Chapter 43
Katie
Present Day
The Hamptons
In Montauk, it could not have been sunnier. A few minutes after six, and still, daylight poured through the open slider off
Danny’s bedroom, swirling with the vapor of his just-finished shower and bouncing off the mirror I’d been standing in front
of for half an hour, trying to decide what to wear. I’d settled, ultimately, on the simplest thing I’d packed: a pale blue
slip dress classic enough for dinner with Meredith but with a short enough hem that I still felt like myself. I smoothed out
a crease, then moved on to running a curling wand through my hair.
“I still don’t get why we’re doing this,” Danny said, sitting at the foot of his bed as I released a wave. Steam billowed,
and through the mirror, I watched as he yanked on his khakis. “I mean, isn’t she a known recluse? I googled her. Nobody’s
seen her in years.”
“I guess so, yeah. But it was her idea and everything. She’s working on this new project and . . . I don’t know, actually.
I don’t know the whole story. It’s not really something we’re allowed to ask. Maybe all the rumors are made up. Maybe she’s
been out and about the whole time, and nobody’s ever noticed.”
He shrugged, then slipped on his loafers and tugged the strap of my dress. “Well, whatever. Come on. We’re going to be late.”
We sat in the restaurant’s courtyard: a sea of crisp white tablecloths and flickering tea candles braided beneath a canopy
of dense bougainvillea. String lights threaded the remaining slivers of shimmering evening sky. Waiters wandered, and glasses
clinked. Laughter flowed, and a warm breeze blew. Each and every table was full.
There was only one problem. It was nearly eight, and there was no sign of Meredith or Tyler. Yesterday afternoon, following
a nearly silent two-hour bike ride back to the house, Tyler and I had parted ways as colleagues. He’d held the gate open for
me, and I said, barely looking up, “I’ll see you at dinner,” and he said, fussing with his watch, “See you then,” and that
was that. But now, he wasn’t picking up his phone or the landline in Meredith’s kitchen either.
“How does your boss not have a cell phone?” Danny said, flipping through the wine list. He’d been rambling about some white
he’d had at his firm’s holiday party last year. “It’s insane enough that she doesn’t have internet, but no phone? How is that
even possible?”
I shrugged. “I told you—Meredith is a little old-fashioned. She just likes things the way they used to be. That’s all.”
Danny lifted his eyes from the menu. “Yeah, no. Sorry, babe. That woman’s certifiable.”
Something I did not care for—a yank, a reflex—tugged below my ribs.
“I like her,” I said.
“You like her house, Katie. That’s not the same thing.”
I poked at the candle, clamping my jaw as the scorching wax softened around my numbing fingertip. That tug in my stomach had
traveled to my face, and this was the only way to keep it from spreading to the corners of my mouth. Danny finally ordered
that bottle of wine, and the waiter, a few minutes later, poured four glasses. I hesitated, tracing away the condensation,
trying to keep my eyes and ears on Danny and his additional thoughts on the 2007 we were sipping. Trying to stop myself from
checking the entrance to the courtyard or scanning the screen of my phone. After all, I’d made my decision. This dinner, it
was nothing. It was purely business. And yet, I had this sinking feeling in my stomach that Tyler would not show.
Twenty minutes later, Tyler—hair combed, dark jeans on, button-down I did not know he owned rolled up to his elbows—wandered
onto the patio, scratching his neck, searching the space, thanking the hostess and then heading our way.
“Meredith’s not feeling well,” he said. “I tried to convince her, but . . .”
I swallowed, nodding softly. Meredith’s drinking was obviously a problem. But she was a full-grown woman. She didn’t drive.
She didn’t leave the stove on. She wasn’t caring for a child or performing open-heart surgery or in charge of the nuclear
codes.
“Oh, wow. Okay.”
Danny mouthed the word certifiable to me. I glared at him, and he took a long sip of his wine, still smirking. Tyler’s mouth twitched.
“Why didn’t you call me?” I said, pretending that forty-eight hours ago, he hadn’t wrapped his hand around mine. Hadn’t ignited something inside of me I still did not know how to make go away. “From the house line?”
“It was this whole thing, getting out the door. By the time she’d finally gotten herself on the couch, I was already late.
She was really upset—gave me her credit card so she could pay and all that. I didn’t even realize I’d left my phone in the
kitchen until I was checking to see if I had service, and it was almost eight by then, and . . .”
I nodded. Tyler fiddled with the button on his cuff.
“Anyway, I’ll go,” he said. “I just didn’t want to leave you hanging.”
There it was again. That scraping in my stomach. “Oh, okay. Sure. I’ll see you Monday.”
Tyler itched his collar, then extended his hand to Danny, who did not reciprocate. Instead, he nodded toward the empty chair
beside me.
“Have a seat, man. It’s cool.”
“That’s all right. I’ll—”
“Come on,” Danny said. “We barely had a chance to talk at the game last month, and that was before you started living with
my girlfriend.”
Tyler flinched. I poked the candle again. Last night, Danny had asked me a second time to make it official. I said yes. It
just seemed like the thing to do.
Danny spoke again. “Come on. Wine’s great. And I’m sure you don’t have anywhere better to be, right?”
Tyler laughed, although it was not a real one.
He looked at me, and I shrugged. And then, because what the hell else was he going to do, he took the seat beside me and gave me one more very quick, very unhappy glance.
I reached for my glass and swigged the resultant lump in my throat away.
Tyler and his feelings were not my problem.
Ten minutes later, Danny was halfway through a very animated story about crushing Villanova in a crew meet his junior year
when he topped off my drink and then his own. He eyed Tyler’s untouched glass, then slid his hand onto my knee.
“You too cool for wine? This is a three-hundred-dollar bottle. Not that easy to find. Try it.”
“I’m good, man.”
A little tightness rushed into Danny’s mouth and neck. He squeezed my leg even harder. Everything inside me was all wrong.
“Every time I offer you a drink,” Danny said, “you push back.”
“Because,” Tyler said, “I’m good, all right?”
Danny laughed. “What, are you straight edge? Is that still a thing? All the angst, all the whatever that is”—he waved at Tyler’s glasses, his forearms, his whole person—“and none of the fun?”
Tyler’s mouth twitched again. His throat wobbled and then steadied. Heat stirred inside me, and higher than I was used to.
In my neck, in my fingertips.
“Danny,” I said. “Drop it.”
“Why?”
“Because.”
He tapped his fingers on the table and looked right at Tyler. “You, like, an alcoholic or something?”
“Yeah, actually.”
Danny blinked. “So you don’t drink at all? Like, not even wine?”
“Not even wine.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not even a little.”
“Nothing?” Danny said.
“Nothing,” Tyler said.
“Not even, like, a little weed?”
“Not even, like, a little weed.”
At this point, I’d kicked Danny in the shin a dozen times. It didn’t matter. He kept grabbing my knee, squeezing it, and then
cocking his head. I kicked him one last time, and finally, his shoulders dropped. But just as quickly, he smirked.
“That’s great, man,” he said. “Very noble. I’m sure your parents are so proud.”
Tyler clicked his tongue, then shook his head and rose to his feet.
“You know what? This is dumb. I don’t want to be here, and you don’t want me to be here. You think I’m a joke, and I think
you’re a joke. So . . .” He reached for his wallet and tossed Meredith’s credit card on the table. Plus a twenty dollar bill,
probably to cover his soda. “Yeah. Fuck off, I guess. And Katie . . .” He gestured with his arm—a tight and pained sweep of
air—as if that might communicate the words he couldn’t find. And then he turned around and left.
“Tyler, wait,” I said, but he was already halfway through the restaurant when I caught up with him. The backs of his shoulder
blades were clenched.
“Tyler, come on. He’s just jealous, don’t be upset.”
Tyler whirled around. His face, red. His fists, tight. I gulped.
“Goddamnit, Katie. Jealous of what?”
I said nothing. I opened my lips to speak, but nothing came out.
“Jealous of what, Katie?”
I breathed. I tried to breathe. Maybe if I breathed, I could speak. But no.
He shook his head, and then he ducked out the door, and then he was gone. I stood there, trembling, wondering why I couldn’t
have just answered his question. Wondering why, as I settled back into my chair, as a grinning Danny slid his hand up my leg
and ordered a second bottle of wine, I hadn’t just told him what we both already knew.