PART 4:

Distant sirens, a truck on the avenue, someone’s music from the floor above muted to just bass. It was ordinary and it was enough. And Ethan sitting on that couch was aware, the way you’re aware of a temperature change, that something in the room had shifted into something he hadn’t planned for. He didn’t name it.

He’d gotten good at not naming things. Saturday morning, Cora called him from her grandmother’s house. He was making breakfast. Eggs slightly overcooked because he was distracted. And he put the phone on speaker on the counter. Daddy, Grammy says you’re going to a party tonight. That’s right. With Victoria.

He looked up toward the hallway even though Victoria wasn’t visible. Yeah. Are you going as her boyfriend? He nearly dropped the spatula because what? Grammy says you might be. She said she could tell. His mother. He was going to have a word with his mother. We’re going as friends, he said carefully. A pause on the other end.

Then Kora with the devastating clarity of a six-year-old who had not yet learned to be polite about things. Daddy, I see your face when you talk to her. Kora, you make the same face as when the coffee is really good. Ethan stared at the eggs. Eat your breakfast, bug, he said. I’ll call you tomorrow. The party was in a hotel ballroom in the meatacking district.

The kind of engagement party that was 90% wedding, just without the ceremony. String lights over everything, a string quartet in the corner, centerpieces that probably cost more than Ethan’s monthly grocery budget. Victoria was quiet in the cab, not the usual quiet, a tighter version with tension underneath it.

He hadn’t said much about how she looked because he wasn’t sure how to say it without it becoming something. She’d gone back to the blue dress. Her hair was up now, a few pieces loose around her face. She’d put on lipstick and immediately looked like someone who’d put on armor. He’d put on the dark suit he owned for the two or three occasions a year it came out of the garment bag.

and she’d looked at him when he emerged from his room and said, “That works.” In a tone that was trying very hard to be professional. In the cab, he said, “Tell me one true thing about tonight.” She looked over at him. “Something real,” he said. “Not the plan, not the story, something true.” She was quiet for a moment.

Then I’m afraid that when I see him, all the work I’ve done these 8 months is going to fall apart, and I’m going to go back to being the person I was when I was with him. The smaller version. He held her gaze. That’s not going to happen. You don’t know that. I know you, he said. More than you think, maybe.

She looked at him for a long moment. Outside the cab windows, the city lit up and moved past, indifferent and enormous. I’m glad you’re here, she said. The words were careful like she’d chosen them. Exactly. I know, he said. And because he did know, because the knowing of it had been growing in him for weeks, quiet and accumulating like something buried that had started to break surface.

He reached over and took her hand. She didn’t pull away. She turned her palm and held on. The doors to the ballroom opened and the party broke over them like a wave, bright and loud and full of strangers who all somehow seemed to know each other. Victoria’s hand tightened briefly in his. Then she lifted her chin, straightened her spine, and walked in.

He walked beside her, across the room near the bar. A man in a charcoal suit turned and saw her. He was exactly as she’d described, handsome in the way a camera might notice, smile already assembling itself with a practiced ease. He raised his glass slightly in acknowledgement. Victoria saw him. Ethan felt her grip stay exactly as it was.

He leaned slightly toward her. “Still here,” he said quietly. She didn’t look at him, but something in her shoulder eased. I see that,” she said, and together they moved into the room, into the light, into whatever the night was about to ask of them. The first person to find them was Victoria’s sister. She came across the room with the specific velocity of someone who had been watching the door and waiting, a champagne flute in one hand, and the kind of smile that meant she had already decided to be happy about whatever she

found. She was younger than Victoria by 3 years. Ethan had learned this the night before, and where Victoria carried herself like someone braced against weather, her sister moved like the weather itself, easy and warm and slightly unpredictable. Vic, she pulled Victoria into a hug that Victoria returned a beat late, the way she did physical affection.

Not cold, just slightly miscalibrated, like she’d learned the motion, but still had to think about the timing. You came. I wasn’t sure you. She pulled back, looked at Ethan. Her eyes moved between the two of them with a speed that suggested she’d already done the math. “Hi, I’m Lily.” “Ethan.” She shook his hand and then looked at their joined hands and then looked at Victoria with an expression that was trying very hard not to be delighted and failing.

“Okay,” she said. “Okay, when did this?” “You didn’t tell me.” “It’s recent,” Victoria said. How recent, Lily? I’m just asking. 4 months, Ethan said. Both women looked at him. He kept his voice easy, conversational. We were friends first. It took a while to figure out what it was. Lily studied him for a second. Then she smiled.

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