of you were upstairs alone together. I’m not stupid, Jason.”
Jason set his beer bottle down on the table behind him with a thud. “I was showing her the half-round trim detail in the master bedroom,” he said. “She and Brent are starting their addition and she asked to see it.”
“Oh, yeah, I bet,” Claire said.
“Are you accusing me of cheating on you?” Jason said. “Is that honestly what you’re doing?”
His voice was very loud, and although they were separated from the rest of the party by a wall, the people going to and from the bathroom could see them and maybe hear them—and Adams and Heidi Fiske were peering at them from the doorway of the living room. Making a scene at a party like this was a very bad idea; everyone would be talking about it in the morning.
Jason grabbed Claire’s arm. “Let’s go ask Julie what we were doing upstairs. Come on, right now, so you can hear it for yourself. Let’s go find her.”
“No,” Claire said. “God, no.” The last thing she wanted was some kind of messy confrontation in the kitchen with everyone watching. Claire would never be able to look Julie in the eye again.
“You just accused me of fucking her,” Jason said. “After fifteen years of being together, thirteen years of marriage, and four kids at home. You think I would desecrate all that by fooling around with one of your friends at a party? Is that how little you think of me?”
“She’s very pretty,” Claire said.
“You’re very pretty!” Jason was screaming now. “This has nothing to do with pretty! This has to do with you accusing me. This has to do with you not trusting me—me, Jason Crispin, your husband! Do you honestly think I would cheat on you?”
He was hot now, hopping mad. First her best friend, now her husband. Why tonight? What had she done wrong?
“You didn’t want to fool around at home,” Claire said.
“We were going to be late,” Jason said. “And my back is killing me.”
“Then you drove like a bat out of hell . . .”
“So you thought what? That I couldn’t wait to get here so I could take Julie Jackson upstairs?”
“Well . . . ,” Claire said.
“Do you really think I’m having an affair?” Jason said. “Do you really think I’m that kind of lowlife? That kind of skunk?”
“It’s dark upstairs,” she said. “Pitch-black. What was I supposed to think?”
“You think I’m a cheating scum. Like your father! Come on, we’re leaving.”
“No.”
“We’re leaving. I’ll get our coats.”
Claire sat down on the bottom step and held her burning face. In the other room, the music was getting louder, couples were probably dancing, and Siobhan had probably popped the cork on a bottle of vintage Moët, but Claire and Jason Crispin were leaving.
Jason threw her pashmina at her. “Here.”
“But Siobhan . . .” Siobhan would really be mad at her now, for picking a fight at her party, for leaving early.
“Let’s go,” Jason said.
They marched out of the house, slamming the door. When they were on the sidewalk, Carter stuck his head out.
“Jase, man, where are you going?”
“My wife’s dragging me home.”
“Already? Dude, we still have food coming. I’m grilling sirloin . . .”
“Sorry, man,” Jason said. He climbed into the truck and Claire climbed into the truck and they sat there, cold and silent and seething.
Claire said, “You stay.”
“No,” Jason said.
“Fine, then I’ll stay.”
“No,” Jason said.
“You can’t tell me what to do,” she said. “You don’t own me.” She kicked her high heel at the glove box. “I hate this truck.” Jason said nothing, and this infuriated her. “I think it is so stupid the way you’ve named this truck Darth Vader. Ever considered what an imbecile it makes you seem like to drive a truck named Darth Vader?”
Jason deftly extracted the truck from their parallel parking place and gunned it for home. Claire braced herself with one hand against the dash. She saw Jason’s face when they passed under a streetlight. His mouth was a pinched line.
When they screeched into the driveway, Jason yanked the keys from the ignition. His eyes were filled with tears. He said, “I call the truck Darth Vader because the kids like it. They think it’s funny.”
Claire stared at him, defiant. She would not be a shrinking violet; she would not wilt. But Jason, in tears? This was new, this was awful, this was something she had done. She bowed her head. Jason was not an imbecile. He was not stupid,