Lilly tries not to roll her eyes. “It doesn’t matter,” she concedes. “The point is, she’s amazing and hilarious and successful, and he’s a total chump with exactly zero redeeming qualities.”
“Didn’t you say he was nominated for an Academy Award last year?”
“That is emphatically not the point!”
It comes out louder than she means for it to, and the merman enforcer looks over curiously; Nick shoots him a look that pretty clearly communicatesWomen, am I right, and Lilly briefly considers stabbing him with a fork. “Relax,” he says, patting her arm conciliatorily. “The heart wants what it wants, no?”
“Can I ask you something?” Lilly snaps, draining her wine in two big, unladylike gulps. “Has anyone, ever, in the history of the universe, been calmed down by someone telling them to relax?”
Nick’s cool-guy attitude falters then, just a little. “Easy,” he says, which is even worse thanrelaxas far as Lilly is concerned, but she doesn’t say so out loud. “I guess I just don’t understand why you’re getting so worked up about it, that’s all.”
“Because—because—” Lilly breaks off. She wants to tell Nick that Charlotte deserves a soul mate. She wants to tell him she’s tired of watching Colin get things he hasn’t earned. She wants to tell him that sometimes the gulf between how she knows things should be and how they actually are is enough to make her crazy, but she doesn’t know how to explain that to Nick, or to anyone else, really, so she’s left sitting at this table with an empty wineglass and enough potential energy roiling inside her to run clear out to the desert and back.
The server appears just then, setting dessert down in front of them: tiny, intricate ginger cakes topped with fresh whipped cream and edible flowers. “Forget it,” Lilly says finally, lifting her fork and taking a bite. She can tell objectively that it is very delicious. Still, it tastes like sand in her mouth.
***
She sticks around the restaurant until the last of the stragglers have finished their nightcaps, turning down Nick’s offer of one last drink at a bar he knows nearby. “Next time,” she promises, though if she’s being honest with herself the zing of excitement she felt when she thought about going back to his apartment has already fizzled, fading like a cheap pair of jeans. “I’ll text you.”
Once he’s gone she finds Charlotte cleaning up in the back, wiping down the prep station with a kitchen rag while Aretha Franklin wails on a little Bluetooth speaker and tonight’s featured chef packs up her knives. “Dinner was incredible,” Lilly says, reaching out and touching the woman’s arm; she can’t be more than twenty-two or twenty-three, her glossy dark hair in a thick rope down her back and her expression equal parts dazed and elated. “Whenever you open a place of your own, I’ll definitely be first in line.” She looks over at Charlotte, who’s scrubbing at a crusted patch of sauce on the industrial range like it’s personally offended her. “Can we talk?”
Charlotte exhales, dropping the rag on the counter. “Totally,” she says, washing her hands and leading Lilly back out into the dining room, untying her apron before sinking onto a stool at the bar. “Do you want to go first, or should I?”
“I mean, you should, right?” Lilly shrugs. “Explain yourself, et cetera.”
“Explainmyself?” Right away, Charlotte straightens up. “Lilly, I thought you stuck around so you could apologize.”
Lilly stares at her blankly. “For what?”
“Are you serious?” Charlotte laughs, though in truth she doesn’t sound particularly tickled. “For being a horror show at my place of business, to start with.”
Lilly thinks back on the scene in the hallway, considering the possibility. “To Colin, maybe,” she concedes after a moment. “Not to you.”
“Lilly!” Charlotte says, in a voice like maybe Lilly just isn’t paying attention. “Colin is my boyfriend.”
“Oh my god,” Lilly says, dropping her head into her hands, “please don’t say that.”
Charlotte sighs loudly. “Can you stop?”
“No!” Lilly fires back. She doesn’t understand what’s happening here; it feels like she’s talking to a stranger, not a person with whom she’s been sharing a stall in a public bathroom for the better part of a decade and a half. Charlotte and Colin? It’s like when June was hooking up with Pete Davidson, only worse. “Also, I’m sorry, he’s your boyfriend? Since when?”
“Since recently!”
“I mean, it would have to be pretty recent, since you literally just met five minutes ago.”
Charlotte rolls her eyes. “Weliterallymet at your high school graduation, Lilly. And again at your mom’s fiftieth, and another time at Kit’s wedding weekend, and then also in the ER after Junie’s Gatsby thing—”
“Okay fine,” Lilly interrupts, throwing her hands up. “Whatever.” She’s flailing, she can feel it, like she’s tripped at the top of a mountain and is scrabbling for purchase as she somersaults herinelegant way down. “You guys are childhood sweethearts and your love for him has been simmering in secret since puberty. That didn’t seem like something you wanted to mention to me?”
“No, actually! Because I knew you were going to react like this.”
“I’m reacting appropriately!”
“You’re reacting like a psycho!” Charlotte shakes her head. “Can I ask you something?” she says, then presses ahead before Lilly can respond. “Has it ever occurred to you that it’s possible your objections to Colin have a lot more to do with you than they do with him?”
“Of course it has,” Lilly says, feeling her face heat up. “And I can assure you, my objections to Colin are a direct result of twenty-eight years of tolerating his smarmy, entitled, largely talentless—”
“He’s not talentless, Lilly!” Charlotte shakes her head. “He’s not. He’s smart, and he’s kind, and he’s actually been really good to me so far, and I’ve gotta tell you, to the outside observer it sort of seems like maybe you’re jealous that he’s doing what he set out to do instead of hanging around his parents’ house waiting for something to happen—”
