Chapter 4 – Ariane – How Things have Changed
The mug is warm between my palms, steam curling up and condensing against my glasses even though I keep irately shoving them out of the way.
I don’t even really like drinking tea. It always tastes too bitter, with an aftertaste sugar doesn’t entirely erase.
But coffee feels too intense for the morning after a family dinner, so tea it is.
It’s lukewarm comfort in a mug I don’t even like. At least it’s caffeine.
It’s too early for anyone sane to be awake on a Saturday. But I’m a teacher, so my body clock doesn’t care what the calendar says. Sunrise hits and my brain insists, Up you get, lady. Times’a wasting! No snooze buttons, no negotiations.
Except, hey, I’m not a teacher. Not anymore. I was one before. Now, I’m just unemployed. I’m an unemployed liar who was laid off a few weeks back and nobody knows anything about it. I’m here right now, pretending that I’m on a break that the school graciously offered up for some made-up reason.
The kitchen is quiet, with the exception of the persistently lethargic groan of the refrigerator and the occasional chirping of birds.
But I’m not really alone, I can tell.
Mom’s up, too. I can hear the faint shuffle of her heels overhead, quick and purposeful, like a general making her rounds before battle.
She’s always up at dawn and has been since I was a little girl.
My entire childhood, while I was rubbing sleep out of my eyes, she was already in her meticulously-pressed outfit and pretty lipstick, reading the paper like the world must’ve surely collapsed since the twenty-four hours since she last pored over the news.
Some things never change. There’s comfort in that, a kind I never saw coming.
Outside, the lake is already blinding with morning light, water flashing like someone tipped a mirror into the sun.
My damp hair clings to the back of my neck from the shower I took first thing in the morning, my t-shirt sticking in one spot where I spilled water brushing my teeth.
With my legs curled around the stool at the kitchen island, it isn’t that hard to pretend that I can start the day like any normal person in a normal family.
The dreamy haze is short-lived when my phone buzzes against the countertop, the sound cutting through with a biting reminder of the real world. But it isn’t so bad.
Julian’s name lights up the screen, and my lips tug into a smile before I even read it.
Julian: Bad news, love. Crisis with a senate donor. Can’t leave D.C. in time for the party. Maybe Monday? Will try my best
I sigh in disappointment. I know his world. I know how much pressure rides on him, and I love how hard he fights for everything. He’s ambitious, determined, and relentless. Still, somehow, he finds time to love me in ways that make me forgive and forget anything else.
My thumbs move swiftly, tapping out a reply.
Me: You and your donors ? Always stealing you from me.
The reply is instant, like he was waiting for me.
Julian: I’d rather be stealing you. In that bed upstairs. Still damp from your shower?
Heat flashes across my cheeks. My pulse trips over itself. God, he knows exactly how to make me blush, even through a screen. He also knows my exact routine.
I bite my lip and type back, fingers flying.
Me: Maybe. What would you do if you were here?
Julian: You don’t want the details, sweetheart. Not while you’re sitting in your mother’s kitchen.
My laugh bursts out loud and too sudden, so I press the mug to my mouth to muffle it, even though no one’s watching.
My thighs clench together under the stool, the warmth spreading too fast. He’s ridiculous and perfect.
I just wish he would actually do the things he promises.
Our sex life is almost non-existent these days.
He loves me, does everything I could ever ask for, but I wouldn’t exactly call myself sexually satiated.
God, that’s not fair, I admonish myself as soon as the thought flits into my head.
Do I really want to be one of those women?
I’ve basically got Prince Charming. So, what if he doesn’t enjoy sex as much as I’d like him to?
He’s perfect in every other way. That matters more. I’ve got a partner most would kill for.
Me: You’re evil. I can’t stop smiling now.
Julian: Good. That’s my job. I love you, Ari. I hate that I’m not there to hold your hand through all of this.
See? Prince Charming!
His words melt me from the inside out. I close my eyes and picture him exactly as I know he must be: loosened tie hanging from his neck, crisp white shirt rolled up to his elbows, his dark blond hair a little too messy from running his hands through it between calls.
I can practically see the crease in his brow and the half-smile he gives saves for me, our secret when no one else is looking.
God, he’s probably standing in some marble hallway in D.C.
looking like he just walked out of a glossy magazine.
And all I can think is if he were here, dressed like that, I’d jump on him the second he stepped through the door.
I wouldn’t even make it to the bedroom. I’d let him take me right here on the island until my legs gave out, letting him claim me over and over until I passed out.
Fuck, I wish.
I want him. Fuck, I want him. But more than that… a part of me wants him to want me. Be hungry for me. The kind of primal hunger that has a man wanting to rip my clothes and make me come until I’m begging for a break.
I’ve got enough social graces to not text him that, though. Instead, I tell him I love him too and leave it at that.
Good thing, too, since that’s the moment Mom breezes in, beautiful in her combination of designer neutrals and her favorite pearls, her hair swept back like she’s hosting a Vogue feature and not an outdoor activity.
She doesn’t even look at me before she asks, “No Julian?” And doesn’t wait for me to answer before she adds, “We’ll have to adjust the seating chart,” punctuated with a sigh.
I take a careful sip of the sweetened tea, hiding my smile. “Political emergency. You know him.”
Her lips pinch, but I don’t let it touch me.
Not when my phone buzzes again, my screen lighting beneath the counter.
Julian: Tonight, have your phone on. No excuses. I need to hear you before I sleep.
The grin spreads across my face before I can stop it. Because, just like that, I don’t care if he misses the weekend. He’s still mine. Always mine.
###
By mid-morning, I’m trailing after Mom in the garden, blinking against too much sun. Marquee tents have sprouted everywhere like invasive mushrooms overnight, their white canvas bellies puffed with wind, and strings of lights dangle overhead like constellations someone’s trying to pin in place.
Florists swarm the side paths, draping roses and hydrangeas over archways as if we’re preparing for Versailles and not a lakeside anniversary party in Willowridge.
Clipboards glint in the sunlight, the lists clipped into them all several pages thick.
Someone’s barking about delivery trucks blocking the driveway.
Two hundred guests, Mom said.
Apparently, Senator Kline is flying in.
From every direction, more and more words roll out like a sermon; each one is filled with unnecessary seriousness. I nod along robotically, murmuring of course’s and that sounds lovely’s like the dutiful choir.
Mom’s heels sink slightly into the grass, but she doesn’t stumble.
She never stumbles. Her own clipboard in hand, she marches ahead, pointing at tables, at servers, and at the sky itself as if she could bend it into perfection by sheer willpower.
“We can’t afford missteps, Ariane,” she chides. “Not on this weekend.”
Her voice becomes piercing and dulls all at once, edgy in tone but numbing with repetition. I already know the script. It’s been drilled into me my whole life. Don’t falter, or flinch, and don’t forget to smile. Be the good girl everyone expects.
Something clatters. A tray slams against stone like a cymbal.
My head jerks toward the noise. One of the caterers, all elbows and nerves, probably no older than sixteen, stares in horror at the silverware scattered across the gravel.
The utensils gleam in the sunlight like little shards.
His face goes scarlet as he freezes, clutching the empty tray like a shield.
Before I can think, I’m moving. I squat to my haunches, and begin scooping knives and forks into a pile, brushing dirt and grass from the linen napkin they tumbled onto.
“It’s okay,” I soothe, my voice low enough to shield him from the stares around us. “It happens. Just be careful.”
The boy mutters a shaky “thanks,” eyes wide and cheeks burning. He looks exactly how I used to feel: caught between wanting to disappear and desperate for someone to notice me, to assure me that I wasn’t ruining everything.
“Ariane.”
Mom’s voice slices through the air. I look up, silverware still in my hands. She’s glaring. Her clipboard hugged to her chest. To her, this is treason. Jesus Christ.
“That’s what the staff is for.”
The atmosphere changes instantly. My cheeks flame hotter than the boy’s.
Slowly, I straighten, standing tall, though my shoulders itch to hunch beneath the weight of her disapproval.
“Right, okay,” I mutter, hurriedly placing the pile onto the nearest table.
My palms feel dirty even though I just wiped them clean against my shorts.
The boy ducks his head, scurrying back to the catering tent, but I see the relief in his eyes.
Well, at least one of us feels lighter.
Mom turns back to her clipboard; her pen poised like a dagger.
To her, the dropped tray never happened—and to me, it’s carved into the morning like a crack in glass.
One mistake and the mask slips. And God forbid the mask ever slips in front of my mother, because once it does, everything beneath it will show.
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