The main course passed smoothly enough, with snatches of conversation here and there that receded again into the general enjoyment of food, seemingly without awkwardness. Zoe remained alert, her head darting up and around the table regularly, watching out for social cues that she might otherwise miss. It kept her present, kept the numbers off her mind. She was able to take part, instead of sitting on the sidelines and feeling overwhelmed like she used to.
“Now, John, you’re a lawyer, isn’t that right?” Harry asked, scooping his last bite of fish into his mouth.
John nodded, hurriedly finishing a mouthful before speaking. “I’m in property law. Estate inheritance, real estate deals, boundary disputes—that kind of thing.”
“Must keep you pretty busy,” Harry commented. Zoe had never understood this kind of small talk, and she still didn’t now. Why didn’t Harry ask what he really wanted to know? Instead, they all had to shroud their meaning in polite, vague questions to try to fish for it. Zoe was glad she was on friendly enough terms with at least John and Shelley to not be expected to resort to that.
“Busy enough,” John replied, the hint of a smile around his lips. He set down his fork momentarily to brush a hand over his close-cropped brown hair, a habitual gesture. Zoe eyed the flex of the muscles in his arm and shoulder under his shirt and told herself to concentrate. “I’ve just finished working on a real doozy of a case. Two brothers, fighting over their late father’s estate. The two of them were just about willing to crucify one another over a few extra yards. Couldn’t seem to accept things the way the old man wanted them.”
Shelley shook her head ruefully. “I don’t know how people can get so heartless,” she said. “Family is everything. It’s not right, going up against one another like that.”
“Family is not everything to everyone,” Zoe said quietly. “Some people do not cherish blood.”
Shelley gave her a startled and apologetic look. She had no doubt forgotten, in the moment, Zoe’s troubled relationship—or lack thereof—with her own mother. “You’re right,” she said. “Of course. I suppose I just find it hard to imagine going up against my own family like that.”
“That’s because you’ve got a big heart,” Harry said, squeezing his wife’s hand on the table. They looked at one another lovingly for a moment, and Zoe found her eyes drawn away—from what felt like a private look—toward John, who was watching her with a curious smile on his face.
“Do we feel like dessert?” John asked, tidying his knife and fork to sit flat on his empty plate.
Harry and Shelley exchanged something meaningful in their eyes before nodding in unison. “Why not?” Harry said. “I’ll try and get someone’s attention to bring over the menus.”
“Good,” Shelley replied, putting her napkin up on the table beside her plate. “While you do that, Zoe and I will go to the ladies’ room.”
Zoe blinked. “I don’t need to use the ladies’ room,” she said, baffled that Shelley would have announced it for her.
Shelley gave her a coy look, bending down slightly from where she stood to murmur in Zoe’s ear. “You don’t have to need to. I need to. You’re coming with me.”
“Why?” Zoe asked, blinking again.
“For company,” Shelley said. Then, with an impatient gesture and a little gasp of frustration: “To gossip about our menfolk where they can’t hear us. Come on.”
Zoe still wasn’t quite sure she understood, but she got up anyway, following her partner with a somewhat hesitant step. Not because she was indecisive about following her—she trusted Shelley enough to do what she wanted—but because she had forgotten she was wearing heels until she stood up, and the alien sensation at the end of her legs was making her off-balance. Shelley, meanwhile, walked with confidence in her stilettos, her curvy hips swaying from side to side with grace.
“Is that why women always go to the bathroom together?” Zoe asked, as they pushed open the door of the room to find a few other women already in there, washing their hands and peering at themselves in the mirrors over the sinks.
“Yes,” Shelley said, laughing. “And for comfort and companionship. Because it’s nice. And because men hunt in packs, so why shouldn’t we?”
Zoe had to admit, Shelley had a point. She hid a smile as she stood, leaning against the unoccupied, folded-away changing table—the most out-of-the-way she could be in the small space. She caught sight of herself in a floor-length mirror near the door, not recognizing herself for a moment. Dr. Applewhite’s ministrations had pulled attention to her eyes, and her figure—that she often thought of as boyish, with no hips or chest to speak of—had been given artificial swoops and curves by the cut of the dress. Even her hair in its pixie cut somehow looked softer and more feminine tonight, balanced out by red-stoned drop earrings that felt heavy and unfamiliar.
One by one, the other women finished preening themselves and walked back out into the restaurant, so that when Shelley emerged from her cubicle the two of them were alone.
Shelley started washing her hands, looking up at Zoe in a way that made her come closer for the conversation that was obviously wanted. “You’re doing really well,” she said, turning off the faucet.
“I am?”
Shelley looked at her sideways as she moved to dry her hands on loose paper towels. “You know you are. But still, it bears saying. I’m proud of you. When we first partnered up, I never thought you’d be able to do something like this.”
Zoe had to admit she was right. “I never thought that I would want to, let alone be able to.”
“Well, then I’m glad we could change your mind on that,” Shelley said, finishing off with the towels and coming to stand in front of her. “You look beautiful, Zoe. I love this new look on you.”
Zoe smiled, feeling an unfamiliar flush rise to her cheeks. “It took some practice,” she said, stopping just short of admitting that it had also taken help. She took Shelley in at a glance: always perfectly made up and elegant, today was no exception. Her blonde hair was in a slightly fancier bun than normal, with twists and coils that looked complicated, and the pale shade of pink on her eyelids matched the fabric of her demure yet figure-hugging dress. She looked, well, like she always did: just right for the occasion.
“The practice paid off,” Shelley said, picking up her purse from where she had set it down beside the sink.
Zoe, sensing that the appropriate moment for returning the compliment had passed, panicked for a second before deciding to throw it out anyway. “You look really nice, too.”
Shelley rewarded her with a beam, giving her own reflection a glance up and down before turning back to Zoe. “I scrub up all right for a mom, huh?”
Zoe was about to tell her that she did better than that—and to lead in, she hoped, to broaching the subject of John and that she wanted to linger to talk to him alone once the meal was over—but a pair of chimes rang out in the room, almost at exactly the same time, interrupting them.
Zoe and Shelley exchanged a glance. The sound had come from both of their purses—Zoe’s borrowed from Dr. Applewhite to match her dress—their cell phones. There were only two explanations for them both getting a message at the same time. The first was that there was some kind of state- or nationwide emergency and they were being notified by the president.