It was Monday afternoon, and before Kelli left the house to pick the kids up from school, Victor called and asked her to stop by the Loft. “I need to talk with you about something,” he said. “It won’t take long. Ten, maybe fifteen minutes, tops.”
She knew she wasn’t going to like whatever it was he had to tell her. They’d been divorced for several years, but she still recognized the edge in his voice. The first time she’d heard him use it she was nineteen and working as a waitress in the restaurant he managed, eavesdropping as he fired the busboy who’d been caught taking one of Kelli’s substantial tips off a table.
“Thanks,” she said to Victor later, after he’d escorted the terminated employee out the front door. “I feel kind of bad for him.” She understood what it was to need money; she shared a tiny two-bedroom apartment with four other girls and was still having a hard time making rent. But she wouldn’t steal. She already had enough to feel guilty about—adding theft to the list might have sent her over the edge.
“Don’t,” Victor said, briefly putting his hand on her shoulder. Kelli’s skin tingled and her stomach wiggled. His gray eyes lit up as he grinned at her and she smiled in response. He’d taken a chance on hiring her, considering she didn’t have any fine-dining restaurant experience. She didn’t know anything about pairing wines with food or what it meant to “eighty-six” an item from the menu when it ran out. Much to the entire kitchen staff’s amusement, the first time she’d told the other servers that they were out of salmon for the rest of the night she’d accidentally announced that the fish had been “sixty-nined.”
But when Victor interviewed her, she’d batted her eyelashes and pushed out her chest, methods she’d learned were effective in almost every situation for getting what she wanted from men, and it had worked. She could tell Victor was attracted to her, so she played that to her advantage, campaigning for the coveted high-volume weekend shifts and then the best tables in the restaurant—the ones by the window with a view of the city. At first, she flirted with him only to be granted those perks, but after a couple of weeks, she realized she was attracted to him, too. He was twenty-five, good-looking, and kind. He joked around with the employees—he almost made working fun—but he also didn’t let them slack off. He’d worked on the line in the kitchen before being promoted to manager just a few months before she moved to Seattle, and she soon learned that he held aspirations of opening his own restaurant.
“I think I might need someone to help me get it started,” he told her one night after the restaurant had closed. Everyone else had gone home and they sat together at a small table, a candle flickering between them. She was counting her tips right along with the number of times he smiled at her. “Can you think of anyone who might be interested?”
“Maybe,” she said with a slow, suggestive curve of her mouth. She knew how to play this game. She knew how to draw him in and then how to pull back just enough to make him want her a little more. It was a subtle dance, one that came as easily to her as breath. She didn’t enjoy using this technique to get what she needed—it made her feel whorish, as her parents had once accused her of being. But with Victor, it was different. She wanted him to want her. She liked his sense of humor and how hard he worked at his job. She liked that when he talked to her, he looked her straight in the eyes instead of at her chest. She had a chance to re-create herself here—to leave what had happened in California behind. She could morph into whatever Victor needed her to be, as long as she could find a way to make him love her.
He held her gaze then, the glow from the candle making his gray eyes sparkle. “Do you need a ride home?” he asked, and Kelli dropped her chin down a notch, looking up at him from beneath her long lashes before telling him yes. She knew what this meant. She knew he wanted to sleep with her, and despite her resolve not to get involved with a man for a long, long time, she felt the familiar pull of attraction in her pelvis, and she let him take her hand and lead her to his car.
“I have roommates,” she said quietly after he had started the engine. “Should we go to your place instead?”
He turned to look at her. “What for?”
Oh god. Kelli blushed and dropped her eyes to her lap. “Nothing. No reason. Sorry.” She couldn’t believe she’d been so stupid, thinking he’d be interested in someone like her. She hadn’t even graduated from high school. She couldn’t. Not after what happened. She’d missed the last half of her freshman year, and when she finally came home the next fall, she was a mess—unable to get out of bed, reluctant to shower or eat more than the bare minimum to avoid starvation. Her parents eventually agreed to let her get her GED through the local community college instead of returning to the school where everyone knew her, but she couldn’t help feeling that this wasn’t the same as having an actual diploma.
Victor reached over and put his hand on top of hers. “Hey. Don’t be sorry. I like you. But I’m your boss, you know? There are rules I need to follow. I have to be careful.”
Relieved, Kelli met his gaze and gave him another smile. “I can be careful.”
“I’m sure you can,” Victor said with a short laugh. “How about I take you on a real date this week? If we feel like it might go somewhere, I can tell the HR rep for the restaurant and just see how things go.”
Kelli nodded, pressing her lips together. The fact that he wasn’t going to try to sleep with her right away made her like him even more. He was responsible. So mature. He made her feel safe. As they got to know each other over the next couple of months, she began to believe she’d finally found someone who might accept her for exactly who she was. Someone who’d take care of her.
Even now, in some ways, even though they were divorced, he still did. He let her stay in the house his mother had left him so Kelli wouldn’t have a house payment and the kids wouldn’t have to move. He made sure she got her job back at the restaurant where they’d first met. He paid his child support on time and she never had to worry about the kids’ tuition, either. He took care of the scholarship applications. She’d been the one who told him to leave, but she hadn’t really believed that he would. By the time she realized her mistake, it was too late. She couldn’t find a way to get him to come back. She tried to seduce him, once, after he’d moved out. She’d left Max and Ava with Diane and gone to his new house wearing only a black bra and panties beneath her trench coat, like one of the daring characters she read about in her favorite romance novels.
“Kelli,” he’d said, clearly surprised to see her when he opened the front door. “Are the kids okay? Why didn’t you call me?”
“The kids are fine,” she said. “They’re with Diane.”
His expression went flat. “Then what’s going on? Why are you here?”
She put her hands against his chest and gave him a playful push. “To see you, silly,” she said. “I thought we could talk.”
Victor sighed. “We don’t need to talk.”
“Are you sure?” Kelli said, quickly untying her coat and flashing him right there on the front porch. She held her breath, waiting for him to take her in his arms, for everything that had gone wrong to be righted.
But he only stared at her, the pity in his eyes too much for her to bear. “Kelli,” he began, but she stopped him by closing her coat and shaking her head.
“No, it’s fine. I get it.” Something went hard inside her then, and shattered. “You’ve turned into him, you know. Leaving your family like this.”
Victor tilted his head toward his shoulder. “Into who?”
“Your father.” She spun around and raced down the front steps before he could respond, knowing that she had just delivered what had to be the fatal blow to their marriage. After her saying that to him, there was no way he’d ever return to them. She drove home crying, mortified that she’d believed sex would so easily win him back. What an idiot she was. And in the end, she lost him, just like she’d lost so many other things.
All she had left were her children, whom she adored above everything else. She felt as though they were the only evidence that she was a successful person—they were both smart, were kind, and carried an innate sense of self-worth Kelli had never possessed. She hoped that how she’d mothered them had something to do with this. She wasn’t perfect as a parent by any means, but she knew she treated them better than her parents had treated her. No matter what they did, they knew how much she loved them.
She pulled into the parking lot of the Loft, checked her makeup in the rearview mirror, and practiced her smile. Not too big—she didn’t want to look desperate. But she wanted Victor to see the girl he fell in love with, the girl he took for long walks around Green Lake, the girl whom, when the single blue line doubled in the restaurant bathroom, he’d gotten down on one knee in front of and asked to marry him. She was only twenty—too young to get married, too young to become a mother—but she felt as though in meeting Victor, the universe was giving her a second chance. The chance to live the right kind of life, be the right kind of person. Victor’s own father had left him with his mother when Victor was only five years old; Kelli knew that having a family, being a good father, was the most important thing to him. He would be the father he’d never had. She’d been convinced he would never leave her. But she was naïve to have thought that creating a new life would erase the sins from her past. She was stupid to believe she could outrun the pain.
She wondered what it was Victor wanted to talk with her about today and if he would be distracted by the purple smudges beneath her eyes. The pills she took to sleep worked only sporadically—she found herself needing to take more and more. They hadn’t worked at all last night. She’d paced the house like a wildcat, mewling silently as she ruminated on the gaping holes in her life. Mostly, the empty place where a happy marriage should have been. The place where Victor used to stand.
A sharp rap on her window yanked her out of her thoughts and sent her pulse racing. She whipped her head around and saw Spencer, Victor’s best friend and head chef, standing next to the car with a gentle smile on his face. She grabbed her purse and opened the car door to greet him.
“Sorry,” he said. “Didn’t mean to scare you. Just wanted to say hello. It’s been a while.” He placed a beefy hand on her back and gave it an awkward pat. Kelli found it sad how friends seemed to get divvied up after a divorce, like a couple’s book or CD collection. When they were married, she and Victor weren’t terribly social—he was always too busy working for them to spend much time with other couples—but when they separated, she realized just how many of her personal connections were through his restaurant. She had Diane, who’d befriended her after Ava was born, and a few acquaintances at her own job, but it was Victor who kept custody of everyone else, including Spencer.
“That’s okay,” she said. “Great to see you.”
“You too.” He paused. “You look beautiful, as usual.”
“Thanks,” she said automatically, though then she pressed her lips together and gave her head a quick shake. She knew he was being kind. She knew she’d lost too much weight to look healthy. Her hair was thinning and even though she was only thirty-three, new lines seemed to carve themselves into her face every day. Diane joked that this was the precise reason she refused to lose the extra twenty pounds she carried. “A little fat plumps out the skin,” she said. “Ben and Jerry’s instead of Botox.”
Kelli glanced at the back entrance of the Loft, then smiled at Spencer. “Can I follow you in, or should I use the front door?”
“Follow me,” he said, and they entered the restaurant together. As they walked down the narrow hallway that led into the kitchen, Kelli inhaled the rich aroma of sautéed onions and simmering broth. Victor had taught her to identify the subtle scents in a dish, the underlying earthy breath of mushrooms, the bright tang of citrus. He’d taught her that the ramen noodles she’d always thought were pretty good for pasta were actually just fried and dehydrated dough. He’d taught her the difference between searing a steak and scorching it; he’d shown her the proper method to dress a salad. She remembered the hours they spent in the kitchen before Ava was born, Victor showing her how to bake melt-in-your-mouth biscuits or concoct an aromatic stew. The first time she made a meatloaf for him and misread half a teaspoon of salt as half a cup, he’d eaten an entire piece anyway, washing each bite down with a huge swallow of water, just to keep her from crying.
“Victor’s out front,” Spencer said as they walked past the two eight-burner stoves. “I’ll go grab him.”
“It hasn’t been that long,” Kelli said as brightly as she could manage. “I remember the way.” She smiled and patted Spencer on his thick forearm. Almost eight years ago, right before Max was born, she’d helped Victor design the restaurant’s layout. She picked out the silverware and wineglasses, the thick, cream-hued tablecloths to set off the black linen napkins. She felt a pang in her stomach—she wasn’t sure if it was hunger or regret—then pushed through the double doors that led to the dining room.
It was quarter to three, smack-dab between the lunch and dinner hours, so there were only a few customers. Kelli moved her gaze over the small bar area and spotted Victor in the corner, where she knew he liked to work. Her breath seized as she took in his handsome face—his dark hair and light silvery eyes. She didn’t understand how she had let him get away. And now, there was Grace. Grace with her important job and nice car. Grace who woke up in Victor’s bed and touched him in the places he’d promised Kelli would be forever hers.
Victor looked up from his laptop and caught her staring at him. He lifted his hand and beckoned her over, so she took a deep breath, threw her shoulders back, and proceeded to where he sat. “Hi,” he said, and there it was. The edge. Sharp enough to wound her.
Kelli sank into the chair across from him and swallowed, trying to moisten her mouth before speaking. “Hi.”
Victor raked his fingers through his hair, a gesture Kelli recognized as one he only made when he was anxious about something. “Can I get you something? Coffee or iced tea?”
“My usual would be great,” she said, testing him.
He smiled and gestured for the bartender, a short, balding man Kelli didn’t recognize. “Can we get a cranberry with Sprite and a hefty squeeze of lime, Jimmy?” Victor asked. “Light on the ice, please.” Jimmy nodded, and Kelli relaxed a bit seeing Victor so quickly rattle off her favorite mocktail—one he made for her time and again during both of her pregnancies. He hadn’t completely erased her from his mind.
“So . . .” Victor said, turning back to look at her. “How’s work going?”
Kelli shrugged. “Fine, I guess. Same old same old. You know.” She hated trying to make small talk with him, but this was the level to which their relationship had been reduced. She glanced at her watch. “I have to get the kids at three thirty,” she said. “Max has basketball practice at four.”
At that moment, Jimmy approached the table and set her drink down in front of her, so Victor waited to respond. “Thanks,” she said to the bartender, who gave her a closed-lipped smile and quickly walked away. The sign of a good server, Kelli thought. He picked up on the slight tension at the table and didn’t try to engage. That was something Victor had taught her—something he trained all his employees to do. Read the customer and act accordingly. Kelli took a sip from the red straw, then gripped the icy glass with both hands. “What did you need to talk with me about?” she asked.
Victor closed his laptop, pushed it off to the side, and let loose a subtle, but noticeable, sigh. “I have some news,” he said. “Good news, really. And we thought you should be the first to know.”
We? Kelli thought, momentarily confused, at first thinking he was referring to the two of them. They were the only “we” she knew. And then it hit her. What he meant. She took a measured breath and saw her knuckles go white as she grasped her glass harder. She couldn’t speak. She knew what was coming next.
Victor shifted forward in his chair and spoke in a low voice. “Grace and I are getting married,” he said.
A sudden buzzing sounded inside Kelli’s head, causing her eyeballs to vibrate. The edges of Victor’s face went blurry and she blinked a few times to hold back the tears that threatened to fall. She didn’t want to cry in front of him. She didn’t want him to see how much she hurt. She bit the inside of her cheek and began to nod like an idiot.
“I know this can’t be easy to hear,” she heard him say as the buzzing began to fade. “I’m sorry, but we thought you should definitely know before we tell the kids this weekend.” He paused, searching her face with those kind gray eyes. “Kelli? Aren’t you going to say anything?”
She picked up her drink and took a long pull on the straw, just to buy herself some time. She couldn’t imagine what he wanted her to say. “Congratulations”? “So happy you’ve moved on”? Her bottom lip quivered and she bit it, too. Victor saw this and reached out to touch her hand. She jerked away, splashing some of her drink onto the table. “I’m fine,” she snapped.
Victor held his hands up, palms facing her, and he leaned back in his chair. “Okay,” he said, irritation weaving itself across the lines of his face. She knew that expression well. “Sorry.”
She took a couple of shallow breaths. She felt dizzy. Had she eaten that day? She couldn’t remember. She straightened her spine and steeled herself as best she could. She didn’t want to be the pitiful ex-wife, pining for the spouse who left her. But there she was. She glanced at the double doors leading to the kitchen and saw Spencer’s head in the window. He quickly ducked, but she knew he’d been watching them, gauging her reaction. She briefly thought about getting Spencer to sleep with her, just to piss Victor off, but she knew his friend was too loyal to ever do something as horrible as that.
She forced her eyes back to Victor, who was staring at her. “Thank you for telling me,” she said in as calm a voice as she could manage. She clasped her hands together in her lap, digging her fingernails into her skin, trying to direct the pain that threatened to overwhelm her somewhere other than her chest. Her lungs felt like they might explode. “Have you set a date?”
Victor shook his head. “It just happened last night. We’ll do that after we talk to the kids this weekend.”
“Ava’s not going to be happy,” Kelli said. Her voice was strung tight. “You should be prepared for that.”
“How do you figure?” Victor asked, scrunching his eyebrows together.
Kelli gave a small lift to her right shoulder. “She’ll think you’re trying to replace me.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Passive-aggressive, she knew. He’d nail her for it. Victor wasn’t stupid. He’d know Kelli was projecting her feelings onto their daughter so she wouldn’t have to claim them herself. It wasn’t the first time. It started when he opened the restaurant and was gone so much, leaving her alone with the kids. “Max and Ava miss you,” she’d say. “They’re starting to forget what their daddy looks like.”
“I’m not trying to replace you,” Victor said gently now. There he was. The Victor she loved. He dropped his chin and peered at her. “Kelli. Are you okay with this?”
“Of course,” she said, a little too quickly. “It’s great. So happy for you both. Are you going to have a baby with her?” Kelli panicked at the thought. It was the one thing she knew she had that Grace didn’t—she was the mother of Victor’s children. If Grace had a baby, that would be gone, too. She didn’t know if she could handle losing one more thing.
Victor sighed. “No.” He sat forward again, placing his elbows on the table and loosely linking his fingers. “Please don’t tell the kids yet, okay? We’d like to do that.”
Kelli nodded and glanced out the window. A young couple strolled by, hands in each other’s back pockets, the girl resting her head on the boy’s shoulder. Kelli gave a small smile. “Remember that?” she asked Victor. “How we used to be?”
Victor looked in the same direction, taking the couple in. Kelli knew if he remembered her drink, he’d remember that, too. But he stayed silent. They were over; it was done. And there was nothing left to say.
