Janey stands on a wooden platform in front of three angled mirrors, twisting so she can see how the dress looks from the back. There are a hundred little covered buttons running up her spine. The silk straps are too long for her. They wilt off her shoulders. The attendant nips them with two pinched fingers. We can fix those, she says. Don’t worry about the straps.
Janey catches my eye in the centre mirror. You’re supposed to cry when you see me try it on, she says. That’s how I’ll know it’s the right one.
I turn my head sideways and blink a few times.
Stop faking it, Janey says.
Let’s try it with the veil, the attendant says, then rustles off.
When we’re alone in the dressing room, I say, You’re joking, right?
Janey looks at her reflection. Yes, she says, talking to the mirror, I’m joking. She pokes one foot out from under the hem, holding her skirt, pointing her toes like a dancer. A long white thread hangs from the seam of the bodice. I want to tug at it, but I’m afraid it might make the whole dress unravel.
I like it, I tell her. It’s simple. Classic.
Janey reaches into the front of the dress and lifts her left breast so it rests properly in the cup. Then she shimmies both breasts closer together to make more cleavage.
All brides think they have simple gowns, she says. Ask anyone who’s been married. She’ll say, My dress was very simple.
I watch Janey’s reflection. It’s like I’ve been watching her in a mirror ever since the engagement. My response wavers like a needle on a polygraph: dopey joy, strange feeling of dread. I have always felt suspicious of weddings. But I’m her maid of honour. There are these shots of anxiety in my chest that I can’t explain.
This isn’t a simple dress, Janey says to me in the mirror. The buttons alone make it complicated.
Janey and Milt were going to have a potluck at the YMCA Community Room. The plan was: a simple wraparound skirt and whatever flowers were in season. Milt’s band would play after they said their vows. But then Janey booked a priest at St. Anthony’s and talked Milt into platinum wedding bands. Milt is a high school teacher trying to save up for a used Toyota, and Janey hasn’t even found herself a job yet. Something from Birks, she told him. We should have something in a little blue box. These are the rituals we have in North America.
Three weeks later, back at my place, Janey sits in the living room playing with her pack of cigarettes, trying not to smoke them. She has something to say. I’m in the kitchen breaking garlic cloves apart, arranging them on the tray for the toaster oven. I’m charring red peppers in the big oven. I’ve placed a bowl of fat green olives on the table, and a loaf of Calabrese bread with my good knife stuck in it. Milt and his sister are coming over in about an hour. I’m making dinner for all of us tonight. Except David. I haven’t seen him since he moved out of our apartment six weeks ago. What’s the rule about getting over a breakup? Does it take twice as much time as the length of the relationship, or half as much time? It has to be half. I can’t spend ten years feeling like this.
My cat, Timotei, slinks around the corner and sticks her chin up at me. She smells the olives. When she was a kitten, I would find her on the pantry shelf licking the cap from the olive oil bottle. David trained her to stop that with a blue plastic water pistol. She’d never jump on the shelf now. But she still loves olives. I pinch one from the dish, pop it in my mouth, and bend down to let her lick my outstretched finger. Her tongue is pink and serrated.
The school just asked Milt to be the wrestling coach. Janey says he’s excited. Deep inside the heart of every man, she told me, there is a boy who loves to wrestle. But I just can’t picture it. I keep thinking of Milt yelling at a pile of boys squatting and wriggling over each other in the gymnasium. Then I think of Milt playing mandolin at the Teahouse Café every Friday night. David would tell me that people contradict themselves, that this is what makes us human, and that I have to learn to tolerate it. And he’s right. I should enjoy our contradictions. I slip the tray of garlic cloves into the little oven and turn the knob to max.
David forgot a whole case of his special Chianti when he moved out. It’s a vintage he ordered direct from Italy from Wine Online. He hoarded the wine for so long, waiting for an occasion that was special enough to drink it. And then, impossibly, he abandoned it. Sometimes, despite myself—usually late at night when I can’t sleep and my spirit is weak—I’ll open the cabinet door just to look at the twelve dark, moody bottles.
When I invited him to come to dinner tonight, he said, You know that’s a bad idea, Bonnie. But David should be here tonight, he really should. I mean, for Janey and Milt.
I ceremoniously take the middle one out of the top row. The label is gold, like the inside wrapper of a good bar of chocolate. An embossed image of an old castle. Too ostentatious for my taste. This wine is ten years old already.
Bonnie, come in here and keep me company, Janey calls to me.
I pull the cork with my eyes closed like I’m making a wish.
Everything’s done, I say, coming out with two glasses.
She’s stretched out on the couch, barefoot. When did they say they’d get here?
We have lots of time, I say. I find myself a spot on the floor. Now, you tell me.
She reaches for the wine. First, you have to promise.
There’s a collection of cat hair underneath the couch. I don’t usually see the couch from this angle. I resist the urge to get up and vacuum before Milt and his sister get here.
Becky makes me nervous, I say. Does she seem uptight to you?
Becky was raised by her grandmother, she tells me. But she’s fine.
Who raised Milt?
Janey curls her toes over the arm of the couch. His dad came back when he was a kid, she says. But his grandmother took care of him too, I guess. Still lying down, she twists her hair with one finger and holds her wine in the other hand. The glass teeters and I’m afraid she’s going to spill it.
You’re lucky that Milt is so laid-back, I say. David could be so uptight.
Janey says, I saw David last night. He’s still uptight.
I watch Janey’s wineglass. Where? I try to sound nonchalant.
Do you really want to hear this? Janey says. Should I be telling you this?
Was he with someone?
He was with us.
Timotei has coiled herself around the corner and into the living room. She finds me on the floor and dives headfirst into the carpet at my feet, then wriggles onto her back, asking for a rub.
I’m fine, I say, though I feel a lick of fear in my belly. The truth is that I’m relieved to not be with David anymore. I didn’t trust him when he lived with me. But the problem is, now he’s gone and I still don’t trust him. I know it’s none of my business whom he’s drinking with at Legends. I know I have to let go.
Tell me the story, I say to Janey.
Well, you know how Legends is so awful, Janey says. I mean, I won’t even drink anything out of a glass there. Have you ever held a Legends glass up to the light? So poor David, he’s trying to order a nice glass of wine. Who drinks wine at Legends? I kept telling him, Just get a beer, just get a beer.
She laughs and takes a sip of the Chianti. Now this is nice wine, she says.
It’s David’s, I tell her. He forgot about a case of this in the closet when he left.
It’s quiet for a minute. The red peppers sizzle in the oven. I rub my hand over Timotei’s belly, those little pink nubs buried in silver fur.
What did you want me to promise? I ask.
That you’ll always be my best friend, she says.
I’ve missed my chance. Whatever it was, she’s not going to tell me now. I brought a kind of cancer into our conversation by saying the words when he left. But the air around Janey still shimmers. She looks like she’s just fallen in love.
Are you whitening your teeth? I ask.
Janey sits up on the couch, sets her wineglass down on the coffee table, and stares at me. Her skin smooth and holy like scrubbed stone.
To make her laugh again, I say, You’re not screwing around with anyone, are you?
She puts her hand up to her mouth. I can’t believe it, she says. Why would you ask me that?
Janey is still wearing that silver bracelet with the hummingbird engraved in the band. It’s a Haida design. I found it for her in Vancouver, before we ever met these men. I gave it to her as a coming-off-antidepressants gift. She went off the Paxil too quickly, though, and relapsed into an even worse depression soon after I gave it to her.
I moved into her little West End apartment with the Murphy bed that I pushed back into the wall each morning. We smoked Nat Shermans out on the fire escape and listened to Buddhist meditation tapes. When a thought appears in your mind, the monk told us, imagine it as a soap bubble, and push it away with a feather.
I used a small scalpel blade to shave tiny piles of powder from the blue pills, measuring minuscule amounts so she could come off gradually. It took over a month, but she hasn’t been on them since, as far as I know. Not counting the occasional Xanax before bed, or Ativan for the plane.
I was just joking, I say to her. I focus on her wrist when I say this. I wasn’t seriously suggesting it.
The bones in Janey’s wrists are very fine. There are pale blue veins just under the surface. Janey has always looked lovely in blue. It occurs to me that this could be because of her thin skin.
It’s not obvious, then? she asks.
I look up at her.
I told him that it had to stop, she says. She drops her hand to my ponytail and loosens the elastic. Let me play with your hair. When was the last time someone played with your hair?
She sifts strands of my hair through her fingers. My shoulders have been perched up around my ears all day. Her nails trace fine lines through my roots, like the long toothpicks they used to check for lice in grade school. I close my eyes, absorb the shiver.
Wait, I say. You still want to get married, right?
Yes. Of course. He was—This wasn’t like that. It was just something I needed to do before the wedding.
I love Milt, I say. Milt is good.
Milt is good, she agrees.
The wineglass feels cool in my hand. I’m surprised by Janey’s affair, but not shocked. She’s been so remote. I want to press her for details, but I’m cautious.
We assume love is singular, Janey says. She’s making a braid now. That it’s exclusive. Why do we do that?
Chemistry, I tell her. It’s chemistry you’re talking about.
Maybe, she says. Maybe chemistry regulates love.
Love is a decision, I say.
If love is a decision, and there’s no magic meant-to-be, then it’s just arbitrary, isn’t it? We could just be with anyone.
I pull away from Janey’s hands. I stand up and look at her. She’s sitting cross-legged on the couch, the way we used to sit when we were meditating.
Do you love this guy? I ask.
She puts her hands to her face. I think so, she says. Bonnie, I feel a little out of control.
And I can see it there inside her, the squirm of serotonin, the flush in her cheeks. I cross my arms and nod my head, aware that it makes me look more judgmental than I actually feel. Well this explains it, then, I say. The white dress. The platinum wedding bands.
I was always going to be an ironic bride, Janey says.
I manage to say, You look great, Milt, and hold my cheek up when he gives me a kiss in the doorway. He has showered recently, and I smell something herbal when he comes close, like rosemary, or marijuana. Behind him, Becky gives my hallway an appraising look.
Thanks for doing this, Milt says.
It’s my pleasure, I say. I’m so happy you’re here.
No, I mean, we appreciate what you’re doing tonight.
Oh, it’s nothing, I say, flinging my hand. I love this, I love having you. I can’t look into Milt’s open face for longer than a couple of seconds. His big eyes, his wide mouth. When he smiles, it’s like he’s throwing open a set of double doors so you can step out onto the veranda.
It smells wonderful in here, Becky says to me. She’s wearing a gold Thai silk scarf. It makes her hazel eyes look yellow.
It’s the garlic, I tell her, and run into the kitchen.
Is she okay? I hear Becky ask Janey. I don’t hear the reply, because as soon as I reach the kitchen, something explodes inside the toaster oven.
I come back out, unharmed, with glasses of Chianti for Becky and Milt.
One of my garlics popped, I tell them. I try to say this calmly, but I don’t know if I pull it off. I hand them each a glass. I was roasting garlic, I add, unnecessarily.
You’re supposed to wrap the whole bulb in tinfoil, Becky tells me. To protect the cloves.
Aha, I murmur into my glass.
Becky is an installation artist. Her last show involved fibre optic cables and old letters from her great-grandparents. I think she wove the wires through the letters, making some kind of light-blanket. Janey told me that Becky is an extraordinary grant writer. She’s shown her work in Berlin and New York City. I wish I knew more about her work. I should have Googled her before she arrived.
Janey holds on to Milt’s arm like it’s a tree trunk.
God, you’re beautiful, he says. Bonnie, isn’t Janey beautiful?
She’s gorgeous, I say.
Janey covers her face with one hand. Stop it, she says. You guys.
Becky goes into the kitchen to inspect the damage for herself. She’ll see my mess: The cutting board with the core of red pepper on it, all the seeds. Papery skins from the garlic bulbs, fragrant and unmanageable.
Please, I say to Milt. Have something to eat.
Janey pulls him to the table and slips an olive into his mouth. He nips at her fingertips with his teeth like a goat at the petting zoo, making her squeal and pull away, feigning injury with a pout.
Becky comes out of the kitchen and goes straight to the bread on the table. I found a marvellous balsamic at Olivieri’s last week, she tells me. She tugs at the knife to pull it out. Aged, she murmurs. It pours like a syrup.
I like Olivieri’s, I say, and try to think of a good reason for saying this. I add: Their cheeses.
Don’t you just? she responds, ripping a small piece of bread off the loaf.
I’ve forgotten to put on music. The sound of everyone eating and swallowing. There’s a smudge of flour on the corner of Becky’s mouth.
Is this levain bread? she asks. It has a perfect crumb.
I have a compilation disc that I know Janey likes. I go to the bookshelf by the window to find the CD, but Milt beats me to it. He pulls my stereo out from the wall so he can see the cords in the back. With two gentle yanks, he disconnects my speakers. Then he attaches another cord—this one connected to his cellphone. His index finger touches the screen and the device makes clicking insect noises as he looks for what he wants. He chooses an old Miles Davis album.
David bought the same album for me years ago. It sounds like our first apartment. It was so drafty we had to buy sheets of plastic for the storm windows and seal them to the edges with a hair dryer. Then Timotei sliced the plastic with her claws three days after we put it up. David tried to fix the cuts instead of buying another package of plastic sheeting. As though Scotch tape could keep the draft out.
He’s obsessed with his new toy, Janey says. It knows how to tell you what music is playing, anywhere you hear music. You hold it up in a bar, it listens, and then it tells you what the song is, what album, everything. Press a button and you can buy the song, right there. She’s back on the couch, sitting up straight, finger combing her hair. Milt, can you put something else on?
Becky has moved over to the olives. I scan the table quickly to see if I’ve remembered to put out a dish for the pits, which I have. I zip into the kitchen to check on the sauce.
Becky follows me. Do you mind if I have a taste? she asks. She’s come prepared, with a crust of bread in her hand.
I nod to the saucepan on the stove. Tell me what you think.
She lifts the lid and moves to avoid the steam, then pokes her face in. Mmm, she says, and dips in a corner of bread. I’ve laced the sauce with red wine and baby clams. I’ve tied a bunch of thyme together with string, it’s been in there all afternoon.
Nice and herby, she says. Bonnie—can I ask you?
It’s thyme, I tell her.
She looks at me intently, her forehead wrinkled. I can tell that she’s misunderstood my response. Her lipstick has worn off. There’s a plum-coloured line left on her top lip, drawn carefully, the top of a heart.
I don’t want to have this conversation. I turn away from her and look for something to stir the sauce. I think this is just about ready, I say.
The sauce makes little bubbles of itself and each one splatters with a breathy pop. The stovetop is sprinkled with drops of sauce. It’s been simmering for a long time.
I turn off the heat. Becky is quiet, watching me.
Then she asks, What do you think Janey wants?
This surprises me. I thought it was obvious: Janey wants to be married. She wants to have a job that makes her happy and a house of her own. She wants a husband who’s not afraid to kiss her in public, who will volunteer to light the barbecue and fix the plugged drain. Soon she will want to have a baby.
Janey wants to be loved, I say. Just like we all do.
Becky nods slowly, still looking down at the saucepan. You understand that I’m simply concerned about Milton. He’s more sensitive than he lets on.
I fill a second pot with water and sprinkle some salt in it, turn the burner up to high and look on the counter for the lid.
They’re getting married because they love each other, I say.
I would hate to see him get hurt, Becky says.
I can’t find the lid. The water will never boil without it. I find a plate and rest it on top of the pot instead. The salad is ready. We can just start with salad.
Janey has a good heart, I tell her. Nobody’s going to get hurt. I try to smile. I reach for the salad bowl and hold it with both hands. Do you mind bringing in the pepper mill? I motion to the wooden club standing beside the toaster oven.
Listen to me. Becky moves her body so it blocks my passage to the living room. She’s had her eyebrows shaped into two isosceles triangles. Her face is like an arrow pointing right through me.
She says, Your good-hearted Janey told my little brother that he had to spend three thousand dollars on each wedding band. Don’t try to tell me this is simply about love.
I exhale. Okay, I tell her, I don’t know what’s going on with Janey. It looks like she caught the wedding bug. I haven’t been able to talk to her about it. She’s just obsessed with everything bridal right now. I eye the pepper mill on the counter.
Becky follows my gaze, sighs, and reaches for it. It was my mother’s pepper mill, handmade. There is a small flower design carved in a ring around the middle of it.
Milt told me about your broken engagement, Becky says. I want to say that I think it’s admirable. I mean, I respect what you’re doing here. To wear the brave face, making us dinner tonight, handling the rehearsal dinner as well, the wedding cake, everything. You must feel resentful about their wedding, though. I understand.
I don’t feel resentful, I say.
Because it would be only natural for you to want to see another relationship fall apart right now. It can be very threatening to spend time with a couple when you know that your own relationship was a failure.
I take a breath and do that thing that David taught me to do whenever I feel angry with someone: I try to imagine Becky as a child. I really try to do this. I look down and imagine that I’m looking at a small version of the woman in front of me. I say to this little girl inside my head, I know that things didn’t go well for you. I know that your mother died and your father went away to India because he was so sad, and I’m sorry that your bossy Ukrainian grandmother made you eat unfamiliar food and wear homemade dresses. But mostly I say to this little girl, I am sorry that you turned into such an unpleasant, spiteful woman.
So, Milt says when we come out of the kitchen. He grips the stem of his wineglass like it’s a squash racquet. How’s it going in there?
There’s a strange voice coming from the stereo. Deep and unwavering, a voice like fruit soaked in liquor. I look at Janey on the couch. Her eyes are closed and her body seems loosened, relaxed, possibly drunk.
Who’s this? I ask.
Local guy, says Milt. Singer-songwriter who’s been playing the circuit up and down the Island. He raises his shoulders in a shrug and drinks a gulp. Goes by his last name, Rastin. Janey’s gone to see him play a few times.
He calls himself Rasputin? says Becky.
Rastin, says Milt. Not Rasputin.
I’ve misplaced my wineglass. I spot one on the coffee table and move the salad bowl under my arm so I have a free hand to pick up the glass. I shouldn’t be drinking more wine; I already feel clumsy. I want everyone to go home.
Janey opens her eyes. She smiles at me, one arm wrapped around herself in a half hug. Are we ready? she says.
When Janey was six years old, her father was hospitalized for mononucleosis. Something went wrong in the hospital. The mono turned into pneumonia and he died. I don’t know all of the details. I doubt that Janey knows them herself. After he died, Janey and her brother went to a neighbour’s house to spend the night. The neighbour baked a cake for the two children. It was a yellow cake with chocolate icing. When they tried to slice it, it crumbled everywhere, all over the table, like a fallen sandcastle. Her brother made up a song. He started singing, Messy cake, messy cake! Janey remembers laughing until they were screaming and crying, running around the table at this nice neighbour’s house, yelling a song about cake at the top of their lungs because it was the only thing they could make themselves cry about.
I’m making Janey and Milt’s wedding cake. It’s going to be coconut with vanilla buttercream frosting. There won’t be any chocolate. I won’t even make a lemon cake because I am afraid to make the batter yellow, afraid to trigger the memory. I don’t want to see their relationship fail. I love Janey and Milt. I want this to work for them.
Come and eat, babe, I tell Janey.
Becky, subdued from carbohydrates, sits down first. She glances at the slices of roasted red peppers, which I’ve peeled and arranged on a plate and drizzled with oil. They look obscene now, like tongues. I stand uselessly at the head of the table. Milt has turned the volume down, but he hasn’t changed the music. Janey is still looking at me with that half smile on her face. I can’t meet her eye. I put the salad bowl down on the table. I use a pair of wooden spoons to place shining bunches of green leaves on their side plates, as though each offering is a prayer.
David has been drinking. He’s at the door wearing his blue snowboarder hat and the tacky fleece scarf that he got as a freebie at the wine store last winter. A bunch of grapes embroidered in cheap gold thread with Cherry Pointe Vineyards in cursive stitching at the bottom. As soon as I see him, I remember why I don’t want him in my life.
I heard there was a party happening, he says. I heard that this is where it was all going down tonight.
You were invited, I tell him quietly. You said it would be a bad idea.
Bonnie, Bonnie! He holds his chest with one hand, pretending that he’s been stabbed, and staggers a few feet back. He holds on to the door frame with his other hand and pulls his face in close to mine. Bonnie, he says, you’re killing me.
Who is it? Janey calls from the living room.
Please can I come over for dinner? he asks in a high voice. Please?
Timotei is rubbing herself against David, winding herself between his ankles. She’s happy that he’s come back. She pushes the side of her face against his leg, rubbing each side over and over, as though she wants to wear through the corduroy.
You could have called first, I say. He walks past me and hangs his coat up on the hook that he drilled into the wall. When he raises his arm, his bicep pushes against the cuff of his T-shirt. I close the door behind him.
It’s in a jar of formaldehyde, Janey is saying. Like twelve inches. It’s on display in a Russian museum.
So that’s why he’s Russia’s greatest love machine, says Milt.
Well, well, look who’s here, says Janey.
If it isn’t Miss Janey Brown, David says, holding his arms out for a hug. Give us a kiss, baby.
Janey stands up when David hugs her. Watching David touch Janey used to make me feel cramps of jealousy, but I made myself get over it. This is the first time I’ve seen them together since we broke up. There’s a new cramp now, an unnamed feeling. Milt gets up too, puts his hand on David’s back. I didn’t think you could make it tonight, he says.
David is still wearing his blue hat. Change of plans, he grins.
Well, it’s good to see you, man.
There’s something stuck in my molar. A piece of walnut from the salad. I am aware that I’m distorting my face when I move my jaw to the side and let my tongue fish around for the offending crumb in my tooth. I leave them to it at the table and go into the kitchen so I can jam my finger back there and dig it out.
I say to everyone, I’m just going to get another bottle of that wine.
Let me help you, David says.
I can do it.
I need a glass, he says.
I’ll get you a glass.
Oh, let her get it, says Janey. You have to tell us about the kayaking place. We might do that for our honeymoon. We might find a little lodge and learn how to kayak, and you’re the perfect person to talk to about that. What do you think? Do you think I could do it, David?
I stop listening once I find myself in the kitchen. I crouch down and open the lower cabinet and stare at the eleven remaining wine bottles lined up on their sides in the rack that David built to fit the cupboard. The bottle necks point out at me like long snouts. I pick at my back tooth with my forefinger but can’t find whatever has lodged itself in there. I take my finger out and try my teeth again. It feels like I’m biting on a chunk of granite.
David and Janey used to love each other. They lived together for a handful of years and then David met me and things changed. David and I were good together. He used to say that being with me felt like coming home. I want to tell everyone at the dinner table: You can’t trust love. Everything changes eventually. Don’t try to cement something just because you’re afraid you’re going to lose it.
My Chianti! says David. He’s crouched behind me.
Um, I say. I’ve just got something stuck in my tooth.
Let me see it.
No.
Let me see.
His hands touch my shoulders.
This is weird, he says.
What part?
I don’t know if I’m happy for them. I don’t think I am.
Does it really matter if you are or aren’t?
Are you happy for them?
Look, I just need some dental floss.
Bonnie, okay. I need to tell you something.
Don’t.
Let me say it.
I interrupt him: Janey has a lover.
What?
Janey’s been sleeping with someone. Milt doesn’t know.
His body falls backwards, like he’s lost his balance.
The music that’s playing right now. The guitarist.
David clears his throat. You’re saying Janey’s sleeping with Rastin?
I just found out.
Janey told you that?
Help me with this, I tell him. Get the corkscrew.
The pasta is finally ready and I serve it to everyone in generous bowls with fresh curls of Parmesan on top. David put together an extra place setting for himself and he’s squished in between Becky and Janey, at the corner of the table. Timotei is sleeping on the couch in the living room. I take this as a sign that the atmosphere is peaceful.
I’ve been saving this wine for a special occasion, David says. And tonight is the night. He raises his glass. To Janey and Milt, he says.
David makes sure that each person at the table meets his eye as he clinks his glass to each of theirs. This is what David does at dinner parties. He moves his glass from person to person purposefully. He raises his eyebrows and makes his eyes widen, looking for each glance before he moves on. He looks deranged as he does this.
So, Janey says, using her spoon to coax her noodles onto the fork, what are you working on these days, Becky? Any shows coming up?
I’m working with sugar syrup, she says. It’s not like anything I’ve used before—I’ve had to talk to candy manufacturers to find out how I’m supposed to use it. I’m making a—yes—well, a sculptural work.
She made a body cast out of plaster, says Milt.
Whose body? I ask.
My own body, she says.
I laugh before I can stop myself. But it’s unsophisticated to laugh at contemporary art, so I correct myself and say: Oh, goody! A life-sized Becky candy! What flavour will you be?
I’m glad you asked me that, Becky says. She nods her head, letting her fork dangle from her fingers like a pendulum over the bowl of pasta. Choosing a flavour, she tells me, will authenticate the project more than any other aspect of the composition. I had considered using cherry—but then, that’s so obvious, isn’t it?
Not that anyone would be tasting it, says Milt. Am I right?
That’s part of the joy of installation work, Becky tells him with one eyebrow raised to a point. You never know how people will respond. Then she rolls her eyes and puts her fork down. God, it was hellish, she says. I had my students make the body cast, but they worked from the top down instead of up from my feet, so not only was my face encased in plaster for five hours while they covered my legs, but the weight of the plaster as I stood there—it dried on my body, it took hours—well, I think the weight of it did something to my back. I haven’t felt the same since that session. And since my shiatsu therapist decided to change her name to Pashmina and sail to Maui, I’m just caught in this chronic pain cycle.
I have a massage therapist, I say. I have her card, remind me, I’ll give it to you.
I’m sorry, Bonnie, I mean, I’m sure your massage therapist is lovely for you. But regular massage doesn’t work for me. I have a certain constitution that responds to the energetic approach of shiatsu.
Pashmina? asks David. Really? Isn’t that a scarf?
I don’t know, says Becky. Her name used to be Margaret, and all I know is that she’s gone now, and I’m in pain.
It’s a wool wrap, says Janey. I’m wearing one in lavender, for the wedding.
You could carry lavender, I say. To make it all go together.
It’s not the season for it, Becky says. And dried flowers are terrible feng shui. You don’t want dried flowers in a wedding. You want fresh everything.
Because a wedding is a fresh start, says David.
I shoot him a look over the table.
Speaking of fresh starts, says Milt, what’s up with Mr. Pressman, Beck?
I watch Milt use his knife to slip some noodles onto the edge of his fork—he’s cut the noodles with the knife, he’s cut them into small pieces—and a warm punch of love for him hits my chest. Janey is lucky to have found Milt. She asks too much from him, but he gives it anyway, and it pleases him to please her.
Becky says, Mr. Bradley Pressman, professional scoundrel, is up to no good. She holds her wineglass up like she is waving a flag. I have tried to avoid him, but he insists on showing up at every single opening I’ve been to this month. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was stalking me.
Isn’t that a good thing? asks Janey. Doesn’t he own Pressman Gallery?
He does, says Becky. He and Mrs. Pressman own the gallery.
Aha, says David. The wife.
That’s right, says Becky. And his hands had no business being where they were, at the opening of Hirakawa’s show last week. For example.
He touched you? asks Janey. How? Where were his hands?
Where was his wife, I want to know.
You don’t know what kind of relationship they have, says David.
I look at him. What does that mean? I ask.
Well, they could have an arrangement.
Janey says, Maybe she has a whole collection of lovers, herself. They could have talked about it, about finding a little something on the side. Maybe it spices up their own sex life.
I say, So he’s hitting on Becky, his wife knows about it, and she’s okay with it.
It’s a theory, says David. Just a theory. Affairs happen.
Milt says, Is it an affair if the wife knows about it?
No, I say. It’s only an affair if it’s a secret. That damn kernel of something is still stuck in my tooth. I can’t stick my finger in my mouth again. I drink more wine, swirl it around to distract myself from the discomfort. I watch Janey across from me. One of her hands is under the table, likely on Milt’s knee.
Well, it couldn’t be a secret, Becky says, because he’s not hiding his affections.
Has he asked to see your work? asks David.
Yes, she says. And I haven’t shown it to him. I don’t want to charm my way into the gallery just because he likes to see me at these openings in heels and silk. I want to earn it the proper way. The real way.
What’s real anymore? I say. Nothing’s real.
This causes a bit of a silence. Janey is watching me now.
Milt says, Uh. He’s looking down onto his plate. I found something, he says. I don’t know what this is, but it looks important.
He pokes into his dish and pulls out a black, matted clump that hangs like a tumour from the tines of his fork.
It’s the thyme, I tell him. You’re the lucky one, you got it on your plate. You get to make a wish.
You want me to wish on this? He makes a face.
I thought that only happened with wishbones, says David.
Oh, shut up, I tell him. You’re just jealous. Milt got the thyme, he gets the wish.
Do I have to keep it a secret? Milt asks.
I give up and dig my index finger into my mouth, searching for the seed or whatever it is that has wedged itself into my tooth. Thorry, I mumble, I have this thing thuck in my thooth. Excuth me.
From across the table, I watch Janey’s eyes fill with water when she looks at me. Milt doesn’t notice that Janey’s crying, but David does. He rubs her shoulder with one slow hand. He presses his hand to the base of her neck with care, like he’s lining up the bones in his fingers with her vertebrae to see if they match. I can’t stop watching them. My finger is still stuck in my mouth and I drool onto my wrist, just like a baby.