“See? He’s getting a bad rap. He’s home, babysitting the kids, calling you multiple times—” Cate says.
I interrupt her and say, “It’s not babysitting when it’s with your own children.” Then, just as I’m about to put my phone away, I notice an e-mail from April, the subject line marked urgent. Although I feel certain that it’s anything but urgent, and that it is simply one of her usual e-mails, covering one of our everyday topics—the kids, cooking, tennis, retail decisions, neighborhood gossip—I still click on it and read.
“Shit,” I hear myself say aloud, shaking my head as I reread her sentences: Call me ASAP. It’s about Nick.
“What?” Cate says.
Speechless, I hand her the phone, and she silently passes it along to Dex as Rachel reads it over his shoulder. They all fall silent, as I look away, my vision growing blurry and my head pounding, as if fast-forwarding directly to the hangover I’m sure to have tomorrow morning.
My husband is having an affair, I think, feeling sure of it now. Someone has seen Nick with a woman. Someone knows something. And the information has worked its way to April, who feels that she has no choice but to tell me. There is no other explanation. Yet a small part of me still clings to the slimmest, fragile hope as I watch Rachel flounder about, grasping at the same slight possibility.
“It could be anything,” she says, her voice soft, worried.
“Like . . . what?” I say.
She gives me a blank stare as Cate tries another reassuring angle. “April is an alarmist. She loves drama. You’ve said so yourself... It might be circumstantial evidence. Don’t jump to conclusions.”
“Just call her,” Dex says, his eyes flashing, his jaw falling into an angry line as I fleetingly consider who would win in a fight—my husband or brother. “Or call Nick. Call someone, Tess.”
“Now?” I say, my heart starting to race, the room spinning.
“Yeah,” he says. “Right now.”
“At the bar?” Rachel says anxiously. “It’s too loud in here.”
“Way too loud,” Cate agrees, shooting Dex an uneasy look. They commence a discussion of my strategy, who I should call first, and where I should go to have the conversation that could potentially change my life—the ladies’ room, another bar, the street, Cate’s apartment. I shake my head and slip my phone back into my bag.
“What’re you doing?” Dex says.
“I don’t want to know,” I say, completely aware of how foolish I sound.
“What do you mean?” he asks, incredulous.
“I mean . . . I don’t want to know . . . Not now. Not tonight,” I say again, surprising myself, right along with the three people who know and love me the most. Other than Nick. Maybe, apparently, including Nick.
30
Valerie
Valerie spends the rest of the afternoon with Charlie, doing her best to distract him with some of his favorite things. They make hot fudge sundaes, watch Star Wars, read aloud from A Wrinkle in Time, and play whimsical duets on the piano. Despite the events of the day, they are having fun—the most satisfying, gratifying brand of parent-child fun. But all the while, she misses Nick, craving his touch and counting down the minutes until she can see him later as they have planned.
Now they are finally alone again, Charlie fast asleep upstairs, having literally nodded off in his chicken nuggets. They’ve just finished their own dinner—linguine and clams from Antonio’s that they ate by candlelight—and have retired to the family room where the curtains are drawn, the lights are dimmed, and Willie Nelson is crooning “Georgia on My Mind” from a random mix of mellow songs that she made with Nick in mind. They have not yet touched, but she has the sense that they soon will, that something momentous, irreversible, and potentially life-changing is in the works. She knows that what she is feeling is wrong, but she believes in it—believes in him. She tells herself that he would not lead her down this path if he didn’t have a plan—if he didn’t believe in her, too.
He reaches out to take her hand and says, “I’m glad he pushed that little brat off those monkey bars.”
Valerie smiles. “I know . . . Her mother was very nice, though.”
“Yeah?” Nick asks.
“Yeah. Surprisingly so.”
“It’s always nice when people surprise you for the better,” he says, swirling the wine in his glass, then taking a long sip.
She watches him, wondering what he’s thinking but unwilling to ask such a sappy question. Instead she says, “How long can you stay?”
He gives her a candid look, clears his throat, and tells her that he has a babysitter—a young girl who thinks nothing of staying up to the small hours of the morning. Then he looks back down at his wine, and says, “Tessa’s in New York for the weekend . . . Visiting a friend and her brother.”
It is the first time he’s directly mentioned his wife in weeks, since their attraction exploded into sexual tension, and the first he’s ever said her name.