an audience we had never had. Parties we had never hosted.
And why would we? It would only be inviting guests into a den of lies. To view the charade of our life up close. Neither Calvin nor I were willing to risk that. It was maybe the one thing we had in common anymore. Or had ever had in common.
I turned to the meal in front of me and the empty place setting to my left, at the head of the long, empty dining table. It was nine o’clock at night. I couldn’t honestly say I’d been waiting for hours for Calvin to come home from “work,” but I’d learned the hard way some three weeks earlier that he did not find it acceptable for me to eat without him when he was in town anymore.
My jaw still ached from that particular lesson.
Fuck that, doll. You gotta eat.
I smiled as I turned to the plate of linguine and clams. Apparently, today I was quite the rebel. For a moment, I considered snapping a picture of my meal and sending it to Matthew. An inside joke of sorts—he was always trying to get me to eat pasta. I’d consumed more simple carbohydrates with the man over the last six months than I had in ten years. It meant doubling up on my trainer’s hours to keep my pants fitting correctly…but it was worth it. So, so worth it.
I was just lifting a sumptuous forkful of noodles to my mouth when the elevator doors chimed open, and Calvin’s heavy footsteps sounded, followed by another pair of shoes that were identifiably female from the way they clicked on the parquet.
In a hurry, I emptied my fork, wiped it clean on my napkin, and set it to the side. Acting as though I had been waiting patiently instead of about to stuff myself silly.
“I’m guessing she’s in here waiting for me,” Calvin was saying as he walked in with his guest. “Ah, see? I was right, as usual.”
Perhaps my cheeks would have reddened if I hadn’t been so numbed. Or if I wasn’t that much more surprised by his companion—my once-best friend, Caitlyn Calvert. Even my composure had its limits.
Calvin clicked his tongue as he took in the empty table, his place setting, and my untouched food. “You’re so predictable, princess. Do you always do as you’re told?”
I repressed the urge to throw my fork at him for using the pet name “princess.” He had called me that from the very beginning, disregarding every request I’d ever made for him to stop. It didn’t have the same lilting fondness as Peppe’s principessa. It never sounded anything but condescending. Resentful. Even nasty.
“She does,” Caitlyn chimed in as she delivered air kisses to my cheeks. “But that’s why we love her, don’t we? Not everyone can be a leader.”
I swallowed. “No. I suppose they can’t. Hello, Caitlyn. This is a surprise.”
“Calvin and I ran into each other at Madison Fletcher’s engagement party tonight. Why weren’t you there, by the way?”
I opened my mouth to say I hadn’t been invited, but they would have already known that. It costs to break with your set. Madison was one of the many who had distanced themselves from me over the last several months. That was what happened when you sided with your black sheep cousin and his eccentric wife over the schemes of petty ring-seekers. The moment Eric had returned to the Upper East Side it was clear that nearly every single woman under thirty-five understood him as her “territory” and had not taken kindly to the fact that he was marrying a half-Korean nobody from Chicago instead of one of them. This had actually included Caitlyn, who had done her best to disrupt their wedding.
At one point, I had been sympathetic. After all, Caitlyn had grown up with us and nursed a terrible crush on Eric since she was small. Her feelings for Eric had been deeper than the average socialite bent on a good marriage. But I had come to like Jane quite a lot since the wedding last November, and I didn’t take kindly to betrayal.
Which was why it was so curious that my husband had been at this party too.
But before I could say as much, Caitlyn kept talking. “Anyway, there will be others. I’ll make sure you get invited next time.”
I coiled some pasta around my fork and tried not to smart at the idea. A decade ago, it had been the other way