23. Cali
CALI
At first, nobody moves.
Not a muscle.
Not a breath.
Not an inch.
Then Ronan lets go of me.
His hand slides off my waist as he steps forward, putting himself between me and Todd without seeming to hurry at all. It's the same trick he did with the woman who looked me up and down earlier, except now, the whole thing has a distinct air of violence hanging over it.
"Mr. Bradshaw," Ronan says.
Todd's eyes cut to him. "This isn't your business."
"It's my party." Ronan's voice is calm and low. It makes the hair on my arms stand up. "That makes it very much my business. Walk with me."
"I'm not going anywhere. I came here to talk to my wife."
"Ex-wife," I correct over Ronan's shoulder.
Todd's head snaps toward me. Ronan shifts a half inch, just enough to block the eyeline, and Todd's attention goes back to him.
"You have two options," Ronan says. He's smiling now, but it's a nasty one.
The last time I saw it, a grown man had a very embarrassing public accident right afterward.
"You can walk with me somewhere quiet and we can have a conversation.
Or you can make a scene in front of every person you've ever wanted to impress, and I'll be the one to decide how that scene ends.
" He tilts his head. "I'd think carefully.
You've had a hard couple of months. Best not to make it worse. "
Todd sputters wordlessly, but we can all tell by the way his shoulders sag that he's made the wiser choice.
"Good man," Ronan says softly. "Come on."
He puts a hand on Todd's shoulder, friendly-looking to anybody watching, and steers him off toward a set of doors at the side of the ballroom.
Todd goes willingly. He glances back just once.
I don't give him the satisfaction of a sneer or a glance away.
I just follow him with my eyes, blankly, as my date escorts him off the dance floor like a busboy taking out the trash.
The doors close behind them.
And then it's just me, standing at the edge of the dance floor with the band still playing.
Oh.
And Paula.
She's a few feet away. She must have followed Todd over.
Up close, the sequins of her dress look cheap and tacky.
It's not the right kind of thing for a place like this—a little too short in the leg, a little too much cleavage up top—and by the way she keeps fidgeting and plucking at it, I think she knows that everything about this is wrong.
She inches closer, lip trembling. "Hi, Cali."
"Paula."
There are so many things I could say to her. None of them are very nice. But what I'm finding is that, now that the moment is finally here to spit in her face or give her the cold shoulder or even launch into the feral catfight from hell, I don't really want to do any of them.
I don't hate her. I don't envy her.
Truth be told, I don't feel anything toward her at all.
"You look incredible," she mumbles.
I laugh. "You already used that one. Remember that? About a month ago, in the car line at school?"
Her forced smile fades. "I meant it."
"I know you did." And I really do. It's easy to pity a woman who doesn't know you're fucking her husband. "I bet you thought that was really funny."
"No!" Her mouth opens. "That's not—"
"Stop right there," I interrupt. "You don't get to make me feel crazy for saying the truth out loud. Todd did that for ten years. I'm not doing it again with you."
Paula's eyes shine with tears. She reaches out like she's going to touch my arm and then thinks better of it and pulls back.
"I never meant for it to go this far," she whimpers.
I cock my head to the side. "Oh, no? How far did you mean for it to go?"
"Cal, please—"
"You slept in my bed." I keep my voice even.
People are floating around us, glittering, chattering, none of them paying attention.
This is a conversation you could miss if you weren't standing right in it.
"You used my hairbrush. You left your mascara in my medicine cabinet.
You slithered into my life and exiled me out of it. "
Her lip is wobbling now and the tears are clinging to the tips of her eyelashes. "I didn't think about it like that."
"No. You didn't think about it at all. You just saw what you wanted and took it.
" I shake my head. "You're spoiled rotten, you know that?
I always used to joke that it was Paula's world and we were all just living in it.
But that's really how you think. All those times I thought you were there for me…
Maid of honor at my wedding, by my side when Isabella was born…
Was any of that real? Or were you just setting up to move in?
"Yes!" she cries as the tears spill over, running black through her makeup. "Of course it was! You were my best friend."
"Right," I say with a nod. "I was. Past tense is the correct choice."
She wipes at her face with the back of her hand, but it just smears it worse.
She looks around, quick, checking who's watching, and shudders when she remembers where we are.
This is a room full of people who matter, and she's crying in a gold dress that isn't nice enough, next to me, in a dress that's exactly perfect.
"It just happened," she insists in a choked voice. "With Todd, I mean. I didn't plan it."
"I believe you. And you know what, Paula?
I don't even hate you for it. I could—I did, for a bit there—but I don't anymore.
Mostly, I just pity you. Because you don't even see that what happened to me would happen to you, too, sooner or later.
When you got older, or you had a kid, or you stopped fitting the dress he liked so much…
You saw what he did to me. You had a front-row seat to exactly what kind of man he is, and you got in bed with him anyway.
So whatever's coming for you, Paula—and something is coming, because karma is very, very real—you had every piece of information you needed to see it coming, and you did it anyway. "
She's crying openly now. "I'm sorry," Paula sobs.
"Cali, I'm so sorry. I know that doesn't fix things.
It's not enough. But I am. I've lost everything, too.
Do you know that? I lost my job. The school found out.
I'm not—I don't even teach anymore. Todd's a mess, he's angry all the time, he blames me for the money, he blames me for you being at the bank that day like I had anything to do with it.
It's not—" She stops and wipes her face again. "It's not what I thought it would be."
This is the part where the old me would have felt bad. Maybe I would have said it's okay or don't cry or reached out and fixed her makeup for her, because that's what I did for fifteen years. I managed Paula's feelings. I made Paula okay. That was my job in the friendship, I realize, standing here.
I was the one who took care of her.
I'm not doing that anymore.
"You wanted my life," I say, spreading my hands wide. "Well, you're welcome to it."
Her face is buried in her palms as she's wracked with sobs.
I glance toward the doors where Ronan took Todd. They're still closed. I wonder what's happening back there.
When I look back, Paula is eyeing me as if it's the worst day of her charmed life. Maybe it is; I wouldn't know, and it's no longer my job to fix it.
All I see is a woman who thought I was too dumb to realize she was being manipulated. A woman who bet everything on the wrong man and lost.
"Is there anything I can do?" she asks. "To—I don't know. To make it—"
"No," I say. "There isn't. Some things you can't fix.
You can only be sorry for them. And I do believe you're sorry.
But sorry doesn't give me back everything you took.
Not my husband or my best friend, and certainly not the future I thought I had.
" I raise a hand to comb a bang out of my face, and she flinches as if she thought I was about to hit her.
That just makes me laugh. Even now, she doesn't understand.
"You can relax. I'm not going to yell at you, or throw a drink at you.
I'm not even angry, really. I just don't have anywhere to put you anymore.
You're not my friend. You're not my enemy.
You're just—a woman I used to know, who did a terrible thing, and who now has to live inside the results. "
The band finishes a song. There's a smattering of applause, the clink of glasses being toasted. Paula stands there with her ruined face and her wrong dress, her bobby pins falling out of her ruined hair, with nothing left to say. She knows it. I can see her knowing it.
"You look happy," she finally manages. "With him."
She means Ronan. Is she right? Is this happy, what I feel when he listens?
"I look like myself," I say. "For the first time in a long time."
Paula's chin trembles. She nods, one small jerk of her head, and with that, fifteen years of friendship dies on the spot. With her makeup running and mine perfectly in place.
"Goodbye, Paula," I say.
She opens her mouth. I think she's going to say my name again. Instead, she just nods once more and turns, and she hurries away through the crowd. The people don't part for her, and nobody stops her, and nobody looks. She just gets smaller and smaller until she's swallowed up for good.
When she's gone, I look down at my wrist. The little gold octopus catches the chandelier light. Even now, it makes me smile.
Behind me, the side doors open. I turn.
Ronan comes through them alone. His tuxedo is perfect. His hair is perfect. His face is calm and easy. There's no sign of Todd, but I don't ask. Some things aren't for me to know.
He crosses the room to me, and he takes in my face, my subtle smile.
"You okay?" he asks.
"Yeah," I say. "I really am."
He glances in the direction Paula went, then back at me. "You didn't need me for that one."
"No," I say. "I handled it myself."
He smiles, slow, and holds out his hand. "There's still a song left."
I look at his hand. Then I look up at him, at the blue and the gray, at the man who tells the truth at all costs, who took every mirror off my walls so I'd have to ask him what I look like.
I put my hand in his.
"One more," I say. "But then you better get me home before I turn into a pumpkin."
"As you wish," he says.
He pulls me back onto the floor, under the biggest light in the room. I go easily, and I don't fold up small, and I don't look for a mirror.
I just dance.