“I knew you were sentimental at heart,” I say, which is true. She always refused to go to movies with me because they made her cry, and she has a phobia about crying in public.
“It’s a job,” she says and swallows down half of a Palm Bay Preptini.
“Careful, champ,” I say. “There’s five kinds of rum in those.”
She flags down a waiter and motions for two more.
“Cheers,” she says, offering me one.
I accept it and take a sip. “Yum.”
“So what do you do?” she asks.
“Attorney. I’m a partner at a firm in Chicago.”
I will admit that I say this with pride. I graduated law school at twenty-three and made partner by twenty-eight, unprecedented at my firm.
“What kind of law do you practice?” she asks.
I’m less eager to tell her this detail. I know she’s not going to like it.
“Family law,” I say, as vaguely as possible.
Molly stares at me in what looks like true disbelief. “You’re a divorce attorney?”
She has a deep loathing for divorce attorneys. Justifiably.
But I try not to be like the ones who helped ruin her mother’s life when we were kids. I pride myself on helping couples break up humanely—or better yet, heal.
“Not entirely,” I say quickly, “I also handle prenups, mediation—”
Her lips crinkle into a menacing smile.
“That’s hilarious,” she says, without any mirth. “You were always such a hopeless romantic in high school.”
“You would know,” I say.
Her face turns the color of sand.
Whoops. I didn’t mean to go for the jugular so quickly.
I meant to draagggggg it out.
Her awkwardness pleases me, nevertheless.
Before I can engage her in further reminders of what she did to me in our youth, Marian comes to the table, flanked by her ex-high-school-boyfriend, Marcus; our French exchange student, Georgette; and Georgette’s plus one, an intimidatingly handsome man who looks bored in the way only a Parisian at a Florida high school reunion can.
“Aww, look at you two!” Marian cries, taking in me and Molly. “Like not a day’s gone by.” She turns and addresses the French guy. “These two used to be quite the amours.”
I throw an arm around Molly’s shoulders and squeeze the living daylights out of her. “Still are.”
Molly very subtly quivers with what might be disgust, or the chill of the ocean breeze, or a wave of nostalgic lust for me.
Okay, probably not the latter.
“Yeah, no,” she mutters.
The French guy extends his hand to Molly. “I’m Jean-Henri. Georgette’s husband.”
“I’m Molly,” she replies, shaking it. “Class bitch.”
CHAPTER 3 Molly
It’s difficult to pretend you’re unaffected by seeing someone you hurt deeply and never apologized to when your hands are shaking.
I put them under the table and hope Seth doesn’t notice.
Dezzie promised me he wouldn’t be here. In retrospect, Dezzie is the type of person who has no problem lying to get you to do what she thinks is good for you, and she thinks facing my anxieties is good for me.
But Dezzie is a pastry chef, not a therapist. Her psychological interventions often fall flat.
Meanwhile, Seth has gone back to acting as if absolutely nothing is wrong. As if I did not callously break up with him after four years of dating the night of our high school graduation. As if it wasn’t the night we had planned to lose our virginity, in a hotel suite he’d already filled with rose petals and four kinds of condoms, only to have me walk in, break his heart, and leave.
As if all that didn’t transpire in under five minutes.
If I know him—and who could say, since I ghosted him fifteen years ago and haven’t spoken to him since—he’s toying with me.
But that’s okay, I tell myself, trying to breathe normally. He deserves to.
