“Why can’t he be our waiter?” said Sarah.
“I think I found the top of my range,” said Amber.
Megan seemed pleased with herself. “You guys see my point, then? I mean, who could blame a girl for getting with something like that?”
They watched him work for a while, weaving through his tables, delivering bread and drinks.
And then Amber asked, clearly, without a single slur, “Do you think this restaurant has a policy against licking members of the waitstaff?” And despite everything—porn, dating apps, and a city full of creepy older men—the Wives all laughed.
9
The text chime startled Mitch awake.
When she was gone, his senses were always heightened, like a smoke alarm that’s too sensitive and freaks out every time you toast a bagel.
He grabbed his phone off the coffee table.
Divorce is awful. We’re never getting one.
It was jarring, out of context, but then he remembered that she was with the Wives. He considered his reply for a moment, and settled on understatement.
Deal.
He had been watching a documentary about serial killers on Netflix when he fell asleep, and now his TV was asking if he wanted to watch a different documentary on serial killers. There were some broken Golden Oreo pieces on the coffee table, and two empty beer cans. As far as images went, it was basically the opposite of an inspirational meme. #LivingMyBestLife.
He wondered about Alan’s date and how it was going. The beauty of living in the twenty-first century: When you wonder something about someone, you can just text them.
How’s the date?
The typing bubble popped up within seconds. He’d noticed this about the Husbands. Since The Divorces, their text replies were virtually instantaneous, as if their phones were permanently affixed to their bodies.
Still on it, Dawg.
Then why are you texting me?
She’s in the bathroom. Valley Inn is bumpin.
He included a fire emoji, and then dancing-girl and martini emojis. Alan was big with the emojis.
How is she? You like her?
Even hotter in real life. Check this out. Took 10 mins ago.
An image appeared. A glowing girl and a middle-aged man with his top button undone.
You took a selfie on a first date?
Brave new world, my friend. Gotta go. She’s coming back. Oh, BTW, she smells like Starbursts.
Upstairs, Mitch did a quick check on Jude and Emily. They were good for now, sprawled out in that insane way that kids sleep. He lingered at Emily’s door, because she was adorable, and he hoped to God that in twenty years she wouldn’t be on a date in a bar with some forty-year-old divorced dude with crow’s-feet, in the middle of reinventing himself.
He was about to head to bed, but he stopped in the hallway at a framed photo of the Husbands. It was a picture he hadn’t noticed in a long time.
Kid pics got top billing downstairs, in the high-traffic zones. Up here, though, along the stretch of light-green wall that connected the three bedrooms, they kept documentation of their pre-kid lives. In this particular photo, the Husbands were smiling on the beach on Fenwick Island. The Core Four hit Fenwick every summer back then. They rented a house as close to the shore as they could afford, and almost never got their security deposits back. Alan set a grill on fire once trying, drunkenly, to make quesadillas, and on two separate occasions, Doug crashed through screen doors.
Mitch could remember the exact moment the picture was taken. Terry flagged down an elderly couple walking a corgi and asked them to take it. Mitch and Alan were flexing, and Doug and Terry were sunburned and laughing. They were all young and happy and thin, and their wives were twenty feet away, in bikinis. He imagined stumbling onto this group now, as a forty-year-old—as the Ghost of Divorces Yet to Come.
Hey, idiots! Enjoy this while it lasts!
“Mr. Butler!”
Mitch squinted at the photo.
“Mr. B. Out here.”
Through the hallway window, Mitch saw Luke sitting on his stump. And apparently Luke saw him, too. Mitch pushed the window open and stuck his head out. “Luke. What’re you doing out here, you nerd?”
Luke held up his book. “Romeo and Juliet. You assigned it, remember?”
“Yeah, but I gave you guys the weekend off. You should be out living it up, enjoying yourself.”
Luke looked embarrassed in the low light of his iPhone, and Mitch had about a dozen simultaneous flashbacks to the Friday nights of his own youth. Binge-reading, listening to bootlegged U2 concert CDs, playing Super Mario Brothers 2 until his thumbs cramped, trying to catch a stray boob on partially scrambled Cinemax.
“Just reading ahead a little,” Luke said.
Up in the sky the moon was nearly full, burning big and bright through some passing clouds.
“Well, don’t be afraid to take a break. You’ve currently got a hundred and forty percent in the class, so you’re doing okay.”
Luke smiled. There was a sound from up toward the front of the house—car doors and packing. James again, still moving out.
“Do you have to go?” Mitch asked. “Are your parents gonna be looking for you?”
“Nah. He’s about to leave. When he does, my mom’ll go straight to bed. She’s taking these pills that knock her out in like three minutes flat. Sometimes she doesn’t even make it upstairs.”
Teachers have an official log in their brains where they note comments like this—the official ledger of red flags and warning signs. “So, how’re you doing?” He nodded in the direction of the driveway. “You know, with all that?”
Luke seemed to think about this on his stump. “She’s not even that pretty,” he said.
“Who?”
“My dad’s new girlfriend.”
“Oh.”
“I mean, if she was hot, at least maybe I’d get it, you know?”
Mitch was pretty sure that wasn’t how it worked. Then again, what did he know? His parents, Bob and Cindy Butler, had been married for forty-two years and spent half the year driving around the country together in an RV the size of a townhouse. They referred to it as the “Butler Cruiser.”
“So, exactly how far ahead are you reading?” he asked.
“Just a little.”
“How little?”
He looked embarrassed again. Kids like Luke were Mitch’s weakness as an educator. For the most part, his job was to guide kids through their English requirements and off into lives of artlessness. The handful of Lukes he got every couple of years made it all seem less hopeless.
“I finished it,” Luke said, and Mitch laughed.
“Of course you did.”
“Twice, actually.”
“That’s the thing about books,” Mitch said. “No matter what’s going on in your life. All the stupid stuff you can’t control or fix. They’re always there, right?”
“I like that, Mr. B.,” he said. “It’s deep.”
Mitch rested his elbows on the windowsill. “When I was in high school,” he said, “I got cut from the freshman baseball team. I was so depressed that I typed out The Catcher in the Rye on my parents’ computer in a single night.”
James’s packing sounds echoed into the night.
“Wow, Mr. B. You were an even bigger nerd than me.”
10
The Uber driver was being totally unreasonable.
It was something small—a Nissan Something-or-other. Megan, Sarah, and Amber were piled drunkenly into the back seat, laughing. Jessica tried to take shotgun, but the driver put his hand over a duffel bag on the front seat. “I am very sorry, miss, but no.” His accent was thick and unidentifiable.
“What?” said Amber, the giantess. She was pretzeled into the middle of the back seat, which made no sense.
>
“Yeah,” said Sarah. “Are you serious?”
Jessica sighed. “Could we just put that stuff on the floor? I won’t mess with it.”
“Yeah, she’s a little person,” said Amber. “And she’s a doctor, too. Trustworthy.”
The driver looked at her through the passenger-side window with pleading eyes. He had a large black mustache. “No,” he said. “I must insist. Please.”
Sarah and Megan booed from the back seat, and a car honked behind them.
“This is no way to get a five-star rating, dude,” said Megan. “One star’s really gonna mess up your average.”
“But then he’ll just give you one star,” said Sarah. “The whole system is flawed. You give them a shitty review, they give you a shitty review.”
“It’s like nuclear war,” said Amber. “Everyone’s equally screwed.”
“That is literally the most intelligent thing any of us have said all night,” said Sarah, and the back seat laughed.
They were drunker than she was, Jessica knew, which was a common phenomenon since The Divorces. If there was security footage of the scene, she would look exactly how she felt: like a woman on the outside, looking in.
“Ladies,” said the driver, “negative review or no, so be it. I am going to have to ask—”
Megan slapped her thighs. “Well, there’s only one thing left to do then,” she said. “Come to Mama.”
Jessica leaned against the car. “You wanna drive to the suburbs with me in your lap?”
“Why not? It’s better than strapping you to the roof like an armoire.”
“Armoire is an odd word,” said Amber. She demonstrated by repeating it three times in a French accent.
“Enough talking!” said Megan. “Hop on in.”
“That will not work either, I am afraid,” said the driver. More cars were honking. Some pedestrians stopped to watch.
“Dude,” said Amber, “we’re trying to work with you here.”
“The laws of Maryland state that there must be one seatbe—”
“You’re not leaving us with a lot of options,” said Megan.
“Should we get out, then?” said Sarah. “I’m lodged in here pretty good. Might have to get the Jaws of Life.”
Amber tapped at her phone. “How do you call an Uber if you’re in an Uber? There’s no button for that. This app is stupid.”
“You guys, wait?” said Jessica.
Inside the Nissan Something, everyone went silent. Megan, Sarah, Amber, and the driver looked at her, waiting. She wasn’t sure what she was doing, exactly—at least, she told herself she wasn’t. But what she did know was that she didn’t want to go home yet.
“Jess?” said Sarah.
“You want us to get out?” asked Megan.
“Should we do more shots?” asked Amber. “I could probably do two more before night-nights.”
Jessica looked back at the restaurant. There were people inside. There was laughter and music, the steady thud of bass. Through the blur of the front window, she could see the waiter. He stood over a table, a tray of drinks balanced in one hand. Again: a woman outside looking in.
Jessica didn’t want to go home yet.
So she didn’t.
11
The Wives never would’ve left her there on the street alone under normal circumstances.
Absolutely not.
“Never leave a ho behind” had been their motto back in college and the few years after college, when they were young enough to affectionately call one another hos. They would’ve strong-armed the poor driver until he finally gave in, or they would’ve piled, drunk and complaining, back onto the street and figured something else out.
But on that Friday night they were tired, and more than that, they were just plain over it. Consequently, all Jessica had to do was show them her phone with the Uber app open. “See?” she said. “I’ll get my own damn Uber.”
“Okay, that’s a lot of cars,” said Megan.
She was right. There was a swarm of little black car icons buzzing around their location dot.
“Just go,” said Jessica. “I’ll be fine. One of these guys’ll be here in fifteen seconds. I’ll probably be home before any of you.”
The other Wives collectively shrugged.
“All right!” said Amber. She blew Jessica a kiss from the back seat. “Roll out! But you’re only getting four stars, dude.”
For a moment, when they were gone, Jessica stood looking at the front of Bar Vasquez. Laughing people went in and out, handsome guys and pretty girls, and she wondered what she was doing out there, exactly. She looked down at her hands and was surprised to see that they were shaking.
When she opened the door, she nearly chickened out. She would’ve turned around if the waiter hadn’t been standing right there, five feet from the entrance.
“You’re back,” he said.
Jessica briefly wondered if he was talking to her. They hadn’t exchanged a word earlier, while the Wives finished their drinks and dinner and after-dinner drinks, but their eyes had found each other’s maybe a dozen times as he buzzed back and forth across the restaurant. And now he was smiling at her, and he was gorgeous. “I am,” she said.
“Where’s your crew?”
She looked back at the front door as if the Wives might be there, hands on hips. What the fuck, Jessica?
“They couldn’t hang,” she said. “Bunch of lightweights.”
His eyes moved to her breasts again, quick as hummingbirds. “That’s lame,” he said. “Well, let’s get you a drink, then. Come on. I just got switched to the bar upstairs.”
He led her up some steps to the mezzanine section that overlooked the restaurant. She sat down on a squishy stool at the end of the bar. It was quieter up here than it had been downstairs.
“So, you like this place, huh?”
“What?”
“Well, technically, you’ve been here twice tonight. And you were here the other night, too. Couple of days ago, right, with…”
She almost said “my husband,” but instead she let him trail off. Somewhere in her lap, her hand formed a loose fist around her engagement ring. The diamond dug gently into her flesh. “I do like it,” she said. “You’ve got good wine here.”
“Gimme a sec, okay?”
He made a few drinks behind the bar—two for a couple at one of the bar tables, two more for the cocktail waitress, who collected them on a tray. And then he poured Jessica a glass of shiraz.
“I’m impressed,” she said. “You remember my wine choice. You’re a good waiter.”
He tilted his head. “A little secret from the pros. We always remember what beautiful women order.”
These words had a complex effect on her—a sensation like being in a glass elevator, rocketing upward over an unfamiliar cityscape. Sure, the male gaze is one thing. It’s ever-present, laced with ambiguity and aggression. But no one who wasn’t Mitch had called her beautiful since she was a college kid, and she could feel an insistent pulse in her neck. “Um…you know that I know that you work for tips, right?”
“Guess I won’t charge you for that one, then,” he said.
A series of woven veins ran up his forearm and disappeared under the rolled-up cuff of his white sleeve. She imagined tracing their path with the tip of her finger. A couple in their twenties bellied up to the bar and tried to get his attention. He completely ignored them.
“So, ladies’ night tonight?” he asked. “Special occasion?”
“We were celebrating.”
“Oh yeah? Celebrating what?”
“Divorce.” She let the word settle, unexplained, and his attention narrowed. “My friend Amber. She just signed the papers.”
“Ahh. Well, that’s…nice? Is that the word? Nice?”
“Believe it
or not, you came up in our conversation.”
“Me?”
“You caused quite a moral dilemma for us, actually.”
“Do tell.”
He was blasé at the prospect of a table full of women talking about him. He’d looked like this his entire life, Jessica assumed. No awkward stage, like everyone else. No gawky teen years or braces with rubber bands or acne or baby fat or disastrous haircuts. It was like white privilege, but exclusively for hot people—hot privilege—and it was hard not to resent him for it.
“My other friend, Megan,” she said. “Her ex had an affair with a real-estate hussy. You single-handedly caused her to forgive him.”
“Oh yeah? How’d I do that?”
The twentysomething couple cleared their throats.
“She said, even if she was still married, she’d have an affair with you in a second. So you’ve decriminalized cheating. Bravo.”
He laughed. “Okay, now I need a drink.”
“Hey. Do you, like, have a drink menu or something?” It was the twentysomething girl. He slid them a black leather booklet and then poured himself a glass of the same shiraz Jessica was drinking.
She nodded toward the couple. “I take it back. You’re not a very good waiter at all.”
He swirled his wine. “I have good nights and bad nights. I’m easily distracted.”
It wasn’t like Jessica hadn’t flirted in the last twenty years. She was a human being, after all. But not like this. She wondered if she was doing it right.
“We all dared Amber to flag you down and talk to you,” she said. “She’s convinced she’s gonna die alone. You’d be good for her.”
“Like a How Stella Got Her Groove Back situation?” he said.
“You know that book?”
“I thought it was a movie,” he said, without a trace of self-consciousness, and she tried to imagine him reading but couldn’t. Maybe that’s the burden of hot privilege. Everyone assumes you don’t read much.
“A book and a movie,” she said. “Either way. Amber was a coward. Said you were too scary to talk to.”
He smiled. “Man, women really overthink this stuff, huh?”
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