“You okay?” Paige asks.
“Yeah. ’Course. Sorry. I think I’m just... It’s a lot with all the Finn stuff. Just trying to keep it together, y’know.”
Paige pulls her mouth into a tight line and gives an empathetic nod. They sit, watching the party awhile.
A woman with a selfie stick takes glossy-eyed photos of herself in front of a giant margarita glass and poses like she’s drinking it. A group of women create a circle on the dance floor and have discarded all their shoes in the middle of it as they dance overdramatically, in a style that doesn’t match the music. Lucas Kinney, Paige just notices, is standing in a tux near the stage, a drink in hand, chatting with a couple lawyers she vaguely knows from years of these events. Cora strains to see him. She cups her hand above her eyes to deflect the glare of the dance-floor lights.
“What?” Paige asks.
“Lucas Kinney is here,” she says.
“How exciting,” Paige says dryly. Cora stands for a better look. “Uh...you can see him any given day, rubbing his BMW with a diaper in his driveway or jogging around the neighborhood with short-shorts on. Why the staring?”
“You think he’s, a bit, I don’t know...”
“What?”
“Off?” Cora asks.
“You’re asking the wrong person. I think everyone in the neighborhood is off. Except you guys, of course,” Paige says, and Grant returns, handing her a full martini.
“Who’s off?” he asks, sitting between them and slurping the foam off a fresh beer.
“Lucas Kinney,” Paige says. “I thought he was gay.”
“He’s married,” Cora says.
“Yeah, before that. He lived there a couple years, and I never saw anyone come and go from his house, so I figuredgay.”
“So,” Grant says, “if you never saw anyone go in or out, then you also didn’t see men go in and out. How does that equal gay?”
“Dunno. ’Cause he was hiding it, big judge and all that,” Paige says, all of them peering over at Lucas now.
“So now he’s a closeted gay man just because you don’t see people come in and out. He could have dated a thousand women and stayed at their places,” Grant says.
“A thouuusand? Yes, well, if he dated a thousand women, I probably would have seen one or two walk-of-shame themselves to their cars at least once,” Paige says.
Grant turns his attention to Cora.
“I thought he was great, the once or twice I joined Finn and him for a drink. Why, what’d he do?”
“Nothing, really. A little unfriendly, maybe. Just wondering if it was just me.”
“I think he’s off. He wears chinos that are too short and shoes with no socks,” Paige says.
“You think everyone is off,” Grant says.
“Yes, we covered that while you were gone, thanks.”
“I think that’s stylish now,” Cora says. “OnThe Bacheloretteall the guys have ankle pants with no socks. It’s a thing,” she adds with authority.
“It’s idiotic, and he’s not a twenty-two-year-old reality star.”
“I fear what you two say about me when I’m not around,” Grant says jokingly. Cora laughs too loud and gives him a playful, dismissive gesture with her hand, but Paige is distracted. She’s spotted Charbroil following Finn to the bathrooms. Paige noted earlier that the bathrooms that line the main corridor near the kitchen are the unisex, single-stall kind. Probably for kitchen staff, not patrons, but since food service stopped a while ago and the kitchen is in a frenzy of dishwashing and packing up catering gear, she thinks it might be a private place for lovers to meet.
“Oh, there’s Claire. Haven’t seen her in ages. I’ll be back,” Paige says. She knows it’s completely out of character for her to pursue social interaction, and this might be interpreted as fishy, but both Grant and Cora want her back to being herself, so they probably won’t bat an eye at her departure.
Paige does her whole pretending-she’s-lost-in-a-text walk, looking down at her phone so she’s never caught spying. When she reaches the dark hallway leading back to the bathrooms, she sees them talking in the yellow rectangle of light from the open bathroom door. Char has slid down the wall with her head in her hands and is crying. God, Paige hates women. Why are they always crying around men? She ducks back around the corner, against the wall, and stands listening.
