Chris was across the table at me so quickly I didn’t even have time to put down my fork: he almost pierced his own eyeball. “What the hell are you doing?” he hissed at me. “What the fuck is wrong with you, Remy?”
“Gosh, Christopher,” I said. “Such language. You better not let her hear you, she’ll make you stay after school and write a report on those Australian blue-footed boobies.”
He sat back down in his chair, getting out of my face at least. “Look,” he said, spitting out the words, “I can’t help it if you’re a bitter, angry bitch. But I love Jennifer Anne and I won’t let you play your little games with her. Do you hear me?”
I just looked at him.
“Do you?” he snapped. “Because dammit, Remy, you make it really hard to love you sometimes. You know that? You really do.” And then he pushed out his chair, threw his napkin down, and pushed through the door into the kitchen.
I sat there. I honestly felt like I’d been slapped: my face even felt red and hot. I’d just been messing around with him, and God, he’d just freaked. All these years Chris was the only one who’d ever shared my sick, cynical view on love. We’d always told each other how we’d never get married, no way, shoot me if I do it. But now, he’d turned his back on everything. What a chump.
I could hear them in the kitchen, her voice quiet and tremulous, his soothing. On my plate my food was cold, just like my hard, hard heart. You would have thought I’d feel brittle too, being such a bitter, angry bitch. But I didn’t. I felt nothing, really, just the sense that now the circle I’d always kept small was a little smaller. Maybe Chris could be saved that easily. But not me. Never me.
After much whispered discussion in the kitchen, an uneasy peace was negotiated. I apologized to Jennifer Anne, trying to make it sound genuine, and suffered through some more talking points over chocolate soufflé before finally being allowed to leave. Chris still wasn’t really speaking to me, and didn’t even try to make it sound like he wasn’t slamming the door at my back when I left. I shouldn’t even have been surprised, actually, that he’d caved so easily to love. That was why he’d lost our marriage bet every time: his guess was always over, way over, the last time by a full six months.
I got in my car and drove. Going home seemed depressing, with just me there, so I cut across town, into Lissa’s neighborhood. I slowed down in front of her house, turning off my lights and idling by the mailbox. Through the front window I could see into the dining room, where she and her parents were eating dinner. I thought about going up and ringing the bell—Lissa’s mom was always quick to pull a chair and another plate up to the table—but I wasn’t in the mood for parental talk about college, or the future. In fact, I felt like I was primed for a little backsliding. So I went to Chloe’s. She answered the door holding a wooden spoon, her brow furrowed. “My mom’s due home in forty-five minutes,” she informed me, holding the door open so I could come in. “You can stay thirty, okay?”
I nodded. Chloe’s mom, Natasha, had a strict policy of no uninvited guests, which meant that as long as I’d known Chloe there’d always been a set time limit of how long we could hang out at her house. Her mom just didn’t seem to like people that much. I figured this was either a really bad reason to choose a career as a flight attendant or a natural reaction to having become one. Either way, we hardly ever saw her.
“How was dinner?” she asked me over her shoulder as I followed her into the kitchen, where I could hear something sizzling on the stove.
“Uneventful,” I told her. I wasn’t lying as much as I just didn’t feel like getting into it. “Can I score a couple of minibottles from you?”
She turned around from the stove, where she was stirring something in the pan. It smelled like seafood. “Is that why you came over?”
“Partially.” That was the thing about Chloe: I could always shoot it straight with her. In fact, she preferred it that way. Like me, she wasn’t into bullshitting around.
She rolled her eyes. “Help yourself.”
I pulled a stool over and stepped up, opening the cabinet. Ah, the mother lode. Tiny bottles her mom had filched from the drink cart lined the shelf, arranged neatly by height and category: clear liquors on the left, dessert brandies on the right. I grabbed two Barcardis from the back, readjusted the rows, then glanced at Chloe to make sure it looked okay. She nodded, then handed me a glass of Coke, into which I dumped the contents of one bottle, shaking it around with some ice cubes. Then I took a sip. It was strong, and burned going down, and I felt this weird twinge, like I knew this wasn’t the way to react to what had happened at Jennifer Anne’s. It passed, though. That was the bad thing. It always passed.
“Want a sip?” I asked Chloe, holding out my glass. “It’s good.”
She shook her head. “Yeah,” she said, adjusting the flame under the pan, “that’s just what I need. She comes home to my first tuition bill and I smell like rum.”
“Where’s she been this time?”