The Divorce Party

Ryan shoots her a confused look, and Maggie tries to figure out a way to cover. Before she even has to, Ryan starts walking to the kitchen, assuming that Maggie will follow her, which she does.

"So the rest of the staff will get here at about four-thirty P.M., but as long as you’re around we can get started prepping the first course. We only have the eight o’clock seating tonight, so I’m trying a new fig reduction on the duck. Did Lev forward you tonight’s menu?”

“Probably, but my e-mail is down,” she says. “So maybe you can fill me in as we go.”

It is scaring her. It is scaring her how easy she is finding it to lie.

Ryan swings open the glass door to the kitchen where the food for that night is lined up on the countertop. Fresh parsley leaves and smoked mozzarella, loose peppermint and loaves of grain bread.

She hands Maggie a bowl of fresh tomatoes, all business. “We’re making a spaghetti squash salad, so I’ll need these boiled for about a minute, seeded, and cut up with some olive oil and fresh basil for the dressing.”

She lost her at boiled.

“Easy enough . . .” Maggie says, and goes to the stovetop, takes out a small pot and gets ready to fill it with water.

Meanwhile, Ryan is standing at the countertop pulling on some figs, or doing something to them that Maggie doesn’t understand. “So,” she says, looking up at her. “How long have you been at the Maidstone?”

“The Maidstone?”

And Maggie realizes this must be the restaurant where the other person works. The actual person who is supposed to be helping. Maggie can’t swallow. This isn’t a game. This is a person standing before her. A person who was married to Nate. How incredibly insane that she is here talking to her. And yet she can’t imagine getting herself to leave. At least not yet.

“Six months?” she says, like a question. And she tries to change the subject, move it closer to a subject that will lead them toward it, the reason she is here. “Did I notice on the sign outside that you’ve been in business since the early nineties? That’s quite an accomplishment. It must have been hard to get the money together, especially starting out so young.” She clears her throat. “How did you do it?”

“I had a partner at first. His family had plenty of money. And they helped us out a lot.” She looks up at Maggie. “Too much, really. Could you hand me the olive oil?”

Maggie hands the bottle over, trying to busy her hands, trying to at least make them look busy. Her heart is threatening to beat out of her chest. She had a partner. His family helped a lot. Helped as in paid for the whole thing?

That would explain why, now, Nate doesn’t want to take a penny from them. For the restaurant. It would explain something about being worried about making the same mistake.

“Who was he?” she asks. “Your partner?”

Ryan looks up at her, meets her eyes with something like a warning. “You ask a lot of questions, don’t you?” she says.

“I’m sorry. I’m nosy sometimes. Particularly now. I do that. I didn’t . . .” She looks at Ryan, and almost tells the truth, tells something—at least—a little like it. “I am in the process of deciding whether to open a restaurant with my husband, and it just seems like it could cause so many complications.”

“It definitely can.”

“Did it for you? I mean, was your partner your husband?”

Ryan nods. “Yes.”

Maggie can’t swallow.

“But, you know, this time around, it hasn’t been complicated,” she says. “So I guess it depends on the two people.”

“So you’re remarried?”

“Lev didn’t tell you?

She always tells me we have the best relationship she’s seen, but I guess she wouldn’t pass that on to you . . .”

She shakes her head. What would Lev have told her? Apparently that Ryan is very happily married. Is she married to someone who came shortly after Nate? She feels herself about to cry, cry because she is here, and because she has no idea what she is trying to find out from being here.

“Wow. I’m an asshole. You look so upset. God, I’m sorry. Don’t tell Lev. Lev told me not to make you cry.” She shakes her head. “I didn’t even think I did anything yet. I think I’m missing the gentle gene or something.”

“You didn’t do anything,” Maggie says.

“So what’s wrong?”