The Divorce Party

by Laura Dave

  “And what is he going to do? Stay with you?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “What are you saying?”

  Gwyn pulls the check out of her pocket, a check for twenty thousand dollars—six thousand more than they’d agreed on for tonight, just in case the extra money is helpful, just in case it came to this.

  She walks up to the table, holds the check between them. “I’m saying that I think that you should take this,” she says.

  Eve is quiet, shaking her head. She doesn’t want to take it. Gwyn understands that. To take it means to accept that things may end badly. It means to accept something that you can’t consider when you are in the throes of loving someone. That he may leave, just like he left someone else. That you may not prove to be different. That you may prove to be worthy of leaving too.

  “But why?” Eve says.

  “Why what?”

  “Why is this what you want?”

  Gwyn decides to be honest for the first time that day, decides there is no harm now. She sits down across from her.

  “It’s not what I want, Eve,” Gwyn says. “None of this. It’s just what I’m doing now.”

  “Because you wanted to meet me? Well, you’ve met me.”

  “No, it’s not for that. It’s for something else.”

  They look at each other, and Gwyn remembers sitting here with the Buckleys so many times: when Nate was a little boy, when Georgia was just born. The time she and Thomas were sitting in these exact spots one night when Marsha made them this terrible cheese fondue, laughing together about how awful it was.

  How does it happen? How does someone who was there with you, in all of those moments, let himself get so far away that he ends up putting you here in a moment like this one?

  She holds out the check again. “If he loves you the way you think he does, if you’re right, nothing that does or doesn’t happen at this party is going to put that at risk,” she says.

  Eve stares at the check. And then she straightens out her dress, her jeans. And Gwyn can see her trying to decide how badly this is going to go, trying to wager that against the large sum of money.

  “You don’t even have to come into the party, except to bring in the cake. And that’s only because I made it. The rest of the time, the servers will take care of everything. You probably won’t even see him all night.”

  She is silent. “I need to understand why,” she says.

  Because, Gwyn wants to say, maybe I’ll be able to organize it so he sees you at just the moment that I need him to.

  “I know you don’t owe me anything, but you also don’t not owe me anything. This was my family. This was my entire life. And it’s not your fault. But then again, that is just semantics. Because if you didn’t exist, I wouldn’t be standing here. If you didn’t want to be with him, all of this would be beside the point.”

  “He might have done this for someone else.”

  “But he didn’t, did he? He did it for you. We are here now because he chose to do this. For you.”

  Eve looks at her, and for a second Gwyn doesn’t know what she is going to do. That’s the way it is, isn’t it? And then she does it.

  She takes the check out of Gwyn’s hand. “Where would you like the trays?” she asks.

  “The trays?”

  “Where would you like me to start setting up?”

  “Over there is fine,” Gwyn says, pointing at the counter. “Over there would be great.”

  Maggie

  They have driven all the way down to Amagansett—back past River Ranch Road and through Montauk town center, through the dunes off the highway, gated entrances leading to small, one-wine vineyards: WALKING TOURS AVAILABLE, Georgia going seventy, eighty miles per hour until they approach a restaurant and she hits the brakes, makes a sharp right into the circular driveway. It is a lovely restaurant in a white clapboard house—a rectangular white and black sign the only thing to distinguish it from the other houses around it, to let people know that it is a restaurant as opposed to a residence:

  Maggie is quiet, looking back and forth between the sign and the restaurant. She is afraid to ask the first question that she knows the answer to.

  Before she hears the answer out loud, she can still pretend there is another explanation: that Georgia is hungry and wants to get something to eat, or that she just wants to use the bathroom, and this is the first public place to stop. It is a nice bathroom—Maggie can guess, even from just peeking through the front door into the mahogany bar, candlelit, a fire already going.

  “Tell me you have to pee,” Maggie says.

  “I do.”

  “Oh, thank God. For a second, I thought you were going to say this is Ryan’s restaurant.”

  “This is Ryan’s restaurant.”

  Maggie’s chest drops. It is her fear—it is the possibility that she feared most confirmed. “Ryan’s a chef?”

  Georgia nods. “Ryan’s a chef.”

  Why does this feel like the worst news there could be, the most threatening? Maggie isn’t sure yet, but she knows it will come to her and that will be worse. Maggie’s eyes focus back on the sign. The date of 1993, shining out at her. Nate told her that he lived here for a few years after high school. She had asked him why, and he had said something about not being ready to leave yet. Not being ready to leave yet: since when is that shorthand for because insteadof going directly to college I got married and opened a restaurant with my first wife, the one who came before you?

  “And Nate opened this place with her? This is his place too?”

  Georgia runs her fingers along the steering wheel, the dashboard clock.

  “Georgia?”

  “You know, you’re pretty good at figuring this all out. Maybe there is no need to go inside and talk to her.”

  “There’s a need,” she says, wondering how old Ryan had been when this place opened. If she was opening a restaurant already, she had to be older than Nate, probably significantly older. It reminds her of a conversation she had with Nate early on, an innocent conversation, when she asked him how he decided to be a chef, and a look came over his face. An awful look that he immediately tried to hide with a story that didn’t ring true— something about watching his mother cook for the family when he was little—and a feeling Maggie tried to push down that he wasn’t being honest. That she was being crazy, oversensitive. Because what reason would he possibly have had for not telling the truth about that? Here was her answer.

  “I am going to have to call Nate when you go inside,” Georgia says. “Just to tell him we’re here. I’m sorry, but I don’t know what else to do. I don’t know how to fix this, and maybe he will.”

  Maggie thinks about that—about all the ways she lets Nate fix everything, about all the ways she has believed that he can. “Be my guest,” she says. “The last thing we need is another secret.”

  She looks down and realizes that her hand is on the door handle. She realizes that she is frozen there. She doesn’t open the door because when she does, she will start to have the answers to all of her questions, and maybe the only one that matters: did he not tell Maggie because it mattered so little to him or so much?

  “It’s not his anymore. I don’t think she officially bought him out, but he has no association with the place. It’s not like he’s sneaking back here to cook with her or whatever.”

  “Now there’s a relief,” Maggie says.

  Maggie gets out of the car and gives Georgia a smile. Then she walks up to the restaurant’s front door, steps inside, before she can think about it.

  It is closed still—most of the house lights off. Plants are everywhere and a smell that Maggie can’t exactly make out, woodsy, like dried cherries, or pine trees, or a weird combination of the two.

  Maggie takes the whole place in, and feels relief that it doesn’t look like their restaurant in Red Hook. Nate hasn’t tried to re-create exactly what he has left behind. That has to be a good thing, she thinks. Only then she can’t help but
notice that The House looks—a little disturbingly—like the exact opposite of the restaurant in Red Hook. It is full of things Nate was adamant that he didn’t want for their restaurant: the brick wall and the fireplace, a granite bar, the dark walls. Is that just as bad?

  “Can I help you?

  She looks up to see a woman behind the bar, wiping down a Scotch glass. The woman is wearing a bandanna on her head and a blue tank top, her arms covered with tattoos. Beautiful dolphins and birds, clouds in the background. Thin, thin arms. Flat stomach. She looks both strong and frail, as she leans on her elbows, as though she were used to it—never moving toward anyone, letting them come to her.

  “We’re not open until six,” she says.

  “Oh, I’m not here to eat.”

  “Then we’re definitely not open,” she says.

  And she smiles when she says it, but it is more of a half smirk, and Maggie takes in the rest of her face: the olive skin and eyes, pouty lips, all of which stop Maggie for a second and make her take a longer look, as if it is her job to catch it. Whatever she thinks she is missing.

  “I know you’re setting up, but I was just hoping to speak with Ryan . . .” She realizes she doesn’t know her last name—Ryan’s last name—which is when she realizes it could be Huntington. Whoever this Ryan is, her last name could be Huntington. She could still share that with Nate, too. Maggie catches the menu out of the corner of her eye. On the bottom it says Executive Chef. And, blessedly, it says that her name isn’t Huntington. It’s Engle. Ryan Engle.

  “Engle,” she says. “I’m looking for Ryan Engle.”

  The woman puts the glass down, takes out another one, and pours two glasses of Hendrick’s gin. “Are you here to ask her for a donation or help with a charity drive?”

  “No.”

  “Are you a Jehovah’s Witness asking for money?”

  “Not the last time I checked.”

  “Do you know my mother? Because she is definitely looking for money.”

  “None of the above.”

  She hands Maggie one of the glasses. Why is everyone trying to get me drunk today?

  “Then I’m Ryan.”

  “I’m Maggie.”

  “Maggie, everyone who walks through the front door between lunch and dinner gets a shot of gin to make the rest of the day better. That’s the rule.”

  “Really?”

  “No, but I’m having a pretty crappy day, and I have this self-imposed rule about not drinking alone. Especially gin, which is my weak spot. So you’re going to have to do.”

  “Thanks.”

  She tilts her glass in Maggie’s direction and opens her throat, swallows it down, fast.

  This is Ryan. Drinking gin. With me. I’m drinking gin with her. Ryan with the lovely arms, the pretty tattoos. Nate has seen all of them. Where are the others? There must be others. Nate would know those too. He would know everything.

  “So you’re Ryan?” Maggie says.

  Ryan puts her glass back on the counter. “Didn’t we just do this?”

  “If we could just do it one more time . . .”

  Ryan motions to her to have her drink, which she does, closing her eyes against it. Then Ryan pours herself another. “So why are you here again?”

  What on earth was she going to say? I have some questions about my future husband, whom you happened to be married to? I’d like you to explain what happened between you, since apparentlyhe is unable to tell me anything that resembles the truth.

  “Wait, did you say your name was . . . Maggie?” Ryan asks.

  Maggie nods. “I did.”

  “Oh, Maggie, I told you I was having a bad day!” she says, but she smiles, a real smile, when she says it. And Maggie can see it, can feel it: how intoxicating it can be to get this woman’s approval.

  “I’m lost,” Maggie says.

  “You’re early. I don’t need you for another hour. Did Lev tell you to get here this early?” She looks down at her watch, turns it over. “I thought Lev said that your name was Molly. I’m terrible with names, so it is probably my fault. Man, I appreciate you covering for Lev tonight. I know she feels bad about being sick again. But when you’re pregnant, food is complicated. We all know what that’s like, right?”

  Maggie feels her eyes open wide. “Have you been pregnant?”

  “Excuse me?”

  Ryan shoots her a confused look, and Maggie tries to figure out a way to cover. Before she even has to, Ryan starts walking to the kitchen, assuming that Maggie will follow her, which she does.

  "So the rest of the staff will get here at about four-thirty P.M., but as long as you’re around we can get started prepping the first course. We only have the eight o’clock seating tonight, so I’m trying a new fig reduction on the duck. Did Lev forward you tonight’s menu?”

  “Probably, but my e-mail is down,” she says. “So maybe you can fill me in as we go.”

  It is scaring her. It is scaring her how easy she is finding it to lie.

  Ryan swings open the glass door to the kitchen where the food for that night is lined up on the countertop. Fresh parsley leaves and smoked mozzarella, loose peppermint and loaves of grain bread.

  She hands Maggie a bowl of fresh tomatoes, all business. “We’re making a spaghetti squash salad, so I’ll need these boiled for about a minute, seeded, and cut up with some olive oil and fresh basil for the dressing.”

  She lost her at boiled.

  “Easy enough . . .” Maggie says, and goes to the stovetop, takes out a small pot and gets ready to fill it with water.

  Meanwhile, Ryan is standing at the countertop pulling on some figs, or doing something to them that Maggie doesn’t understand. “So,” she says, looking up at her. “How long have you been at the Maidstone?”

  “The Maidstone?”

  And Maggie realizes this must be the restaurant where the other person works. The actual person who is supposed to be helping. Maggie can’t swallow. This isn’t a game. This is a person standing before her. A person who was married to Nate. How incredibly insane that she is here talking to her. And yet she can’t imagine getting herself to leave. At least not yet.

  “Six months?” she says, like a question. And she tries to change the subject, move it closer to a subject that will lead them toward it, the reason she is here. “Did I notice on the sign outside that you’ve been in business since the early nineties? That’s quite an accomplishment. It must have been hard to get the money together, especially starting out so young.” She clears her throat. “How did you do it?”

  “I had a partner at first. His family had plenty of money. And they helped us out a lot.” She looks up at Maggie. “Too much, really. Could you hand me the olive oil?”

  Maggie hands the bottle over, trying to busy her hands, trying to at least make them look busy. Her heart is threatening to beat out of her chest. She had a partner. His family helped a lot. Helped as in paid for the whole thing?

  That would explain why, now, Nate doesn’t want to take a penny from them. For the restaurant. It would explain something about being worried about making the same mistake.

  “Who was he?” she asks. “Your partner?”

  Ryan looks up at her, meets her eyes with something like a warning. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” she says.

  “I’m sorry. I’m nosy sometimes. Particularly now. I do that. I didn’t . . .” She looks at Ryan, and almost tells the truth, tells something—at least—a little like it. “I am in the process of deciding whether to open a restaurant with my husband, and it just seems like it could cause so many complications.”

  “It definitely can.”

  “Did it for you? I mean, was your partner your husband?”

  Ryan nods. “Yes.”

  Maggie can’t swallow.

  “But, you know, this time around, it hasn’t been complicated,” she says. “So I guess it depends on the two people.”

  “So you’re remarried?”

  “Lev didn’t tell you?
She always tells me we have the best relationship she’s seen, but I guess she wouldn’t pass that on to you . . .”

  She shakes her head. What would Lev have told her? Apparently that Ryan is very happily married. Is she married to someone who came shortly after Nate? She feels herself about to cry, cry because she is here, and because she has no idea what she is trying to find out from being here.

  “Wow. I’m an asshole. You look so upset. God, I’m sorry. Don’t tell Lev. Lev told me not to make you cry.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t even think I did anything yet. I think I’m missing the gentle gene or something.”

  “You didn’t do anything,” Maggie says.

  “So what’s wrong?”

  “I’m not telling the truth,” she says.

  “Excuse me?”

  “You were married to Nate Huntington, right? He was your husband at some point . . .”

  She stares at Maggie with a look that could go right through her, but doesn’t answer. And for a blessed second, she can still say no. Until she doesn’t.

  “Yes. I was married to Nate.”

  Maggie nods. “I know his sister pretty well. Georgia? And I just remembered that I knew already. I remembered something she had said once, offhandedly. Anyway . . . I realized that I knew that. I realized I already had the answer to my own question. You were married to Nate. And now you’re not. And I apparently like the sound of my own voice . . .”

  Ryan nods, looking back down at the food in front of her, going back to work. “How is Georgia?”

  “Pregnant.”

  She smiles. “Good for her. Congratulate her for me. Not that she’ll want to hear it, necessarily. But . . . and how’s Nate doing? Do you know?”

  Maybe, maybe not. What is the right answer?

  Maggie picks up some more tomatoes. What she is doing with them is unclear to anyone. “He’s doing well. He’s opening a restaurant in Brooklyn, actually. In this area called Red Hook near the pier.”

  “I thought I heard something about that. That’s great for him. That’s a great thing . . . I didn’t exactly handle things well with him, but you live and learn I guess, right? That’s the problem. Sometimes you do it at someone’s expense.”