“Look what else my Nicky got me.” Deborah pops the lid of a small black velvet box, showcasing a glittering band of chocolate diamonds. I have never understood the appeal of brown diamonds. I don’t want this monstrosity. If someone gave it to me I would never wear it. And yet I’m almost nauseated with jealousy.
“You’re one lucky lady.” I keep my gaze fixed on Nicholas. My tone rings so false, I know we all hear it. “What was the occasion?”
“Harold’s and my anniversary.” Harold is snoozing in a chair, hunched and lopsided. She wakes him up by yanking on his collar until he’s straightened out. “What was it he got for you, dear? Golf clubs?”
Harold jumps and snorts. He’s adept at speaking through his nose.
“Lucky, lucky, lucky,” I sing. “So lucky that your adult son buys you diamonds and golf clubs to celebrate an anniversary that isn’t even his! I can’t imagine to what lengths he’d go for his own anniversary.” This time, I don’t dare glance at Nicholas. He’ll want me to catch his eye so I’ll know that he’s seething, and not looking at him deprives him of this.
Conversation with Mrs. Rose is fifty percent listening to her swoon over Nicholas and fifty percent listening to her gripe, so it’s about time for her to swing the other way. She asks why no one has received a wedding invitation yet, since she already had the type of invitation and wording ready to go. I stay silent while Nicholas puts together a reply, leaving him to twist in the wind.
The truth is that Nicholas and I can’t agree on which engagement photo to attach to the invitations. Most couples attach engagement photos to their save-the-dates, but since we didn’t send those out Deborah says we Absolutely Must Include Them With The Invitations.
The one I want to use has captured me at a magical angle. It gives the illusion that I have long eyelashes and fuller lips. My chest looks larger. I’ve absorbed all of the photogenic magic and left none to spare for Nicholas, whose right eye is shut entirely and his left is halfway there. We had the photos taken on a chilly day and the first thing you notice are his nipples pointing through his shirt. I laugh every time I see it.
The photo Nicholas wants to use makes him look like a GQ model, and my hair’s blowing all over my face. Nicholas tells his mother, “Oh, I thought we sent those out already. My bad.”
“You’d better do it,” Deborah says warningly. “Or no one will show up.”
Nicholas’s ears perk up at this. He looks inspired. Those invitations are never going out in the mail. I have no right to be offended that he doesn’t want to marry me, since I don’t want to marry him, either, but I am. I console myself with the knowledge that I don’t want to marry him even more than he doesn’t want to marry me.
But when we’re alone for a minute, the smiles fade away and he mutters in my ear, “Why don’t you ever have my back? You always abandon me.”
“You always abandon me first,” I hiss.
“The woman” has fixed veal. Veal makes me cringe and Mrs. Rose knows it; it’s why, up until now, she’s offered an alternative dish if veal was going to be on the menu. Not tonight. It’s a creative reprisal, I’ll give her that.
She’s watching me closely, craving a reaction, so I look her right in the eye and take an enormous bite. I don’t care about my moral convictions tonight. I’ll eat a bloody half-formed cow fetus with my bare hands if it’ll get Nicholas to dump me in front of his mom like a total chump. What has my life come to, if that’s my goal now?
Nicholas pins me with a glare. The angrier he gets, the more I feel like dancing. He’s giving me so many nonverbal cues and they’re fine encouragement that I’m going in the right direction. Muscle twitches. Clenched jaw. Fisted hands. Someone’s got to teach this man about poker tells or he’ll get his pockets cleaned out. Probably by me, in the inevitable divorce. My brilliant lawyer and I will ride into the sunset with everything he’s got.
“Nicky just loves veal,” Mrs. Rose purrs.
Nicky just does not, but he won’t argue with her. “What else does your adult son love?” I ask. “You spend more time with him than anyone else, so you’re the one to ask.” I heave a dramatic sigh. “Even after all this time together, there’s still so much I don’t know. Our Nicky is surprisingly mysterious.”
At that, his gaze snaps to mine, and there’s a glimmer of amusement lurking there. “Don’t sell yourself short, Naomi,” he replies. “I think you’re starting to figure me out.”
“Yes, I believe I am. It’s taken some time.”
“We can’t all be quick learners.”
I swirl my glass of cranberry juice as we watch each other through narrowed eyes. “You should tell your parents our special news,” I say at last, one corner of my mouth ticking up.
His eyebrows knit together and his mother is all aflutter. She probably can’t believe something’s happened in his life that she wasn’t the first to know about. “News? What news? Tell us, Nicky.”
“Tell them, Nicky,” I parrot.
Deborah divides a stricken look between us. Clearly, she’s terrified I’m pregnant. An out-of-wedlock baby! What would Pastor Thomas say? Just to scare her a little more, I absently drape a hand over my stomach. She makes a dry, rasping sound like the leg of a chair scraping across a wood floor.
Nicholas sees my game.
“Darling, I don’t think I know what news you’re referring to.”
“It’s unexpected news.” I’m relishing this. “We weren’t planning on it happening quite yet, but that’s the way life goes.”
“If you do have news,” he grates, “I know it’s not mine.”
I tilt my head. “We haven’t had anything newsworthy happen in quite a while, have we?”
“Speaking of news!” Deborah interrupts, dying to pivot the spotlight back onto herself. “I’m coming up on my fifth anniversary at the newspaper.”
“We know,” Harold mutters, spreading a cloth napkin across his lap. Deborah stares at him pointedly until he tucks a second napkin into his collar. I give it a year before she’s got him wearing a bib. “We all know.”
Deborah spoons more artichoke hearts onto his plate, much to his dismay. “They might not know.”
She texted Nicholas three times this week about it, hinting that if he wanted to take her out for a celebratory lunch she’s upholding boycotts with Ruby Tuesday, Walk the Plank, and Applebee’s because of spats with the staff.
“Congratulations,” Nicholas says automatically.
“Yes, it’s quite an achievement, isn’t it? I think I’ve solved more problems than the mayor! Lately I’ve been rescuing marriages left and right, but when you read tomorrow’s column you’ll see that even I can’t save the lady who recently wrote in begging for my help.” Deborah smiles like the cat that ate the canary. “She’s having an affair with the handyman.”
“I wish Nicholas were handsier—I mean handier,” I say, stealing the spotlight right back. “I’ve been performing maintenance duties by myself. But I’ve been getting better results, interestingly enough.”