Chapter Thirteen #2
When Willa returned, she led Merritt through the house, which was comfortably cluttered in the style of an English country house, and, less comfortably, crowded with people she did not know.
In the kitchen—a pleasant sage-and-white affair—several people were gathered around a massive cheeseboard, admiring the food as well as the tastefully arranged pumpkins, candelabra, and mercury glass skulls.
A stout white woman stood by the stove, ladling a plum-colored liquid into clear glass mugs.
“Adrienne,” Willa called, and her wife looked up. She was older than Willa, and wearing a pitch-perfect Rockford Peaches costume,
though the red baseball cap was tucked into the pocket of the apron she wore around her waist. She wiped a strand of straw-colored
hair from her face and gave Merritt a soft smile that, in the glow of the kitchen and steam of the stove, made her look momentarily
like a woman from an oil painting.
“This is Merritt.”
“Hi,” Adrienne said, reaching over a narrow wood-topped island on wheels.
“I love your costume,” Merritt said.
“Can you tell what I am even without the hat? It itches, and I’ve been mentally composing a letter to the costume shop about
it for the last half hour.”
“Of course. You look amazing.”
Adrienne did a mock curtsy, but she looked happy.
“Thank you. You’re Whit’s friend?”
Something prickled across Merritt’s skin at the words. A disagreeable sensation. She knew what these women must think, and
it embarrassed her. Was that it? Was she embarrassed that Willa and Adrienne thought—she might as well give it words—there
was something between her and Whit?
There was something, of course, because here she was at this party, but in what capacity? Whit had texted to invite her (hardly a grand gesture), and he’d suggested they meet here (the opposite of romance), and he was bringing his daughter with him. Plus, he wasn’t even here yet.
“I am,” she said, answering Adrienne’s question. “His friend and faithful servant.”
“Friend and savior, it sounds like,” Willa said with a pantomime of exaggerated relief.
Merritt laughed, gratified that Whit had evidently spoken well of her, or at least of the work they had done together.
“Well, he’s saving me a bit, too. It’s been inspiring me to write again.”
“What do you write?” Adrienne asked, moving to the stove for a moment before turning back with mugs for Merritt and Willa
as well as one for herself.
Merritt took hers gratefully and immediately sipped to stall.
“Careful—”
Merritt winced.
Adrienne laughed.
“—it’s very hot.”
“So I see,” Merritt said, smiling through the sting. “I’m writing something for kids. Middle grade, I think. Or at least I’m
trying.”
“It sounds like you’re on the road to doing it,” Adrienne said, holding up her mug for Merritt to clink.
“I guess so.”
Willa’s hand found her elbow again. “You are.”
She dropped her hand, but the kindness of it and of Adrienne’s words lingered. Merritt brought her mug up to Adrienne’s. Willa
joined.
“Cheers.”
“Already drinking without me?” someone said behind her.
Whit.
Merritt turned, trying not to smile, and had to stifle a gasp. The man had shaved. But not entirely.
“Nice mustache,” Willa said, clearly meaning the exact opposite.
“Thank you,” he said brightly, as if he didn’t catch her tone.
“I think I made it pretty clear this was a costume-only event . . .”
“You did indeed,” he said, nodding and holding his arms out in a pose. He was in a good mood.
“Gray pants, a mustache, and a green sweater with a pink button-down is hardly a costume, Whitacre.”
“Au contraire,” he said, looking at Merritt for the first time. His eyes shone like gray-blue river stones, and then he pulled a falsely
disappointed face. “Though I’m guessing Merritt doesn’t get it, either.”
“I was going to say you look like Ned Flanders, but—”
He beamed.
“That’s because I am Ned Flanders. See?” he said, turning to Adrienne and Willa, arms still raised.
“I didn’t peg you for a Simpsons fan,” Merritt said.
“Well, when one is confronted with draconian party rules—”
Willa let out a huff. Whit grinned.
“—it’s an easy costume. But I did have a phase. And apparently, you did, too?”
She shrugged. “I contain multitudes.”
He nodded, his eyes holding her in them.
“Yes, you do.”
She cracked.
“But you’re right. I’ve seen probably one, maybe two episodes.”
Whit pretended to be shocked. “That’s a pretty big gap in your pop culture knowledge.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve filled it with hours and hours of only the highest-quality reality television.”
His grin shifted into something more subtle, more private—a joke for just the two of them.
“Where’s Annie?” Willa asked, like a voice from another world.
“Oh, she ran upstairs as soon as she got here. I guess she thought that’s where the kids were.”
Why was Whit still looking at her?
“She was right.”
“Mulled wine?” Adrienne offered.
“Please.”
He broke his stare to take the glass mug. The four of them stood in a loose circle. Willa raised her drink again to toast.
“To . . .”
Willa trailed off, in thought.
“New friends,” Adrienne said, with a firm nod in Merritt’s direction, “and old ones.”
Merritt couldn’t help glancing at Whit, who was looking at her again, and who pursed his lips at her in what Merritt considered
to be the world’s first non-annoying example of the action.
The four of them clinked glasses, and then the air shifted in the way it does when a door opens.
“More guests,” Willa said, heading that direction as Adrienne turned her attention to one of the couples at the cheeseboard.
“Do you want to—?” Whit asked with a nod in the direction of the living room.
Merritt nodded back, following him from the kitchen, which was getting steamy, into a well-appointed space that combined the
same English-country-house style of furniture with splashy modern paintings and unusual light fixtures.
“Hi,” Whit said, turning to look at her near the piano. She had never seen him grin like this before.
“Hi. Did you pre-party?”
“Did I what?”
Merritt gave him a look. “You’re very smiley.”
Whit put a hand on his chest. “I’m allowed to smile.”
She waited.
The smile grew.
“But yes, we stopped at Annie’s friend Liza’s house before we came so they could put on their matching costumes. And the stepdad made me an old-fashioned. And then another. It’s my first party in a while.”
“And then you drove here?”
“The dad drove my car,” he said, with a cheerful shrug, as if this fact was somehow delightful.
“You’re tipsy.”
“You’re Stevie Nicks.”
She bit her lip, pleased. “I am. Should you slow down on the mulled wine?”
“Should you slow down on the judgmental tone?”
They laughed. What was this? What were they doing?
Whit looked around the room for a moment. Merritt searched for a new topic. When she could no longer pretend to be taking
a record-breakingly long sip of wine, she said, “Willa seems great. And Adrienne, too.”
“They’re the best. Truly. I think I would have died without them last year.”
Merritt didn’t know what to say to that.
“Do you know other people here?”
Whit looked at the current population of the living room, then back to her.
“Liza’s parents are here somewhere. And there will be a few other parents from Annie’s school—their son Albie goes there—but
other than that . . .”
The front door opened again, and a man’s voice said “Willa, hello.” Whit’s eyebrows rocketed so far up his forehead that it must have been painful.
“What?”
“She couldn’t have,” he said to himself, peeking around Merritt’s shoulder, presumably trying to catch a glimpse of the entryway.
Merritt looked, too, in time to see Willa hurrying toward them.
“So,” she said, “I meant to tell you that—”
“Willa, you didn’t.”
She winced. “I did.”
Whit’s fingers flew to his hair like claws.
“Willa.”
“I know.”
“Willa.”
“I know,” she said, throwing her hands up in defeat. “Trust me, I know, but I was at the store yesterday, buying multiple crates of wine, and he was there—”
“Probably because he wants to drink himself into some delusional Hemingwayesque state,” Whit interrupted, before turning to
Merritt in anticipation of the pot-calling-kettle-black look she was in fact giving him. Don’t, he mouthed to her, almost laughing in spite of his obvious dismay.
“I don’t know why he was there, Whit, but he saw me, and he said, ‘Looks like you’re getting ready for a party,’ and I said,
‘I am,’ and then he just waited, and suddenly I was explaining myself to him. And before I knew it, I had invited him. I’m
sorry for being polite. I never thought he’d actually come.”
“Of course he would come,” Whit hissed. “The man loves the sound of his own voice and forcing stories in which he is the hero onto unsuspecting bystanders,
and where better to do that than—oh, hi, Ian. I didn’t know you were coming tonight.”
Merritt looked past Willa to see an almost comically frowzy man. Threadbare corduroys, a pilled navy sweater, and a navy duffle
coat. He had an unlit pipe in his mouth and an oversized sailor hat on his head. Oh, that Ian. Ian Hoult.
“Call me Ishmael,” he said with both hands against his chest, just enormously self-satisfied.
He looked ready to hug Whit, which apparently drove the latter to offer Merritt as a sacrifice. He grabbed her by the elbow
and pulled her in front of him.
“This is Merritt Pryor.”
Ian made a face of unvarnished delight, but it was impossible to tell whether it was directed at just her or at her proximity
to Whit. He certainly didn’t recognize her from the time she’d checked him out at the bookstore.
“Do I know you?”
Okay, so she had registered as a person with a pulse, but whatever validation she might have felt was undermined by the man’s
flirtatious eyes, as if the two of them had shared a secret. It was the way boys looked at girls in college, when they couldn’t
be certain whether they had drunkenly hooked up in the past. Merritt recoiled.
“I don’t think so.”