“I don’t even know what to say,” I tell her, rubbing my eyes. I feel gross all over again just thinking about it, and part of me wishes I hadn’t called.
“Are you guys okay?”
“We are now. We talked it out this morning.”
“This morning?” She groans.
“I stayed at Jeff and Robert’s last night.”
She makes a little squeaking sound of terror. “Holls. Was Calvin pissed?”
“What do you think?”
“Were you?”
I bark out an irritated laugh. “Lulu, be serious. You made me sound like a total freak.”
Calvin leans forward when I say this, resting his lips on the side of my neck. I reach back with my free hand, sliding my fingers into his hair.
“What can I do?” she whines.
The simple fact is that something was damaged that night—things have been chipped away for a few weeks now—and I’m not sure we can go back to the way things were. I know Calvin can hear her, too, and so I look over my shoulder at him. He shrugs.
“Anything,” she says. “I want to make it up to you.”
“Don’t be rude and obnoxious with us anymore.”
She lets out a hoarse laugh; I can practically hear the hangover in it. “I know. I think I’m just thrown by this marriage thing. You used to be my person.”
It’s true. I was there whenever she needed someone to go to a show with, a bar, a concert. But I was also her fallback when she didn’t have a steady plus-one for her Groupon adventures, and it’s been our dynamic ever since I can remember: I’ve always been there for Lulu.
“Things with Calvin are good,” I say quietly. “I get why it would be weird for you that I’m not totally, one hundred percent available anymore, but I’m really happy, and I feel like you’re not happy for me.”
He pulls me back to the couch with a warm arm wrapped around my chest, palm to my breast.
“I totally get what you’re saying,” she says. It’s painful to hear her grovel; I’ve never made her do it before. “I want you to see me being supportive! I swear I can.”
“Well . . .” I say, and laugh. I can feel Calvin’s smile against my neck.
“Maybe I can book you a romantic dinner at Blue Hill?”
This trips an idea in me, and I lean forward, thinking. Calvin’s birthday is in a few weeks, and I’ve already planned for his mom and sister to fly out and surprise him, but Blue Hill is a great restaurant, and Lulu could get us a great table, for sure. Something a little more private to celebrate his birthday wouldn’t hurt, would it?
I stand in front of a table at Blue Hill, Lulu at my side. After hugging me for a solid five minutes and promising to never be such a jerk again, she took me to the back of the restaurant and showed me the site she had in mind for my plan—my crazy, crazy plan.
The booth is in the deepest corner; it’s a table big enough to seat at least four, but she’s promised to keep it free just for us. Tilting my head, I check to see how much floor is visible. The top cloth comes down only about a foot from the table, but the lower one nearly sweeps the floor.
“You’re sure it would work?” I press my fist to my diaphragm, willing my nerves to chill. The dinner in question is still two weeks away, but I feel like Calvin is about to walk in here any second.
All around us, Lulu’s fellow waitstaff carry trays of flatware and napkins, setting tables, completely oblivious to our little plan.
She bounces a little beside me. “Totally sure.”
My heart beats my blood into a frenzy. I’ve never done anything this insane.
Well, except marrying a stranger. And then lying about it to a government official.
“Are you really going to do it?” she asks, thrilled. “This is the best idea, ever.”
I swallow the panic in my throat. If Lulu thinks it’s a good idea, I’ve definitely lost my mind. “I’m going to do it.”
Two weeks and one day later, I’m back at Blue Hill, at exactly 4:50 in the afternoon. Dinner service begins at five, Calvin will be here at six, and this gives me plenty of time before the crowds roll in.
I brought a book and my phone, and am wearing a dress whose manufacturer has assured me it is wrinkle free. Now I have to wait.
Every second leading up to now, it seemed like a fantastic idea. It was daring, and adventurous, and something we’d remember forever. Lulu will get Calvin to the table, under the assumption that he’s still waiting for me to arrive, and boom, surprise of a lifetime. It’s his birthday in three days, and what better way to celebrate turning twenty-eight than with some surprise oral sex in a fancy restaurant?
I was confident right up until the moment Lulu led me to where I’d be hiding. But now that I’m under here, hearing diners come in and be seated only feet away, feeling mildly uncertain about the cleanliness of the underside of the table, hoping that nobody can see my feet and that this is what Calvin meant when he said he thinks about doing this somewhere while nobody knows . . . this seems like a pretty insane idea. And by insane, I mean terrible. It was one thing to imagine this, quite another attempting to carry it out.
The problem is . . . I’m stuck.
I pull my book from my bag, and realize it’s too dark to read. I don’t want to risk the light from my phone bleeding out through the tablecloth, so I don’t use that, either.
Time inches forward. Food smells seem to seep beneath the table and get trapped here. I’m sure that under normal circumstances it would smell amazing, but I’m really not this person—a sexually adventurous law breaker—so my appetite has vanished and apprehension now seems to live permanently in my throat.
Lulu’s signal that Calvin is here is a knock on the tabletop as she passes on her way to greet him, and when it comes—after I’ve been sitting here for seven years—it is a single sharp rap without any other warning. I startle upright—well, not really, because my legs are asleep—nearly breathless with an indescribable mixture of relief and nerves. But I hear feet returning, and another more tentative knock on the table just above my head.
“She’s going to be so surprised to see all three of you!” Lulu yells.
What?
“It’s her birthday, too,” Calvin says. “Well, almost.”
And then I hear it: Robert’s deep rumbling laugh.
My stomach drops through the floor. Oh, fuck.
Oh fuckfuckfuck.
I can barely see anything—only the shadows of several pairs of shoes.
“Calvin, why don’t you sit on this side over here so she can see you when she walks in?” Lulu says, knocking a hand on the right side of the table.
I quickly scurry over there. My legs are pins and needles and I am going to vomit all over this place.
Calvin slides in, colliding with my shoulder. I muffle a gasp and he lets out a surprised “Oh my Christ!” before Lulu jumps in.
“Good!” she cries, voice shrill, and I can imagine her distracting him, giving him a meaningful look and miming my location like an insane person, when she says, “Now you’ll see her when she comes in.”
“Oh,” he says, on a quiet exhale. “Ohhhh.” His hand grapples beneath the table, finding my shoulder, my face. And then I hear him let out a quiet laugh of disbelief and a whispered “What in the world . . . ?”
“Robert and Jeff,” Lulu calls, loud enough for me to hear, “let me take your coats.”
There’s some commotion and then Calvin bends down, his voice suddenly close. “What in the bloody hell are you doing?”
“I was going to surprise you with a blow job!” I whisper-yell.
“Oh my fuck. I was going to surprise—heeeeey.” He sits back up, and spreads his legs a little so I can shimmy closer as Robert and Jeff slide into the booth.
Robert’s knee is less than six inches from my arm. Oh my God, this is a disaster. Why didn’t Lulu take them on a tour of the . . . room or something? Why didn’t she seat them somewhere else?
The only saving grace her
e is the enormous booth. I curl my knees up, leaning into Calvin’s hand when he slides it reassuringly beneath the table. As carefully as I can, I pull my phone out, quickly dim my screen, and open my texts.
Lulu has already texted me.
What the fuuuuuuuuuuuck?
Why did you seat them???
There aren’t other tables, and Calvin knew you’d made a reservation. Fuck I screwed up. I’VE NEVER DONE THIS SORT OF THING BEFORE AND I PANICKED
WHAT AM I GOING TO DO???
It’s hot under here and I’m starting to feel a little dizzy—am I just rebreathing the same air and possibly suffocating?
Just climb out, what are they going to say?
I close my eyes, banging my head silently against Calvin’s knee.
“Where is she?” Robert asks, and within a few seconds, another text pops up on my screen from him.
Where are you?
Running late. Go ahead and order.
“She said she’s running late,” Robert tells them. “Should we order for her?”
“I imagine she’d like the venison sausage,” Calvin says. I pinch his leg and he coughs, reaching down and grabbing my boob.
“She doesn’t like venison,” Jeff mutters absently.
“No,” Robert argues, “it’s elk she doesn’t like.”
“I’ll ask her,” Calvin says, and soon another text pops up on my screen.
Would you like the venison or the grass-fed lamb? Also, I am going to fuck you so hard later. You are a hero to men for even thinking of doing this.
The lamb. Should I just come out?
I think that would be bloody fantastic
Should I warn them?
Above the table, Calvin laughs.
“What?” Jeff asks. I imagine him looking up from the menu, lowering his reading glasses and gazing innocently at Calvin across the table.
“I think you’ll see in a minute.” I can hear his grin when he puts the saucy emphasis on tink.
Jeff’s legs twist slightly, as if he’s turning to look behind him at the door to the street. “Is she here?”
I sigh, texting him and Robert in a shared window.
I’m already here.
Where? I don’t see you. We’re in the back booth.
Fuck.
Fuck.
I’m under the table.
“What the hell?” Jeff bends, lifting the tablecloth. His eyes go saucer-wide when he sees me, and Calvin bursts out laughing.
With a groan, I climb out, sliding onto the curved booth between Robert and Calvin. “I was going to surprise him! I didn’t know you’d be coming along.”
“Surprise—? Oh my God.” Jeff bends, putting his forehead to his palm. “Holland.”
I hold up my hand and stare with great intensity at the menu. “I don’t ever want to discuss this again.”
“I should honestly never try to do something sexy and impulsive.”
Calvin pulls me down onto the bed, digging tickling fingers into my sides. “I will never forget this.”
“Blow job fail.”
“It’s a very good reason for a blow job to fail. I would have had a hard time performing, I fear.”
I groan. “I can’t even contemplate that.”
He laughs into my stomach, kissing as he pushes up my shirt. “It was a nice thought for a birthday gift.”
“There are more surprises to come.”
And no matter how hard he tries to get the secret out of me—no matter how much he makes good on the promise to fuck me hard in gratitude—I hold strong.
twenty-five
I remember coming to New York for the first time at sixteen to visit Robert and Jeff. I landed at the airport, and although Jeff had planned to meet me at JFK, he was held up with some work emergency, and instead texted me directions to the AirTrain, and then the subway, and then the walk to their apartment, where he would meet me.
It sounded simple, but that was before I had the true scale of New York bearing down on my Des Moines naiveté. It wasn’t just the number of people and the number of signs, it was the noise. I felt like a bubble trying to push my way to the top of a carbonated bottle.
And even though New York seems almost comically easy to navigate now, I remember that feeling of complete disorientation as I head out of the apartment. I’ve fooled Calvin into thinking I have a gynecological exam in some mysterious region of Manhattan, and, no, I do not need him to accompany me—because really I am going to meet his mother and sister at the airport.
Nerves are a funny thing. I thought I was nervous at our wedding. And then, no, I realized that had nothing on the jitters of his first rehearsal. But that was swallowed whole by the whale shark of my restlessness during the immigration interview, and—later—on the Night of the Failed Birthday Blow Job. All of that feels like a tiny dot on the horizon compared to my anxiety today.
Despite our many texts, Brigid and I have never spoken. And after our plan to bring her and Marina out here took root, our interactions became pretty transactional, in part because I warned her that Calvin is highly casual about phone privacy—both mine and his. He’ll have me read emails to him while he plays, or answer a text if his hands are full unloading groceries. And although I don’t think he ever intends to be nosy, he’ll often inform me when Lulu or Robert or Jeff has texted or called, asking me if I want him to read it aloud. And usually, why not? I have nothing to hide.
Except this visit, which we are all determined to keep a surprise.
I admit I’m nervous as hell. I’m meeting my mother-in-law. I’m meeting my sister-in-law. These people are technically family, and what if they take one look at me and I’m nothing like what they’d hoped for him?
Calvin is so open and easy to talk to; normally I would let loose all my thoughts about this visit with him. Obviously, that’s not really possible here. And I can’t trust Lulu to keep her trap shut, Robert is composing a new show with a writer friend of his and is completely unavailable, and Jeff has listened to my concerns but what can he say? Don’t worry, you’re perfect?
What does Calvin’s family know about me? What has he told them?
I’m so distracted wondering what they’ll expect, what they’ll assume, what they’ll want to see in his wife—that when a subway car jerks along a bend I make a rookie mistake and lose my footing, sliding roughly into the door.
A man helps me, pulling me upright again. “Hold on to the bar here, honey.”
It is on the tip of my tongue to tell him that I live here, and I’m just nervous about meeting my in-laws, but he doesn’t fucking care—and neither do my thoughts, which are back on a wild bender, buzzing around.
I wait outside of international arrivals, hoping I’ll recognize the two women I’ve seen only in photographs. From what I can tell, of all Calvin’s siblings, Brigid looks the most like him, and it’s true in person, too—the second she walks around the bend into the terminal, I know it’s her. She has the same thick, light brown hair, the same olive skin, the same crinkly-eyed smile when she sees me. Marina is right behind her, and cries out when she follows where Brigid points in my direction, clapping a hand over her mouth.
They run, throwing their arms around me, and I feel the moment Marina breaks down and starts crying.
“Aw, Mum.” Brigid laughs as she pulls her mom into a hug. “We’ve just been so excited,” she explains over the top of Marina’s head. “We haven’t seen Calvin in four years.”
Marina is tiny but has the appearance of being unmovable and ageless. “You have no idea,” she says, pulling away and wiping her eyes. “And we’ve wanted to meet you for ages. We were excited thinking the two of you might come home at Christmas, and then it fell through.”
What a curious thing to say. I smile, returning their individual hugs and guiding them out of the terminal with a stunned numbness.
Does she mean this upcoming Christmas? It didn’t sound like that.
I’m trying to answer their questions and ask my own, but
her words are pinging around in my ears, unwilling to move aside and let other things in.
We make small talk, about the weather, about the flight, about the food that was served, but in the background, the high-pitched voice needles me.
She’s wanted to meet me for ages? It’s April 8; I met Calvin officially just over three months ago.
We load up their bags into a cab. “Forty-Seventh and Eighth,” I tell the driver.
We pull away from the curb, and Marina takes my hand. “You look different in your recent photos than the early ones we got.”
The early ones?
My stomach tightens again. “I do?”
“Your hair’s lighter than it was when you first met in school.”
Something is very, very wrong . . .
I pat my hair, plucking a lie from the chaos of my brain. “Yeah, I lightened it a little since then.”
I have never colored my hair.
“Amanda?” Brigid says. “Amanda.” She reaches around her mother in the middle seat and taps my arm. “Amanda, love, is that the Empire State Building?”
She means me.
She’s talking to me.
In all of our texts, not once did she ever need to use my name. She doesn’t know me as Holland. Apparently she knows me as Amanda.
Who the fuck is Amanda?
I am worried I’m going to lose my breakfast in the back of this taxi. “Yes, that, um . . .” I nod to where she’s looking. “That’s it, over there.”
The refrain I put on a loop in my head is to not assume anything until I’ve spoken to Calvin. My first Hail Mary was hoping I picked up the wrong Irish family from the airport, but when they started rattling on in the taxi about being so proud of Calvin, and unable to believe that he was really playing with the orchestra for Possessed, I was pretty sure that wasn’t the case.
Don’t assume anything, I tell myself, walking up to the apartment building. Don’t freak out.
“He’s here?” Brigid asks in an excited whisper. “He’s upstairs, in your flat?”
“He should be,” I tell her over my shoulder. “He doesn’t head to the theater until around five.”