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I made a big show out of checking the time on my phone. “I thought you said eight?”
“I did.” Luke’s kiss was either oblivious or placating. “You look nice.”
“It’s eight oh four though.”
“They wouldn’t seat us until we’re all here.” Luke pressed the palm of his hand into the naked small of my back and guided me further into the restaurant. That was a chill, right? That was us, still electrified by each other?
“God, I hate that,” I said.
Luke gri
I had vaguely noticed the couple standing by the hostess station, looking on as though they were waiting to be introduced. The client and his wife, body mean with Equinox muscles, cheery blond hair swept away from her face in a ninety-dollar blow-out. I always eye the wife first; I like to know what I’m up against. She was wearing the typical Kate uniform: white jeans, nude wedges, and a silky, sleeveless top. Hot pink, I’m sure she spent a few minutes debating it—was she tan enough, maybe the navy silky sleeveless top instead, can’t go wrong with navy—and over her shoulder, a cognac Prada the exact same shade as her shoes, the perfect match more age revealing than the skin starting to pucker in her neck. She had at least ten years on me, I determined, relieved. I don’t know how I’m going to live with myself when I turn thirty.
“Whitney.” She gave me her hand, sporting that afternoon’s manicure, and shook so weakly it was like she wanted me to know that being a stay-at-home mom was the most important thing in the world to her.
“Nice to see you,” I replied, which I’d traded in for “Nice to meet you” ever since Mr. Harrison first introduced himself to me like so. I was horrified, wondering how many people I’d tipped off to my pedantic rearing with all my lewd “Nice to meet you’s” over the years. The beauty of good breeding—for those lucky enough to enter this world with the golden rib—is that it’s almost impossible to authentically replicate, and poseurs will always out themselves, usually in some spectacularly embarrassing way. Every time I think I’ve climbed out of the bourgey pit, I realize something I’ve been doing wrong and my people pull me back in. You’re not fooling anyone. Take oysters, for example. I thought it was enough to pretend to love those salted loogies, but did you also know you’re supposed to place the shell exterior-side down once you’ve slurped them back? Something that small is that telling, the danger always in the details.
“And this is Andrew,” Luke said.
I slipped my hand into Andrew’s enormous paw, but my smile stalled when I finally bothered to take in his face. “Hi?” I said, and he cocked his head and looked at me fu
“If you’ll follow me,” the hostess said, taking off into the restaurant and pulling the four of us with her like a magnet. I trailed Andrew, studying the back of his head, pickled with gray (now?), and wondering turned into hoping he was who I thought he was, the want practically Harlequin.
There was a traffic jam while we decided which couple should take the banquette, Luke suggesting that it go to “the girls” because we were both small (Whitney laughing, “I think that’s a compliment, Ani”) and the table, like so many things in New York, was playhouse size. This is why everyone leaves, eventually. The babies come and there are limping shopping bags and perspiring snow boots and boxes of cheap Duane Reade Christmas ornaments piled up in the foyer, and one day someone trips on the handle of a Medium Brown Bag and just breaks, and so begins the slow crawl to Westchester or Co
I ended up across from Andrew and Luke across from Whitney. There was talk of switching, vetoed by Luke and his corny joke that he could always eat di
“I’m sorry,” Andrew said, and at first I thought he meant for invading my space. “You just look so familiar to me.” He stared, his lips parting as he slowly picked apart my disguise: the cheekbones—sharp now!—the honey highlights there to complement my Stygian hair, not force it into blond submission. “Oh sweetie,” Ruben, my colorist, clucked when I first came to see him. He pinched a chunk of yellow straw between his fingers and scowled at it like it was a cockroach.
Luke had been unraveling his di
It was one of those rare moments where you have the wherewithal to understand that something important, life altering even, is about to happen. I’ve experienced it twice before, the second time when Luke proposed. “This is going to sound crazy”—I cleared my throat—“but, are you . . . Mr. Larson?”
“Mr. Larson?” Whitney murmured, and she let out a giddy yelp as everything came together for her. “Was he your teacher?”
He must have cut off his floppy hair sometime after he left Bradley, but pop off the finance-guy mop like a Lego part, take a Photoshop pen to blur his lines and build out his jaw, and there he was: Mr. Larson. Most people, you could cover their mouths and guess if they’re smiling or not based on the shapes of their eyes. Mr. Larson’s seemed to have gotten stuck crinkled after an especially boisterous laugh.
“What a small world.” Mr. Larson laughed, amazed, his Adam’s apple shimmying in his throat. “And you go by Ani now?”
I glanced at Luke. We may as well have been at different di
“This is just crazy,” Whitney said, glancing among the three of us. She landed on Luke and seemed to realize something. “I guess this means you were at Bradley”—there was an abrupt, panicked pause as her brain completed the loop—“oh, I see, you’re TifAni.”
No one could look at each other. The waitress appeared, oblivious to the relief she offered, and asked if tap water was okay. It always is.
“Isn’t it fu
We all agreed. Yes, it was fu
“What subject?” Luke asked, suddenly, and when no one answered he added, “Did you teach?”
Mr. Larson brought an elbow to the table and leaned on it. “Honors English. Did it for two years right after I got out of college. When I couldn’t imagine not having the summers off. Remember, Whit?”
They shared a wounding, conspiratorial laugh. “Oh, I remember,” she said, shaking her napkin out. “Couldn’t wait for you to get that out of your system.” Well, I couldn’t fault her for that. I would never date a teacher either.