“Everything okay? Is this the two-weeks-before-the-bar meltdown? I see it every summer, and I promise you: They all pass. Far as I know, at least. But I guess you never hear from the ones who don’t.”
I patted the top of the bar-prep book and took a sip. “Multitasking. And thanks, this one doesn’t taste like a cupcake.”
He laughed. “You’re not really worried about passing, are you? It’ll be done before you know it. One and done.”
Kind of like my marriage.I flinched at the thought.
He leaned over and picked up the book. “Seriously, though. If it’s a bottle-of-wine-at-three-p.m. kind of day, let it be that kind of day. Don’t force it. Besides, look at how much ground you’ve covered.”
He flipped through and landed on the divorce papers.
I couldn’t tell if he had seen them, but he quickly shut the book and set it back down.
“Just give yourself a break, ya know?”
By this point I was too buzzed to be embarrassed.
I felt my phone vibrate, and we both looked grateful for the distraction.
“Hey,” I answered sheepishly as a familiar British accent barreled through the phone.
“Where are you? You’re more than twenty minutes late.”
Fuck.I completely blanked on our standing 4:30 p.m. run.
“Em, I’m . . . shit. Sorry.”
“You’re not coming? Did something happen?” She paused. “Did everything go okay at the courthouse?”
I bit my lip. “It was fine ... I mean, it’s pretty much done.”
I searched for the right way to say what had really happened, how seeing the worddefendantnext to Ben’s name had triggered an avalanche of guilt.
“I filed the papers and freaked out. I’m at Vin Rouge. I’ve been here for a while.”
I heard Emilie sigh, imagined her looking down at her sports watch, jogging in place, her long brown hair tied tightly in a high ponytail, weighing whether to quickly run the trail or come meet me. Emilie’s baseline was a combination of irritation and exaggerated apathy. Only a few of us knew how hard she worked to cultivate effortless perfection, or how much she actually loved being a dead ringer for Zoe Saldaña. Her dream was to be a Supreme Court justice by forty, and no one doubted she would do it.
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
Unsure if that was what I really wanted but too tipsy to decide, I took a dramatic sip of Matt’s charity wine and rubbed my right temple. I could feel dehydration overtaking both sides of my brain. I asked for a glass of water and forced myself to sip it until she arrived. I slipped a pair of sunglasses on my face and tried not to cry.
I met Emilie in law school, just after Ben moved out. I’d told him I was leaving a few weeks before, and the air in our spacious DC townhouse had become so heavy it felt like we were swimming.
I’d started pulling late nights in the library just to have an excuse to be out. One night I looked over and saw Emilie sitting with another guy in our class. Neither of them studying. I envied them. I felt worn down from the weight of robbing someone of a marriage. I remember thinking that Emilie and the Scottish international student I would learn was named Connor couldn’t possibly coexist in my emotionally fraught sphere. He waved me over, and the three of us became fast friends. Emilie was from London and Connor was from Edinburgh, and both seemed to have a European fascination with the idea of a starter marriage.
Matt reappeared as Emilie slipped wordlessly into the seat next to me.
“Glass of wine?”
She gave him an exasperated look as we sat in silence for a few seconds.
“I’m still not sure what happened. You got upset because you filed? You’ve been totally antiseptic about this entire thing until now.”
She motioned to the bottle of wine next to the prep book. “And now this? Come on, Sam, you look just a little bit silly wearing those in here.”
I took the sunglasses off in wordless compliance.
She flinched. “Okay, put them back on.” She waved over to Matt. “We’re going to grab that corner table in the back. Can I just carry this stuff over?”
