Ralph Gorman, the old lush, was a consummate deflector. But he could not deflect Henry’s thirty-seventh, a date Henry implied strongly he wanted to be engaged by. In turn, Henry had sensed a softening. He knew Gorman didn’t want to lose him. They lived together, ran a business together, they argued and made love and texted things like can you get half + half love u! . What was the difference?
“Okay, take my hand.” Gorman led Henry from their bedroom and down the hallway toward their living room. He assumed Gorman’s decorative strategy would be flowers. Which was nice: that was their thing. They loved flowers and the theater and dead French queens, and Henry didn’t care if that made them clichés. He didn’t care if wanting to be married made him a cliché, either.
Blindfolded, the familiar hallway became entirely new territory. The disorientation was exciting. Maybe they’d find another use for the blindfold later.…
As they entered the living room, Henry clutched Gorman’s hand extra hard, passing him love and confidence. You got this, babe!
Gorman loosened the blindfold. “One… two… three!”
Henry blinked as his eyes adjusted, glancing around for a room filled with red or cream or multicolored hybrid tea roses… but there were none. Or candles. Or champagne, or chocolates. Instead, Gorman was gesturing at a large box on their coffee table. “It’s… a stand mixer,” said Henry.
“Yes!” Gorman patted it proudly, as if it were a clever pet. “Just like you’ve been saying you wanted.”
Had he? Maybe once or twice in passing.
Henry thought he’d been obvious about wanting a ring. But maybe he’d mistaken Gorman’s equivocation for consent. Or, more distressingly, he had made his needs clear—and Gorman had ignored them.
“Gor—” Henry started, only to be cut off by a flat female voice on the other side of the room.
“Don’t look so pissed, Henry. You can always take it back for cash.”
“Liv!” Now Henry really was surprised. “You’re here.”
She crossed the room to peck his cheek with a dry kiss, handing him a glass of wine. “Happy birthday, Henry. Although I really should say commiserations. It’s all downhill from here. Trust me.” She refilled her own, much larger glass.
Henry recognized the label. “I thought we were saving the Penfolds.”
“If the past few months have taught me anything,” Liv said, “it’s drink the damn wine.” She emptied the bottle into her glass and headed into the kitchen. “Why wait? Could step in front of a Fresh Direct truck tomorrow.”
Henry gave Gorman a look.
“She just showed up!” Gorman whispered. “Ben’s at his grandmother’s—she said she didn’t want to be alone.”
“But it’s my birthday.” Henry’s fourth finger felt naked. He couldn’t even look at the damned stand mixer.
Gorman fiddled with his silk kerchief, as if unsure whether to tighten or loosen his signature piece. “If you want me to ask her to leave, I’ll ask her to leave.”
Liv’s voice rang out from the kitchen. “You won’t believe who showed up on my doorstep today. The slut.” They heard the fridge door open. “Got any olives, Gor? I feel like a martini. Or seven.”
In the warm lamplight of the living room, Gorman’s wave of white hair glowed. He gave Henry a small, apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Choo-Choo. But she’s my best friend.”
Henry knew what the word friend meant to Gorman. Friendship was not a Hallmark card. Friendship was Shakespearian. A Greek myth, a Russian novel. Friendship was a bone-deep, decades-old understanding of another human’s deepest flaws, and loving them because of those flaws, not in spite of them. Gorman might be a lush, but he was loyal. And his friendships were more loyal than most marriages.
Henry tossed the blindfold aside. “I’ll put on some pasta.”
3
“Obviously, it’s complete lunacy, the entire situation.” Liv speared her third olive. “Showing up like that. As if she could just waltz on into my life!” Anger sparked in every cell in her body. It was a welcome respite from the cold, airless muteness that pressed on her heart and lungs most days. People expressed sympathy for “her pain,” websites talked about “the pain” of loss, everyone seemed to think she felt “pain.” All Liv usually felt was absence. Nothingness. Savannah’s irritating, sun-bright confidence revved her up, like gasoline on a fire. The anger felt good: clean and enlivening.
Liv broke the olive’s flesh with her teeth. “That business is my life’s work. I’m not going to share it with some twenty-three-year-old ditz.”
“You might have to.” Gorman removed his glasses and handed Liv a piece of paper with a figure circled several times. Having balanced the books for Flower Power, Honey! since they opened, Gorman knew his way around a profit-and-loss statement. Over marinara and martinis, Liv had allowed him to extract the Goldenhorns’ full financial picture. And it was no masterpiece.
Liv blinked at the circled number. “That’ll get us through this year, at least. It’s actually more than I thought.”
“That’s your debt, darling,” Gorman said.
“What?” Liv snapped to attention. “What about the life insurance?”
“It’ll float you for a minute. But it’s not a permanent solution. Eliot left behind some pretty impressive credit card debt, and you’re still paying off the last of the mortgage. Plus you haven’t contributed to Ben’s college fund in years. You’re going to have to…”
“What?” Liv asked.
Gorman took a perfunctory sip of his martini. “Get a job.”
Liv blanched. “They don’t hire forty-nine-year-old women, Gor. They use us to scare millennials into wearing sunscreen.”
Henry emptied the leftovers into Tupperware. “Would it really be so bad to bring on a business partner? I thought the deck she made was very impressive.”
“Yes, you really need to get better with the computer, darling,” Gorman said. “Being flustered by attachments makes you seem positively Jurassic.”
“Don’t you mean geriassic?” Liv quipped, and Gorman laughed.
Henry put the leftovers in the fridge and shut the door a little harder than necessary. “All I’m saying is Savannah seems very keen. Organized. Passionate.”
“So was Hannibal Lecter!” Liv exclaimed. “Besides, I barely have any vendors on the books anymore. No caterers want to work with me, after the whole shitshow with the pigeons.” The Long Island Bridezilla made a point to mention the escaped non-doves in her one-star review, as well as the bee sting, the broken arbor, and the fact Liv left an hour before the ceremony.
“You still have us.” Henry patted her shoulder. “At our usual generous rate.”
“Thank you,” Liv mumbled, unable to meet his eye. Humility was not Liv’s strong suit.
Gorman pushed aside the bank and credit card statements. “Do you still think she had something to do with it? Getting E to change his will, I mean.”
It was a theory Liv palmed back and forth over the last few months. But now it was clear Savannah Shipley was less a conniving mistress and more a shiny red convertible. “No. Unless she’s a sociopath, and I don’t think she’s that interesting.”