“Do you think that would really be a break for me, a zillion-hour flight and then staying in a house with people we’ve never met, with your mother and a three-year-old and a six-year-old?” The kids barely knew Jay’s mom. He barely knew his mom—his dad had raised him while his mom took Jay’s sister in a complicated divorce-not-divorce Mae still didn’t really understand, the kind of thing rich people apparently took for granted. Mae turned her own glass in her fingertips. She didn’t really want champagne. She wanted a cold Diet Coke, not that they kept anything like that in the house.
“I’ll be there too. And it’s not like I’m suggesting we go camping in the Sahara. There will be help.”
“Oh no, this isn’t the camping part. That comes after.” That was part two of Jay’s lunacy. After the trip to India, they backpacked around Europe. Or rented an RV and drove across the US. It varied, but it was like the man who loathed all social media had been spending all his time following #Airstreamlove and #havekidswilltravel. He’d be wanting a tiny house next.
“I can’t even process this right now, Jay. I mean, I just got basically fired. I know that fits in with your dreams”—she refrained, barely, from saying stupid dreams—“but it wasn’t in mine, okay?”
“We don’t have to camp. I just—look, Mae, I know you. I’m sorry this happened. But it did, and now you’re going to make choices because of it, and I want in on that.” He picked up his fork, then set it down. “Don’t you see? I’m just trying to buy us both some time.”
“I don’t want time,” she said, unable to keep her voice from sounding sharp. “The Sparkling thing is—a setback. But it’s just a small setback. I know you hate your job, Jay, but I don’t. I don’t want to tear everything up and start over.”
“But I do.”
His words hung between them for a moment—two children of single parents, two people who’d promised each other that whatever they did, they’d do it together, that their kids would never feel the way they had.
Jay looked down at his plate, took a bite, chewed. Mae bet he couldn’t taste it. She couldn’t even pretend to eat. “The lamb is good. I think the kids would like it, actually. I like the carrots.” Mae could tell he was trying to take the weight away from what he had just said. It wasn’t working. “Okay,” he said, “your turn. You said you had a plan. Spill.”
“I made enough to freeze,” Mae said, “They’ll get some.” Her plan sounded absurd now, after the argument they were having, but she couldn’t think of another way to present it. “The thing is,” she said, “my plan would make things so easy for you. I know this last deal was rough, and you’re about to get staffed on another one, so I’m taking the kids with me to visit my mother, and you’ll get to just—be here. Bachelor it. Whenever you’re not working, no us to worry about. I thought that would just take some of the pressure off, right? Give you room to hear yourself think.”
“I can’t hear myself think because I’m at work all the time,” Jay said. “You don’t want to go see my mom, but you’re running off to see yours? Wait—back up. You haven’t been to Kansas since Frank died. This isn’t about me. Why would you— Tell me why you’re going, Mae.” He shoved another bite of stew in his mouth, angrily, chewing and watching her. Waiting.
This was it. Time to go big or go home. Jay hated Sparkling and all that went with it, from the hundreds of thousands of followers it brought to Mae’s Instagram feed to the invitations that she and the kids do sponsored posts, the family photo shoots, the increased need for hours from Jessamyn, their nanny—hours that Mae’s income covered but that he objected to just the same. With Food Wars, Mae could keep all that going, and she would need to, since at this point every time he left the apartment, she wondered if he would still have a job when he came back. But Jay was not likely to be enthused.
She forced a note of excitement into her voice, as though she expected him to welcome her news. “Well, I might not be doing Sparkling for a while, but my sister called, and Food Wars