“Shit,” I said. “How’d you find out?”
Addison told me how she’d gone onto his computer and read his e-mails, and how he confessed to everything, telling her that he’d been meaning to tell her about Linda, but at first he thought that they—Addison and him—were just having a fling, and now he didn’t know. I half-listened, opening a bottle of wine and pouring Addison a glass, but my mind was frantically trying to figure out what to do when Eric returned. Should I abandon the whole plan, telling Eric that I was pretty sure the chicken korma had cashews in it, or should I allow it to play out, with Addison as a witness? In some ways, having Addison here might be better. She would back up my story—that a drunk Eric mistakenly ate Indian food that had cashews in it, and that we couldn’t immediately find his EpiPen. But there were also so many ways that it could go wrong with Addison here. She could call for an ambulance that might get here in time. She could notice that Eric’s EpiPen was not where he thought it was. And if Eric asked about the chicken korma—whether or not it had nuts in it, then I couldn’t lie in front of her. And, most important, it wasn’t fair to Addison to let her watch Eric die from anaphylactic shock. I decided it was off.
“Wait. Where’s Eric? Didn’t his plane make it here?” Addison asked, her head swiveling around our small flat as though he were here and she had somehow missed him.
“You know that pub challenge at the Bottle and Glass?”
“The ten-pint thing?”
I told her about Eric insisting he could do it, and I told her how I got hungry and sick of waiting for him, and just took off.
“I guess neither of us is having a good night with our men.”
“Well, I’ll live,” I said. “You’re the one who got screwed over. What are you going to do about it?”
Before Addison could answer, the door buzzed again. “That’s Eric,” I said. “Prepare yourself. He’s going to be smashed.”
“Lily, I’ll just leave. I totally forgot he was coming in tonight.” Addison stood, snatching her purse from the kitchen table.
“Not a chance. You stay here.”
I climbed the stairs again, bracing myself for a drunk Eric, but when I opened the door it wasn’t Eric standing there, but Nolan, his eyes red-rimmed from crying. “Ah, the bigamist,” I said, and he gave me a confused look.
“Is she here?” Nolan was tall and skinny with bright red ears. His close-cropped hair was an almost-white blond and he wore a puka necklace tight around his neck.
“She’s here,” I said, “but that doesn’t mean she wants to see you. You wait here and I’ll go check.”
I left Nolan on the stoop and went back downstairs. Addison was refilling her wineglass. “Guess who’s here?”
“Who?” She looked genuinely puzzled.
“Nolan. I left him upstairs. You want me to send him away?”
She let out a long, dramatic breath. “No, I’ll see him.” She continued to sit there at the table, and I realized that she was expecting me to go get him. I climbed the stairs for what seemed like the twentieth time that night, and when I reached the door I could hear male voices talking loudly at one another. I recognized one as Eric; he was back from the pub.
“I see you two have met,” I said, opening the door to find them together, Eric with a hand on Nolan’s shoulder, telling him about the pub challenge. I knew that Eric had succeeded by the way he turned toward me, a handsome grin on his face. “And it looks like you triumphed,” I added to Eric.
“Barely,” he said. “It’s much goddamned harder than it looks.”
“Come down, you two. Eric, let Nolan and my roommate be. They need to talk.”
We all trooped down the clattery stairs. Addison was now standing in our doorway, a look of determination on her face. Nolan said, “Ad,” in a hoarse voice. Eric introduced himself, sounding relatively normal for someone with so much beer in him. It was one of his immutable traits, that he was always civil and friendly no matter what the circumstance. A politician, basically.
Eric and I went inside while Nolan and Addison stood just outside the door on our grim landing, lit only by a bare lightbulb hanging from its cord. I filled Eric in on what was going on, looking to gauge any reaction he might have to hearing that Nolan was, like himself, dating two women at the same time.