“Well, she’s sixteen,” Harper said, handing Nina a glass of wine. “That’s a balanced diet for her age.”
“Waffles?”
“Yep.”
They all moved into the dining room, and Claire watched Nina take in the table, the dusty rose napkins, the Mason jars of flowers, and the three place settings on the good china that only came out for Thanksgiving and birthdays, or the occasional Tuesday when Claire just needed to feel like her life had some kind of ceremony.
“This is beautiful, Claire,” Nina said. “You really did a great job putting this together.”
Greg appeared in the doorway. Claire felt the familiar tension he brought. Him and his khakis and his College of Charleston T-shirt, with his earbuds draped around his neck. They were not even the good earbuds. They were from an older time, but he said they worked better than the newer ones. Greg was a man lost in the mid-nineties.
He stood in the doorway like a man who intended to be there only briefly. He wasn’t planning to hang around and celebrate with his wife and her two best friends. He had things to do, a wife to ignore.
“Ladies, happy birthday. Y’all need anything?”
“We’re fine, Greg,” Claire said, her jaw tightening.
“Holler if you do.”
He gave a little wave and then retreated back to 1995.
Claire felt Harper’s eyes on her like a laser beam, but she chose not to look.
They sat down, and Claire brought out the chicken, roasted vegetables, and the rolls she had made from her mother’s recipe. No one could beat those yeast rolls.
Harper opened the champagne, and Nina held her glass up.
“To fifty.”
They clinked and drank.
For a while, it was good. Just the three of them, the way it used to be.
Harper telling a story about a man in her office who sent a company-wide email meant for his girlfriend, and the forty-five minutes of chaos that followed.
Nina laughing at Harper’s impression of the man’s face when he realized what he had done.
Claire refilling glasses, passing the bread, and, for the first time in weeks, feeling like she existed.
They talked about Lucia, who was apparently going through a phase in which she communicated exclusively through eye rolls and sighs.
They talked about Harper’s assistant, James, who had started bringing his emotional support ferret to the office.
They talked about the bookstore on Bay Street that was closing and whether the new coffee shop on Edisto was any good.
They talked about the woman at Claire’s school who had shown up for the faculty meeting with her shirt inside out and had not noticed until lunch.
But they did not talk about Greg.
And they did not talk about David.
And they did not talk about the fact that Harper ate dinner alone most nights or that Nina’s house on Edisto was so quiet she had started leaving the television on just to hear another human voice.
Those things sat at the table with them, taking up space like uninvited guests.
It was Nina who finally said his name.
They were on the second bottle of wine. Claire had brought out the pound cake, and Nina had taken one bite before going very still.
