The New Husband(28)

I didn’t have to be a certain way with Ben, or say certain things, or dress like this person or that person. He didn’t care how I looked or even if I cried in front of him, which I did when I saw all my FFs (former friends) at our Old Home Day carnival and they walked right past me—even worse, they looked right through me. It made me sad and I got all blubbery and yeah, that’s a true story. But Ben didn’t care, because he liked me for who I was, simple as that. You don’t realize how much you need a friend like Ben Odell until you’ve got one in your life. I could say that now.

So, when I told him I thought Simon was being a sneak and a liar for reasons unknown, he took my side right away. He chewed hard on a bite of his sandwich, and it seemed he was chewing on some thought as well.

“Why don’t you find out?” he said.

“Okay, genius, how do you want me to do that? Ask him?”

“No, because he would lie about it,” Ben said, straight-faced.

“Yeah, I know. I was being sarcastic.”

“Oh,” said Ben. “You didn’t sound sarcastic.”

“You don’t have to sound sarcastic to be sarcastic—” I was going to argue my point, but I stopped myself. With Ben, I had learned to tell when an argument was going to go in circles.

“Forget it,” I said. “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking you should call,” Ben said.

“Call who?”

“The hotel, silly.” He shoveled a sporkful of carrots into his mouth.

“Like, I should just call them? What would I say?”

Ben’s look told me it was a dumb question.

“Tell them you’re Mrs. Fitch, or the future Mrs. Fitch—you know, you’re your mom—and that you want to see about redoing the reservation. Then find out if he ever actually made one.”

“Gross. So now they’re married?”

“Well, duh,” Ben said. He was one of those kids who sounded strange when he was acting his age. “Aren’t they basically married already?”

“Yeah, I suppose,” I said dejectedly.

“He told you where you were staying, right?”

He put “staying” in air quotes.

I thought back to that moment when Mom had announced her new job, and remembered Simon saying it was the Sheraton with views of the waterfall—which, by the way, I really wanted to see.

Now, I’d never forged my mom’s signature on a permission slip, or a report card, or done anything even remotely questionable like that, so pretending to be her kind of freaked me out. But, I thought, who would know? It’s just some random person who works at the front desk. They won’t care. So I searched for the number on my phone, and it was easy to find. Sheraton, Niagara Falls.

Ben and I left the cafeteria, telling the teacher on lunch duty that we were headed to the library. If it had been Justin and Laura asking to leave before the period ended, we’d have been sent back to our seats, no question about it. But Ben could go anywhere and do anything because everybody, all the teachers, trusted him.

The library wasn’t a good place to have a phone conversation, so instead we found a quiet nook near the gym that was far enough away from the cafeteria to talk without shouting.

I had to listen to a bunch of annoying promotions for the Sheraton until eventually a woman thanked me for calling and asked if she could help with a reservation. I told her my name, described the situation, and tried to make it seem like we were so super excited the trip was back on. I gave it my absolute best acting job, pretending to be my mom. (P.S. my last official part in a play was as the apple tree in the third-grade production of Johnny Appleseed.) I felt I’d really sold it, and even lowered my voice to make myself sound all grown-up.

“Do you have a reservation number?” the woman asked.

I wasn’t prepared for that one and I stumbled to find my words.

“Um … uh, no,” I said. “I have a name.”

I wanted to slap my forehead—dummy!—but to my relief, that seemed to be a perfectly fine response.

“Sure,” the lady said. I gave her my name, Nina Garrity, and the date of our trip. I heard typing and then she apologized because she couldn’t find our reservation. I shook my head at Ben, who mouthed the word “Simon.”

“Um, maybe it’s under my … my—” I stumbled again because I didn’t know what to call him. “My husband’s name,” I eventually blurted out, giving the name Simon Fitch, while keeping myself from gagging.

There was more clacking as the lady did more typing.

“No, I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t have a reservation under that name, either.”

There was another Sheraton on the Canadian side of the falls, she told me, but there was no reservation at that location. The lady told me that as long as the reservation was for a date in the future, she could look it up, even if it had been canceled. I ended the call with a big smile on my face.

“Now we have proof Simon was lying,” I said.

Ben didn’t look nearly as pleased. “That’s great,” he said. “So what are you going to do about it?”

I got quiet because, well, what was I going to do? It’s not like I could say I happened to have stumbled on this information. Then I had another thought and decided to change topics.