or a lousy driver and getting it off your chest? Never once did you think any of those people was going to respond.
“Also, I saw your Facebook post, and then, of course, I saw all of your comments.”
Oliver Patel grinned, and Maureen and Susan and Beth pulled back from their glares and looked as if they might turn figuratively green. Consequences. Regret. They’re tied together.
“Well, it was all true.” MaryAnne sniffed. “You were not very nice by the end of high school, and I am doubtful that you should be president. If you can’t get those who know you well to vote for you . . .” She flipped her hand as if to say, Well, then you’re screwed.
“It wasn’t all true,” Cleo said. “You didn’t fact-check the date of my son’s birth.” At this, she gestured toward Lucas, who really was not paying too much attention and instead stealing sideways glances at Esme. Gaby had been right: something was happening between the two of them, that unknowable alchemy that ignited teen hormones, and Cleo lost herself for a beat, considering the consequences of a romance between the two. These days, with social media and text and FaceTime (did kids use FaceTime?) and who knows what else, a three-thousand-mile lovesick relationship didn’t seem far-fetched. Cleo turned back to MaryAnne. “That was low, and I would at least think beneath you.”
MaryAnne sniffed. “I went with the information I had been made aware of. And I don’t like cheaters. But if that affected you”—she pointed her chin toward Lucas—“I’m sorry. I am. Perhaps that was out of bounds. Children should be off-limits. Not, however, their parents.”
“Apology accepted,” Lucas said and offered a little shrug. He was used to political sniping, and he was used to his mother defending herself, Cleo supposed. It occurred to her that she didn’t want to raise a son who grew up thinking this was all normal. None of this was normal. If she had her list here now, she’d add this one—have raised son in a toxic bubble of Washington, DC, where he thinks launching metaphorical grenades at your opponents is just your average day. Cleo considered this notion. Of course Lucas thought this was normal. She was his mother. He’d learned it from her. Regret.
Cleo inhaled, exhaled, looked to Gaby, who was all business with her camera phone. She wanted to get this over with now, rip off the Band-Aid and be done with it. Convince Gaby that filming four more of her regrets would only end in disaster.
“Well, I flew all the way here today to apologize.” She said it stiffly, not like something emotive she’d rehearsed to argue on the Senate floor. She knew she could do better. She inhaled again, tried to soften. “Teenage girls can be pretty tough, MaryAnne, and I didn’t mean to hurt you.”
MaryAnne’s face pinched for just a moment, and Cleo, aware of her old friend’s mannerisms, was sure that this could all be over. That she’d be forgiven, and they could pour themselves a glass of . . . she didn’t know what they were drinking but something fancy . . . and move on. Cleo didn’t really want to befriend MaryAnne again—she was firmly not into looking backward—but a shared drink felt like a peace offering that would be a nice gesture, a neat bow tied around this now-closed chapter.
Instead, MaryAnne composed herself, rose to stand, and said simply, “No.”
Maureen and Susan, in the back, gasped and looked a little delighted. Like a real live fight was going to break out right there at the Seattle Country Club among the blue bloods. Well, one blue blood and one just regular blood. (But senatorial blood!) Cleo did think that she could take her, thanks to her early-morning boxing classes, and God knows that with her marathon training, Gaby could deliver one cold knockout punch, but she also knew that physical violence on camera (because Gaby would surely keep filming while punching) would not be the ticket to her reputational rehabilitation.
MaryAnne herself, in her sleeveless pink and green floral dress that highlighted her arms, was looking significantly fitter than in high school, even with her stellar track times. Probably spin classes, Cleo supposed. Maybe a personal trainer.
“Mom,” Esme interjected. “Please sit down. This is ridiculous. She apologized.”
MaryAnne raised her chin an inch, refusing.
“Do you know what you did to my entire life?” she said.
Cleo shook her head. “Your entire life? No.”
“When you sabotaged that internship at the mayor’s office,