Chapter 3 - Playing the Fool
I could have understood two selfish people falling for each other and being too cowardly to tell me. It would have been cruel, but human beings make emotional messes every day, and I had spent enough time around families to know that affection does not always behave honorably. What hollowed me out was imagining Derek kissing my forehead while asking me to cover another deposit and Clara smiling while handing me contracts when both of them knew they were benefiting from my trust.
At some point, I had stopped being simply Derek’s fiancée and Clara’s friend. I had become the reliable person with savings, the one who drove the old car, packed sandwiches, signed checks, believed explanations, and hated making people feel questioned. They had learned exactly which parts of my personality could be turned into convenience for them.
Nolan closed one file and asked whether I wanted to call off the wedding that evening. I sat quietly for several seconds because that was the first question all afternoon that sounded normal, then he reminded me that our rehearsal dinner was scheduled for the following evening at Grand View Banquet Hall. “Derek and Clara seem unusually invested in appearances,” he said. “Perhaps we should give them an audience.”
By the next afternoon, I discovered that fifteen years in elementary education had prepared me exceptionally well for pretending everything was under control while chaos unfolded nearby. Derek came home carrying his duffel bag and wearing the exaggerated exhaustion of a man who wanted credit for surviving something that had never occurred, then smiled and said, “God, Em, you wouldn’t believe how brutal that seminar was.” When he kissed my temple, I caught a faint trace of hotel soap mixed with Clara’s floral perfume.
Every instinct in me wanted to move away and demand the truth. Instead, I hung up my jacket and told him I was sorry he had worked so hard for us, and he rewarded me with the relieved smile of someone completely confident his lie had survived another inspection. There are abilities a person is proud to discover; apparently keeping a calm face while your cheating fiancé lies about imaginary logistics conferences is not one of them.
Right on cue, my phone lit up on the counter with a message from Clara. She wrote that she was just landing back from Portland, her mother was feeling much better, and she couldn’t wait to celebrate me that evening at Grand View, finishing with a cheerful promise that they were going to make me look stunning. I stared at the message for several seconds, then sent her a heart emoji with steady fingers.
I have never hated a heart emoji more in my life.
While Derek and Clara had been enjoying their getaway, Nolan had quietly transformed our rehearsal dinner. Grand View moved the event from its smaller dining room into the ballroom, while invitations went to Derek’s senior executives, members of the regional board, Clara’s major corporate clients, both families, and several people from Nolan’s investment circle under the harmless explanation that his return from overseas deserved an additional networking celebration. Derek was delighted by the expanded guest list and spent most of the afternoon worrying about cufflinks because apparently impending disaster sometimes comes with formalwear.
May you like
He asked whether I thought Nolan might introduce him to several investors attending the dinner, then stood in front of our bedroom mirror comparing two nearly identical sets of silver cufflinks. I studied the man who had cheated on me, taken money from me, and was now carefully polishing himself for an evening he imagined would improve his career. “The silver ones,” I said when he demanded an opinion, and he smiled at my reflection and answered, “That’s why I need you.”
The timing was almost impressive.
