“Will you come?” Megan asked.
Owen looked at Lauren. “That’s her decision.”
“I’m asking both of you,” Megan replied. “He has spent weeks creating a story about all four of us. I don’t think any one of us should let him decide the ending alone.”
Chapter Three: Different Versions of Friday
They did not leave immediately. Owen made tea, partly because Megan’s fingers were cold and partly because all three needed an ordinary action that would not become a declaration. Lauren pushed her untouched cup aside and asked how Megan had learned the truth.
“A florist called,” Megan said. “Reid gave her my number because I usually handle the restaurant accounts. She wanted to confirm the spelling of your name on an arrangement. I asked what arrangement. She said the reunion centerpiece for Friday.”
“And you believed her?”
“I believed she was confirming an order. That was a start.”
Megan described spending the next two days visiting the restaurant when Reid was away, speaking to people who thought she knew about the event. The events coordinator showed her a seating chart. A cook asked whether the menu should have dishes from Reid’s first restaurant. A cleaner said the back room had been fitted with a temporary curtain behind which the guest could change clothes. Each conversation was ordinary on its own. Together they revealed a plan that had been concealed from the two women whose lives it was supposed to celebrate.
“Why didn’t you call me first?” Lauren asked.
“I tried. The number he gave me was missing a digit. When I asked him to correct it, he said you were sensitive and didn’t want me involved. Then yesterday he told me you’d agreed to speak about the courage of leaving a loveless marriage. I asked how he knew yours was loveless. He said you told him.”
Lauren looked at Owen. He was studying the wooden grain of the table, not offering her an opening to defend herself. That was somehow worse than an argument.
“I said we were distant,” Lauren admitted. “I said I felt unseen. I said we sometimes ate dinner without talking because we were both tired.”
“All of that is true,” Owen said.
“I also told Reid you wouldn’t understand why I wanted to design costumes professionally again.”
Owen lifted his head. “You never told me you wanted to try.”
“You asked me last year whether I could take extra shifts at the clinic.”
“Because we were paying for the roof after the hailstorm. I asked if it was possible, not whether it was your destiny.”
“I heard it as the same thing.”
Megan looked between them and did not interrupt. The room was suddenly full of small, ordinary injuries, none dramatic enough to sell tickets and all substantial enough to affect a marriage.
