People ask why I let the dinner happen.
Because in private, Tyler would have had all night to work on me. I misread it. It was a joke. I was “emotional.” And Julian would go on being told he was paranoid.
And because I wanted to give Tyler one last chance. If he was kind to me at that table, even once, I’d tell Julian quietly, later.
Thursday I booked a lawyer for Monday. Then I packed Tyler’s gym duffel and set it under the coat rack, half-behind the umbrella stand. He walked past it for three days.
On Saturday I made my mom’s roast chicken and set the table for eight. I lit the two tall candles we got as a wedding present and had never once used.
“Going all out,” Tyler said.
“It’s our anniversary,” I said.
Wes and Kate came first. Wes was Tyler’s college roommate. Kate does photography on weekends; she took our engagement photos. Gabe and Renee came right behind them with wine and a card.
Julian came alone, with yellow tulips. Thin black glasses, a charcoal sweater. “Sienna’s running late,” he said. “Client call.”
He asked when the baby was due and actually listened to the answer. I liked him immediately. That made it worse.
Sienna came twenty minutes late.
In my dress.
It fit her the way it used to fit me. The belt tied the way my mother tied it.
Kate saw it first. Her eyes went to the photo on the wall, then to the dress, then to me. I gave her the smallest shake of my head. Not yet.
Tyler couldn’t stop looking at it.
Julian saw him looking. He blinked, and then decided not to see it. I knew that face. I’d been wearing it since spring.
We sat down under the photo. Tyler at the head. Me at his left corner. Sienna across from me. Julian beside her. Our friends down the table.
Tyler put his phone face down by his wine glass, like always.
I served everyone. Then I sat down and picked up my fork.
That’s when he did it.
He reached over and slid my plate away from me. A full plate. Across the corner of the table, right in front of Sienna.
My fork was still in the air.
“Sienna’s our guest,” he said, with a little laugh. “You’re eating for two anyway.”
Julian gave a little laugh too, the kind you give when you’re not sure it’s a joke. Wes laughed. Nobody else did.
Sienna took a bite from my plate, in my dress, and smiled at me.
I put my fork down. I looked at the phone by his glass.
That was his chance. He’d used it to hand my dinner to his girlfriend in front of six people.
Then Tyler stood up with his wine.
“To Sienna,” he said. “Best-looking woman at this table.”
Julian laughed and raised his glass. Sienna raised hers. Renee left hers on the table and looked at me.
Julian was toasting the man his wife was cheating with, and he had no idea.
That was the moment.
I reached over and turned Tyler’s phone face up. He grabbed for it. Too late.
I typed our wedding date. I opened the thread. And I read that last line out loud.
“Wear the red dress. She won’t notice.”
Julian’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth. He looked at the dress. Then at the photo on the wall. Then at his wife.
I looked at Tyler.
“I noticed.”
Then I slid his phone across the table to Julian.
The same way Tyler had slid my plate.
