The High Season(53)

Ruthie wiped her eyes with her sleeve. Elena handed her a napkin. “She wants to buy my house. I guess he needs a dowry. Ha. The thing is, we always had this agreement that if one person really, really wants to sell, we’d sell.”

“Can you buy Mike out?” Elena asked.

“I don’t have that kind of money.”

“Nobody does,” Penny said. “Well, I mean, not nobody. Just not us.”

“Well, we’ll be unemployed together,” Ruthie said.

Penny shot a glance at Elena that clearly signaled that they did not feel comfortable being happy in front of her.

“You got a job!” Ruthie cried.

Penny nodded. “Woodhull Vineyard is opening a restaurant. A soft opening in the fall.”

“Fantastic!”

“It hasn’t been announced yet, it’s still under wraps. It’s a gorgeous space overlooking the vineyard.”

“You’re the chef?”

“I’m planning the menu.”

“That’s wonderful.”

    “With Roberta Verona. Do you know her? She’s an amazing chef. Her name will be prominent, of course, I get that, but I’ll get to run the kitchen.”

Ruthie leaned back. “Are you kidding me?”

“No, isn’t it great?”

“Roberta is Adeline’s best friend.”

“Really?”

“You didn’t know?”

“No! Mike told me about the job, but—”

“I told you that Jem was offered a job in her kitchen.”

“You never told me!”

“I thought I did. I mean, it just happened about a week ago.”

Penny looked stricken. “I didn’t know.”

“Don’t you see? That woman is taking over everything. She knows you two are our best friends! She’s going after you, too!”

“She’s not taking over,” Elena said. “Penny got the job on her own. She didn’t use Adeline.”

“But Adeline knew! She set the whole thing up. Don’t you see that?”

“We don’t know that,” Penny said. “Mike just said he heard about the new place, and I know David, the owner, so I just called him. And anyway, what difference does it make?”

“It makes every difference!” Ruthie felt the whiskey eat through her stomach lining, and she put down the empty cup. “You’re in the friend loop now! Won’t it be great next summer? Mike and Adeline will have a favorite table—of course it will be the best one—and you’ll be sending out amuse-bouche and free glasses of champagne and chef’s little tasting appetizer things! Except all vegany because she doesn’t eat dairy!”

“Now you’ve gone too far. I don’t cook for vegans!”

“This isn’t a betrayal, sweetie,” Elena said. “It’s a job. And we need it.”

Ruthie had always admired Elena’s beautiful serene gaze. It had always soothed her. Now it infuriated her. She stood up, the chair clattering. “Why doesn’t anybody listen to me anymore? Do I have a voice? Can you actually see me? Am I a ghost?”

    “Let’s cut to the chase. Do you want me to turn this job down?” Penny asked. Her voice was quiet.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You are saying it.” Penny slammed her fist on the table and sent the cups rattling. “So just say it!”

Elena put her hand over her mug. She looked from Penny’s white face to Ruthie, standing now and trembling, hanging on to the kitchen chair.

Penny pushed back her chair. “Say you want me to give up a fantastic opportunity so that you won’t have to feel uncomfortable if your ex-husband and his girlfriend happen to stroll into my restaurant on a random Tuesday evening and I cook them food. Because that is what you are saying and I am hearing you say it.”

“Why would I say it? It would mean that you’d have to actually listen to me instead of talking about yourself all the time.”

“And you’d have to be not such a fucking victim!”

Ruthie strode to the door. Elena took two steps after her but stopped.

“When did you become such an asshole?” Penny shouted.

“Today!” Ruthie yelled. “Okay? Tell everyone. Ruthie is now an asshole! All she had to do was tell the truth!”

“Ruthie!” Elena spoke with the sternness of a schoolmarm. “You can’t blame Penny.”

“I am going to blame everyone in the world,” Ruthie said, opening the door.





30


PENNY WAS HARD on people, she told herself. Penny held grudges. When she let you in, you felt lifted, because she didn’t bestow her friendship easily, only her acquaintance. Maybe that was why when she let you in, she had to tell you everything in her life (which was admittedly entertaining), but often it didn’t leave much room for anybody else. Ruthie was not the kind of person to elbow herself into getting attention, even from her best friend. Now they had bumped into the thing that maybe had wrecked them for good. They had shared their meanest thought about the other.

When had love become a thing that choked her instead of enfolding her?

Maybe all relationships, friendship, partner, parent and child, were held together by the things you did not say as much as the things you did. The unsaid was the keystone in the arch. Once you kicked it free, you had nothing that held you up.