Chapter 5
Bennett arrived at six twelve and let himself in.
“You said six,” I told him.
“I had a call.” He dropped his keys into the blue ceramic bowl by the door, the same way he had every evening for fifteen years. “Where are you going?”
I was wearing black trousers and a silk blouse because I'd had a client meeting. Bennett studied me as if clothes he'd seen before had acquired a secret meaning.
“Out.”
“With Evelyn?”
“Does it matter?”
He loosened his tie. “We're still married, Claire. We can't stop communicating because you had a bad reaction to one conversation.”
“You moved out with your mistress.”
“I went to the apartment to give you space.”
“How considerate.”
He walked toward the kitchen. I followed because I didn't want him wandering through the house as though nothing had changed.
He opened the refrigerator, frowned and took out a bottle of water.
“There's no chicken.”
“A national emergency.”
“I meant for lunch. You usually order it on Thursday.”
“Then I suppose you should add it to your groceries.”
“Laurel and I went to Le Bernardin last night,” he said. “She felt terrible, and I reassured her you were upset with me, not her.”
“You want to tell me about your date?”
“I'm being transparent.”
“Sexual-health disclosure is transparency. A restaurant review is friendship, and friends don't bring an ambush with luggage.”
“She offers something different. Spontaneity. Curiosity. She isn't always working.”
I thought of the house, vacations and dinners my work made possible. “You liked my work when it paid for your life.”
“Our life.”
“Interesting how quickly that word changes when there's a bill.”
“I didn't come here to fight.” He finished the water and left the empty bottle on the counter. “And you shouldn't feel you have to find someone just to prove a point. This isn't a competition.”
“That's kind of you.”
“I'm serious. Dating now isn't what it was when we met. You don't enjoy apps. You hate small talk. You don't have to put yourself through it merely to make things fair.”
He believed he was relieving me of an obligation.
Twenty years of marriage, and he thought no man would endure dinner with me. He hadn't opened our marriage. He'd opened a door for himself and expected me to keep the lights on until he returned.
“Get your clothes,” I said.
“Claire.”
“You have forty minutes.”
When he'd gone upstairs, I picked up the bottle, threw it in the recycling and texted Nate.
We'd exchanged numbers for work that afternoon.
You owe me a drink for calling my budget obscene.
His reply came before Bennett returned.
I apologized.
That covered the flowers. The drink covers the cables.
Three dots appeared, vanished and returned.
Tomorrow at seven? There's a place near the conservatory that doesn't suspend anything from the ceiling.
I smiled at my phone.
Then I told him the truth.
Before you say yes, you should know I'm married. My husband asked for an open marriage. He moved out last night with the woman he had in mind.
This time, the dots took longer.
Do you want a drink with me, or do you want your husband to know you're having one?
The question irritated me because I didn't know the answer.
Bennett came downstairs carrying two suit bags and a box of cuff links. “You'll call me when you're ready to have a rational conversation?”
“You should take your pills.”
He looked toward the stairs, annoyed that he'd forgotten them.
I didn't fetch them.
After he left, I stood in the hall with Nate's question glowing in my hand.
I want a drink with you, I typed. Bennett doesn't need to know anything.
Seven, then.
I read the message twice.
Bennett had once been eager to see me. I could remember him waiting outside my first office with cheap roses and rain in his hair. The memory arrived without permission, sweet and sharp.
I didn't delete it or use it as a reason to cancel.
So am I, I replied.
I went upstairs and moved my wedding ring from my handbag to the small safe in my office.