“Actually, we’ll just take the check,” Everett said, and half smiled. “Thank you.”
Adrien rolled his eyes. “My pleasure.”
“I still don’t understand,” Grace said once he was gone. “Your dad had to teach at Georgetown this week, but he came back early? And that woman with him is…what? A client?” She pursed her lips. “Because if I were her, I wouldn’t wear a dress like that to a business lunch.”
I caught Everett giving Grace a sympathetic but almost pitying look.Oh, Grace,it said.Grace, think about it.
She didn’t need to, because three seconds later, our view answered her question. The three of us saw my father lean in so he could kiss his lunch date on the lips. “Oh my god,” I vaguely registered Grace whisper, everything in the restaurant turning to white noise. I watched the woman smile before putting her hand—instead of a neat manicure, she had a set of sparkly claws—on Papá’s cheek to deepen the kiss.
I squeezed my prickling eyes shut to pretend I was asleep, that this was all a nightmare. What was my father doing? How could he do this to Mamá? Helovedher.
Didn’t he?
The back of my neck swirled with heat, and I felt lightheaded. “G, I can’t…” I covered my face with my hands so I wouldn’t see spots. “I can’t…”
“Hey, I’m right here,” Grace said as I swallowed, knowing my panic attack was coming. “I’m right here, Isa.” She movedcloser so she could loop her arm through mine. “I know I don’t have the same strain of faith, trust, and pixie dust as James,” she murmured. We both knew her brother was best at calming me. “But I’m here and I have a plan.”
Do you?I thought, but couldn’t voice the words. My lips couldn’t form them.
“It’s going to be okay,” she whispered. “It’s going to be totally fine. You and Ev are going to leave, you’re going to go downstairs…” She glanced at him, and he nodded. “And I’ll meet you there once I pay our tab. All right?”
I neither agreed nor disagreed, my tongue still slack in my mouth. Grace unzipped my purse, pulled out my Jackie O sunglasses, and gently put them on me while Ev slipped on his Wayfarers. “Don’t let him see you, G,” I said when she peeked out from our table to do some recon. “Promise you won’t get caught.”
“I promise,” she replied. “Once I sign the check, I’m out ofhere.”
Everett held out his hand. “Come on, Isa,” he said. “Now’s the time. They’re ordering….”
Don’t look back,I told myself once the two of us were walking toward the exit. My heelsclick-clackedon the marble floor, louder than the room’s moody music and conversation. After I wobbled, Everett’s hand moved to the small of my back to steady me.Whatever you do, don’t look back.
“Thank you for dining at Jean-Georges,” the French hostess said drily as we passed her podium. Had she been watching us the whole time? “We hope you enjoy the rest of yourday!”
Once we were safely in the elevator, I leaned my head back and tried to breathe. I’d always known my parents had a unique marriage compared to their friends. They weren’t the type of couple that had constant heart-eyes for each other or binged Netflix together—and I admit, thatdidbother me a little. “Do your parents ever go out?” I remembered asking James several months ago, the two of us secluded in his room practicing a new song. James had gotten a new guitar, and Grace had a tennis match.
“Out?” James stopped strumming his guitar strings and gave me a look. “Of course, all the time. They go out with your parents, Mrs.Adler, with neighbors and other friends.” He shrugged. “For work events, too, but I think the highlights of those are coming home and talking smack about colleagues.”
“No, that’s not what I meant,” I said. “I mean do they go outalone? Like on dates?”
James ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, they do,” he admitted. “Every Thursday night.”
I nodded. Everett’s parents had been like that, too.
“Mineneverdo that,” I told James. The realization hit me—my parents truly led separate lives. That was how their marriage worked.
But now, stomach squirming, I calculated—the mental bullet points coming quickly. I realized my mother spent a lot of time on the phone, which clearly meant she needed someone to talk to, because she’d never particularly preferred speaking on the phone. She was a texter.
My parents never went to bed at the same time. WheneverI brewed chamomile tea, I could see lamplight spilling through the bottom of Papá’s study door.
Our family hadn’t had a sit-down dinner in months.
And the only time they seemed happy together was whenever our families socialized.
The word “affair” had come up, but I’d let it roll off my shoulders. Three months ago, I’d overheard James’s parents talking one night after my family had hosted dinner and I’d gone home with the Barbours for a sleepover. “Mara asked why he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring and he said it accidentally went down the drain while he was rinsing the dinner dishes,” I’d overheard Mrs.Barbour tell her husband, skeptically adding, “But when have we ever seen Luis Cruz wash anything, Scott?”
I remembered almost laughing. Did Papá do the dishes often? No, but we never had many dishes to do. Every take-out place in town recognized my phone number!
“You don’t seem surprised,” I told Everett as the elevator doors slid open and we walked across the lobby.
When he didn’t respond, I knew.
