Date Week: A Novel

Chapter 10

Their admission into the private bar was even more obnoxious than Will had imagined it would be.

There was the predictable initial confusion over him and Rachel not having passes, followed by Seth explaining they were dear friends of his. The woman checking tickets didn’t seem to know what to do with this, and Will’s hope that the whole thing might fizzle was briefly rekindled. But then a second woman with a clipboard came up and asked what was going on, and when the first explained it to her, clipboard lit up and said, “Oh, of course! Any friends of Mr. Sanders are friends of ours!”

That was bad enough. Until the woman at the entrance apologized for not just waving them through on her own, at which point Seth was perfectly lovely and understanding, exhibiting none of the entitled impatience that would’ve made it a little easier for Will to keep believing he had no redeeming qualities.

Rachel and Francesca went to get them a table, and Will and Seth headed to the bar for drinks. As much as he would’ve liked to have been intoxicated before settling in for whatever extended conversation they were now about to have, Will planned to only have a beer or two since Rachel couldn’t drink.

“Can I get a Corona and a water?” he asked the bartender. “Actually, wait—can you do a virgin Bloody Mary?”

“A Virgin Mary? Yup, no problem. Is that instead of the water or the Corona?”

Will’s brain skipped. You didn’t have to be Catholic or even religious to not know what to make of Virgin Mary as a name for a cocktail.

“Uh, the water. It’s for my wife. She’s pregnant.”

“Hey, congratulations, man. I’d say it’s on the house, but open bar, so—you know. Congrats from your company, I guess.”

“Oh, yeah, no, I don’t work for ... whoever this company is. I’m just friends with that guy down there.” Will motioned toward Seth, who was ordering at the other end of the bar. “Well, not really friends, either. Just acquainted with him. Reluctantly.”

“Good for you,” the bartender said. “These people are tools.”

Will put a five in the tip cup and took the drinks. He would’ve gone to the table by himself, but Seth got his two glasses of white wine at the same time and intercepted him by one of the three appetizer tables.

“So, do you live in Milwaukee now?” Will asked, determined to steer things into more superficial territory that did not involve Seth having seen Rachel naked.

“Nope, still Chicago. But we do a lot of business in Milwaukee. There’s actually a good amount of clients in here tonight. Speaking of”—he ratcheted his voice up to megaphone—“Tony! Good to see you, my friend!”

It was the same kind of show he’d put on when shaking Will’s hand earlier, only louder, and Seth and Tony dove right into talking about whatever it was they were going to talk about. There was something about a merger, and then something about pickleball, with Will immediately pushed into the role of conversational third wheel who served no purpose in standing there. He lingered a socially acceptable amount of time for Seth to acknowledge his presence in some way, but when that didn’t happen—perhaps because there would’ve been no one around to acknowledge how gracious Seth was being—Will made the break he had intended when leaving the bar and joined Rachel and Francesca at the table they’d secured.

“Francesca was just telling me about her job,” Rachel started, clearly relieved that it was no longer just the two of them. Judging by their body language, the conversation hadn’t quite been effortless, and Will caught Rachel sneaking a glance at the clock on her phone before accepting the drink he was setting in front of her. “Ooh, a Bloody Mary. I haven’t had one of these in years—and never one with without booze. Who says pregnant ladies don’t go hard?”

“To motherhood and mocktails,” Will said as he sat down next her.

“Cheers,” Rachel said, clinking her glass to his bottle and then taking a sip. “Mm, not bad. Anyway, Francesca works in the Bulls’ front office.”

“Well, that’s pretty awesome,” Will said. “As, like, general counsel?”

“Basketball analytics, actually,” Francesca said. “I have an MBA, too, and I was a huge Michael Jordan fan growing up, so it’s kind of a dream come true.”

Will spent the next 10 minutes peppering her with everything from questions about the efficiency of zone defenses to trade suggestions. He wasn’t a die-hard Bulls fan by any stretch, but he had played basketball in high school, and he knew enough about the NBA to have more than a passing interest in how Francesca spent her days. Will got the sense that Francesca was happy to humor him, mainly because she loved her job but maybe also a little because the more they talked about basketball, the further they got away from the fact they were with people who had previously been with each other. Rachel also remembered that someone from her program at Michigan had gotten a job in the marketing department with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and it turned out Francesca had met that person earlier in the week because they had recently taken a job with the Bulls. The conversation fell into a nice little groove, no doubt further aided by the fact that Will and Rachel were not the type of people to ask someone they’d just met for tickets to a game.

When things did finally hit a natural lull, they sort of looked around and collectively noticed that Seth still wasn’t back.

“There he is,” Francesca said after a few seconds of scanning the room. Seth had moved on from Tony and was now the focal point of a circle of people, all of whom were enjoying themselves immensely. “I swear that man has his own gravitational pull. People are just drawn to him.”

Will anticipated Francesca would be exasperated by this. Sure, the vibe around their table had loosened up considerably, but there was no getting around that Seth had pulled together his solar system of admirers by leaving her with two people she hadn’t known an hour earlier—one of whom he’d slept with. After a particularly long line for the bar at Will’s office holiday party several years before, he and Rachel had made a pact that going forward, if either of them was left on their own with the other’s coworkers for more than seven minutes, the offending party would be given back-to-back weeks of laundry duty (they typically alternated). Case in point, neither of them worked with Francesca, but he had been watching the clock while waiting on that Virgin Mary (still awkward) just in case. The similarities to what Rachel had come to refer to as the 14-Minute Scotch Affair had been too much to ignore.

But with Francesca and Seth, it was the opposite. She seemed positively enchanted by the way he was the center of everyone else’s universe. When he finally did rejoin the three of them, he slid in right next to her, and she wasted no time getting her hand on his knee. Despite the hiccup on the walk over, they appeared completely at ease beside one another—something that you’d think would be a prerequisite for two people getting married but often isn’t. That was one thing Will wasn’t jealous of because he and Rachel had always had it. He reached out and grabbed her hand to remind himself of that.

“All right,” Seth said. “Catch me up. What did I miss?”

“Well, I played it cool and totally did not ask Francesca a million questions about her job with the Bulls,” Will said, causing them all to laugh and Seth to kiss his fiancée on her forehead.

“And I was about to say how much the wine you’re drinking isn’t making me feel a certain kind of way and that in no way have I found this Bloody Mary lacking without vodka.”

Everyone laughed again, and Will caught himself thinking, You know, this is actually kind of nice.

It lasted for a few seconds.

“I still can’t get over that you’re pregnant,” Seth said. “It’s so”—he turned to Francesca—“what’s the word I’m looking for?”

“Huge,” she said. “Life altering. I mean, when we talked about having kids, we pretty quickly figured out that cool aunt and uncle is more our speed. There’s just so much to parenting, and how it changes every other aspect of your life. But to see the two of you jumping into it ... I don’t know. I guess what we’re trying to say is, it’s impressive.”

“Hey, thanks,” Rachel said. “For the record, we also would’ve accepted exciting, overwhelming, or abjectly terrifying.”

“And it won’t change everything,” Will said, unsure if that were true but wanting to give Rachel the peace of mind of thinking he was unfazed by their comments.

Seth’s brow crunched in concern, and he lowered his voice. “Speaking of, you’re gonna keep working, right?” He asked it like he’d been up at night for years stressing over Rachel’s career trajectory.

Will hated that Seth was acting as though his opinion should somehow count in this. He hated the pressure on Rachel to give the right answer that was implicit in the way the question had been asked. And he hated the implication that he might ever ask her to walk away from her work if she didn’t want to because she was having a baby.

“Yup, that’s the plan,” Rachel said.

“Oh, good. Not that being a stay-at-home parent wouldn’t be great. But I always imagined you with, like, a team of people around you, doing all this supercreative stuff.”

“Ha, well, if that ever happens, I’ll let you know. I mean, a university marketing communications office isn’t exactly the NBA.”

Rachel’s face gave nothing away, but her fingernails were digging into the palm of Will’s hand. He knew she was quickly losing patience with her employment status as the subject of conversation, which suggested to him that at least part of her was already second-guessing her decision to play it safe and not go on that interview.

“Are you going to find out what you’re having?” Francesca asked before Seth could say anything else. “You know, ahead of time?”

“No, we want it to be a surprise,” Will said.

“Wow,” Francesca said. “That’s so cool. I don’t think I would ever have the self-restraint. It would drive me nuts.”

Will understood. Because more accurately, Rachel wanted it to be a surprise; Will, on the other hand, was grasping for anything that would allow him to feel some semblance of control and would’ve welcomed knowing.

“If we did have a kid,” Seth said, “I’d want to do one of those gender-reveal things. Like, hit a golf ball and have it explode pink or blue.”

“I mean, I know you said parenthood isn’t for you,” Will said, “but I think it’s really selfish to deprive the internet of such great original content.”

That got a good chuckle, which covered up just how ludicrous both Will and Rachel considered these kinds of staged family “moments.” Not to mention judging those who engaged in them was a lot easier than figuring out everything that would come next. Because where was the line between not giving a girl a doll just because she’s a girl, but not going out of your way to keep her from playing with them either? Between not subconsciously defaulting into always giving a boy blue cups but also not weirdly insisting they always had to be pink?

Despite the final decision having been largely Rachel’s, Will had actually been the one who’d first suggested Can of Green Gables for the nursery. But then, after she’d said she liked it, he had spent the next several minutes trying to talk her back out of it because he was afraid it was some subtle signal about what he hoped the gender of the baby would be. He’d argued it had meant he was leaning girl until he had zagged and said no, it almost assuredly indicated he wanted a boy.

“Then again,” he’d said when he’d fully convinced himself it was a son he was after, “maybe when I saw the name on the can, I thought ‘That’s a girl’s color.’”

“Babe?” Rachel had said.

“Yeah?”

“Go wait in the car.”

She didn’t get migraines, but she’d been pinching her forehead like she had one, and that image came back to him every time the circus inside his head threatened to pop out. Carrying a baby, worrying about her sister, dealing with her parents—and now negotiating her disappointment about this job—all that was more than enough for her to worry about. He wanted his presence to be a comfort, not a burden.

But that didn’t change the fact that the more Will thought about it, the more it seemed like no matter what you did, from day one, you were steering your kid down a path toward a destination that neither they nor you would know how it fit them, if at all, until years later. That was an almost unimaginable responsibility, and one that he had qualified for not by proving himself particularly worthy or the best at this or that. No, the only credential he’d possessed was a functional reproductive organ. It was that dubious standard that had allowed his own father to become a dad. The man had given him half of his DNA and then disappeared into a new life somewhere in Florida, providing a convincing rebuttal to that bland parenting aphorism “It all just works out.”

And if Will was avoiding articulating all this to Rachel, he certainly had no interest in trying with her high school boyfriend. Hence his relief when his remark about content for the internet caused a pivot in topics, even if it involved Seth leading them down a rabbit hole about the dance routine he and Francesca were learning for their wedding and planning to live stream. Some 20 minutes later, Will was stunned to find himself thinking the whole thing sounded kind of sweet and that he was experiencing genuine warmth toward them again, especially when he remembered he’d only had the one beer.

“The strangest part?” Seth said. “Frannie and I never realized we are the same exact height until the choreographer pointed it out. Like, we are both five-eight, on the dot. It’s so weird how you can be with someone and not notice something you’d think would be obvious.”

“Ha, no danger of that with us,” Rachel said. She looked at her husband and reached up to ruffle his hair a little. “I’ve always kind of loved our height difference.”

“Hey, get a room, you two!” Seth joked, and Will had never felt more pleased to be six-one.

“Actually, as it turns out, we have several,” Rachel said. She told them that Milwaukee was stop one on a weeklong tour of dates that would ultimately land them in Nashville. Her excitement not only over the trip but also over how Will had managed to pull it together was unmistakable.

“I would one hundred percent watch that romantic comedy,” Francesca said. She seemed authentically enthused by the idea of the whole thing. Seth, meanwhile, had started doing something on his phone before Rachel had even gotten them out of Michigan, but that didn’t stop him from having all kinds of thoughts about the trip.

“Enjoy it while you can,” he said. “You know, because once the baby comes, you won’t get to do stuff like this anymore.”

“Hold on,” Will said, whatever warmth he’d felt from hearing ad nauseam about their stupid wedding choreography quickly receding. “Are you saying it’s not advisable to take an infant on a long road trip?”

“Whoa, did I hit a nerve there, big guy?” Seth said it with a laugh, but Will could swear he saw a flicker in his eye, and Will knew that Seth knew he’d gotten under his skin.

Seth seemed fine with that.

Rachel was still holding Will’s hand under the table, and she gave it a squeeze to let him know she was with him.

“Anyway,” Seth went on, “you gotta talk to Ethan. He’s one of my clients. He grew up in Ann Arbor and can tell you stuff to do there.”

“We already have stuff to do there,” Will said. “It’s where we went to college. Remember?”

“Yeah, and I love that botanical garden,” Rachel added.

“Sure,” Seth said. “But there has to be something ... more, right? I mean, no offense.”

“Something more?” Will shot back. “You mean like a superhero roller coaster that’s definitely not a pale imitation of a legitimate thrill ride?”

“Babe,” Rachel said quietly.

But she needn’t have. Because Seth just gave him a puzzled look before turning around and shouting, “Ethan!” A man several tables over looked up, and Seth motioned him over.

“Oh, so Ethan is here,” Rachel said. She took a long slug of her drink. “That’s terrific.”

Seth missed her sarcasm. Or chose to ignore it. Otherwise, there was no way Ethan Chambers would’ve joined them for the next hour, especially considering that, in the first 60 seconds, he confirmed that he in fact hadn’t grown up in Ann Arbor but rather in a town called Brighton that was like half an hour away.

“You know, the University of Michigan’s in Ann Arbor,” Ethan said. “But we all called it U of M.”

“You don’t say,” Will said. “I really do feel like I know more about Ann Arbor already.”

Seth and Ethan started talking about the time they’d seen the Rolling Stones together at the Detroit Tigers’ baseball stadium—notably, also not in Ann Arbor—and were just recounting the parking situation when an all-women country band started to play, the last supporting act of the night. The rows down below the bar’s perch were only about three-quarters full, but Will saw Rachel looking longingly at the stage while trying not to abandon all pretense of paying attention to the people chatting obliviously across from them.

“Rachel, what was the name of that history teacher we had?” Seth asked at one point.

“Huh?” Rachel said.

“You know, the one everyone used to call Cat Man?”

“Oh. Mr. Frisky.”

“Frisky! Right! So classic. You gotta tell them the story about the time ...”

Rachel cut him off. “I don’t mean to be rude, Seth, but I actually wanted to hear this group.”

“Who? The opener?”

It seemed like a fairly unnecessary question given how loudly he was talking to be heard over them.

“Yeah,” Rachel said.

“Okay, suit yourself. I’ll tell it. To be honest, I don’t even know who the headliner is, let alone these people.”

“The headliner is Gretchen Grayson,” Rachel said.

Seth just laughed and once again appeared unfazed by Rachel’s annoyance, gleefully regaling the table with the tale of the time he and some kid nicknamed Snuffy put a can of cat food on Mr. Frisky’s desk. He told it with the verve of a thief reliving a bank heist.

Ethan was enthralled. Francesca was at least attempting to humor her fiancé. Will was wondering about the night that could’ve been if they’d just gotten a table at one of those restaurants and never spotted Seth.

And Rachel was not going to miss this concert.

“All right, I think we should head out,” she said as Ethan finally (and mercifully) walked away a few minutes after the women had left the stage.

For the first time, Seth looked put out. “What? I thought you were going to watch the show with us.”

Rachel stood, and Will rushed to follow. “No, I mean, this has been great,” she said. “Really. I’m so glad we got to catch up, and so happy we got to meet Francesca. But Will got us good seats, and we haven’t gone to a concert together in a long time—and it’s like you said, who knows how long it’ll be until we get to again.” She put her arm around Will. “I know you two get it.”

Will wished he could frame the expression on Seth’s face.

“Of course we do,” Francesca said before Seth could object. “And it was so great meeting you too.”

They stood now, as well, and Rachel hugged goodbye with both of them. Seth extended his hand to Will like he had earlier, but Francesca went for the hug this time, and Will briefly panicked that she might say something about them coming to the wedding. But no invitation was offered, and after one more exchange of congratulations, he and Rachel were on their way to row X.

Finding their way to their seats through the crowd didn’t leave a whole lot of space for chitchat. With the main event getting ready to start, the rows had filled considerably, and the music playing from the massive speakers above and around the stage mixed with a general buzz in the air. The backdrop of the stage itself opened onto Lake Michigan, although as you walked down the aisleway toward the seats, you could really see only the dusky sky, indicative of the setting sun. The latticework of the roof above them was awash in a mix of blue and green light, while the sides of the pavilion were completely open, allowing a refreshingly cool summer breeze to blow through. It was everything Will had hoped it would be when coming up with the idea the day before.

Everything except for the Seth detour.

“Thank you for getting us out of there,” Will said once they had claimed their spots right on the aisle. Row X really was a misnomer. VIP or not, the seats were awesome.

“As if there were ever any doubt,” Rachel said.

“I gotta admit, I had some doubts.”

“You did? You thought I’d give up this with you to hear more about Ethan’s microgreens start-up? Especially when we really don’t know when we’ll get to do this again?”

The joy he’d felt at her leading them away from Seth to the seats Will had bought for them was now tempered by the hint of melancholy in her voice as she said this. But for once, he didn’t have to try too hard to minimize his own fears about the same thing because he was preoccupied by something else.

“No. But Seth—you were so excited to see him, and then to go to the bar. I don’t know. If I’m being honest, I guess when he comes up, sometimes I feel like I can’t compete.”

“Seth? Really? Did you see him try to pop and lock at the table when describing their wedding dance?”

“But it’s not that far fetched, is it? I mean, there was the student government office.”

“Oh God. Look, I’m not gonna lie to you: the man is not unattractive. And the bouts of narcissism aside, he’s a good guy. We had fun together. But tonight, I watched you turn what had been two women desperate to be anywhere but at the same table into a super enjoyable, albeit somewhat detailed, conversation about the Chicago Bulls. To me, it doesn’t get any hotter than that. That’s something he could never do. Could never be bothered to do. And besides, like I said at the table, I like my guys tall.”

Will had read that Obama was also six-one, and he was about to make a joke about all the other similarities between himself and the former leader of the free world, but he never got the chance. The first notes were struck somewhere offstage, and the crowd erupted. Rachel stood right away, and when Will didn’t immediately follow, she reached down her hand and guided him up so he was standing behind her.

“Most important,” she said right into his ear as the stage lights came up, “Seth is not the kind of guy you sway with in the aisle at a concert on the lake. I’ve only ever met one of those.”

The backing band began to play in earnest, and Will and Rachel were off, his arms wrapped around her, moving back and forth like they did when they danced together alone in the apartment. He didn’t know what this week would ultimately have in store. But in that moment, it didn’t matter.

Because in that moment, everything was perfect.