Chapter 31 930 PM Nina #2
“Mom, he said I could come,” she said.
Carol took another sip from her LaCroix. “I knew he would, sweetie. All you have to do is ask.”
Nina removed the comforter that had been covering her knees.
“I’ve got to go,” she said. “I need to pick out a cute outfit.”
Now, in the living room, Nina ran her hand once more across the front of her caftan.
She thought: Maybe that’s the problem, maybe I should have worn something else.
Then Mia said, “So, yeah,” and the twinge at the back of Nina’s jaw returned.
Smiling as big as she could, she said, “I’m going to freshen up my drink before you two kill it again in the second round!
” and then excused herself to go and cry.
The first place she tried was a bathroom down the hall, though when she went to open the door, she discovered that it was locked.
She knocked, and a moment later heard Richie say, “Jesus Christ, someone’s in here, okay?
” Nina apologized, the pressure behind her eyes growing unbearably strong.
She decided that she would climb the stairs at the end of the hallway to see if there was an available bathroom on the second floor.
Her sandals clapped against the wood; her bracelets jangled.
She wanted to go home and get into bed and see what was on Bravo and FaceTime Carol to say that this had all been a terrible mistake.
By the time she reached the top step she could feel tears brimming at the corners of her eyes, and she took a moment to dab at them with the tips of her fingers.
Four feet in front of her there was a door, and to her left a window overlooked the trees and a patch of wet roof.
The storm had almost entirely passed—the sky was black and silky with moonlight.
Nina dabbed at her eyes one more time, took a few steps forward, and pushed the door open.
It wasn’t a bathroom, but rather a bedroom.
Inside it, Mitch Reynolds and Sasha lay together at the center of a four-poster bed, both of them naked below the waist. When Nina opened the door, they began to untangle themselves from each other, and the sight was so surprising, so wholly incongruous with what she’d expected to see, that for a moment she felt like she had walked into a darkened theater and found herself in the middle of a movie for which she hadn’t bought a ticket.
But then she heard herself say, “I’m so sorry, I thought this was a bathroom?
” and the sound of her voice brought her back to her body.
Sasha pulled the sheet over her legs and pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes.
Mitch yanked up his pants. He walked out of the room, and as he slid past her he said, “Really fucking cool, Nina,” and a few seconds later she heard him clomping down the stairs.
There was a baby monitor on the bedside table, and a blue Pack ’n Play in one of the room’s corners, where Sasha and Theo’s son was sleeping.
Mitch said something downstairs, and laughter rose up through the drywall.
Nina looked at the moonlight spilling across the bedroom’s floor.
“I’ll, like, give you some space,” she said, and began to leave the room when Sasha told her to stop.
“Just wait a second,” she said. And then: “Come here.”
Sasha placed her hands in her lap and curled the white sheet around her fingers. Nina thought for a moment, then quietly closed the door. She sat on the edge of the bed. She wasn’t sure whether to look at Sasha or at the wall.
“This was a huge fucking mistake,” Sasha said.
“Oh, I can leave.”
“I’m talking about Mitch.”
“Yeah. Okay. Right.”
“You won’t say anything?”
“Me? No way.”
For a long time Sasha was quiet.
Then she said, “I really don’t know what I’m doing. I don’t even like Mitch. He’s a fucking douchebag.”
Nina nodded—she didn’t like Mitch either, and had always thought that he was a douchebag too, and to hear Sasha say as much, even given the context, felt intensely gratifying.
“Such a douchebag,” she said.
“He talks about the most boring shit, and has this horrible quality where he presumes that whatever he’s saying is, by default, interesting, even though it never is. He also has this weird smell, like he’s spent all day cutting grass.”
Nina listened, and discovered that she no longer felt like crying, or even leaving.
Sasha was confiding in her, was allowing her into a private part of her life and in doing so creating a secret that only the two of them shared.
She didn’t know what to say, but she was afraid that if she didn’t respond then Sasha would stop speaking and the moment would be gone forever.
She asked, “So why did you do it?”
Sasha was quiet again, and Nina worried that she had said the wrong thing. But then Sasha looked at her with a thoughtful expression. She said, “I can’t explain it. I guess I like the way that I feel when I’m with him.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s like someone I used to be?” She placed a pillow on her lap.
“I don’t know, it just used to feel like nothing really mattered—but in a good way.
Now everything matters, but it matters for someone else.
It’s either for Ethan, or for Theo, or for both of them, and the only time I have a second to think is when I’m, like, in the shower or drying my hair. ”
She began to cry. Nina hesitated, then reached out to squeeze Sasha’s hand, and Sasha entwined their fingers, squeezing back.
Nina’s heart swelled. She tried to make a record of every detail about what was happening so she could call her mother tomorrow to tell her about it—how Sasha looked so pretty when she cried, and how Nina was there to comfort her.
The sound of crickets chirping outside, and a frog groaning, and how, from downstairs, she could hear someone turn on an old Stevie Nicks song, which was insane, because Nina loved Stevie Nicks, and her music fitted the mood perfectly.
For the second time she squeezed Sasha’s hand, and for the second time Sasha squeezed back.
She realized it was a sort of fucked-up thing to think, but Nina couldn’t remember the last time she was so happy.
“I won’t tell anyone,” she said.
“Do you promise?”
“Yeah, absolutely. Not a soul.”
Sasha wiped her nose. She tucked her hair behind her ears.
She said, “Thanks, Nina. You’re a really good friend.”