Chapter 22 #2
“Thank you. I like you. I’ll let you win once if we play.”
Candace and Nita did track, and said that Kate did, too.
Shipley—A. J. Shipley, though everyone used the last name like a title—played point guard for the Liberty.
Emily didn’t know much about basketball but recognized the Liberty as a women’s team.
She glanced at Shipley, who smiled lightly back.
Emily was surprised to learn that Shipley played with a women’s team, and Shipley had seen that surprise, the sophistication of that smile suggesting an even greater knowledge of Emily’s surprise than Emily had herself.
She hadn’t thought of Shipley as a man, but woman didn’t seem to fit either.
Shipley raised a brow. Emily looked away, realizing that she had been staring.
Nita tipped her chin toward the bookcase door, where Adam had his arm slung over Gen’s shoulders and was talking animatedly.
Kate rolled her eyes. Emily had planned to leave after one drink, but she’d have to pass Gen to get out the door.
She didn’t want to talk to Gen. She definitely didn’t want to exchange pleasantries with her.
Emily didn’t feel pleasant. She felt duped.
But she did enjoy Gen’s friends—their little dramas, their easy way with one another.
It was also nice, in a way Emily had never experienced, to be surrounded by queer people, to feel an affinity with strangers. She poured herself more champagne.
“Tell us some embarrassing stories about teenage Gen,” Nita said to Emily, “before she heads over here and tries to stop you.”
“Ignore Nita,” Shipley said. “Tell us about yourself.”
“We met in fifth grade but weren’t friends until my senior year,” said Emily. “We were on the track team.”
“Are you middle, short, long, or what?” said Candace, whose curly hair was pulled into a sloppy bun. Freckles sprinkled her wiry arms. “Who do you train with?”
“I’m not really a runner. Gen and I studied together.”
“Huh,” said Becca. “So you were, like, study buddies?”
“You weren’t close?” said Shipley.
“Of course they were,” said Candace. “We’re family. Gen isn’t going to bring home someone she doesn’t care about.”
“We’re not close anymore,” said Emily. “We weren’t in touch for a long time. We recently ran into each other at a fundraiser.”
“What do you do?” asked Nita.
“Nothing.” It kind of killed Emily to say it.
Surrounded by talented people, she was far from the person she had imagined she’d become.
How had she gotten so far? How much of that distance was due to Jack’s persuasion, and how much to her own readiness to believe that despite always wanting to be recognized as worthy of attention, she never actually deserved it?
She had let that wish go. Instead, she became a wife.
A mother. While motherhood was meaningful to her, some people looked down on stay-at-home moms. She liked Gen’s friends too much to give them an opportunity to dismiss her.
“Are you independently wealthy?” said Becca. “Do you know how to play blackjack?”
“I wouldn’t say independently .”
“Emily married money,” said Gen, pulling up a chair. “What did I miss?”
“Maybe that wasn’t something she wanted to share,” said Shipley.
“What’s wrong with marrying money?” said Paul. “I aspire to it. My daddy is out there somewhere.”
“We’re separated,” Emily said.
“How long were you married?” said Candace.
“A little over eleven years.”
“That’s rough. Especially when money’s involved. How’s the negotiation going? Is she being good about it?”
“He,” said Gen.
In the small silence that followed, everyone looked at Emily, except Shipley, who looked quizzically at Gen.
“Oh,” said Nita.
“Sorry,” said Candace. “I just assumed.”
Paul refilled Emily’s teacup. “If you’re straight and going through a divorce, you need more alcohol.”
“Y’all still assuming,” said Becca. “Maybe Emily’s bi. Or her ex is trans.”
There was a flurry of apology, which Gen cut through by saying, “Jack is the cis-est, straightest man I’ve ever seen.”
“What exactly are you doing?” Shipley asked Gen in a low voice.
Gen ignored the question, which increased Emily’s anger.
She had liked the assumption that she was gay; it had felt good to be known and welcome.
Gen had diminished that, right after portraying Emily as a trophy wife, which was exactly what Emily worried she had become.
A fizz of champagne sloshed over the teacup’s cold rim and onto Emily’s hand.
She sucked it off the back of her thumb and said, “I’m not straight. ”
“Obviously,” said Becca.
“We’re assholes,” said Candace.
“Maybe just one of us is,” said Shipley.
“Don’t worry about it,” Emily told Candace.
“Why is everyone so serious?” said Adam, who joined them along with Kate, who said, “Yeah, you all weren’t the victim of a monologue about the intellectual prowess of rats.”
“And emotional skills,” said Adam. “A rat will go without food rather than see a fellow rat starve.” Kate put a hand over his mouth. He pulled it away and said, “What’re you guys talking about?”
Shipley said, “The themes have been sex, rivalries, and self-sabotage.”
“Wait, when were we talking about self-sabotage?” said Paul. Nita nudged him.
“I think we should play a game,” said Shipley.
“How about not,” said Gen.
“I’d love to,” said Emily.
“Poker?” said Becca hopefully.
“No!” they chorused.
“It’s no fun hanging out with athletes,” Becca confided in Emily. “They hate losing.”
Shipley placed teacups in front of everyone who didn’t already have one. “Let’s play Never Have I Ever.”
“Ooh, yeah,” said Adam. “Love that game. Never Have I Ever caught a raccoon in a Havahart trap and wanted to adopt it because of its cute, clever little paws.” He looked around the table. “Nobody else? Okay.” He drank.
“That’s not how you play the game,” said Becca. “You make other people drink.”
“Their paws ?” said Paul.
“They’re like miniature hands. They can open Coke bottles.”
“This is stupid,” said Gen.
“Never Have I Ever,” said Emily, “played Never Have I Ever.”
Everyone else drank—even, reluctantly, Gen.
“Seriously?” said Nita. “But it’s a teenage rite of passage! What did you two do in high school?”
Becca looked narrowly between Emily and Gen. “Never Have I Ever,” she said, “had sex in a barn.”
Emily and Gen drank.
“Damn,” said Candace.
“I knew it,” said Becca.
“I told you that in confidence,” Gen said to her.
“But you didn’t tell me who with . It’s fair for me to guess—and I aim to win.”
“Never Have I Ever is not a winning or losing game!”
“I feel kind of set up,” said Nita. “Anyone else feel set up?”
“What’s happening?” said Adam.
“Never Have I Ever,” said Kate sternly, “called my closest friends and begged them to come meet me in a matter of mere hours for a family-only event and then surprised them with my high school girlfriend but pretended that she wasn’t.”
Gen sighed and drank.
“Why all the secrecy?” Nita said. “We’ve met your exes before. You are swimming in exes.”
“Never Have I Ever,” said Shipley, “left someone at the altar.”
Gen’s friends looked at Gen, which made Emily look at her. Gen didn’t drink. “I did not,” she said, “leave anyone at the altar.”
“Never Have I Ever,” said Shipley, “broken off an engagement.”
“Dude, drink up,” Adam told Gen.
“I didn’t do that,” said Gen.
“Oh yes, you did,” said Candace. “You proposed to Maiko and took her to France and then came back and avoided her until you confessed that you couldn’t go through with it.”
“Maiko?” said Emily.
“Technically, it wasn’t an engagement,” said Gen. “Gay marriage isn’t legal in Ohio.”
“Oh, that is such bullshit,” said Kate.
“Drink,” said Adam. “Drink, drink, drink!”
Glowering, Gen drank.
“Hey,” said Nita to Gen, “didn’t you and Maiko go to France for a wedding?”
Becca jammed her glasses higher up onto the bridge of her nose. “Never Have I Ever gotten married in France.”
Emily drank.
“Wow,” said Candace.
“I was wondering,” said Nita.
“I have other friends, you know,” said Gen.
“Boring ones,” said Paul.
“Did you break off your engagement because of my wedding?” said Emily.
“No,” said Gen.
“Come on, ” said Becca.
“I’m confused,” said Adam. “Why are we being mean to Gen?”
“We’re helping,” said Becca. “She should live her truth.”
“I hate that phrase,” said Gen. “It means that nothing is true except for whatever someone individually decides.”
“I think we should change the subject,” said Adam.
“We are not actually talking about moral relativism, Gen,” said Emily. “It was a simple question. If it’s too hard to answer, you don’t have to.”
“Okay,” said Gen. “I took Maiko to your wedding and then called off my engagement. But it wasn’t because of you. I saw your wedding and realized that it wasn’t something I wanted.”
Quietly, Emily said, “Fair enough.”
“ Now we can change the subject.”
Shipley said, “Should we talk about how sometimes people don’t like the consequences of situations they create?”
Gen pushed back her chair and left the room. The bookcase door thudded shut behind her.
“I think we should apologize,” said Adam. “Should I go apologize?”
“This is like that Thanksgiving when my grandma said she had her neighbor pegged and I laughed and everyone got mad at me even though she said it,” said Paul.
“Your family understood why you laughed?” said Candace.
“Maybe they got mad because I explained why I laughed.”
“I hope we haven’t made a bad impression,” Shipley said to Emily.
Becca took off her glasses and looked directly at Emily. “We’re glad to have you here, hon.”
“Do you wear those glasses when you play poker?” Emily said.
“Sure. Why?”
“Don’t you give tells? You fidget.”