Never Have I Ever(99)

“Ruby needs the continuity,” I told her, and that was true. I kept my more cold-blooded reasons to myself. “Her whole world has been upended. She needs to be in her own bed, with all her animals.”

That worked on Char’s soft heart. I left Oliver with Davis and Maddy and took Char and Ruby home. I went in first, but the house was still mercifully empty. Once there, we let Ruby watch one Elmo video after another. Young as she was, she understood that something in her small life had gone very wrong. She was sucking her thumb and asking for her binky, a habit she’d outgrown months ago.

Char sat in a heap on the sofa, her face wan and shiny with exhaustion, too tired to cry anymore. She kept going over the conversation she’d had with Phillip, quietly trying to make sense of it, trying to see what she could have done differently or better. She wasn’t blaming Phillip. She didn’t even seem angry with him, though that would surely come. Right now she was too blindsided. She wouldn’t eat, though I finally convinced her to have a cup of herbal tea, for the baby’s sake. When I got up to make it, her face turned toward me, following my every move like a flower following the sun.

“God, Amy, what would I do without you?” she said, and started crying again.

I understood Roux’s play then. I hadn’t had time or brain space to think of it before, but in that moment understanding came in a flash, immediate and clear. It was brilliant, actually, and thoroughly vicious, and I myself had given her the idea.

Charlotte’s going to lose something here. . . . The money or my friendship, I’d told her at Rosie B’s. I’m not egotistical enough to think my friendship’s worth a quarter of a million.

It might be now. Char couldn’t take another blow.

I’d told Roux that I was finished playing games with her, and I’d been at peace with it. I wanted to keep my secrets, keep this small, sweet life I loved, but the price Roux demanded was way too high; it stuck Charlotte with my bill. I couldn’t accept those terms, and after saving Roux on that ill-fated dive, I’d come to understand that if I sank to her level to win, I’d be killing the very self whose life I was trying to preserve. So I had opted out, on every level. I’d thought I understood the consequences. I’d been both ready and resigned, waiting, eyes open, for her shot to land. I hadn’t expected her to set her sights on Charlotte. Not like this.

My body went about the business of putting the kettle on, going to the pantry for a tea bag, but inside, a wild, black fury was surging up my spine from the deeps of me, dark and cold enough to burn. I wished that I had Roux’s life balanced in my hands again, right then. I wished I’d never penetrated the wreck. I should have waited five cold minutes, watching for that purple fin to spasm and go still.

But I couldn’t linger on that thought. I had to get fluids down Charlotte, hold her shaking body, try to get her to rest. I had to reassure her that she was good and dear and worthy of love and listen as she picked through the rubble of her marriage, looking for a way to make it her fault, so she could fix it. I worried she would keep it up all night, though if she needed to, I’d stay with her and let her do it. But she was pregnant, and she didn’t have the physical reserves. By ten she was so tired she was swaying with it. Char wouldn’t take one step toward her room, though, much less lie down on the bed she’d shared with her husband.

Ruby had fallen asleep in front of the television. I picked her up and wheedled Char upstairs to tuck them in together. She lay down by her daughter in what Ruby called her “pwincess bed,” a four-poster double with a white eyelet canopy.

I turned the lights out and pulled the desk chair over so I could sit close, petting Char’s hair. While I waited for sleep to take her, I looked at Ruby’s latest pictures, taped in a row over the night-light. Shapes and scribbles, and on each, Char had written down Ruby’s descriptions. Mommy and me if I was a mermaid and she wasn’t. A magic cat, he eat up that apple. Daddy stand on the unicorn and dance. That one made me grit my teeth. As if any self-respecting unicorn would pause to spit on Phillip Baxter. I stayed until Char was as limp and quiet as poor exhausted Ruby, and then I went back downstairs to find my phone. By now, I knew, I’d have heard from Roux.

Sure enough, she had sent a text.

220K. That leaves you enough to pay for her divorce attorney.



It was a greater concession than I had expected. I’d expected a taunt, a reiteration, or maybe only a breezy See you Monday.

Instead she was negotiating. She must understand that this, what she had done, could push me too far. It had, actually. I was past an edge I hadn’t known existed inside me. Right now it was hard for me to think about Luca, or any other reason that the earth needed Angelica Roux to stay on it, breathing.

I was not without recourse. Maddy had given me a new card to play, no blackmail required. Seattle, she’d said. Also, Roux had made this move too early. She should have done it late tomorrow, even Monday morning. She’d given me time to maneuver, and God help me I was going to use it. I was going to play her goddamn game down to the bitter end.

I went to Char’s breezy blue-and-white kitchen, bringing my phone with me, heading for the built-in desk tucked into the breakfast nook. Char called it her office. I sat down in front of her old desktop, staring down at Roux’s text.

The fact that she was negotiating at all proved she knew I’d be close to my breaking point. I couldn’t simply agree. I would be lying. She would know it.