CHAPTER 1
Just dinner.
The innocence of the phrase is deceptive, as deceptive as the dinner itself would turn out to be, as Jackie would discover ninety-eight days later. Dinner with friends, a table for four. Dinner with people she thought she knew and loved. As it turns out, no one is who she believed they were, least of all herself. So much secrecy, and in its service so many lies. And shame, at least for some.
They say—the infamous, authoritative “they”—that the worst lies are those you tell yourself. Even before the dinner, before everything began to unravel, Jackie had been skeptical of the veracity of that old chestnut. Being true to yourself is noble, but other people’s lies can cripple you whether you are self-actualized or not. All it takes is a little misplaced trust, a scrap of faith made of white cloth.
That night at dinner a match would be struck, and the white cloth lit, although it would burn slowly. Slow, too, would be the dawning of Jackie’s understanding. She knew (in her mind, not her heart) that appearances could be deceptive, and that love, desire, and ambition make it harder to see others for who they are.
Smart, rational people—even those who study people for a living, like Jackie—can get it wrong.
Dead wrong.
For a second time, Jackie checks her hair and makeup in the visor mirror, stalling. She hates being late, and there’s no reason to dawdle now. It is, after all, just dinner with two people she knows intimately: Miles, her husband of eighteen months, and Harlan, her colleague in the Psychology Department and, more saliently, her former boyfriend. Oh, and a surprise guest.
Jackie frowns at herself and fusses with her eyebrow. She also hates surprises.
She hasn’t seen Miles in ten days. It’s his busy season, scouting young athletes, football players mostly, hoping to sign them. He’s meeting her at the restaurant—she checks her watch—ten minutes ago. Harlan’s been on sabbatical the past year, and during that interval they met only once, briefly, at a conference. Has she missed him? Of course. You don’t date a man for five years, then pretend he has nothing going for him, especially when that man is Harlan. Jackie’s not a revisionist.
The three have had dinner before, many times, and weathered the initial awkwardness. It was Harlan’s idea to socialize when Jackie and Miles began dating four years ago. He invited them to a Redskins game, and the men became fast friends, with no apparent jealousy on either side. The Psychology Department isn’t big enough to harbor enmity, so Jackie welcomed the chance to normalize her relationship with Harlan.
Phone in hand, Jackie grabs her bag, opens the door. She’s parked too close to the next car and maneuvers through the narrow gap, scuttling sideways, sucking in her stomach to avoid getting dirt on her dress. She texts Miles, In 5! , and hurries out of the parking garage. She glances at her screen, reading Harlan’s message from earlier today for the fifth time.
Bringing a friend tonight so changed the table to four. Eager to catch up with you and Miles. It’s been too long.
A friend? Never did a word convey less. If Harlan meant to arouse her curiosity, he’d succeeded.
She pockets the phone and makes her way out to Potomac Street. Partway along the second block she spots Miles; his white-blond hair is a beacon. He’s resting against a lamppost, extinguishing a cigarette on the sole of his shoe, a move at once masculine and regrettable. Three cigarettes a day aren’t going to kill him, but why not just quit? It almost seems weaker to smoke three than the pack a day he’d smoked when she met him. Miles pulls a roll of mints from his trouser pocket and slides one into his mouth with one hand, extracting his phone from the breast pocket of his blazer with the other. Jackie smiles. For a former rugby star built like a dumpster, he has grace.
He looks up from his phone, zeroes in on her, and sends her a lopsided grin. She lifts her face to his for a minty, smoky kiss. “Hello, husband mine.”
“Hello, beautiful.” His usual greeting, springing from his European gentility and inherent goodness, but delivered in a way that never allows her to question his sincerity.
They set off and turn left onto Horatio. Within seconds Miles is out in front, as usual. Jackie takes several quick steps to catch up and tugs the sleeve of his jacket.
“Slow down. Notice my footwear?”
Miles peers at her feet, clad in emerald-green stilettos. “Oh. Those.”
“You can’t say ‘those’ with that tone. You must pay homage to their fabulousness.”
“You’re teetering.”
“Hardly.”
He resumes walking, albeit more slowly, and tucks her arm under his. “It’s just that we’re late.”
She checks her watch. “Harlan’s never on time. And I only wore these in case his friend is one of those six-footers that are so common nowadays. I don’t want to look like the doomed runt about to be pushed out of the nest.”
He squeezes her arm. “You look fine.”
“Fine? If I get another downgrade before we get to the restaurant, I’m not going in.”
Miles guides them around a group of college students—Adams University, judging by a sweatshirt and a baseball cap—lined up outside a pizza place. “What are you worried about anyway? It’s dinner. Relax.”
“You know I don’t like to relax. And all the intrigue around this late-breaking plus-one.” Jackie had texted Miles about Harlan’s friend. “Who do you suppose? Someone from the sandbox? A college roomie? No, wait. A paramour?” She figured it had to be the latter. Why else be cagey? But not even that made sense. Jackie had obviously moved on to, well, marriage, so Harlan had no reason to be delicate with her feelings. Not that he had ever been.
Miles laughs. “We’re about to find out.”
Miles holds open the glass door of the Estrela for her and approaches the host, a Christian Bale look-alike in a slim-fit charcoal suit and a white shirt open at the collar.
“Reservation for Crispin, please. For four.” Miles doesn’t have to ask her who booked the table. Harlan has this top DC restaurant on speed dial.
The bar stretches behind the host stand, slightly elevated and delineated by a brass railing that curves into the room. Opposite the bar, a row of small tables lines a wall, where geometric artwork hangs inside an alcove illuminated from below by golden lights. More tables, squares for four, fill the center. White linens, beechwood chairs, hushed waitstaff. It’s Saturday night, and the place hums, redolent of warm sourdough and roasted meat. Jackie turns away, not wanting to scan for Harlan and appear overeager. She slips off her coat, and Miles hangs it among others off to the side. She catches her reflection in the glass entry, runs her fingers through her shoulder-length hair, arranging the waves, a move so practiced as to be invisible.
The host leads them into the room. Jackie pulls her shoulders back and pictures Miles behind her, his casual ease, his “it’s dinner” straightforwardness. Her husband. A role Harlan refused.
“Enjoy your evening.” The host steps aside, and Harlan stands in front of her, smiling, looking as he always does, his graying hair, long and thick as a pirate’s, swept back from his forehead, his dark-brown eyes clear, glinting.
“Jackie,” he says.
Something inside her pulls open, his voice like the swipe of a finger moving along a feather in the wrong direction, unzipping the interlocking barbs, splaying them apart.