Chapter 4 At Seven #3
"Thursday." He brings my hand to his lips and kisses my knuckles. "You'll see it Thursday."
On my way back to the workshop, I start deciding what else to serve. Yesterday doesn't settle everything. I still want to be included in his worries, not hear about them from Marisol. But he stayed with me, and when I talked about my work, he listened. I want another evening like that.
I get out the notebook with our wedding menu tucked inside and begin making a list.
By Wednesday afternoon, the ingredients for tomorrow's dinner are put away and I have the dining room to myself.
I unfold the white linen we save for special occasions and spread it across the table. The menu is decided, the wine from the year we married is waiting downstairs, and I can leave the cooking until tomorrow. For once, I am looking forward to it without rehearsing what I'll say if he cancels.
I'm arranging napkins when the doorbell sounds.
Marisol is on the front step, dressed casually for once, a bottle of wine in her hands.
"I know you're busy." She holds out the wine like a peace offering. "I won't stay. I just wanted to bring this for tomorrow."
"Thank you." I take the bottle and examine the label. It's a good vintage. Expensive. The kind of thing she'd know to choose. "You didn't have to do that."
"I wanted to." She follows me inside, stopping in the hallway instead of going further. "I know things have been tense between us lately. I haven't always been helpful."
I set the wine on the hall table and turn to face her. She looks uncomfortable, which is strange for Marisol. She's usually the most composed person in any room.
"It's been a difficult few months." I keep my voice neutral. "For everyone."
"It has." She shifts her weight, uncharacteristically uncertain. "Do you remember that horrible party we went to? The one where the host tried to serve us wine he'd made himself in his bathtub?"
The memory surfaces despite everything, sharp and ridiculous. We were twenty-two, dressed up for what we thought was going to be a sophisticated evening, and we ended up fleeing through a back garden while a very drunk man chased us with a bottle of something purple.
"We hid behind his mother's rose bushes." I feel my mouth curve despite myself. "You tore your dress on the thorns."
"And you gave me your jacket to cover it." Marisol smiles at the memory, and I remember how hard she laughed when we finally escaped. "We walked all the way to the square to find a taxi because you refused to call your father for a lift."
"We were terrible at being adults." I lean against the hall table. "We thought we were so sophisticated."
"We were sophisticated." She straightens her shoulders with mock dignity. "We simply had poor taste in party invitations."
I laugh, and for a moment it almost feels like before. I miss being able to tell her everything, without wondering how much she has already discussed with my husband.
"I know Rafael has been difficult to pin down." Marisol's expression shifts back to something more serious. "I've been taking up a lot of his time with work. I wanted you to know I'll make sure nothing pulls him away tomorrow evening."
"He's already committed to being here." I straighten away from the table. "He promised."
"I know. But I can keep an eye on the office side. Keep the things that can wait from landing on his desk at the last minute." She slides the strap of her bag back onto her shoulder. "You deserve one evening without work interrupting."
I still remember her calling my work a hobby.
Lately, that memory has tangled itself with another one: Marisol standing beside Rafael's chair with her hand on his arm, looking at him in a way I still can't name without feeling disloyal to someone.
Maybe to her.
Maybe to myself.
Now she's standing on my doorstep holding an expensive bottle of wine, telling me she'll make sure work doesn't take my husband away on our anniversary. Part of me wants to ask when exactly she became the person who can promise me Rafael's time.
The question stays behind my teeth.
Maybe she really is trying to help. She was my friend long before she became part of this mess, and I am not ready to believe every kindness between us was false.
"You deserve one evening without work interrupting," she says.
I look down at the bottle in my hands.
I want to believe her badly enough that I decide, for tonight, to try.
"Thank you." I walk her to the door. "For the wine. And for understanding."
"It's your anniversary." She steps out onto the front step and turns back to face me. "Leave the work to me. I'll make sure he comes home to you."
The words should comfort me.
Instead, I feel that same uneasiness settle beneath my ribs, quieter now but harder to dismiss.
I don't want to become suspicious of every kindness. I don't want to look at the two people who have known me longest and start wondering what happens when I'm not in the room.
Marisol is my best friend and Rafael is my husband.
There are pains I could survive from either of them.
I don't know what I would do with one that came from both.