Paige has taken a lot of steps to get what she wants, but this will set in motion something nobody is expecting. She doesn’t bother changing out of leggings and a sweater. She wraps an infinity scarf around her neck, pushes her feet into knee-high flat boots, and rehearses one more time what she’ll say before she leaves the house to meet Charlotte.
Before she goes, she applies some ChapStick. It’s gotten so cold and dry outside. She feeds Christopher a pocket biscuit and tells him he’s a good boy, pulls on a coat, and looks herself in the hall mirror before she walks out and says, “This is it. Don’t fuck it up.”
When she pulls into Milio’s, she looks around the front window and tries to spot Charlotte, and there she sits, nervous as anything, waiting for her lover to find out what his cryptic message was. She holds a cup of coffee and taps her fingers on the table. Paige would almost feel sorry for her, but she doesn’t. The tramp knows Finn is married, so she deserves no sympathy.
Of course, the woman has no idea who she is when Paige enters the restaurant, so she’s jarred when Paige sits right down across from her in a two-top table and stares her down, saying nothing.
“Uh, hello. I think you might have the wrong table?”
“Don’t remember me, Char?” Paige asks, pronouncing it again as incharbroil.
“I’m sorry, who are you?” she asks, leaning back and twisting her pretty hair with the fingers of both hands. On guard, but not full-on defensive yet.
“Oh, right. You were pretty drunk. We met at the trashy charity ball. You remember. A couple weeks ago,” she says, and she can see the woman put together the mispronunciation of her name with this rude stranger at her table.
“Oh, yeah, I do remember you. But, uh, I’m meeting someone, so it was nice to see you, but...”
“You’re meeting me,” Paige says. Char laughs a humorless laugh and reasserts herself.
“I can assure you I’m not, so if you’ll excuse me.”
“Finn’s not coming,” she says.
“Uh, I’m sorry, wh...”
“You should be sorry,” Paige says, “but that’s not why I’m here. Your affair with Finn...” she starts, but Charlotte begins her protest earlier than Paige anticipated.
“My what?” You’re...” She starts to fuss with her things like she’s getting up to leave.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. I do not have time for the theatrics,” Paige says, pulling printed-out transcripts of their texts and emails and a photo of them embracing at the ball, and places them on the table in front of her.
“I...” is all that comes out of Charlotte’s mouth.
“Please. Go on. You what?” she asks.
“What is this? What do you want?”
“You know he’s married, right?” Paige says, and Charlotte doesn’t answer but looks away and gives an exaggerated sigh.
“Right. Of course you do, because I was there when you were introduced to his wife,” Paige says.
“I think you should leave,” Char says.
“So all I want from you is to know how long it’s been going on.”
“Why would I tell you that? I’m leaving. I’m calling Finn, and you can deal with him,” she says, pulling on her coat and scooting out of the booth.
“No, I don’t think that’s how this is gonna go. Your husband is Anthony Cohen,” Paige says, and the woman sits back down, and her eyes gloss over like she’s about to cry, but she doesn’t say anything.
“When I say I’ve seen all your messages and emails with him, I meanall. So if you don’t want me to talk, you’ll tell me. How. Long?” Paige says, and waits for a response, unsure if the woman will burst into tears and storm out to call Finn or what, exactly. Her pulse races. She needs to know.
“Almost two years,” Charlotte finally says with a defeated look. She takes a tissue from her purse and dots her eyes. “Why are you doing this? Why do you care?”
“Were you with him January 17 last year?” Paige asks.
“How would I remember that? Why?”
“Because I think he killed my son. In fact, I’m pretty sure of it. The only reason I’d go near the son of a bitch with a ten-foot pole is to get the information I need. And I need this. I think he was in a car, pulling onto our street at ten thirty on the night of January 17, and his calendar says he was meeting withC. Was that you? Or was that my son, Caleb? Because I have other reasons to believe it might have been my son. You have to know something,” she says, her voice breaking.
