to the restaurant and teaching Brent how to make a football out of the paper napkin ring. He called her dad sir, which Mason had never done and which Meg could tell her dad was totally liking. And, yeah, he had a vaguely bemused expression on his face the whole time, like he was an actor who’d wandered onto the wrong soundstage by mistake and was waiting for someone to notice, but overall it seemed like it was going okay.
They were just finishing their spaghetti when her dad stood up at the head of the table, looking shy and almost boyish in his jacket and tie—Meg thought he was dressing more like a prep school bro since he’d been with Lisa, though she couldn’t tell if she was imagining it or not. “I wanted to propose a toast,” he said, lifting his wineglass. “To my beautiful bride, Lisa, the most incredible woman I’ve ever known.” He reached out and took her hand with his free one, gazing at her with a kind of adoration so personal and private Meg nearly looked away. “I’ve never in my entire life been this happy.”
Meg froze with her fingers wrapped around her glass of ice water, feeling—stupidly, she told herself—like someone had tipped its contents directly down the front of her dress. She thought of the blizzard that had hit Pennsylvania the winter she was in seventh grade, when their house had lost power for two full days and they’d sat in the living room wrapped in blankets playing Scrabble in front of the fire and listening to the news on an ancient battery-powered radio her dad had dug out of the garage. She thought of the trip they’d all taken to France when she was ten, her mom and dad kissing goofily on the banks of the Seine while Meg played photographer with the first cell phone she’d ever had. She thought of the day she was born, which both her parents had always made a big show of saying was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to either one of them.
But here, in this restaurant with his new wife and his new family, was the happiest her dad had ever been.
Meg forced herself to wait until he was finished speaking, gamely clinking glasses with her uncle Jim and both of Lisa’s kids. The last thing she wanted to do was make a scene. Once she was sure nobody would notice, she pushed out her chair and slipped away from the table, heading for the ladies’ room before doubling back at an arrangement of flowers almost as tall as she was and escaping out onto the street in front of the restaurant.
It was humid out here, the air thick and clammy, like summer had already arrived. Graduation was in less than three weeks. She thought of her mom back at the house, probably watching TV with a wineglass on the end table beside her—God, how was Meg ever going to leave her all by herself in their falling-down house? She’d seen the horrified look on Colby’s face this afternoon when he’d walked in, the dirt and clutter suddenly glaring. She’d spent the last few months—the last few years—trying so hard to convince everyone around her that everything was fine that she’d almost convinced herself in the process.
But it wasn’t.
She was trying to pull herself together when the door to the restaurant opened behind her; there was Colby with his hands in the pockets of his too-big khakis, the sleeves of his dress shirt rolled halfway up his arms. “Waiting for the bus?” he asked with a smile, and that was when Meg started to cry.
Colby’s eyes widened. “Shoot,” he said, crossing the sidewalk in two big steps and wrapping his arms around her a little awkwardly, like he wasn’t entirely sure of the protocol here. “Meg, hey, hey, hey. What’s wrong?” Then, when she sobbed harder instead of answering: “Okay. Easy.” He glanced back at the restaurant, seeming to intuit her wordless panic. “You want to walk?”
Meg nodded gratefully. Colby took her hand, and they set off down the busy sidewalk, turning once and then again until finally they found a quiet, tree-lined side street, all bumpy cobblestones and brightly painted brick apartment buildings with decorative iron stars the size of dinner plates affixed to their fronts. “Did you know those are actually holding the houses up?” Colby asked, apropos of nothing.