Chương 3
Then at Dad.
Then back at me.
Something was finally beginning to bother her beyond the possibility of police.
“Why is the manager calling your father Richard?”
I looked at her.
Behind the bar, a bartender quietly set down the glass he had been polishing.
“My dad owns Bellamy’s.”
Linda blinked.
I watched disbelief fight with memory across her face.
The reserved parking space downstairs.
The chef coming out to greet my parents.
Marcus knowing my name.
The private room deposit that had somehow never appeared on Daniel’s credit card.
All the details she had interpreted according to the version of me she preferred.
“You said you were a waitress.”
“I am.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you don’t think being a waitress is shameful.”
Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Dad looked at Marcus.
“Preserve the recording.”
Marcus nodded.
“The original and a copy.”
“Yes.”
Linda’s face lost its color.
Dad put one arm around my mother, but his eyes stayed on Linda.
“And nobody deletes a second.”
Linda stared at my father as though the room had shifted beneath her feet.
“You own this place?”
Dad kept his arm around Mom.
“Yes.”
“The whole restaurant?”
“Yes.”
Howard’s eyes closed again, slower this time.
Daniel looked at me, then at my father, then back at me.
“You never told me.”
The words landed harder than I expected.
I turned toward him.
“You never asked.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No?”
“You told me your dad worked in hospitality.”
“He does.”
“You said your parents were comfortable.”
“They are.”
“You let me think—”
He stopped himself.
Dad’s eyes moved to him.
“Think what?”
Daniel rubbed the back of his neck.
“Nothing.”
Linda found her voice before he did.
“This is absurd.”
Nobody answered her.
She pointed at me.
“She deliberately hid this.”
“For what purpose?” Dad asked.
Linda hesitated.
“To humiliate me.”
Mom made another strange little laugh.
This time it sounded tired.
“You threw wine at me before you knew.”
Linda looked at her.
“That is not what I meant.”
“No, I know.”
Mom pulled my jacket tighter across her blouse.
“You mean Emily should have told you she came from money so you would have treated her like a human being.”
Linda’s face hardened again.
“I have always treated her perfectly well.”
Daniel looked at his mother.
“No, you haven’t.”
“Daniel.”
“No.”
He picked up the mock invitation still lying beside his plate and held it between two fingers.
“You put me and Guest on our own wedding sample.”
“The printer did that.”
“You sent the file.”
Linda stared at him.
He stared back.
Something passed between them that had nothing to do with the wine and everything to do with all the times he had chosen not to challenge her.
Howard shifted in his chair.
“Maybe we should go.”
Linda rounded on him.
“Why?”
“Because you assaulted someone.”
“Oh, stop using that word.”
“What word would you prefer?”
“It was wine.”
Howard stood.
“If I dumped soup on you at a business dinner, would you call it nothing?”
“That’s completely different.”
“How?”
“Because I am your wife.”
He looked at her for a long moment.
“That isn’t an answer.”
Marcus stepped away to speak quietly into the radio clipped to his belt.
The normal sounds of the restaurant had begun returning in fragments.
Forks touched plates.
A server apologized to a table for the delay in their entrées.
Someone near the bar was pretending not to film us with a phone held too high.
Dad noticed.
“Marcus.”
“I see it.”
Marcus crossed the room and spoke to the diner.
The phone disappeared.
That small action reminded me that this was not a private family explosion.
There were strangers everywhere.
Employees who knew me.
Customers who knew Dad.
People who had no idea why one woman had just drenched another in Cabernet but would happily invent an explanation before dessert.
Linda must have realized it too.
Her shoulders changed.
The anger did not vanish, but calculation entered it.
“Richard,” she said.
Dad’s expression gave nothing back.
“I think we all understand this got out of hand.”
Mom turned toward me.
I could tell from the set of her mouth that she wanted to go somewhere private.
Dad saw it too.
“Patty, my office.”
“I’m not hiding.”
“You’re covered in wine.”
She glanced down at herself.
“Oh.”
For the first time, she seemed embarrassed by the stain rather than furious about how it got there.
Dad softened.
“There’s a clean shirt upstairs.”
“Your shirts are tents on me.”
“It’s a very elegant tent.”
Mom snorted despite herself.
The ridiculousness of the exchange cracked something in my chest.
I almost cried.
Instead, I bent to pick up Mom’s purse from beneath her chair.
Daniel reached for it at the same time.
Our hands touched.
I pulled mine away too quickly.
He noticed.
“Emily.”
“Not now.”
His face tightened.
“I didn’t know she was going to do this.”
“I know.”
“I would never—”
“I said I know.”
He stopped.
That hurt him.
I could see it.
Part of me hated that I was watching his pain while my mother’s blouse was still wet.
Another part of me hated that I wanted to comfort him anyway.
That was the worst thing about loving someone.
Your body kept old loyalties after your mind started questioning them.
Dad guided Mom toward the rear corridor.
She paused beside Daniel.
He looked almost afraid of her.
“Patricia, I’m sorry.”
Mom studied him for a second.
“I believe you.”
He exhaled.
Then she added, “But I’m not the person you need to convince.”
She followed Dad away.
Daniel watched her go.
Linda folded her arms.
“Well, that was melodramatic.”
He turned.
“Do you hear yourself?”
“I am trying to keep perspective.”
“You threw a drink in her face.”
“I lost my temper.”
“That’s not perspective.”
May you like
“You have no idea what it is like to sit there while those people imply I’m ashamed of your fiancée.”
I stared at her.
