“It’s a long story. Actually, it’s a really short story. My husband is in Chile, and he’s cheating on me.”
“Ouch.” Madison winced.
“He doesn’t know that I know, because I’m waiting to confront him in person. If I do it on the phone, he can just block my number. Or hang up on me. I don’t want him to be able to get away with that. But ... I have a friend, who is a man ...”
“Oh,” said Soraya, clearly picking up on where Nora was going.
“I took a picture with him last night and sent it to my husband, because I knew it would get under his skin. Because he has a little bit of an issue with Sam.”
“Why?” Madison asked.
“Because he’s a man and I’m a woman.”
“Yeah,” she said.
“I mean, that’s how I feel, Madison,” said Nora. “He and I have been platonic friends since we were kids.”
The words felt dishonest on her tongue, and she couldn’t say why. Maybe because when she had touched his hand last night, she had felt something more. Something different. Maybe because the fact she knew she could use him the way she had to get at Ben spoke to something she wasn’t ready to admit.
“Your husband sounds like a throwback. In a bad way.”
“Agreed.”
“Did Sam say he was mad at you?” Soraya asked.
“No. But I feel like garbage.”
“Don’t worry about it!” Daisy shouted from across the room.
“Eavesdropping,” Nora shot back.
“You talk loud. Anyway, I’m sure he understands. You’re in a weird place.”
“Yes. But that isn’t an excuse to be petty at the expense of my best friend.”
“I’d let you do it with me.” Daisy’s offer was both sincere and unhelpful.
“Thank you, Daisy. Somehow, I don’t think that would have the same effect on him.”
“I don’t really understand these men. Why not ask for an open relationship?” Madison sounded sincerely dumbfounded.
“Because I don’t think they want polyamory. I think they want to inflate their egos.”
“Ethical nonmonogamy seems like the better choice to me,” Madison said.
Of course it did. Because she was in her twenties and had lived the sort of privileged life where she was only just now beginning to see the complications that existed in being human.
“I don’t think that would be for me.” Soraya took muffins out of a tin she had brought down from her apartment and put them into the display case.
“How do you know if you don’t try it?” Madison asked.
“Well, you can’t just ... you can’t just try something like that?”
She shrugged. “Whynot? How do you know what you like if you don’t try it? If you don’t like it, then it’s just a mistake.”
“Just a mistake?” Soraya laughed. “There is no such thing as just a mistake.”
“Oh no, there definitely is.” Madison tapped her fingers on a mug just before she put it up on the shelf. “I can list mine if you want, but it’s long. And I don’t know all their names.”
