“Humph,” he says. He’s gruffly shoveling the bread bowl into his mouth, until he chokes, sputters, sips water, and then does it all over again. “We’re in the midst of some—” He looks at his wife. “Bullshit.”
Juliet’s mother taps him on the shoulder. “Now is not the time,” she says.
“Why not? There are no secrets here.”
My aunt pinches the bridge of her nose with two fingers.
Juliet pushes her chair out and storms off toward the kitchen. Her mom tries to reach out and stop her, but Juliet shakes her off.
“She took it hard,” my aunt says. “I think especially with Rob and all.” She looks at my mom, explaining. “But we had to tell her. We didn’t want her to find out from the news. And people have been sniffing around. We think Richard is going to have to go public about the affair.”
My mom nods. My dad says nothing. I know he’s thinking, like I am, about the Montegs. About what this is going to mean for Rob’s family. For his little brothers.
“When?” my mom asks.
“A week, tops,” Uncle Richard says. “Probably not even that.”
My mom passes Juliet’s father more pasta. He takes it noisily. My dad has gotten up to pour himself a drink in the living room. He takes a bottle out from under our television cabinet—a stash I never knew we had.
Slowly I stand up and round the corner into the kitchen. I expect to see Juliet fuming by the refrigerator, or stampeding past me, but instead, I find her melted in a corner, her head on her knees, crying quietly. The sight of her like this, so small and so human, makes me stop in my tracks. Not before she sees me, though.
“What do you want?” she says, her tone bitter and tinged with anger.
“Are you okay?” I bend down to where she is and am surprised that she doesn’t flinch away.
“Why do you care?” she says through her hands.
“Honestly?” I say, sliding down next to her. “I don’t know.”
“For once, honesty in this family.”
It’s so ridiculous, it almost makes me laugh. “I mean, wouldn’t you?”
“Be sitting here on the floor with you?” Juliet says. “Definitely not.”
I have to ask her. I can feel the words bubbling up and out, and I know if I don’t say it now, I never will. “Why did you do it?”
She lifts her head up, and her eyes are red, her cheeks streaked with tears. “Come on, Rose. Isn’t it obvious?”
“No,” I say, “or I wouldn’t be asking.”
She puts her hands on her temples and presses. “You always had what I wanted,” she says. “This great, loving family. Parents who cared about you. And Rob was always your best friend.” She shakes her head, fresh tears somersaulting down her face. “I wanted to take something from you. I wanted to get back at you.”
“For what?” I say. “I never did anything to you.”
“Yes, you did,” she says. “You never called me after I left, not once. You didn’t come and visit until two months had gone by.”
“I was seven,” I say. “I didn’t exactly drive.” Not that I do now, but whatever.
“Your mom would have taken you,” she says. “In a second if you had asked. You didn’t. You didn’t when you got older, either. You went along with everything. Being impartial doesn’t make you innocent, Rose.”
I sit back against the cabinet. It’s not even worth telling her how wrong she is. The past is so beside the point. “It didn’t have to be like this,” I say.
“It’s been like this for a really long time. We’re only here because my dad was getting into trouble in LA. Same thing.” She gestures to the dining room. “You don’t know what it’s like to have parents who barely even talk to each other.”
“You could have asked for my help,” I say. “When you guys got here. Instead of doing what you did.”
She scoffs. “And you would have given it?”
