ani” wasn’t going to stick with him, but I didn’t mind it. “I do, though. And I never told you this, but”—I hung my head—“I spoke to Dean on the phone that morning at your place. When you ran out to CVS.”

  Andrew sat on that for a moment. “But, how did he know you were at my apartment?”

  “He didn’t.” I explained how I called home to tell my parents I was on my way, how I found out Dean was trying to track me down. “I actually thought I could go in to school on Monday and everything would be okay.” I snorted scornfully. “God, I
was an idiot.”

  “Dean was the idiot.” Andrew placed his phone on the bar top and steadied his eyes on me. “It was all Dean’s fault. Never yours.”

  “And I let him get away with it.” I released a disgusted breath. “Because I was scared I wouldn’t be popular anymore if I didn’t. I’m so mad at myself for that.” In college, when rumors swirled that some freshman had been taken advantage of by some lacrosse player, I’d found myself furious with her for not reporting him. Don’t just let them get away with it! I’d wanted to scream, standing next to her in line for the salad bar. But then something about the way she piled the cauliflower florets on top of her salad—no one ever put cauliflower in her salad—swung like a wrecking ball at my heart. Made me wonder if that had been her favorite vegetable as a child, if her mom cooked it especially for her even though her brothers and sisters groaned their hatred for cauliflower. I wanted to reach out and wrap my arms around her from behind, press my face into her soapy-smelling blond hair, say, “I know.”

  Because I couldn’t do it either. Mr. Larson had poked his floppy-haired head into Headmaster Mah’s office first thing Monday morning, like we planned, and told him there had been another issue with Dean Barton and also with the new student Liam Ross. I didn’t even make it to homeroom. Mrs. Dern found me in the hallway and said I was needed in Headmaster Mah’s office immediately. I trudged past the Junior and Senior Lounge, through the cafeteria yawning with the few students who relied on it for breakfast, and up the stairs to the administration wing. Mr. Larson was standing in the corner of Mah’s office, politely leaving the one lone seat open for me. I refused to look at him; I could just feel the expectation of his encouraging smile. As I denied everything, the only place I could stand to look was at my Steve Madden clogs, the soles ringed white with rainwater. I wondered if Mom knew how to get that out.