She took to the internet, typing in the phrase: “You make me all starry-eyed.” However, there were no results to suggest that it was a common phrase. Her pulse quickened. Maybe that didn’t mean anything. Perhaps it was something new people were saying, or maybe it was a coincidence.
Maybe whoever Katrina was dating was similar to Peter. Perhaps they even knew one another and had each heard the other say it, separately. Maybe they’d met at the bar during one of Peter’s game nights.
However, Katrina had mentioned that her boyfriend was divorced and had children. That didn’t mean anything. Peter wasn’t divorced! He was with me! Peter was in love and had always been in love!
Ada’s head felt dented. Sweat bubbled on the back of her neck. After nearly fifteen minutes of Ada sitting alone in the kitchen, Hannah called from the sofa to see if Ada was all right. Ada managed to say, “I’m fine, honey! I don’t, um. Feel so well.” It was true. She needed to get up, go back to the sofa, and pretend everything was all right. But she thought she might throw up.
Soon, Hannah appeared, pouring Ada another glass of water and fetching her a few painkillers from the top shelf. Her eyes were caring, similar to Ada’s when she was eager to help her children. “Did something happen?” Hannah asked. “Did you eat something weird? The fish?”
Ada shook her head. “I’m fine. It’ll pass.” She took the pain medication from her daughter and threw them down her throat. “You should go watch the rest of the movie.”
“Let me know if you need anything,” Hannah urged.
When Hannah left the kitchen, Ada was seized with another idea. Her fingers shaking, she typed Max’s name into the search bar of social media. But, typical of men, he hadn’t updated the photograph since before he’d gotten married, and it didn’t seem like he used the service at all these days. Her heart pumping, she searched for Abby, his wife, and discovered—horribly—that her profile picture was still of Abby and Max at Machu Picchu. When she checked the date, she saw that the photograph had been posted just four months ago. Abby had posted as recently as two days ago about an event she was hosting in the city.
It meant that Abby and Max were still together. They had to be.
Or was Abby pretending they were still together? Because she didn’t want to admit it to their friends and family yet?
Ada felt as though she were experiencing vertigo. She got to her feet and set down her phone. The last thing she wanted was to fall on the kitchen floor and frighten her children.
She needed to know. Was Peter dating Katrina behind her back?
Had he been with Katrina last weekend instead of going to Hannah’s final tennis matches?
She remembered how panicked he’d sounded when he’d called Friday night. He’d needed to see Max as soon as possible, he’d said. But she remembered, too, how panicked Katrina had been only a few days before that, during their session. Had Katrina given him a kind of ultimatum?
Worse, had the Salt Sisters instructed Katrina to give him an ultimatum, to “choose herself first” and see what he made of it?
It was too much to bear.
And what if Katrina had sought Ada out because Ada was Peter’s wife? Was that why Katrina hadn’t said her new boyfriend’s name out loud? Was she playing with Ada for sport?
Out of her mind with fear, Ada paced the kitchen, listening to another round of laughter from her husband and three children. In her phone were all the phone numbers of her patients, including Katrina. All she had to do was call her, ask her the name of her new boyfriend, and clear this up. Perhaps Katrina would say “Bobby,” “Alex,” or “Reggie,” and Ada could calm down. Or maybe she’d say “Peter” and laugh at her, and Ada’s entire life would blow up.
How did anyone handle the intricacies of adultery? Peter could barely remember to separate the whites from the darks in the laundry bins. Peter would have eaten crappy fast food every day of his life if it weren’t for Ada and her belief in nutrients and sitting down as a family for dinner. (And this, despite his work in orthodontics!) Without Ada, Peter wouldn’t have joined a gym; he wouldn’t have gone to the doctor when he had bronchitis; he wouldn’t have survived the past decades of his life.
How had he hidden his secret love from Ada?If it’s true, she thought.
Ada’s eyes filled with tears. Before she could stop herself, she rushed upstairs, scrambling for the little room where she still kept a piano and her old brochures from her days at the opera, plus the newspaper clippings that had called her a star. She had to call someone. When Quinn answered the phone, she did so on the fourth ring, with an air of disbelief in her voice. “Ada? Is that you? Did you mean to call?”
Ada couldn’t believe she’d reached out to Quinn. But who else in the world did she have? She stood in the center of her little “music room” and stared out the window and into the black night. “Hi, Quinny,” she said meekly. “Is this a bad time?”
“Um?” Quinn spoke to someone on her side of the phone. “It’s not great? It’s intermission. I’m getting my makeup done. But I saw your name, and I thought, you know. Why would Ada be calling? And I felt like I had to answer.”
Ada sniffed and sniffed. She could picture Quinn in her dressing room, her head tilted so that the makeup artist could smear her with red blush and charcoal. Once upon a time, it had been Ada in that chair, being done up. The people in the audience had been waiting for Ada, not Quinn.
“What would you do if you found out Geoff was cheating on you?” Ada asked.
Quinn sputtered. “I’m sure he is, darling. That’s how it is in this business. Don’t you remember? Nobody is faithful to anything but the stage.”
Ada closed her eyes tightly. Either the room was spinning or her head was.
“Where is this coming from?” Quinn asked. “Is the dentist cheating on you? Remember what we always said, honey. The normies come for you, and they take everything we are. They take how special we are, and they throw us aside when they’ve used us up.”
Had they always said that back in the old days? Ada could vaguely remember it, but the arrogance that filled it made it hardly make sense.
“If he’s cheating on you, cheat on him back! Keep your pride, and don’t let anyone knock you around,” Quinn said. “I have to go, my love. But let’s talk about this later, okay? I love you. Kisses.” She hung up and probably forgot all about Ada, alone in Nantucket.
