Per Savannah’s suggestion, Liv ordered the Uber to be five minutes late. “There’s nothing wrong with making Sam wait,” Savannah assured her. “To build up a bit of tension.”
Liv watched the black town car round the corner, the service her mother was convinced was a convoluted kidnapping racket. Perhaps Savannah used the five-minutes-late strategy with Eliot. The prospect didn’t make Liv as furious as she expected. She still loved Eliot, but she was no longer in love with him—ridiculous semantics she’d always pooh-poohed but now rang true.
Savannah mimed smiling, tapping both cheeks with her forefingers. “Bye!” She waved both arms above her head, as if Liv was leaving for life on a new continent. “Have fun!”
Liv stared back, feeling out of her depth. Savannah had approached the date like she approached everything: with fervor. Like she wanted to live vicariously. Had she met someone, too? Hopefully not. The business could only handle one love-distracted person, and right now that person was Liv. Savannah Shipley would do well to focus her drive and smarts on hitting another wedding out of the park. She was turning out to be quite a valuable asset.
Ten minutes later, Liv walked into a farm-to-table restaurant Sam had suggested. It was lively without being unbearably noisy, which was good: like neck tattoos and nail art, shouting to be heard in restaurants was something best left to Generation Z. A hefty wooden bar ran against one wall, while a few dozen tables were scattered over creaking floorboards. This place was new: Liv hadn’t even heard about it. The persistent evolution of the city regardless of her personal tragedy recalled the old Robert Frost quote: “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
“I’m meeting a friend,” she told the maître d’, just as she spotted Sam sitting at the bar, chatting to the bartender. He was dressed in dark jeans and a denim shirt rolled at the sleeves. Even dressed up for a date, he looked like the kind of man who could chop down a tree and build a table with it. Her pulse, at a steady trot while she got ready, began cantering freely, showing off with jumps and little kicks. She hadn’t felt this nervous in years. It recalled her early days of auditioning, hoping desperately to be picked from a sea of faces and invited to be someone else. But tonight she was auditioning as herself.
Liv placed her purse on the bar next to him.
Sensing movement, Sam flicked his gaze at her. And then turned back to his beer.
Was this what the kids meant by ghosting? “We did say Wednesday, didn’t we?”
Sam glanced back up. “Liv! Holy…” Disbelieving eyes raced from collarbone to calf. “I didn’t recognize you.”
And suddenly, the two-and-a-half hours of preparing and plucking and painting of color onto skin and nails were entirely worth it. Liv had been worried that putting herself into the hands of Savannah Shipley would result in a look more suited to a tequila-soaked bachelorette. But the dress Savannah pulled from the back of the closet was her Elan Behzadi: black silk with capped sleeves, V-neck, falling just below the knee.
“Oh, this dress.” Liv’s eyes had lit up. It’d been her go-to for art openings and the theater, things she and Eliot did every other week before Ben was born. Back when she was always on. “It can’t still fit me.” But it did.
Savannah had swept Liv’s hair back off her face, a bold look she’d never tried. But when paired with darkened eyebrows, a pinky-red lip, and just a hint of cream blush, she looked quite… chic. The only thing left was shoes. Liv was angling for black flats, even as she knew they weren’t entirely right. Savannah held up a tote bag. “I brought a pair of mine to try: we’re the same size. Just keep an open mind, okay?”
“All right.” Liv wanted to giggle, so she did.
With the panache of a game show host, Savannah presented a pair of patent leather, sunshine-yellow stilettos.
Liv had gasped. “They’re so pretty.”
“I know! Aren’t they fun?”
“Oh, I can’t wear these.” She slipped them on. Savannah was right: they were the exact same size.
“Whoa.” She wobbled toward the mirror. “Don’t know if I can walk in heels anymore.”
“You already are.”
Liv examined her reflection. It was like looking at an actress chosen to play the movie version of Olive Goldenhorn: someone thinner, younger, and a lot better-looking. She was certainly in need of a workout or twenty, but she definitely did not look shlubby. The black dress and sleek hairstyle was classy, but the heels made the whole look… fun. Even sexy. Not bad for almost fifty. “Are yellow heels age appropriate?”
“Liv,” Savannah had said seriously, “there’s no such thing as age appropriate. Wear whatever you want.”
Liv flicked her a suspicious look. “When did you get so wise?”
Savannah shrugged, brushing a bit of fluff off the dress. “Maybe when I started working for you.”
“With me,” Liv had corrected, adding a bangle. “We work together.” She busied herself with selecting a purse. But Liv did not miss the slow, thrilled smile that crept onto Savannah’s face. It wasn’t a smile she saw often, and it made Liv think, again, of Savannah’s courtship with her husband. The idea didn’t hurt her. Curiously, she felt aligned with Savannah, and the sense of mystery that came along with an exciting first.
Eliot was a question mark again: something to be turned over and reconsidered.
Now, Sam’s eyes lingered on Liv’s feet as they sat at a table by the window. “And I really like the shoes,” he murmured, almost to himself.
Liv permitted herself a grin. “Foot fetish?”
Sam spread the napkin over his lap. “Never too old to cultivate a new interest,” he said, and Liv laughed.
Two glasses of pale champagne appeared on the table, set by a woman with a buzz cut, who bowed elaborately. “On the house.”
Sam introduced her as Nico, one of the owners. Nico had two sleeves of tattoos and black-rimmed glasses: the look of those new Brooklyn chefs photographed laughing on cool cookbook covers. Generous, with a slightly wicked streak.
“I sous-chef here,” Sam explained, looking a little embarrassed. “But I told them not to make a fuss.”
“No fuss will be made,” Nico said, evidently enjoying making Sam squirm. “Just wanted to say hello.” She grinned and addressed Liv. “And tell you that this is a rare breed of man.”
Sam put his head into his hands.
“We all love Sam.” Nico indicated the bar where the maître d’ and bartender were pretending not to be watching them; caught, they both waggled their fingers in greeting. “He’s one of the good ones.”
Sam groaned. “This might’ve been a mistake.”
But Liv didn’t think it was. She thought it was cute. They ordered a selection of small plates, and when the champagne was drained, two glasses of a New Zealand sauvignon blanc. Even though it had been a good few decades since she’d been on a date, she still recalled alcohol as a primary component.
Their conversation was fluid, intimate; interesting. Formative years: Liv’s on the Upper East Side, Sam’s in coastal Maine. College: NYU, Berkeley. Childhood dreams: actress, firefighter.
“Firefighter?” Liv forked a salted peewee potato in her mouth. “I always had a thing for firefighters.”
Sam cocked an eyebrow. “Maybe I’ll have to ditch the cooking.”
It wasn’t until they were onto an ooey-gooey chocolatey dessert and glasses of exquisitely sweet port, the room emptying of patrons and Ella Fitzgerald crooning over the speakers, when the heavier stuff came up.
“We were married for fifteen years.” Sam’s eyes were soft and serious. Liv could tell this was a painful memory but not one he was going to burst into tears over. Eliot was a regular crier. Sam seemed like the once-a-year type.
Sam told her how they met at a friend’s potluck housewarming party when he was thirty-four and Claudia was twenty-five. He brought homemade pulled-pork sliders. She brought a bottle of prosecco and a bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos. Claudia—spin class junkie, people person, lover of salty snacks—was already a rising star in the marketing department of a youthful makeup brand. Which is where, years later, she met Anton—fellow department head, bowling league teammate, diehard Lakers fan… and the man she had an affair with for three years.
“Three years.” Liv didn’t intend to underline it. “Sorry. That’s just so…”
“Long,” Sam finished. “I know.”
“I was going to say cruel. My husband was cheating on me for six months, and I thought that was an eternity. And then of course, there was the will.”
“Will?”
Liv found herself opening up to Sam, divulging the nature of the Savannah, Eliot, Liv triangle.
He put his dessert fork down, looking shocked. “I’m amazed.”
“Affairs are amazing. In the less positive sense of the word.”
“No,” he amended. “I’m amazed you had the strength to put it behind you and work with Savannah, day-to-day. That must be taking incredible inner strength.”
Liv flushed with the compliment. “But three years. That must’ve destroyed you.”
“Maimed. Tortured. Possibly lost a limb. But I’m still standing. And it’s nothing like”—Sam paused—“I was going to say ‘losing her,’ but what I really mean is her dying.”
There was no handbook for talking about death. But at least Sam could say the words. Eliot was dead. That was a fact.
“I’ve been wondering,” Liv said. “What would’ve been less worse: Eliot dying or us having to deal with the affair. Of course, I’d do anything to bring him back, even if we weren’t together. For Ben, mostly. But sometimes—and I can’t believe I’m admitting this—I feel… relief that it happened. Because that choice was taken out of my hands.”
If Eliot hadn’t died and they’d had to deal with the affair, Liv would only have had her preconceived notion of being a scorned woman, a cuckolded wife, to deal with his betrayal. A role as calcified as their marriage had become. But because things happened in the weird way that they did, she’d come to see the incompatible side of her husband with fresher eyes. She met Sam’s gaze. The color of butterscotch pudding, focused entirely on her.
“So, here I am.”
“Dating.”
Liv screwed up her face. “Don’t say it.”
Sam chuckled. “Yeah, it’s a bit of a blood sport. Most women don’t want to date a guy with a kid.”
Liv finished the last bite of dessert. “I think most women just don’t want to get treated like an idiot.” She thought for a second. “Or raped.”
Sam choked. “Did you just say rape on our first date?”
Liv pushed the empty plate aside. “Okay. Here’s what you should know about me. I don’t suffer fools. I work all the time. I love my kid, and I will murder anyone who touches so much as a hair on his head. I don’t like women who speak in baby voices or men who think their dicks are some sort of passport to power or respect. And because women have been treated like second-class citizens since the dawn of time, yes, I will acknowledge the existence of rape.” She sat back in her chair. “So. Are we done?”
Sam chuckled, unfazed. “On the contrary.” He flagged their server down and ordered another round of port. “We’re just getting started.”