of the time. Thad had driven them to Santa Barbara to meet their father and a driver brought them back, so Caroline hadn’t seen him since the end of June. She had to face the music now. They both did. They couldn’t hang in space forever. She hadn’t called the lawyer back. She had nothing to tell him. She wanted to talk to Peter first and see him and how she felt before deciding to divorce.
“I’m fine. How are you?” she asked politely when he called.
“Okay, it’s been weird not being with you and the kids,” he said in a sad voice, but so was finding pictures of his penis and his girlfriend’s vagina in her night table. She thought of it every time she thought of him now, and hated their bedroom, knowing what had gone on there. It still felt like days ago. Two months later, the memory hadn’t dimmed. Just hearing him brought it all back. She knew he had rented an apartment in the city, in a building that was famous for housing divorcing men, and couples having affairs. She wasn’t sure which he was. She didn’t know if the affair was over or not, which made a difference.
They agreed to have lunch at a restaurant near his office. It was noisier than she would have liked, if they were going to have a serious conversation about their future. But someplace quiet would have scared her. She didn’t feel ready for an intense exchange, didn’t want an angry confrontation, and didn’t want to cry in public. Noisy was better. Maybe she wouldn’t hear him say it when he told her he wanted a divorce and was marrying Veronica Ashton. She was afraid of what he’d say, but she wanted to know.
She dropped both kids off at their respective schools on the first day, and went home to dress for lunch with her husband. She didn’t know what to wear. Sexy, no, ridiculous and pathetic. Formal. She took out a suit she hadn’t worn in two years, and would look like she was going to court or a funeral, which was why she had bought it, when a friend’s mother died. Casual looked too sloppy, jeans like she wasn’t even trying. She looked in Morgan’s closet since they traded clothes sometimes, but she’d look like she was trying to compete with his twelve-year-old girlfriend. She finally settled on a black skirt and white sweater, and a pair of heels she pulled out of the back of her closet, and brushed her blond hair back in a ponytail. She wore mascara and lipstick, and had a deep tan. She didn’t want to look like she was trying to seduce him, she wasn’t, but she wanted to look good enough that he’d have some regrets about destroying their marriage when she asked him for a divorce, if that seemed like the right answer over a salad.
She had indigestion thinking about it, and arrived ten minutes late because the nearest garage was full, and she had to walk five blocks to the restaurant from where she parked.
“I’m sorry I’m late” was the first thing she said to him after not seeing him for two months. He was wearing a suit and a pale blue tie, and she assumed he had meetings that morning, although he rarely wore a tie to them, except with clients who flew out from New York. She knew all his routines, just as he knew hers, and she realized that this was different than the people she ran into in Santa Ynez who wanted to know what she’d been doing for the last twenty years. Peter had become a stranger in the last two months, but everything about him was still familiar.
He was waiting for her at the table, and was drinking a Bloody Mary. He normally didn’t drink at lunch. He looked nervous, and so was she. This wasn’t like a first date. It felt like their last one, and they both wanted to get it right.
They made small talk about the kids until after they ordered. She told him how well they rode now. He ordered a steak, and she a chicken salad and didn’t think she could eat it, but she could push it around on her plate. He commented on how much Billy had grown over the summer, and asked if she had set up the math tutor for Morgan. She had. She was back at her job as perfect