Rhea was a cocktail waitress and usually it was a good time. She made friends. She listened to the regulars’ problems. She even helped some people. And she felt good doing it.
She knew that guy was going to be an issue; she’d waited on him before, but tonight he was edgy with alcohol and in the mood to show off for his buddies, which is the worst mood for any man, as far as Rhea’s concerned. He was the type of guy who wore flashy bald eagle swim trunks on the Fourth of July and shitty sunglasses owned by his father in the eighties, who favored penny loafers and yacht rock that he was too young for. A former frat boy, he nurtured the paunch growing over his khaki shorts as a status symbol, as though to broadcast, I don’t have to look good to attract women, that’s what the money is for. And when a Jay-Z song came on, he sang all the lyrics—all of them.
You look like the kind of girl who could use a big tip.
It felt like she’d been caught smiling, not knowing she had food in her teeth. She understood: She’d been to college. She’d moved away from home. She worked in an ugly office, but in an office nonetheless. She dressed business casual and still a guy like him could smell her white trash from a mile away and he wanted to make sure she knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.
Her face burned, her pulse bulging in the tender spot at her throat.
He asked if she’d ever had a nice meal. When she said she had, he asked her if she knew what omakase was and said it was so cute when she didn’t. He’d fix that, he said. He could Pretty Woman her, he said. She felt like someone had poured fire down the front of her shirt and her job was to stay chill.
And then, as she was walking by, balancing a tray of fancy drinks on her shoulder for her largest party over there in the corner, what’d he do? He touched her ass cheek. Like it was one of the many things he owned. Like it was nothing. Like her ass was for sale.
She can still remember the sound of cascading glass as the tray tipped and they all hit the floor one after the other after the other, too late to save. The eyes of an entire bar turned on her and he laughed. He fucking laughed.
Right up until she whirled around and clocked him with the one highball glass that had somehow stayed on her tray. The son of a female state senator. Four stitches through the eyebrow. Charges pressed. She had assaulted-assaulted him. What he did was “different.” There was never any excuse for physical violence, don’t they teach that in public schools? And that was the end of that. Her mother said she always knew this would happen. At thirteen, Rhea dented the side of her mother’s car with a travel mug, so obviously this whole thing was inevitable.
Before that day, she wouldn’t even have thought of herself as a woman with a temper, but there it has been ever since, coiled in the basket like she’s keeping a wild animal for a pet. The world keeps it fed and she keeps it contained in case she ever needs it again.
“I’m not trying to argue with you.” Marcus puts up his palms as though he can sense it there, too. “Let’s reset. What’d you want to talk about anyway?”
She pushes her nails into the fleshy meat below her thumb. I am the rising sun on the ocean horizon. I am light through the still trees. I am the lasting snow at the top of the mountain. She breathes her affirmations in and out. “Nothing really,” she says. “I just wanted to see if I could get you to take a look at some financial statements for me and tell me what they might mean.”
He grins as she slides Miss Ollie’s documents across the table and decides, once again, that what Marcus doesn’t know won’t hurt her.
TWENTY-NINE
“Wait,” Darby commands her husband as he opens his mouth to speak. “Maybe I should be standing up for this.”
“I think the advice is usually the other way around,” he says.
“Well, I think I should be standing.” She removes herself from the sofa they spent eight hours deciding on, popping between Crate & Barrel and Pottery Barn and back again until they finally collapsed on this exact floor model and cried out together, “We’ll take it!” before erupting into a fit of stupid giggles. That was seven years ago. She still likes this couch.
She feels much better standing. Assume an athletic stance, her volleyball coach always told her, so you’re ready for the strike.
Griff looks twice as uncomfortable as he did before. Good. He stares down at his shoes. “What I was going to say is—” He coughs. She hates unnecessary coughing because that’s marriage, hating someone’s peculiar, obnoxious noises; marriage is not an affair with their children’s preschool teacher or a lady at the gym. “I’m sorry.” And she can tell that whatever he says next, he really is. Sorry. “I didn’t want to tell you this way. I haven’t been working late.” Oh no. Her stomach climbs to a sickening elevation, waiting for it. “I’ve been taking an improv class.”
She stares at him. Like she’s watching a movie and the sound and video display aren’t totally synced.
“An … improv class.”
“Yes.” He shakes his head as though even he can’t believe it. “Yes, I can show you the receipts and everything. And as far as the phone thing, we’re on a group text chain. It’s funny. I’m funny. On it, I mean.” He shrugs one shoulder.
“I know you’re funny,” she snaps. “I’m married to you.”
“I’m sorry.” Can he please stop saying that? “I set a goal to get over my—my social anxiety disorder, that’s what the therapist called it.” Darby feels, of all things, a spark of anger. For how many years has she been encouraging him to seek professional help and always she was made out to be the pushy bad guy. But now, Griff’s done it. He’s not only looked up a therapist, but made an appointment and seen one. Probably more than once from the sound of things. Without telling her. Why didn’t he tell her? “I saw an Instagram ad for an online therapist and I thought, why not? His name’s Rahul. I should have told you about Rahul,” he says, as if reading her mind. “But I had this idea that it would be a surprise. A good surprise.”
Bullshit. The thought comes to her so briskly that she flushes crimson. Sure, maybe he took the classes, but he didn’t care about surprising her. He wanted something to himself.
“Also…” he falters. “I was embarrassed and not sure if I would chicken out. Plus I knew you’d want to come to one of my shows.”
“You have shows?”
“Showcases, more like. They’re not a big deal. Nothing fancy.”
“Who are you?” It’s the most articulate thing she can manage on short notice. Therapist. Improv. Shows. A whole world about which Darby knows nothing.
“There was that Christmas party at the end of last year. Do you remember it? You told me it was a girls’ night. But I found the invitation in the trash and it wasn’t. It wasn’t women only. There was karaoke.”
Darby does remember. She sang “Come On Eileen” and she missed Griff in that moment because he loves that song, but she didn’t feel guilty. “I was doing you a favor,” she says. A small fib. He should be thanking her. She’s always making casual excuses for him. Oh, he does like you, he’s just an introvert. No, no, he clams up sometimes, sorry. Really, he’s so wonderful, just not a big group person, you know? She can think of a dozen of these conversations she’s had with friends over the years. Eventually, she got desensitized, though, and stopped feeling the need to explain Griff.