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“Based on what?”
“All the shame tends to look the same.”
Maggie looks at her, really looks at her, and then starts to speak. “I found out today that Nate’s family has quite a bit of money he never told me about. And that’s the best news I got.”
“What was the worst?”
“He’s been married before. He’s been married before to a woman he never even bothered to mention to me. And the woman is this incredibly sexy, tough woman with perfect arms who I went to see in person, because, you know, I didn’t feel bad enough already.”
Eve shakes her head. “Wow. Not a good day.”
“Not a great one, no.”
Eve puts a piece of prosciutto down and looks at Maggie. “How did you find all this out?”
She thinks back to early this morning, how it all started, stumbling on the statements that listed Nate’s name as Champ. Stumbling on what was the beginning of a very different story from the one she thought she knew about the person who mattered to her most—the person she thought she knew the most about.
“I could see that Nate was trying to tell me himself, but he couldn’t seem to get there. He couldn’t seem to . . . trust me.”
Eve is quiet in response. She is so quiet that Maggie can’t help but wonder what she is thinking about. Maybe something else entirely. Maybe her mind has drifted to her responsibilities— the party—to everything going as planned.
Then she starts to speak. “I know they must seem so huge right now,” she says. “The lies he has told you. All the things he has chosen to omit. But I’m thinking it’s not that simple.”
"What do you mean?”
Eve shrugs. “Well, there are two ways to look at this. The first is that Nate has lied to you about everything that is of any importance to who he is and how he has grown up, and what has mattered to him. His family, his money, his marriage. His first marriage, I mean. To this other woman.” She clears her throat. “But, the second option you have is to interpret it differently—”
“I’m not sure I’m following.”
“As really just one lie. That it is really just one lie you’re dealing with here. And Nate may have done it loudly, but it’s a lie we often tell ourselves, and the people closest to us.”
“Which is what?”
“I get to start over.”
Maggie stares at Eve, as she wonders if Eve understands more or less than she does.
“What?” Eve says. “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“I’m just wondering if you think that makes it okay? Withholding so much?”
“I think it just means that I understand. We all want that, don’t we? A chance to be new, to not be the people we wish we hadn’t been. The problem is that the faster you run from something, the harder it hits you when it catches up to you again.”
“Well, today definitely hit me hard,” Maggie says.
Eve nods. “It probably hit Nate a lot harder.”
Her pulse starts to race—to race with something like sadness, like impossible compassion. Not just for her, but for Nate. With how hard and desperately, all of a sudden, she understands he has been running. Maggie remembers when she left Asheville at seventeen, thinking she could be someone new. And maybe at different points, with new scenery and new people, she has felt new. Except, really, she is still herself. Same worries about staying present, committing, being still. Same desire to make things clean when they’re not. Same need to understand things as black and white, or avoid them altogether.
“Look, I’m not trying to make you more upset here. I understand what it feels like to have things going on that you don’t want to say out loud.”
“Like what?”
“Like I’m in love with someone who I shouldn’t be in love with. Like I’ve been complicit in letting him break up his family so we can give being together a real shot. Like I’ve encouraged him to do this.”
Maggie looks at Eve, trying not to judge. During college, she was seeing her TA, who lived with his girlfriend. Maggie didn’t know about the girlfriend when they started, but when she found out she didn’t leave him immediately either. She told herself, at the time, that it was his responsibility to stop it, to deal with his obligations. She knows now that it isn’t that simple. She believes now that it shouldn’t be.
“He’s leaving his wife for you?”
