Never Have I Ever(98)

“Yeah, but it’s good. For him. He says when they move again, he can get back in school. Do regular stuff. At home in Seattle, he played basketball and—” She stopped, realizing she’d said the city.

He’d obviously told her it was a secret. I hadn’t asked, and yet this girl I loved had laid a new card down for me to play.

I wasn’t going to pick it up. I wasn’t. But I couldn’t help wondering what else he’d told her. His mother’s job? Maybe, but Luca didn’t know I was Roux’s target. At least Maddy couldn’t know that I was being blackmailed. I wanted to ask, to press, to play. I held myself completely still, like Roux, until the urge subsided.

“I’m getting hungry,” I said, as if I hadn’t noticed her slip. “Want to help me set the table?”

“Sure,” she said, relieved to be out of this conversation. She bounced to her feet, and I went with her.

Dinner wouldn’t have seemed like much to an outsider. We sat around the picnic table in the backyard, stuffing ourselves with fresh, hot food from the grill. I spooned sweet potatoes into Oliver between bites of surf and turf and tore up a fluffy roll for him to pincer up and gum. We talked about fall-break plans and the weeds in the back garden, nothing of interest to anyone outside this little circle. But to me every minute was sacred. I wanted to stop time, live inside this meal, this moment, forever.

It had to end eventually. I offered to bathe the dishes if Maddy would bathe her brother, and she laughed at that. Davis, who had shopped and cooked, was absolved of any further chores. He went with Maddy anyway; Oliver loved bath time, and it was fun.

They were all upstairs and I’d just finished loading the dishwasher when the doorbell rang. I felt myself stiffen. I hoped to God it wasn’t Roux, back to try some new angle. Not now. Not tonight. Monday was coming, and I hoped she would take the high road in the end, but the odds were against it. I stomped my way to the front door, tense. If this was my last weekend before the storm caught us all, I wanted to enjoy it, Roux-free.

I swung the door open, but I did not find Roux. It was Charlotte, though I hardly recognized her in the weeping woman hunched over Ruby’s stroller. Her face was so swollen that her eyes were almost shut, like Roux’s in the picture I’d given back. But this was not from bruises. She looked like she’d been crying for hours, and huge tears were still spilling down her face. Ruby looked fraught and tearstained as well, twisting and grunting in her stroller.

“Amy,” she said, and stopped. Too choked up to speak. I couldn’t speak either. At last she said, “Amy. Your friend. Roux. She came to see me. She told me . . .” she said, and again she was unable to go on. Huge sobs racked her body, and I felt my very heart drop out of me, a sick sinking. Roux hadn’t waited. She’d pushed her big red button, stolen my last day.

I wanted to step toward Charlotte, but I knew she would recoil from me. I couldn’t bear it. I’d been wrong, I realized. I should have stayed in the game. I should have paid Roux. Anything was better than this, standing naked, all my lies stripped away, while Lolly Shipley’s true-blue eyes stared at me like she was drowning.

“Oh, God, Char,” I said, my voice breaking.

She shook her head. “I didn’t believe her. Not at first. I got so mad and told her to get out of my house, but then I went to talk to him. It was all true. He admitted it. He cheated on me, Amy.” She put one protective hand over her rounded belly. “He cheated, and he’s leaving us. He slept with goddamn Tate Bonasco.”

Then I could move. I came around the stroller, and she fell into my arms.





19




Roux had gone after Charlotte.

It was unendurable, but I could not respond. Not while Char was weeping herself sick in my arms, telling me the whole sordid story.

“This life, it isn’t for me,” Phillip had told Char, waving a hand to encompass their tidy home, his toddler, his pregnant wife. “We were so young. I didn’t really know myself. I’m so sorry, Charlotte. Turns out I’m not domestic.”

It had not been Phillip’s first affair, only his most recent. He wasn’t in love with Tate. He was actually leaving Charlotte for Phillip; he’d been his own one and only all along. My heart was breaking for her, but under my anger and shock and sorrow the part of me that was like Roux was already thinking strategy. Not on my behalf. That would come later. I was thinking about Phillip’s next move and how best to protect my friend.

I conferred briefly with Davis, and the strategist that Roux had woken up in me saw with bitter eyes how even this was working in my favor. Davis had sensed how troubled I was, but he had put it down to worry over Char. Now that worry seemed more than justified.

He said Char and Ruby were welcome to stay with us, but I told him it would be unwise to leave the house standing empty. It was their largest asset, after all, and possession was nine-tenths of the law. Phillip had driven off, telling his devastated, weeping wife that they would talk more when she was “ready to be reasonable,” but he could come back at any time. He could squat there. I wouldn’t put it past him. Davis agreed, and he knew without being told that of course I’d want to go be with her. He headed to our room to pack an overnight bag for me while I went to coax Char back to her own place.

She balked, saying she couldn’t stand to go home, even if I were with her.