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“That’s not even the worst part.” She licks her lips and pauses in time for our waiter to leave my lava cake and Rosalie’s dinner.
She pushes our drinks to the side and her plate of Alfredo into the center of the table. “We’re sharing this. You are not making me eat alone.”
“Never.” My smile is small, closed-lipped, and hopeless because I’m still waiting for her to tell me the worst part.
Her fork swirls around a thick noodle. “When the principal called me in to offer me the job, he asked if I’d be willing to accept it even with Margo and Robert now together. I was confused. I was certain that he was confused. I shook my head. I laughed. I accepted the job and told him he’d misunderstood the situation and there would be no problem. But when I left his office, the secretary looked at me. So did the kindergarten teacher standing in the hall. Suddenly everyone was looking at me.” She takes the bite she’s been swirling and lifts it to her lips. She chews, her face falling into a pleasant expression with the Alfredo in her mouth. Rosalie hums out a small “mmm” before continuing. “When I went home, I told Robert the whole story. He laughed with me.”
“He didn’t come clean? Not even then?”
“You’d think. If the man had any decency left inside of him, he might have confessed. But he didn’t. He let me turn down the other two job offers I’d been given. He let me accept the offer at Clark.”
“How did you find out then?” I say, my fork of Alfredo hovering, waiting for her next words. This is why Rosalie couldn’t accept my invitations. This is important.
“The following day, I told Margo the story, too. I couldn’t get those stares out of my head.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah. I guess she was tired of the charade. She told me everything. She also told me that everyone in school already knew—the principal, the secretaries, the teachers, the custodians. Everyone. I’m guessing even my students knew.” She sets her fork down and dabs at the corner of her lips with her cloth napkin. “See? Clueless.”
“He cost you a lot.”
“He did. But most of all, he cost me any and all confidence I might have had in myself. If I was clueless with Robert, then why wouldn’t I be clueless with you?” She squeezes her eyes shut. “I’m not saying you’d ever do anything like that, Zev. But I’m saying if you did, I’d be too blind, too clueless, too smitten to realize it before it ruined me.” A shaky breath falls from her chest. “This is why I don’t date.”
We sit, both of us staring at our hardly touched Alfredo. Both of us are quiet.
“I’m guessing this isn’t the first date you envisioned?” she says with a sniff, eyes on our noodles.
“You’re here,” I say, and she draws her gaze up to mine. “This is exactly what I wanted.”
Twenty-Nine
Present Day
What kind of person am I to just expect help without even asking first? To expect Zev to go on a date with me when that’s never been our kind of relationship?
Ugh. Zev is going to regret the day he ever spoke to me in the café.
I huff out a breath and pause in my living room, pacing—
“Oh, just text him already,” Grammy says, passing through from the kitchen to her bedroom.
I told her about my insane double date. Because I can’t tell Fran—she’d be livid—and I had to tell someone. So, yes, Grammy knows that my not-so-real boyfriend Zev and I are supposed to double with Robert and his very real wife.
How did I get myself into this situation? Robert I know—but Margo? She is a blank page. Someone who knows me, someone who supposedly betrayed me. No matter how I’ve tried, I can’t conjure a face for her. Or even one memory of her.
Just the thought sends my nerve endings into a panic.
In what world did I ever think this was a good idea? Am I really so desperate to see Robert? To move forward?
Apparently, I am.
While Grammy did not approve of this setup, she is glad the “redhead” is tagging along. I am, too. Zev may be the only thing keeping me together during this double date. That man calms my panic like a lullaby soothes a restless baby.
And except for the small detail that I haven’t asked him yet, I feel stronger just knowing he’ll be there.
That is if he agrees to go… there’s the minor problem that even though he doesn’t know Robert, he’s formed a very strong opinion on the man, and it’s not a positive one. He might not say yes. He might tell me I’m a masochist and he won’t support insanity.
Who would blame him?
