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“Girls definitely develop faster than boys,” Brianne said. “I mean, Lance is a great kid, but he’s no Einstein.”
“Oh, but little boys are so cute,” Nicole said, her hand tracing wide circles on her stomach.
Kaitlin smiled at Heather across the long table for eight. “We should stop. All this talk about children is probably boring poor Heather to tears.”
“Yes,” Heather agreed, looking up from the tiny mirror secreted in the palm of her hand in time to see the other woman’s smile freeze on her face.
“Oh,” said Kaitlin.
“Did she just say we’re boring her?” Nicole asked Brianne.
“What?” said Heather, quickly returning the mirror to her purse. “I’m sorry. I must have misunderstood.”
“I was just saying that all this talk about children must be boring you to tears.”
“Oh,” Heather said. “Oh, no.Not at all. I’m sorry. I thought you said…It doesn’t matter,” she said, when she couldn’t think of anything. The truth was that she’d tuned the other women out somewhere between the salad and the entrees, numbed by the unrelenting onslaught of adorable anecdotes regarding their respective offspring. What was the matter with these women? Did they have nothing else to talk about?
She’d perked up momentarily when the name Tiffany was mentioned because she thought they were referring to the famed jewelry store, but it turned out they were talking about some girl whose body had turned up in a landfill recently, and mulling over the prospect of a serial killer in their midst.
“Please,” one of the women—she couldn’t remember which one—had interjected. “My mother says that if you’ve raised teenage daughters, serial killers are a walk in the park!”
They’d all laughed, and the conversation had quickly segued back to their children.
So boring.
Not that their husbands, who’d grouped around the other end of the table after ordering dessert, were any better, their conversation a mind-numbing combination of work, wine, and sports. She’d tried to feign interest in what they were saying, but they’d lost her somewhere between tort law and Tom Brady, although she’d perked up momentarily when the handsome quarterback’s name was mentioned.
In the end, she’d allowed her mind to drift, first imagining what the cute waiter pouring drinks at a nearby table would be like in bed, then on to her encounter with Chloe, which led to thoughts of Chloe’s husband, Matt, and whathehad been like in bed—which, truth to tell, hadn’t been all that great. Not that they’d actually made it to the bed.
Still.
How she’d love to have waved that little flag in front of Chloe’s smug little face!“Remember that housewarming party you threw when you moved to Binney Street?”Okay, so Matt had been drinking, and he and Chloe had obviously been fighting and were barely speaking to each other. Heather had gone upstairs to use the bathroom, and when she’d opened the door, Matt was standing there, and he’d shoved her back against the sink, kicked the door closed behind him, pushed her clothes aside, and pushed his way inside her.
The whole thing had taken less than two minutes. He’d barely looked at her, choosing instead to concentrate on his own reflection in the mirror above the sink. When he was done, he’d smiled—more at his image than at her— zipped up his fly, and returned to his other guests. Heather had pulled up her panties and lowered her dress, her thighs quivering, her back sore from being repeatedly slammed up against the hard enamel. She hadn’t heard Paige approach.
“What’s going on?” Paige asked.
Heather spun around. “What do you mean?” Had Paige seen Matt leave? Did she suspect what had happened?
“Are you all right?”
“I’m fine. Why?”
“I don’t know. You were just standing there, looking kind of…”
“I’m fine,” Heather repeated. She went back downstairs, hung around a while, then left the party early. Matt had waved a casual goodbye.
“What’s going on?” Noah asked now, suddenly at her side.
“What?”
“You were a million miles away. What were you thinking about?”
Heather shrugged, the surrounding restaurant coming back into focus. She heard the clatter of dishes, the hum of conversation, the sound of women laughing.
“I think we bored poor Heather to tears,” Kaitlin said, as she’d said earlier.
How long ago was that?Heather wondered, as Noah was explaining that he had an important meeting first thing in the morning and wanted to do some additional research before going to bed.
Which meant no sex. The end to a perfect day.
As soon as they got home, Noah sat down at the dining room table and buried his nose in his work. Heather washed her face, applied Clearasil to her offending blemish, climbed into bed, and watched back-to-back repeat episodes ofThe Millionaire Matchmaker,while scrolling through various dating sites on her phone. She wasn’t surprised to find Matt still on them. God, he was a handsome devil. “You’ve got some nerve,” she told his photograph, not without admiration. Noah, on the other hand, had turned into a crushing bore.
Had he always been so dull?
What had Paige seen in him, anyway?
She was tired of being bored—with Noah, with her job, with her life.
She glanced back at the phone in her hand. What she needed was a little excitement.
