The Hating Game: A Novel

At the table by the window sits Elaine and Anthony, and Mindy and Patrick. Everyone stops talking when I approach. I wave like a dork. Everyone looks surprised.

“Hi.”

“Lucy! Hello!” Elaine recovers first and looks at the table. Oh. There are no spare chairs. We’re barely five minutes late. They clearly weren’t expecting us to turn up. Josh is dawdling, thankfully.

“Quick, quick!” I start looking around at other tables.

“More chairs,” Elaine gasps. She understands perfectly. If he walks over here and there are no seats for us, he’ll shrivel up.

Anthony sits at the daddy-end of the table and continues reading his folded up newspaper. No wait, medical journal. Jeez. He makes no indication he’s aware of any other people in the room.

There’s a great deal of shuffling and I manage to borrow spare chairs from a nearby table. By the time Josh arrives with a plate of croissants and a cup of tea, we’re all sitting as casually as we can, trying to slide the plates back in front of their original owners.

“Good morning,” everyone chimes.

“Hi,” he says cautiously, and puts the plate and tea in front of me. “I got you the last ones.” It’s a plate filled with croissants and strawberries. He strokes his hand down the side of my neck.

“Sweet of you. Thanks.”

“I’ll just get something,” he says, and retreats. Elaine watches him, part sad, part amused, and looks at Anthony.

I smile at Mindy to show I’m not upset anymore. I probably have a nuclear post-orgasmic glow. She tentatively smiles back.

“How do you feel, Mrs. Templeman?”

I didn’t put too much thought into the question, but the words Mrs. Templeman make her physically jolt. Maybe I’m exceptionally empathetic, but I feel like I’ve dropped a bombshell. The words ring in my ears, off the walls, right through my bones.

Mrs. Templeman. How primal, indeed.

“Wrecked. I’m so tired I feel like I’m dreaming. But in a good way.” She breaks into a smile and looks at the tablecloth.

“Mrs. Templeman. It sounds so . . .” She covers her face with her hands and sighs and laughs and dorks. Get out of my head, Mindy.

“Sorry we took a smaller table,” Elaine begins, but I shake my head.

“It’s okay. I had to use my lasso to get him down here.” I mime swinging a rope over my head and the women burst out laughing. The men sit silently, reading and eating.

“I can imagine it. Little cowgirl dragging him behind her, bucking and snorting.”

“I don’t know why he makes such a big deal of everything,” Patrick interjects mildly, taking a quick wincing mouthful of his coffee.

I have a feeling he’s always so busy he eats all of his meals in painful scalding gulps and swallows. Maybe it’s a doctor thing. Ingest the fuel rather than enjoy it.

“He’s shy. Leave him alone.”

Patrick frowns at my kid-sister impudence, and then laughs. He glances at Josh.

“Shy. Huh.” I can see the realization dawning across his face, like it did mine yesterday. Shyness takes so many different forms. Some people are shy and soft. Some, shy and hard. Or in Josh’s case, shy, and wrapped in military-grade armor.

“Josh, Lucy, thank you for the gift,” Mindy says when Josh takes his seat. She catches my eye and smiles, clearly thinking I chose it.

“I never did see what he ended up choosing.” I take a huge bite of croissant. He’s got one arm across the back of my chair, his warm hand spread across my shoulder.

“The most beautiful set of Waterford crystal champagne glasses, engraved with our initials. And two bottles of Moët.”

“Good job, Josh.”

“The wedding was nice,” Josh tells her. I look at his eyes as they assess each other. It’s probably the first time they’ve faced each other since the breakup. I almost quiver with concentration, trying to detect any residual heartbreak, lust, resentment, loneliness. If I had whiskers, they would be twitching.

“Thanks,” Mindy replies. She looks at her wedding ring again and then at Patrick with such helpless devotion I look at Josh sharply. If ever he was going to react badly it would be now. He smiles, looks at his plate, and then looks at me. He kisses my temple and I’m convinced.

“How have you kept Lucy a secret from us all?” Mindy says as she cuts her grapefruit.

“Oh, you know. I keep her in my basement.”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds. He’s made it comfy down there.” Everyone laughs, except Anthony, naturally.

I have a refreshing realization. I’m not trying. It explains why I’m so comfortable sitting here, eating with strangers. If they like me, fine. If not, I can live. But I feel the same relaxed slouchy feeling I get when sitting with my family. If I tilt my head just right, I can’t see Anthony at all.

Mindy lists some of the other gifts they received. Patrick’s new gold band winks in the pale sunshine filtering in through the clouds, and he occasionally curls his thumb in to touch it. Mindy watches him, tenderness in her eyes.

Josh’s breakfast is two poached eggs, a slice of wheat toast, and a heap of wilted spinach. He drinks his coffee in two swallows. I look at my own plate and pinch my stomach under the table. His body is a temple. Mine will be a hut made of butter at this rate.

“More coffee?” I get up and decide to bring myself back some more fruit. I can’t just sit there eating pastry. He snags my wrist and looks up at me.

Stay, his eyes tell me. I pat him kindly and he reluctantly relinquishes his mug.

“I’ll be right back. Anyone else?”

I take my time fiddling with the coffee machine. Everything’s a little stilted and it does occur to me that I’m essentially an intruder. I’m the only one at the table who’s not a Templeman.

As I struggle with the long plastic tongs to get another slice of watermelon, I am dimly aware of sharp tones. I’m piling my plate with a bunch of grapes when realization dawns. Oh shit.

I hurry back to the table and put down my plate and Josh’s mug. Mindy is frozen, eyes frightened, and Patrick looks resigned.

“But what I want to know is, why would you throw away premed? Any monkey can get an MBA.” Anthony has laid aside his breakfast reading and is staring down Josh, gimlet-eyed.

Seriously, I was away from the table for maybe two minutes. How did this escalate so quickly? I suppose a nuclear bomb has one red button, and that doesn’t take long to press. I put my hand on the back of Josh’s neck, like I’m holding an attack dog by the collar.

“For fuck’s sake. If you knew anything about it, you’d know it’s almost impossible to complete an executive MBA while working full-time. And I did it. And I was in the top two percent. I got four job offers, and two of those companies still call me.”

“I’m surprised you finished it, if it was so hard,” Anthony says. “I thought your favorite hobby was quitting.”

“Hey,” I blurt. I’m still standing, and I realize I have a hand on my hip.

“Lucy, they’re just . . .” Elaine is unsure of what to do. “Maybe you should talk to Josh outside, Anthony.”

People at nearby tables are all sitting with cutlery lowered in various stages of avid interest or awkward avoidance.

Josh laughs meanly. “Why, so we can have a good old-fashioned fistfight? He’d just love that.”

Anthony rolls his eyes. “You need to—”

“Toughen up? Is that what you’re about to say to me? What you’ve said to me for as long as I’ve been alive?” Josh glances up at me in exasperation. “Now can we go?”

“I think maybe you should talk this out.” Another five years might go by.

“She’s one of those touchy-feely types,” Anthony says to Elaine. “Fantastic.”

Josh’s eyes narrow dangerously. “Don’t talk about her.”

“Well, she can’t resist bringing herself into it.”

“Be quiet,” Elaine says to Anthony. She’s furious. “All I asked was for you to be civil. Keep your mouth shut.”

I look at Anthony and he looks at me. His eyes are full of derision as he runs his eyes from the top of my head, down. Then he sniffs and looks out the window, obeying his wife, mouth pursed shut.

Oh boy. I’m not putting up with this twice in my life, and certainly not from another Templeman. My temper snaps.

“Your son is incredibly talented. Focused. Ridiculously intelligent. He is instrumental in keeping a publishing house running.”

“What, licking stamps? Answering phones?” We lock eyes.

I bark a laugh. “Is that seriously what you think he does?”

“I’m not going to sit here and be spoken to like this by you, young woman. I’ve seen his email signature block. Assistant TO the CEO. I don’t know who you think you are.”

He’s attempting to reestablish his authority. Maybe I’ll sit down and be a good little girl. Josh’s instinct to protect me is making him rise up out of his chair but I wave him back.

I got this.

“I’m the person who knows your own offspring better than you do. He’s the person the finance and sales divisions report to. They’re scared fucking shitless of him. I once had a forty-five-year-old man beg me in the hall outside the boardroom to pass on the documents so he wouldn’t have to attend. I’ve seen entire teams scurrying like ants, double-checking, triple-checking their figures. Even then, Josh will always find the mistake. Then usually someone takes a stress day.”

Anthony begins to bluster something, but I cut him off. I’m so worked up I could strangle him. Honestly, I could wrap my hands around his neck and squeeze.

I am Lara Croft, guns raised, eyes blazing with retribution.

“The reason Bexley Books didn’t completely implode before the merger is Josh recommended that their workforce be reduced by thirty-five percent. I’ve hated him for it. It was cold-blooded. And he can be, you have no idea. But it meant another one hundred and twenty people kept their jobs. Paid their mortgages. So don’t you dare try to make out like he’s nothing. Oh, and I know for a fact Josh was integral in the merger negotiations. One of the corporate lawyers told me in the kitchen he was, quote, ‘a fucking hardass.’”

I can’t seem to stop. It’s like I’m purging something.

“His boss, who’s the co-CEO in title only, is a fat, sleazy toad so out of his mind on prescriptions he can barely tie a shoelace. Josh is who keeps it all running. Both of us do.”

I look at them all. Josh is digging his fingers into the waistband of my jeans.

“I’m sorry I’m making a scene. And I like all of you. Except you.” I cut a look at Anthony.

“I spend more time with him than anyone, and I have to tell you, you don’t know what you’ve got. You’ve got Josh. He’s an awkward, difficult asshole. I hate him almost half the time and he drives me mental, and it’s clearly hereditary. You gave me the exact same look Josh first did when I met him. Top to bottom, out the window. You know everything about me? You know everything about him? I don’t think so.”

“I have been trying to give him a boost. Some people need a push,” Anthony says.

“You can’t have it both ways. You can’t completely neglect him, yet trash his choices.”

Anthony raises a hand to his brow and rubs it like he’s getting a headache. “My father pushed my younger brother.”

“And how did he enjoy that?”

His eyes flick sideways. Not too much, I’m guessing.

“He’s not a doctor. Deal with it.”

Anthony goggles at me.

“But I want you to know something. He could be, if he wanted to. He could be anything he fucking wanted to. Nothing is by mistake. Nothing is because he’s not good enough. It’s his choice.”

I sit down in a huff. Mindy and Patrick look at each other, mouths open. Hell, the entire room is sitting with their mouths open. I hear someone start to clap, then hastily stop.

“I’m sorry, Elaine.” I take a huge mouthful of tea, nearly spilling it down my top. My hands are shaking.

“Don’t apologize for defending him like that,” she says faintly. I suppose what she means by like that is like a rabid lioness.

I find the courage to look at Josh. He looks completely shell-shocked.

“I . . .” Anthony trails off and I level my best stare on him. The same withering, emotionless glare I’ve given his son a thousand times before.

“I . . . er.” He clears his throat and looks at his cutlery.

“Yes, Dr. Templeman? Care to share?” My audacity is breathtaking.

“I don’t know much about your work, Josh.” Everyone’s jaw drops even further. Mine doesn’t. I will never give him the satisfaction. I stare into his eyes and mentally twist a rusty fish knife into his gut. I raise an eyebrow.

“I’d . . . be interested in talking to you more about it, Josh.”

I interject. “Now that you know he’s successful? Now you know that he’ll almost certainly be promoted to chief operating officer of a major publishing house? You’ve got something to tell your buddies at golf now.”

“Squash,” Patrick tells me in an aside. “He plays squash.”

I have given Anthony the dressing-down of a lifetime. He is unable to speak. It is wonderful.

“You should love him and be proud of him even if he’s in the mailroom. Even if he were unemployed and crazy and living under a bridge. We’re leaving now. Elaine, it was a pleasure, I loved meeting you. Mindy, Patrick, congratulations again and enjoy your honeymoon. Sorry I made a scene just now. Anthony, it’s been real.”

I stand up. “Now we screech out of here like Thelma and Louise.” Josh stands and goes to kiss his mother’s cheek. She grasps helplessly at his wrist.

“But when will I see you?” She looks up at Josh, but she also looks to me.

I can see Josh’s jaw tightening, and I can almost hear the excuses forming on his tongue. He might drop off the radar for the Templeman family altogether. The next thing I say surprises even me. Especially given the fact I’ve essentially just said good-bye to them all for the last time.

“If you can come up to the city soon, we could meet you for lunch. We could go see a movie after. Anthony, you’re invited too.”

His jaw, which has been hinging loosely, sways in the breeze.

“But only if you’re prepared to be civil and start to get to know your son again. I think you know there’s going to be no more ragging on Josh. Except by me, because he loves it.”

“You and I are going to have a discussion. Outside. Now.” Elaine gets to her feet and points to a French door leading to the side gardens. Anthony looks like a man walking to the gallows. I know a fellow rabid lioness when I see her.

I take Josh’s hand and we weave through our spellbound audience.

“No charge,” the cashier tells me. “Lady, that was better than theater.”

I retrieve our bags from the receptionist, thankfully not the lustful blonde this time. I probably would have roundhouse-kicked her head off. Walking together, matching our footfalls, we exit the lobby like two television district attorneys gunning for justice.

I ask the valet for our car, and turn.

“Okay, let me have it.” I just made an incredibly embarrassing scene. I can see people talking about me as they wait for their taxis. I’m going to star in twenty different retellings of That Restaurant Incident.

Josh picks me up off the ground. “Thank you,” he tells me. “Thank you so much.”

When we kiss, I hear some applause.

“You’re not mad I rescued you? Boys don’t need rescuing.”

“This one did. And I’ll even let you choose which you wanna be. Thelma, or Louise,” he tells me, setting me on my feet as the car arrives.

“You’re the good-looking one, I guess you’re Thelma.”

He slides the driver’s seat back. We drive about half a block before Josh bursts out laughing.

“You told my dad it had ‘been real.’”

“Like I was a bad TV scriptwriter who thought that’s how kids talk.”

“Exactly. It was so priceless.” He wipes a tear away with his thumb.

“I feel bad about your mom, though. She looked so completely stricken.”

“Don’t you worry, she is going to kick the shit out of him for that.”

“I have no doubt. It’s why she and I get along so well.”

He thinks for a few moments while driving. “I don’t know how I can move on from this, with my dad.”

“Nothing’s insurmountable.” I try to believe my own words.

I roll down the window a little so the breeze is on my face. The sun is warming my legs and Josh is smiling again.

I do not even let myself think about how it is all going to end.

IF THE DRIVE normally takes five hours, I swear Josh cuts it down to three. But the hours mean nothing to us as we wind through the countryside, leaving the sea-salt wind behind us.

The memory is lit by the sun through the trees we drive through, nothing but lemons and copper tones scattering across our arms, lighting our eyes up blue; his sapphire, mine turquoise. I see my face in the car’s side mirror and I barely recognize myself.

I’ve changed. I’m someone new today. Today is a momentous day.

I’ll always remember the drive home as a movie montage, and I knew I was in one. Each detail was vividly bright. I knew I’d need the memories one day.

This montage is directed by someone French. A convertible would have been their preference, but the windows are down, so that’s something. The air is unseasonably warm and scented like honeysuckle and cut grass.

The montage stars this pretty girl, Flamethrower-red mouth smiling over at a beautiful man. He’s looking so achingly cool in his sunglasses you immediately buy a pair for yourself.

He lifts her hand to his mouth and kisses it. Tells her something charming and makes her laugh. It’s the sort of moment you want to hit pause on and buy whatever it is they’re selling.

Happiness. A better life. Red lipstick and those sunglasses.

The soundtrack should be a lilting indie affair; equal parts hopeful and with a broken, bittersweet lyric hook that makes your heart hurt for some unknown reason. But instead it’s scored by the 1980s hair metal I found in an incriminating iPod playlist titled Gym.

“You seriously got those abs while listening to Poison and Bon Jovi,” I crow, and he can’t deny it. It’s just us, windows down, stereo cranked, the road curling in front of us like a tongue.

We sing along. The lyrics for songs I haven’t heard in years fall out of my mouth. His fingers drum the steering wheel. Life right now is easier than breathing.

We never stop the car. It’s like if we stop, even for a rest break, reality will catch us. We’re bank robbers. Kids running away from boarding school. Eloping teenage sweethearts.

There’s a bottle of water in my bag, and Josh’s tin of mints. We share, and it’s better than a banquet.

I will eventually confess to myself why this montage means so much. I could try to believe it was because of Monday morning looming, and the one prize dangling above two worthy recipients. Maybe it was because of how alive I felt. So completely young and filled to bursting with the scary, thrilling certainty my life was about to change in a big way.

Possibly it was the thrill of sticking it to the man and the heady rush of standing up to someone terrifying. The thrill of rescuing someone. Being the strong one. Carrying someone; coddling and protecting, defending like a lioness.

Maybe it was the smell of spring in the air; the field of four-leaf clovers we pass. Red roses against a fence. Leather seats and Josh’s skin.

No, it was something else; the new knowledge of something irreversible, permanent. It cycled through my head with each revolution of the car’s wheels, each pulse of blood in my frail whisper-thin veins. At any moment a tiny valve could buckle under the pressure of the cholesterol from my croissants. At any moment I could die.

But I don’t. I fall asleep, my cheek against the warm seat, my face turned toward him, like it always has been. Like it always will.

I open my eyes a tiny crack. We’re in a parking garage.

“We’re home,” he says.

I think the unthinkable. I should have been thinking it all along. My eyes slide closed and I feign sleep.

“You need to wake up,” he whispers. A kiss on my cheek. A miracle.

I love Joshua Templeman.