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“You are not a sad Springsteen song.”

A small smile crossed his face. “I’m at least a moody B-side.”

“You’d be insufferable if you knew how often you were right.”

“That’s why people keep it from me.”

I smiled, and for one second the ache eased. Then he leaned in and kissed my cheek. Not my mouth. My cheek, close to the corner of it, gentle enough that no one watching could call it scandalous and intimate enough that my heart knew better.

“Take care of yourself, Lorrie.”

He stepped back before I could answer, walked toward the lobby, and left through the front doors into the humid late summer night.

I stood there until the doors closed behind him.

When I returned to the dining room, Paul looked up from the table. He saw my face, then looked toward the lobby, and I knew he understood enough, but he didn’t ask.

He only moved my coffee cup a little closer, the way he had moved bread baskets, water glasses, and winter coats for years. Not claiming me or rescuing me. Simply noticing what was within reach and making it easier.

That nearly undid me more than a question would have.

My mother was speaking to Patricia with the careful precision of a woman defusing a bomb while wearing pearls. My father was pouring coffee. Alan had gone to the bar. The lemon cake sat half-eaten on small china plates, and someone had abandoned a lipstick-stained champagne glass beside a butter knife.

The evening that had once decided my life had come apart in public, politely, between fish and cake.

I looked at Paul, at my parents, and at the empty doorway where Dean had been.

There were no more rehearsals now, no more old script, and no more days left to choose.

23

Lorrie

Friday — August 24, 1984

I left the club with my shoes in one hand and my satin evening bag in the other.

The valet had offered to bring the Volvo around, but I said I wanted air. My father started to object, then looked at my face and stopped. My mother asked whether I was certain I wanted to walk, which was Bitsy for please don’t make me watch you unravel in public, but when I nodded, she simply touched my cheek once and told me not to step on any glass.

Paul stood beside the valet stand with his jacket unbuttoned, his tie loosened, and one hand resting at his side as if he hadn’t just dismantled his father in front of twenty-six people.

“I can drive you,” he said.

“I need to walk.”

The old Paul would have insisted, not because he wanted to overrule me, but because he would have believed driving me home was the correct thing to do. This Paul only looked down at the gravel drive, then back at me.

“All right.”

He didn’t ask if I was sure, didn’t ask where Dean had gone, didn’t ask if anything had changed, which was fortunate because I hadn’t decided anything yet, unless one counted walking home from the country club barefoot.

My mother stood near the front doors, pretending not to watch us while watching us. My father had gone back inside to settle the bill. Through the glass doors, I could see Patricia sitting in the lobby with Paul’s grandmother beside her. Alan was nowhere in sight.

Dean was gone.

Take care of yourself, Lorrie.

“Lorrie,” Paul said.