I could have handled a last-minute dinner party.
What I wasn’t prepared for was discovering, in front of my husband’s boss and coworkers, that they all seemed to know something important about his future that I didn’t.
My husband, Nathan, texted me at four in the afternoon.
“My boss and
a few people from work are coming over for dinner tonight. Hope that’s okay.”
It wasn’t really a question.
I was standing in the grocery store parking lot with two bags of groceries hanging from my wrists, staring at my phone. The bags held a rotisserie chicken, a box of cereal, paper towels, and a bottle of the cheap white wine I liked to drink on Thursdays while we watched TV. It was a Thursday kind of dinner. Not a boss dinner.
I typed, “Tonight???”
Then I deleted it.
I typed, “Are you serious?”
Deleted that too.
We had nothing planned for dinner. The house was a mess. Nathan’s gym bag had been sitting in the hallway since Monday, and there was a basket of clean laundry on the couch that I’d been “about to fold” for three days. And Nathan knew I hated being volunteered to host people with three hours’ notice. We’d had that exact argument twice. Once after his college roommate showed up with a girlfriend we’d never met, and once after a Super Bowl party that somehow became my Super Bowl party.
But arguing by text wouldn’t change the fact that his boss was apparently coming to our house.
So I wrote back, “How many people?”
“4. Bennett plus 3.”
“What time?”
“7?”
He put a question mark on it. Like I had a choice.
I turned around and walked back into the store.
Here’s something about me you should know. When I’m upset, I get efficient. My mother calls it “going quiet and fast.” My dad used to say I cleaned like I was trying to win an argument with the house.
I bought two pounds of chicken thighs, lemons, fresh rosemary, potatoes, green beans, a loaf of good bread, and a lemon tart from the bakery case that I planned to put on a nice plate and absolutely pretend I had made. I bought a better bottle of wine. Then I went back and bought a second one, because I had a feeling I’d need it.
At home, I put the chicken in to marinate and then attacked the house. Gym bag into the closet. Laundry into our bedroom, door shut. I wiped the bathroom counter, lit a candle, and hid the pile of mail behind the bread box.
At five-thirty, Nathan called.
“Hey,” he said. “You got my text?”
“I got your text.”
“You’re mad.”
“I’m cooking.”
“Nat, I’m sorry. Bennett kind of invited himself. He said something like, ‘We should all get together outside the office before—’ and then he just looked at me, and I didn’t know how to say no.”
“Before what?”
There was a pause. Short. I noticed it, but I was holding a potato peeler and I didn’t think much about it.
“Before things get busy,” he said. “Big project coming up.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll be home by six-thirty to help.”
He got home at six fifty-two.
By then, I had dinner ready and had even put on my best violet dress for the occasion. It was the dress I wore to my cousin’s wedding, the one Nathan once said made me look like I was “about to ruin someone’s life in a good way.” I thought he’d say something about it.
He walked in, kissed my cheek, said, “It smells amazing,” and went upstairs to change his shirt.
He didn’t look at the dress.
Nathan’s boss, Mr. Bennett, arrived right at seven with three of Nathan’s coworkers.
Bennett was in his late fifties, with gray hair and a big laugh that filled up the whole front hallway. He handed me a bottle of red wine and said, “Natalie! You’re a saint for having us on short notice. Nathan said you wouldn’t mind.”
“Did he,” I said, smiling.
Behind him came a quiet guy named Devin, who I’d met once at a picnic, and a woman named Priya who worked in accounting and immediately complimented my candle. I liked Priya right away.
And then there was Susan.
I knew Susan.
Tall, blonde, beautiful, and always standing a little too close to my husband at company events.
“Natalie, hi,” she said. She hugged me, quick and light. She smelled like expensive shampoo. “Thank you so much for this. Your house is so pretty.”
“Thank you. It’s usually a disaster.”
“Nathan said you’d say that.”
I kept smiling. I was getting very good at smiling.
I’d never accused Nathan of anything. Susan had never openly crossed a line. She’d never flirted with him in front of me, never touched him in a way I could point to and say, There. That.
Still, there was something about the ease between them that bothered me.
They had private jokes. At the company picnic last summer, someone mentioned “the printer incident,” and both of them burst out laughing, and when I asked what it was, Nathan said, “You had to be there.”
She knew when he was stressed before he said anything. I’d seen her glance at him across a room and then quietly walk over, like she’d heard something I hadn’t.
And once, at a company holiday party, I’d watched her hand him a drink without asking what he wanted. Bourbon, one ice cube. His exact drink. He took it from her without even looking up, the way you take something from someone you’ve known forever.
I’d stood by the coat rack holding my own glass of wine, and I’d felt something small and sharp twist in my stomach.
On the drive home I said, “Susan knows your drink.”
Nathan laughed. “She’s the one who orders for happy hour. She knows everybody’s drink.”
“Does she know Devin’s?”
“Probably. Nat. Come on.”
And I let it go, because what else was I supposed to do? Be the jealous wife over an ice cube?
Dinner started out fine. The chicken was good. Bennett had seconds and told a long story about a fishing trip where he lost his wedding ring in a lake. Priya asked me about my job. I work in admissions at a community college, which is not exciting, but she asked real questions, and I appreciated it.
But that night, Nathan seemed unusually nervous.
He kept checking his phone under the table. He laughed a half-second late at Bennett’s jokes. He cut his chicken into very small pieces and then moved them around his plate without eating them.
I noticed because normally he loved the meal I’d made. Lemon rosemary chicken was his favorite. It was what I made him for his birthday every single year. Usually he’d go back for thirds and then complain that his stomach hurt.
Tonight he’d eaten two bites.
“You okay?” I asked him quietly while Bennett was refilling his wine.
“Yeah. Fine. Just tired.”
Across the table, Susan was watching him. Then she looked at me. Then she looked down at her plate.
Halfway through dinner, Mr. Bennett raised his glass.
“Well,” he said, “we should probably celebrate.”
Everyone lifted their glasses a little. Devin smiled. Priya looked at Nathan.
I looked around the table.
“Celebrate what?”
Bennett’s smile disappeared.
It was like watching someone step off a curb they didn’t know was there. His glass stayed in the air for a second, and then it slowly came down.
He glanced at Nathan.
“So you don’t know yet?”
Nathan immediately put down his fork.
“Not tonight.”
He said it to Bennett, not to me. Low and fast, like I wasn’t sitting right next to him.
I felt a sudden wave of dread. It started in my stomach and went all the way up to my face.
“Know what?”
“I’m sorry,” Bennett said. He looked genuinely embarrassed. “I assumed you’d already discussed it.”
Nathan sighed. He closed his eyes for just a second.
“I was going to tell you.”
“Tell me what, Nathan?”
The table had gone completely quiet. Devin was staring at his potatoes like they held the meaning of life. Priya had her hand over her mouth.
Mr. Bennett cleared his throat.
“Nathan’s going to Seattle for a few months.”
I stared at my husband.
“You’re what?”
“It’s temporary,” Nathan said quickly. “Three months. Maybe four.”
Seattle.
Seattle was on the other side of the country. Seattle was a five-hour flight. Seattle was a place we’d talked about visiting exactly once, for a long weekend, and then never did because the tickets were too expensive.
“How long have you known?” I asked.
Nathan didn’t answer.
He looked at his plate. He looked at his glass. He looked at the window behind my head, where it was completely dark and there was nothing to see.
“We finalized the assignment almost three weeks ago,” Mr. Bennett said.
Three weeks.
I did the math without meaning to. Three weeks ago was the weekend we went to the farmers market and he bought me sunflowers. Three weeks ago was when we sat on the porch and talked about whether to repaint the kitchen. Three weeks ago he’d gone to bed beside me every single night.
My husband had known for three weeks that he was leaving for months and hadn’t said a word.
I looked at Nathan.
“Anything else I should know?”
I meant it as a joke. Or I meant it as a challenge. I’m still not sure which. But nobody laughed.
Mr. Bennett hesitated.
Then Susan spoke.
“I’m going too.”
She said it simply. Quietly. Not cruel, not smug. She just said it, the way you’d tell someone their tag was sticking out.
I looked at her.
She didn’t look away. I’ll give her that.
Nathan immediately shook his head.
“Don’t make this into something it isn’t. Susan was assigned to the project. I didn’t choose her.”
“I didn’t say you chose her.”
“You were going to.”
“I hadn’t said anything yet, Nathan.”
I turned to Mr. Bennett. My voice came out very calm. Calmer than I felt.
“Did Nathan know Susan was going when he accepted?”
Nathan’s face changed.
It was small. A little tightening around the mouth. The look he gets when he’s lost a game and doesn’t want to admit it.
That was my answer.
“Yes,” Mr. Bennett said quietly. “I’m sorry, Natalie. I thought you two had already discussed all of this.”
I wanted to explode.
I wanted to stand up and throw the lemon tart across the room. I wanted to scream, Three weeks? Three weeks, and you let me hear it over chicken from a man who lost his wedding ring in a lake?
Instead, I smiled.
I stood up, smoothed the front of my violet dress, and picked up the empty bread basket.
“Anyone want dessert?”
The room went painfully quiet.
Then Priya said, a little too loudly, “I would love dessert.”
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