“That’s impressive,” Caroline told him before popping the second roll into her mouth. She swallowed quickly, then reached for her water glass to wash it down. There had been big clumps of the green stuff stuck on it, and now her sinuses were burning.
Adrian shook his head in disagreement. “Not at all. I had no talent, and I hated to practice.”
“But you learned to like the music?” Caroline asked. She hoped it didn’t take seven years of lessons, because she didn’t want to wait that long.
“I can’t remember not liking it. My parents always had the classical station playing in the car, and my school took us at least twice a year to the symphony forPeterand the WolforThe Nutcracker Suite.... I suppose it was just around me.” His gaze refocused on her. “Why were you interested in the symphony if you don’t listen to classical music?”
Caroline’s stomach sank. “I’d never been, and it seemed like something people liked in—” She didn’t want to admit that it seemed like something people liked in the movies, because that made her sound hopelessly naive. Wasn’t never having done something enough of a reason to try it?
Scanning her dinner for her next bite, she saw a yellow piece of something on rice. In her brief review of the order card, she’d noticed egg as one of the choices. It had to be scrambled egg on rice, which was probably the most familiar option. So she shoved it into her mouth to cut off her answer, chewing under the assumption it was egg. But the texture was too soft and creamy, and the taste was sweet and sour. Like seafood yogurt. Caroline’s throat closed as she panicked, but she forced it down. Her stomach jumped up in protest, threatening to launch a full-scale revolt, and she grabbed her water to wash it all down over the strong objections of her digestive tract.
Unfortunately, Adrian had seen the whole sequence, and he was watching her with concern.
“What was that one?” she managed to ask him as her throat opened and closed.
“Uni,” he said.
Caroline stared at him blankly.
“It’s sea urchin,” he explained.
“Oh,” she muttered, mind summoning pictures of the spiky little critters at the bottom of her dentist’s aquarium. Now bobbing uneasily in her gut.
Her head swam despite every effort to sternly instructher body that she would keep it together, finish the dinner, and pretend to be a sophisticated person. She tried to pick up another piece, but her gag reflex triggered at the mere thought of more seafood. She put the sushi back down.
“Are you all right?” Adrian quietly asked, killing her hopes that he simply hadn’t noticed. For the last few minutes, he’d seemed to relax, but now he was looking at her like he needed to render emergency aid again.
“I’m fine,” she snapped, which he didn’t deserve. Hot tears of embarrassment started to prickle at the corners of her eyes, and being horrified by that was only going to make them spill over.
“I can order something else—” Adrian began to say, but Caroline’s purse vibrated at her elbow, cutting him off.
“I forgot to mention,” he said when Caroline didn’t immediately move to get her phone out, “it rang a few times while you were away from the table earlier.”
That gave her the rationale she needed to grab her purse and trek back to the bathroom, saying weakly that she’d be right back. That couple from earlier was also watching her as she crossed the restaurant, clutching her purse and cursing as her blisters rubbed against the paper towels she’d shoved in her shoes.
It was probably weird that she was going to the bathroom to look at her phone. That wasn’t a normal thing to do. But Caroline had to go to the sink and run cold water from the tap over the insides of her wrists before she could even look at her face in the mirror.
This was ridiculous. She’d played through tendinitis, through tennis toe, played with blood running down her knee after a fall. Now she was pale and sick-looking justbecause she was trying to eat a new food. She made eye contact with herself just to silently yell at mirror-Caroline to get back in the game. This wasn’t supposed to be hard.
When sufficient color had returned to her cheeks, Caroline took her phone out of her purse to see four missed calls. The first two from her uncle. The third from her father. The last from her mother. Nobody had left a message.
Her mom had sworn she wasn’t taking sides, but she’d also stopped calling Caroline six months ago, which kind of suggested the opposite. This was the first time she’d been the one to pick up the phone since Caroline moved out.
Casting a wary eye over the unused stalls in the bathroom, Caroline called her mother back.
She picked up immediately. Caroline heard one of her nephews squalling in the background, as well as the TV, but not any of her other family members, so she fractionally relaxed.
“Hi, honeybun,” her mom said. “Thanks for calling back.”
She seemed sincere, but Caroline wasn’t sure.
“Of course. Though I’m on a date, so...” She trailed off, not wanting to say anything else about it.
Her mother’s hand adjusted on the receiver, and Caroline heard background noise recede further.
“Oh, honey, really? How did you meet him?”
Caroline chewed on the side of her cheek. “Online.”
