Page 12 of Waves of Time
Hilary eyed Aria with suspicion. “Are you sure about that?”
Aria nodded.
“He didn’t say anything that upset you?”
“No.”
Hilary set her jaw, as though she’d decided not to believe Aria but also not to press her even more. “It’s a cool city, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Would you ever want to live here?” Hilary asked.
Aria shook her head, and Hilary breathed a sigh of what could only be relief. On the television screen, a horrible date between strangers was taking place. A young man bragged about how often he went to the gym while the woman he attempted to woo ripped at her nails. It wasn’t exactly a great advertisement for joining the dating scene.
As though he’d sensed how miserable she was, Thaddeus texted Aria from all the way across the continent. In the text was a photograph of Thaddeus and Aria taken immediately after his concert in the basement. In the photo, Thaddeus was sweaty, laughing at something Aria had said, and Aria’s face was open, eager, and trusting. In the text, Thaddeus had written:
“I look disgusting!”
There, seated next to her mother in bed, Aria smiled and wrote back:
“You looked great. Why aren’t you asleep? Isn’t it like three-thirty there?”
To this, Thaddeus wrote:
“Can’t sleep. How’s San Francisco?”
“What are you smiling about?” Hilary asked, side-eyeing Aria.
Aria placed her phone face-down on the mattress and returned her attention to the television. “Nothing. Just something Dad said tonight.” She paused and bit her lower lip. “I should hit the hay. We should wake up and prep for tomorrow, don’t you think?”
Hilary nodded. “Our three favorite things?”
“Coffee, croissants, and interior design? I’m ready,” Aria said as she strode from the room, her heart pumping with excitement. When she reached her bedroom, she closed the door quietly and blinked down at her phone, trying to drum up the most brilliant response for Thaddeus’ message. But when she could only come up with, “It’s beautiful here,” she cursed herself for her lack of creativity.Why was she so funny and insightful with some friends and so dull with Thaddeus?It was one of the curses of womanhood, she guessed. But then again, it wasn’t like she was in love with Thaddeus. Love was for naïve people. Love was for people who dreamed of unrealistic futures. The proof in this was her mother, who’d given everything to Aria, her career, and never to a man. Aria respected this above everything.
ChapterFive
Rodrick Phillips’ apartment extended across the entire top two floors of a beautiful building in downtown San Francisco. When Hilary and Aria arrived the following afternoon at four, he opened the door with a very small, furry, white dog in his arms. The dog took one look at the mother-daughter duo and burst into terrible, high-pitched barking.
“Don’t worry yourself about him,” Rodrick said. “He’s always a little overwhelmed to have strangers in the house. But I welcome strangers!”
Rodrick was six feet tall and wore a slim-fit maroon button-down and a pair of sleek jeans. His glasses were tortoise-shell, and his hair was salt-and-pepper in a way that almost seemed dyed rather than the result of aging.
“You must be Hilary,” Rodrick said, cupping Hilary’s elbow with his free hand. “I have heard so much about you, and I am in love with your work. I can’t begin to tell you how much I wept with joy when I found out Josh was sending you over instead of that colleague of yours. What’s her name? The one I don’t like?”
Hilary didn’t like to speak ill of any of her colleagues, but she had a hunch who Rodrick didn’t like. She wasn’t too keen on Ingrid’s stuff, either.
“Oh, who cares? You’re here now,” Rodrick said, not waiting for Hilary to answer. “And who is this beautiful young lady?”
“This is my daughter, Aria,” Hilary said as she and Aria stepped into the foyer and removed their shoes. “She’s my intern right now. In the next few years, she’ll be ready to step out on her own.”
“Wonderful,” Rodrick said, assessing Aria as he set the dog back on the tiled floor. “Two Coleman heads are better than one. And goodness, what is that perfume? You have excellent taste.”
As Rodrick spun back around and headed for the living room, he called out for his butler to open a bottle of wine from “the Valley.” Hilary wagged her eyebrows at Aria as they followed after Rodrick, who didn’t seem to understand just how his wealth looked to other people. It was extravagant, to say the least.
Hilary sat on a white couch next to Aria, across from Rodrick, whose dog returned to his lap as though it was a part of his ensemble. As Hilary assessed the space around her, she realized, with a terrible jolt in her gut, that white spots hovered at the edge of her vision— the same she’d had the other day with Sam. She blinked several times and returned her gaze to Rodrick, telling herself to pretend the white spots weren’t there. Maybe, if she forced herself to forget about them, they would disappear on their own.
“You have a lovely place,” Hilary said.