“Hello?” she said.
Maggie. Our friend Maggie, who had designed our apartment. Really, she was Danny’s friend Maggie. They had gone to high school together in Iowa, and worked together all the time, recommending each other for jobs, their designs often shown in tandem. She had recommended Danny for the job on the Upper West Side. She had helped land our apartment in Architectural Digest. His work, and her work, were displayed prominently on the same pages.
A formidable team, the writer had called them. We had toasted to it, all together.
As silly as it sounds, I assumed they were out drinking with our other friends. She had probably seen it was me on his caller ID and picked up to say hello. Except she didn’t know it was me, since I was calling from the restaurant’s phone. And the familiarity of her hello sounded like the question wasn’t why she was picking up my husband’s phone at midnight; the question was who had the audacity to call so late.
“Who is this?” she asked, her voice high-pitched.
“It’s me.”
And she went silent. “Sunny. I uh . . . I thought you were my sister. She’s out in the Hamptons with the kids for vacation, and I saw the area code. I thought you were her. Sorry.”
“Why would she call you on Danny’s number, Maggie?” I said.
She got quiet. “I’m going to get him for you, okay?”
I had no idea where she was “getting him” from. I didn’t know where I’d reached him. Or her.
“One sec,” she said.
She started moving, the pitter-patter of her feet. And I could hear it in the background, the distinct sound of the shower.
Maggie knocked on the door and called out his name. “Danny!” she said.
The clock said 12:02 A.M.
Another woman was getting my husband out of the shower.
I hung up the phone.
I started pacing the kitchen, trying not to shake. Taking deep breaths. Thinking of the baby. Stay calm for the baby. Which was when I saw her through the window, eating the flourless cake and laughing. It was Z’s thick pudding of a cake, all sugar and vibrant sea salt—one of the only smells in the kitchen I could handle. And now she had ruined that as well.
Amber.
She was wearing a sexy black dress, a thick gold necklace. Her boyfriend was with her and three other people, at the one table Z reserved for big parties.
Amber was performing, talking loudly as she took another bite, probably analyzing the cake for the group. The textures of the sweet custard, the genius of the sea salt finish. As if she were an expert on such things. She was the expert as far as everyone she was dining with was concerned. Soon she’d be the expert as far as America was concerned too.
I didn’t know what I was doing until I was doing it. I moved all of the rejected peaches onto one plate.
Then I swung through the kitchen door, peaches in hand, and walked into the dining room.
A few of the guests at the chef’s counter looked up, taking in my apron, my sweaty bun.
I nodded in their direction.
Confused, they nodded back.
I walked right past them, right to table 5. Amber’s boyfriend now had his arm around her, and he was gently nuzzling into her neck. She was seductively eating the last bite of the flourless treat—licking the plate clean.
Amber looked up, eyes wide, as she recognized me there in my kitchen garb, in serious need of a shower.
“Oh, my God!” she said as she looked me up and down. “What are you doing here?”
“Saying hello,” I said.
Then I smiled and dropped the peaches in her lap.
34
I woke up the next morning to Sammy standing over the couch, which was a good thing, probably, as the last thing I wanted was to review the night before. Maggie’s voice on Danny’s phone. The irritating sight of Amber Rucci. The end of my illustrious career at 28. I had stormed out following my plate-dumping, not waiting to officially be fired. I turned off my phone, knowing Danny wouldn’t call back. I didn’t understand how things were still going so awry. How had that happened? I was supposed to be on my way to redemption by now, and I was nowhere. Jobless. Husbandless. With the lovely and charming Amber Rucci poised to take over the world.
Sammy shuffled from foot to foot, a little nervous. She had a new novel in her sweet little hands.
“I don’t want to go to camp,” she said.
“Why?” I said.
“I don’t want to discuss it,” she said.
“What do you want to do instead?
“Reading day?” she asked.
“You know what? Why not?”
She smiled, large. “Great!” she said.
Then she proceeded to move my feet out of the way, plop down on the couch, and crack open her book.
I watched her turn the pages, a nausea in my throat kicking up. It was a combination of what I assumed was morning sickness and the realization that a small person—not unlike Sammy—would belong to me soon.
“Why are you staring at me?” she said, eyes still on her book.
“I need you to tell me why you don’t want to go to camp,” I said. “Was someone mean to you?”
“No.”
“Sammy, if someone was mean to you, I’ll go with you to the camp and make sure that the counselor knows. You don’t have to give up camp.”
She closed her book. “It’s nothing to do with that,” she said.
“So what happened?”
She met my eyes, as if trying to decide whether to say. “Kathleen’s daughter is coming to camp. She wants us to sit together at lunch.”
“And you don’t want to?”
Sammy looked exasperated. “Her daughter goes to the school, the one in New York.”
I nodded. Now she was getting somewhere.
“I know she’s going to try to make us be friends and stuff. So I’ll want to go.”
It was a strange reaction—as though Sammy was skipping a couple of steps. The one where she decided if she liked Kathleen’s kid, and the one where she decided if the school seemed interesting to her.
“Why do you feel badly about that?”
She shrugged. “I don’t know. I mean, Kathleen says it’s a great place, so . . .”
Then I knew what was upsetting her. “Your mom.”
She nodded. “She thinks the school is a bad place, I guess.”
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I think it could be fun.”
I felt my heart break a little. What was wrong with Rain that she was making Sammy feel like it was the school versus her? And what was wrong with the counselor that she was sending in undercover recruiters? Would she get some kind of bonus if Sammy showed up there? Suddenly I was mad at everyone, except for the kid sitting on the edge of the couch.
“All right,” I said. “You don’t have to go to camp. But no reading day, okay?”
She sighed, exhausted. “Why not?”
“You’re not going to sit around. If you don’t want to go to camp, that’s fine. You’re going to do something, though.”
“I am doing something. I’m reading.”
I looked out the window at our old house, the red car in the driveway, the nameless celebrity inside. And I thought of her boyfriend. “Let’s go fishing,” I said.