11th hour

Chapter 71

I poured root beer into my mug with a shaking hand. For a long moment, the only sound in the room was the hiss and crackle of the soda hitting the ice. Then everyone spoke at once.

Claire shouted — actually, she insisted — “No. No. Joe would never cheat on you.”

Cindy cut in. “This just can’t be true.”

But Yuki believed me.

She was back in her role of human nail gun, pinning me with her eyes, firing questions, bam-bam-bam.

“Who is the woman?”

“June Freundorfer. An old partner of Joe’s in DC.”

“How old?”

“My age.”

“How did you find out, Lindsay?”

“Does it matter?”

“Did Joe tell you about the affair?”

“No. She did,” I said.

“She called you?” Yuki pulled back, her face flattened in surprise.

“She called Joe. I picked up his phone.”

Claire got up from her chair, wrapped her arms around me, squeezed the tears right out of my eyes.

Yuki went on as if I weren’t crying, as if Claire weren’t beaming stop signs at her with her eyes.

“Did you ask Joe about this?”

“Uh-huh.”

“He admitted it?”

I shook my head no.

Cindy reached across the table and clutched my hands.

Yuki said, “So, just to make sure I’ve got this right, Joe denies the affair.”

“He’s lying about it, yes. So I kicked him out of the house.”

Claire said, “Honey, what did this woman say?”

I shook my head. I couldn’t talk anymore.

Cindy let go of my hands and gave me a wad of paper napkins stamped with MacBain’s logo: the planet Earth whirling through a sudsy amber sky.

I sobbed into the napkins. It was disgraceful. It was pathetic. I couldn’t stop crying. Yuki shook my arm like she was a terrier and my arm was a sock doll.

“Lindsay, do you think it’s serious? Maybe it just happened and he can get you to forgive him.”

By then Cindy had typed Freundorfer into her iPad and pulled up the benefit story. She held up the candid photo of Joe with his mistress looking adoringly into his face.

“Oh my God,” Yuki said. “Oh, Lindsay. I’m going to be sick.”

I loosed some fresh tears and then all of us were crying. It seemed a little less pathetic when we were all wet together, but still: Joe was having an affair, my baby and I were alone, and I wanted to die. Before I could drown myself in root beer, my blinking phone rang.

Was it Joe?

No. It was Brady. He was with Conklin.

I hugged and kissed my friends, then fled down the stairs.