Maybe she gives off an invisible signal, a stop-what-you’re-doing-and-listen sign, because at this point Jack and David pause their conversation and look at Taylor; everyone looks at Taylor. Under thetable Nicola squeezes her hands together, as if she can halt time by squeezing.
“Well,” says Taylor. “As it turns out, Juliana and my husband met long ago. Isn’t that right, Juliana? You met my husband?” She leans so hard on the wordhusbandeach time she says it that had the word been a tree branch it would have snapped in half.
Juliana’s glance skitters around the table before landing on Nicola, who she might see as a safe island in this potentially hostile ocean. “That’s right. I met David at a party a long time ago,” she says. “During New York Fashion Week. When LookBook was going through a third round of funding.” There’s something in Juliana’s eyes Nicola doesn’t trust: a dangerous gleam. And she’s slurring a little. Nicola has been so intent on watching Shelly’s drinking that she hasn’t even paid attention to Juliana’s. “You remember, right, David?”
David scrunches his eyes together and looks like he’s giving his memory a good, thorough scrub, to see what comes up. “I think so,” he says finally.
“My husband has a terrible memory for unimportant details,” says Taylor. Has the wordhusbandever been employed so many times inside of ninety seconds?
Nicola sees now what Taylor is doing, why she invited Juliana here; not because she’s trying to figure out if there’s anything between David and Juliana (she knows) but because she’s made a decision about what to fight for, and she’s ready to show Juliana what’s hers.
“That party is one of the reasons LookBook took off,” Juliana says. “That’s when we really started to get the attention of the high-end designers.” She reaches for her wineglass and Nicola wants, like a mother stopping a toddler from drinking his juice too fast, to put her hand over Juliana’s. Juliana says, to the table as a whole, “I couldn’t have asked for a better night.”
“Early publicity is everything,” says Shelly, nodding sagely.
Taylor arches an eyebrow. “You couldn’t have asked for a better night?”
Juliana says, “Life-changing.”
“When was this again?” asks Taylor.
“September 2019.” Nicola winces at how Juliana has the date immediately at hand.
“That’sfunny,” says Taylor. “Huh. That’s right when we were planning our wedding. We got married the following autumn. You were there, Nicola. You were there too, Jack.”
“It was a beautiful wedding,” murmurs Nicola to her wineglass. She doesn’t want to look up because she’s not sure whose eyes to meet and what to do once she’s met them.
David attempts, “Taylor—”
“Stop,” says Taylor. Can a voice be colder than ice? If so, Taylor’s is, by triple-digit degrees. “Just don’t.” Nicola becomes enormously interested in the crumbs on her place mat, the design they make that looks almost like the Big Dipper.
David pushes his chair away from the table and stands suddenly. “Excuse me,” he says. What is hedoing?wonders Nicola. Is he reacting to Taylor telling him to stop? Is he hoping that if he leaves, the tension hanging over the table like a dark cloud will diffuse?
David walks to the grassy area beside the pool, and then—No! thinks Nicola. No nono!—Juliana follows him. Taylor takes another sip of her wine. Her expression is sphinxlike, but when she lifts her wineglass her hands tremble, betraying, Nicola figures, bigger emotions roiling on the inside.
“IloveFashion Week,” cries Shelly. Nicola can’t decide if she’s enormously clueless or if she’s actually quite masterful. “It’s one of my favorite weeks of the year!” She looks around. “September is better than February, if anyone is wondering.”
Nobody, it’s clear, is wondering.
This whole time Caroline has been moving stealthily behind them, clearing plates, and then, in the pause they’ve all created, announces dessert is coming. Chocolate mousse, she tells them, unless anyone has something against cream.
“Cream has something against me,” says Shelly. “But it’s not mutual.” Jack snickers, and Nicola rolls her eyes.
“Caroline, thank you so much, you’re free to go. David and I will serve the dessert and clean up,” says Taylor. Her eyes haven’t left the grassy area.
A silence falls, and into the silence pours Juliana’s voice. “When are you going to tell her?” David’s answer, if there is one, is quieter, then comes Juliana’s voice again, which is strident in a way that Nicola has never heard it: “When are you going to tell her that you loveme?”
It is a cliché to say that time stands still, or that everything moves in slow motion at a certain point, but in fact both of these things happen, one after the other, and after time starts moving again everyone left at the table whips their heads toward Taylor. Has she heard? How could she not have? Juliana’s voice was so loud and clear it seems like the moon itself must have heard. What will happen now?
What happens now is that the color drains from Taylor’s face, leaving her blue eyes shining like cold jewels. She stands.
“If you’ll excuse me,” Taylor says, looking every inch the dignified one in the situation—looking, in fact, like royalty, standing so tall and straight and composed. But there’s no way she isn’t dying on the inside. Whatever intentions she had for the dinner—to show Juliana that Taylor has the upper hand, to spread out her home and family like a picnic for Juliana to admirebut not to touch—have just vanished. She clears her throat, and in the only concession to the pain she must be going through, the chaos roiling internally, she repeats herself: “If you’ll excuse me. I’m going to go say good night to my daughter.”
“Ho, boy,” says Shelly.
Jack’s eyes go to Nicola, then to Shelly. “You want to get out of here?”
Nicola says, “Both of us?” at the exact same time that Shelly says, “Hell,yes.”
