The Golden Couple(14)
She hesitates, then sinks into it. Avery remains standing, her tote bag still slung over her arm. She surveys the room, then walks over to the built-in shelves, which are filled with books, knickknacks, and photographs.
Avery stares at the photos for what feels like an uncomfortably long time, her back to Marissa and Matthew.
What captured her attention? Marissa wonders. The photo of the three generations of Bishop men in front of a Christmas tree—Matthew; his father, Chris; and Bennett? The black-and-white formal portrait of Matthew’s maternal grandparents, who could trace their lineage to the Mayflower? Or maybe Avery’s gaze is caught on the silver-framed wedding photo of Marissa and Matthew surrounded by their loved ones—both sets of parents; Matthew’s younger sister, Kiki; Marissa’s younger brother, Luke; plus their bridesmaids and groomsmen.
But the picture Avery reaches for is one of Marissa and Matthew as teenagers, sitting side-by-side on a dock, their feet dangling in the water of the lake where they first met.
Avery turns around and glances at them, then looks back down at the picture. “Is this the two of you?”
“Yeah, back when I had a six-pack,” Matthew jokes.
One of the qualities Marissa loves most in her husband is that he is so confident he can be self-deprecating. She tries to catch his eye to give him an appreciative smile, but he’s avoiding her gaze—just as she did to him when she had something to hide.
The photograph is a bit blurry and faded, but Marissa cherishes it. It was taken shortly after her fifteenth birthday, in a small town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, where Matthew’s family owned a summer house and Marissa’s parents ran a gourmet-food market that was open year-round but did the bulk of its business from June through August. Marissa spent most of those warm days behind the glass counter, scooping lobster salad onto brioche rolls and slicing peaches for her mother’s cobbler, but whenever she had time off, she untied her red apron and headed to the shore to meet up with the gang of teenagers who gathered at a particular narrow, sandy stretch by the long wooden pier.
There were two groups: the summer kids, who owned shiny eighteen-speed bikes and Sunfish sailboats and wore polo shirts with upturned collars, and the locals, who knew the best spots to pick blackberries and which clerk at the convenience store would sell them Coors and Seagram’s wine coolers. The class divide didn’t seem as sharp during the warm nights—everyone had on bathing suits and ate hot dogs around a bonfire and mingled and developed crushes—but they all knew it existed. How could they imagine otherwise when the boy scooping up a girl and playfully pretending to toss her off a dock had a mother who worked as a housecleaner for the girl’s family and had likely made her bed that morning?
Or when the summer guy with streaky blond hair—and, yes, a gorgeous six-pack—licked the icing off a cupcake Marissa had frosted just that afternoon before turning to her and saying, “Want to try out my Jet Ski?”
The photograph in Avery’s hands was taken a few days after Marissa and Matthew shared their first kiss, toward the end of a summer that had been unlike any other.
Marissa can still remember every detail: the chirp of a nearby cricket, the distant sound of Guns N’ Roses over someone’s boom box, and the feel of his hands cupping her face. And the way he put his arm around her after they broke apart and walked toward the group on the sandy shore, as if he was claiming her.
She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed that strong, solid arm around her. It steadied her at a time when the world seemed filled with dangerous, steeply pitched terrain. Earlier that summer, Marissa’s beloved best friend from childhood, Tina, had died. It was as if Matthew stepped into the gaping void Tina had left, counteracting the deep sorrow and grief that gripped Marissa.
“Have you two been together since you were teens?” Avery asks now.
“No,” Marissa replies, just as Matthew replies, “Yes.”
“Well, this should be interesting,” Avery says as she puts back the photo and finally claims her seat.
CHAPTER SEVEN
AVERY
“THE ANSWER IS ACTUALLY YES and no,” Marissa rushes to explain as I pull my yellow legal pad out of my tote bag. “We dated as teenagers, but we didn’t really grow serious until after college.”
“Maybe we have different definitions of together.” Matthew stares hard at his wife.
She flinches. “Matthew, come on! We both saw other people before we got engaged. Just a few nights ago you mentioned sleeping with some random TA from law school. Plus, you were with Natalie for almost a year. It’s obvious she still has a crush on you—”
“But I never cheated.” Matthew needs an outlet for his anger, but these types of potshots are not constructive.
“Who’s Natalie?” I ask mildly.
Matthew exhales. “An ex-girlfriend. I went out with her for a while when I was in college and we’ve stayed in touch. It wasn’t a big deal. I even set her up with one of our good friends when he moved to D.C. last year, but they didn’t hit it off.”
A shadow crosses Marissa’s face and she leans back on the sofa.
I write Natalie on my notepad, drawing a circle around the name, wondering how hard she’ll be to find. Not very, if she lives as public of a life as the Bishops. The location of Marissa’s boutique, the name of Matthew’s company, their son’s private school—Marissa served up all that information in the questionnaire I required them to fill out.