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She left him alone and went down the hall to call the car. Jess unlocked her phone and saw another text from Kerry pop up:
Just playing the game—no hard feelings.
They’d been close. They’d gone out after the D.C. hearings. Jess was nothing but thrilled when she started to realize that maybe Kerry could be someone to lean on in the C-Suite. But when Kendall had blown everything up, Kerry had stopped answering Jess’ friendly, conversational texts. All communication was gone—until the Aaronson meeting. And then she’d become passive aggressive, smug--cold, even.
Lucy had always said that Kerry had shown up in a weird way. Like out of the blue. Random. And now she’d positioned herself. Assistants with designs on the chief officers were not rare. But the Roys had been smart—at least about that. The presence of Kerry and her skyrocket to Logan’s inner circle only demonstrated his decline in mental faculties. That’s what Jess silently thought, anyway.
Jess was the first to admit her situation with Kendall was not traditional. Weird, awkward, close—but totally bonded. Kerry’s arrangement was different. Menacing. Uneasy.
Perhaps Logan deserved it, Jess pondered as she pulled up Fikret’s number.
“Hey, Fikret—yeah—he’s coming up,” she said, chilled by how readily Kerry had been eager to humiliate Kendall, leading him to that dungeon of a room.
Chilled by how her burgeoning friendship was cut dead.
Berry and Comfrey were gone. Kendall’s birthday event was only a few weeks away now, and Jess could tell their patience had begun to wear.
She groaned silently at herself as she realized just how used to Kendall she’d become. How seamlessly she’d fit into his life. How she could anticipate him now; she’d surpassed the level of being bemused by him, even in his manic stages. She felt as if she was the only one at this point who understood his language.
The heart behind everything. However imperfectly it was delivered.
Perhaps that’s how Kerry felt about Logan? Jess shuddered, and her lip curled at the very idea. No, that wasn’t it. Their bond was…something else…
Kendall took his time coming out of the room. Jess waited at the end of the hall, checking emails on her phone. She heard the door open, and her head shot up from the screen, signaling she was at the ready. He emerged, sunglasses on—the usual shield.
It was incredible how the long arm of Logan’s abuse—personified in Kerry—had wormed its way to the bowels of the Marriott Marquis.
He strode past her, silent, toward the elevator. Jess watched him as he passed, worried. She seemed to feel worried a lot these days. The worry was now her baseline whenever she glanced at him. The default for whenever she was at home and got a text from him.
“Hey, Ken,” she jogged a bit to catch up with him.
The bell pinged and the doors opened. He got on, trying to avoid her. The sunglasses had been his best choice of the day.
“Yeah,” he responded in a small voice.
“Listen, I—”
Jess’ tone made him flinch in a panic. Kendall mustered every scrap of energy he had left to seem glib—jovial even.
“Oh, come on,” he scoffed, “you’re not telling me you’re taking a vacation—”
“Uh, no—”
“Good,” he said quickly, “good. Because…”
Jess paused, trying to parse the subtext to his words. “Um, no.”
Jess contemplated that reality as she gathered her thoughts.
“I—I know that in my time with you,” she started—in a whisper.
Kendall regarded the way she stood in the freight elevator with him. Close, but not too close. Making just the right amount of eye contact. Standing up straight. But her lip quivered.
“I know that I am not one to editorialize,” she said, “or pass judgment.”
Kendall took a breath and held it, watching her.
“But after all that I’ve seen,” her voice was barely audible, “and all that I know—”
--and Jess knew and saw a whole fucking lot, Kendall realized in full horror: being at the hospital when Logan had his stroke, Logan pissing in Kendall’s office, or the fact that she’d retrieved Kendall from New Mexico when he couldn’t stand up, or the holding room during the congressional hearings, or cruises, or—
The elevator pinged again, and Kendall stepped out, effectively interrupting her. Jess took a breath as they walked out into the loading dock on 45th street. They stood by the recycling dumpster.
“Where—where’s the car?” Kendall gestured to the empty curb before him.
“Uh—” Jess checked her phone, “Fikret is en route—stuck on 8th Avenue, it looks like. He’s circling back—”
“What the fuck—I have a singing lesson with Jake at—at—”
“It’s at five,” Jess checked her calendar; maybe the moment had passed to say her piece, “but I--I can call him to push it back 30 minutes?”
“What the fuck, Jess—” Kendall started to pace, almost talking to himself, then definitely talking to himself, “what the fuck. What the fuck—am I…”
He trailed off, staring at the recycling dumpster.
“What the fuck am I--” Kendall couldn’t quite finish the question, feeling himself start to spiral.
In front of Jess. In the street. By the dumpster. He began to heave his breaths in short, silent bursts as he started to second guess himself. The veil was slipping—the façade he’d kept up for the publicists. For Greg. For Stewy when he came into the suite earlier that day. For Jess—it had been exhausting.
His father had bested him yet again. Iced him. As he sat in a—in a, what? A janitor’s office in the basement of the Marriott?
To his left was the stupid bustle of Times Square. And to his right, Jess, who stared at him in something of a quiet horror.
“Hey, Ken—” she said softly.
He paced, his back to her. He felt warm. Kendall closed his eyes, steadying himself, willing himself not to scream there, across the street from Junior’s Cheesecake--not even the good location.
“What am I doing?” he whispered to him, over and over. “What am I doing?”
Jess got a message on her phone. It was from Comfrey.
We’re mitigating this—FYI, the text read. Along with it was a meme of Kendall onstage behind Karl. Jess closed her eyes for a quick moment. This day was about to get worse. She could feel it. She glanced at Kendall, who was still pacing—and now mumbling to himself. He seemed to be humming with anxiety.
“Hey—Ken.” Jess reached out, “you—you want—I have water—or the saffron tea--”
She reached into her tote and pulled out her water bottle, but he didn’t take notice. Jess slipped the bottle back into her bag, thinking. There was so much she could say at that point. But she always held tight onto all the things she wanted to say. The burden was getting overwhelming.
“What am I doing?” Kendall repeated, in a hush of a whisper.
Jess swallowed and realized she could finish what she’d been dying to say: “The right thing.”
Kendall stopped, at a distance. The sickeningly sweet smell of candied street peanuts wafted by them, mixing with the baked concrete on the unusually warm May day. Cloying and sticky, it covered Jess’ usual scent, which had been a comfort to him. These days, Kendall was grateful she’d spent twelve hours or more a day at his penthouse. She lingered long after she’d gone home.
Jess froze, watching him, her brow furrowed in place. Kendall observed her as she observed him. This was not someone who stood in awe of his rebel nature, his confidence. His fire. It wasn’t the look of someone being paid a handsome sum to tell him what he wanted to hear. This was a friend. An intimate.
She paused, considering her words, but knowing full well she could not take them back. Sure, Kendall made a mess of his public image, leveraged the culture wars, became a laughingstock, and had the privilege of being a disruptor without legal consequence (had she pulled the same stunt he’d done that day, she’d be sitting in the back of a police car). And now he was in the process of becoming a humiliating meme…not to even mention a whole host of other questionable things he did while she had been employed by him. So, his approach was—wrong. Impotent. Unethical. Cringey. But his heart…
“You’re doing the right thing. Otherwise, I wouldn’t be here,” she whispered.
Kendall stood safely behind his sunglasses. Did he want to explode into sobs at the crossroads of the world? No, no, he didn’t. Kendall wasn’t well-versed in the psychology behind propinquity, but he knew that he wouldn’t be where he was—however chaotic it seemed—without her. Was this love? He honestly had no way of knowing. It scared him to think of it. It was Jess this whole time--
But her words didn’t prove to make him feel better.
They made him feel worse.
Kendall approached her in a soft way. He reached out, as if to touch her arms, but he stopped himself. She’d had so much faith in him. So much purity. And he was failing her. He tried to speak, but his voice seemed strangled.
“You’re so—” he managed, “you’re…so…”
Jess glanced to the west. She saw the familiar SUV pulling up.
“Fikret—” she said, maybe too loudly, “he’s here—”
Kendall fell silent, half disappointed, half relieved, still thrumming with a tangle of emotions he couldn’t make sense of.
Resigned, he climbed into the back of the vehicle, and Jess made her way to the front passenger side.
“No—you’re—” Kendall indicated the seat next to him. Jess closed the front passenger door and silently complied, slipping into the back seat, next to him. He looked tired.
They drove off into the midtown traffic, soon stuck on 9th Avenue. Kendall phone buzzed. He answered, and Jess watched closely as he listened.
“Are they—are you at—my place, yeah?”
She watched his face fall.
“Yeah—I’ll—I’m—on my way.”
There were honks from cars all around. Complete gridlock, it seemed. The Vice President was in town.
Jess held her breath, waiting, as Kendall ended the call. He was still for a moment, thinking. She saw as he reached toward the arm rest and pushed the button to raise the partition between the driver’s seat and the back. Jess caught Fikret’s eyes in the rearview mirror as the partition went up; he looked back at her quizzically, and she shook her head.
Once they were separated, Kendall threw his head into his hands. Ever silent. Jess swallowed hard, waiting for possible sobs, but there were none. While he pushed all of his energy into burying the emotion simmering inside of him, he couldn’t fool her. His body was hunched, seemingly bursting at what he tried to contain.
“Ken—” her voice was only above a whisper.
“I killed him—”
Jess bit her lip. Oh, that poor animal.
That rabbit had become the majority of her job. Gone in a moment. So much care, so much thoughtfulness. Now gone.
“Ken—you didn’t—” Jess tried to cobble words together as her heart broke for the pet and for Sophie and Iverson.
“I killed him—I killed him,” he said, over and over, but the sobs wouldn’t come. The words were there, but they were hollow.
Jess watched in horror as Kendall repeated the words to himself. He’d walled himself off from his driver, leaving Jess to be the audience to this particular breakdown.
“It’s—not your fault,” Jess fibbed, “you didn’t know—”
Kendall kept his head down, his face hidden by the sunglasses, but gave a short nod. Jess reached out and placed her hand on his back—gently.
“It—it was an accident—” she fibbed again, trying to ignore the gross negligence that had occurred at the cost of an animal’s life. “You can’t—you can’t blame yourself.”
His body felt tense beneath her touch as she uttered the words. He didn’t answer.
Kendall glanced up, as if to check to make sure the partition was still closed. It was. He sat up a little, then looked out the window, his shoulders sloped. He kept repeating the words. Jess still held her palm against his back, daring to grasp his forearm with her other hand.
“Hey, hey,” she whispered. He didn’t acknowledge her, but her voice was a salve.
Kendall couldn’t answer her.
“Breathe,” she coaxed softly.
He couldn’t. There hadn’t been any deep breaths since—
“Just breathe,” she said.
Kendall removed his glasses, and Jess had expected to see tears, but there still were none. They were all still inside. This wasn’t about the rabbit, she saw; this was something else now.
He turned slightly, toward her, and avoiding the fear in her eyes, laid his forehead into her shoulder. It wasn’t a hug. It wasn’t a cuddle. It was…a lean. A collapse. Jess took the moment to wrap her arm around him, holding him close. He drew one shallow breath, inhaling her scent. He hung onto her.
They pulled into the front entrance of his building. Kendall didn’t move from Jess.
“You—you should go in,” she whispered, “I’ll call Jake to cancel.”
Kendall held his head against her shoulder, unmoving, thinking of that time she’d picked him up from rehab. How she came in, with silent dignity, and collected him when no one else would.
“The book that helped me,” she said as he sat up, “when my hamster died—I was eight—was Goodbye Mog. I—I can go to Barnes and Noble—see if they have it. It might be a little young--”
“Yeah—yeah, that’s—” Kendall didn’t have words, “yeah.”
He turned his sunglasses over in his hand as he considered slipping them back on.
“You’ll come up, though?” he asked her.
“I—I’ll come by with the book,” Jess blinked, “but you go up—alone.”
He didn’t want to be alone with his kids. He wasn’t equipped.
Kendall felt numb. He stared out into the city from his balcony—it was dark now. Far away, he heard his front door open. Her soft footsteps floated through his penthouse, and he could feel her warmth behind him.
“I’m so sorry—” she said, “it took—three Barnes and Nobles—their database is not accurate--I had Fikret take me to Union Square—I also got When Friendship Followed Me Home for Sophie—I—I’m late—”
“It’s—” Kendall stared at the skyscrapers, not turning to her, “it’s—OK. They’re—back at Rava’s.”
“Oh.”
“But we can send the books over,” he continued, and then, as if trying to convince himself, “they—they took it really well, all things considered.”
“Oh—” Jess stumbled at the thought of Kendall not wanting to give them gifts in person, “of course—I can deliver them—”
“No,” Kendall turned around, and avoiding Jess’ eyes, went back inside to sit on the couch. She trailed him, closing the door to the balcony tightly.
“Um, I’ll just leave them here, then,” Jess mumbled as she placed the books on the sideboard by the front door. “I can deliver them tomorrow—”
“—sure, sure,” Kendall nodded, still trying to convince himself, “yeah, that’s—that’s a good idea. Hey, Jess?”
She stood by the front door, ready to go. “Yeah?”
“You—you do think I’m doing the right thing, then?”
Jess took a few steps back over to him. He watched as she hesitated at first, but then ultimately made the decision to sit down on the couch. She opened her mouth twice, weighing what to say, and then looked him square in the eye.
“Yeah, Kendall, yeah, you are,” she whispered. Jess pursed her lips closed before she could bombard him with a list of caveats to what she’d just said—highlighting the way in which he chose to do the right thing was actively terrible—but she stopped herself.
He stared at her for a moment, studying her face, as he felt the weight on his shoulders ease—just a little. And then, he took a deep breath, regarding her. Yeah, he was certain now.