“What are you thinking, Andee?” I asked, though I kept my glare pinned on Austin—who was casually tugging on his shirt now that he’d confirmed I wasn’t brandishing a sidearm. “Are you . . . are you having sex?”
She swatted her shirt away when Austin tossed it to her. And when and where had she found the bra she was wearing?
“Gross. We are not having this discussion.” She flailed her hand in my general direction. “And you promised me you’d honor the closed door policy.”
“Not when I hear heavy breathing coming from behind it!”
“Yeah, I’m going to bail.” Austin adjusted his jeans as he stretched his legs over the bed to leave.
“You don’t have to leave,” Andee said.
“Yes, you do.” I stepped aside, waving him out the bedroom door. The urge to commit varying degrees of assault was dizzying.
Andee threw her back against the headboard, crossing her arms. “I can’t believe you.”
“You can’t believe what exactly? That I’m not eager to let my sixteen-year-old pick up whatever venereal disease a guy like that is crawling with? Or that I’d like to keep you from getting pregnant before you’ve graduated high school?” I marched over to her dresser and ripped out the first shirt my hands touched.
When I flung it her direction, she let it lay where it fell. “Oh, please. That’s classic coming from someone who got knocked up in college during what was supposed to be a one-night stand. Not the life sentence you two turned it into.” She reached for her headphones resting on her nightstand.
“That was different. I was twenty-two when I had you, not a sophomore in high school.”
“You might as well have been,” she muttered not quite under her breath.
“And your father was a decent guy who didn’t run at the sight of that second pink line. Guys like the one you just had fumbling his way around you in here are sprinters. They vanish at the first hint of a pregnancy.”
“You don’t know anything about him,” she snapped.
“I know enough.”
Her expression cracked momentarily. “I hate you,” she whispered, repeating it once more at a level that was unmistakable.
“For this whole tough, take-no-shit act you sell all day long, it’s disappointing that you’re no different from all the other girls you roll your eyes at. The ones who let the first cute boy to look their way into their pants.” The words lashed like fire from my tongue. “It’s so predictable it’s disappointing.”
Slipping her headphones on, she turned her back to me before I could see her reaction. I’d literally spewed every wrong word to utter from The Parents of an Angry Teenage Daughter handbook. At that moment, she wasn’t the only one present in the room who hated me.
She huffed. “That dress? At your age? And you’re calling me disappointing? And if you want a definition of predictable, let’s dive into your addiction to Botox and antipsychotics.”
My back stiffened; she paid more attention than I gave her credit for. “They’re antidepressants, not antipsychotics.”
“Yeah, what about the ones you take for sleep? Anxiety? Migraines? You pop more pills than the corner junkie.” When she glanced at me, she shook her head. Then she looked away for good. “There’s nothing real about you, from your hair color to your mood.”
Her music was cranked up so loudly, I could make out the faint din leaking through her headphones. On her nightstand, I noticed a new photo of Miss Evelyn with the Washington Monument in the background. I knew Andee and she corresponded through email regularly, and guessed my daughter trusted her former nanny with her secrets more than she did her mother. Even I, at times, had entrusted the kind old woman with my own burdens, none of them too monumental or baffling for her to offer some kind of fresh perspective on. This family needed Miss Evelyn—I was a poor substitute for the real life Mary Poppins.
I should have said something to Andee. Apologized. Talked out what was going on between her and Austin. There were a hundred things I should have said, but I did the last thing I should have—I left.
My face felt puffy as I crawled into my SUV. It wasn’t until I checked the rearview mirror that I realized it was because I was crying. Before I hit the highway, I’d wiped the tears away until there was no sign of sadness to be found on my face.
Behind it was a different story, but the world only perceived what we presented on the outside. The real person hiding inside might never be known by another living soul, because that was the way people worked. They saw what they wanted to see, hinged upon the veneer we presented. The real person remained sealed safely inside for all eternity.
The traffic downtown was dying when I exited the I-5. The Seattle skyline twinkled against the dark, starless canvas behind it, an idyllic postcard for a city saturated with as much pain and crime as I knew it to be capable of.
After pulling up to the valet, I checked to make sure all signs of distress were gone, and I applied another coat of lipstick. Stepping out of the car, I didn’t miss where the valet’s eyes dipped. Andee’s words ran into my mind.
Making my way inside of the restaurant, I pulled as much fabric over my chest as I could. Noah wasn’t waiting in the lobby, but since I was fifteen minutes late, I presumed he was already seated. As the hostess led me to the table reserved under Dean Kincaid, there was no sign of Noah there either.
Dean’s attention drifted from his date to me as I made my way through the dining room. The way he watched me—with that veiled undertone of appreciation—made my legs move with a bit less confidence.
I lived in slacks and blouses at work, suits in court, and even at company parties, my dress selection veered more toward a simple sheath. The first and last time I’d worn the dress I’d squeezed into tonight was for Noah’s and my tenth anniversary, when he’d booked a private dinner on a boat. We’d enjoyed a rare night of laughter and nearness, floating the waters of the Puget Sound, before having sex in the front seat of his car the moment we crawled inside.
That night, I’d worn the dress for my husband. Tonight, who I’d worn it for was more complicated.
“You shine up nicely, Prosecutor Wolff.” Dean rose from his chair when I approached the table. “Allow me to introduce you to Kimberly Sanders.” His hand gestured between his date and me. “Kim, this is Grace Wolff, my colleague.”
“Nice to meet you,” she greeted as I took a seat across the table from them.
“You as well,” I replied.
She gave me the same two-second size-up I gave her, the same kind every woman issued another when being introduced. The cursory inspection that took in the obvious, reaching deeper to discern the not-so-apparent.
“I’m sorry for being late,” I said after getting situated. “You haven’t seen Noah?”
Dean motioned at the empty chair beside me. “No sign of the elusive Dr. Wolff.”
“Your husband’s a doctor?” Kimberly asked, angling herself closer to Dean.
“Not a medical doctor. He’s a psychiatrist,” I answered, which was usually what people were getting at when they asked about Noah being a doctor.
“He works with the kind of people who would make your skin crawl too.” Dean’s arm extended behind Kimberly’s chair. “I don’t know how he does it.”