The Unhoneymooners

It’s the quiet before the dinner rush, and I’m doing the final check of my section. Natalia is the fourth family member this week to just happen to stop by Camelia at exactly four o’clock. She said she wanted to say hi to David because she hasn’t seen him in forever, but I know that’s bullshit because Diego—who came by yesterday to hassle me using a similarly flimsy story—said both David and Natalia were at Tía María’s less than a week ago.

As much as the size and presence of my family can feel oppressive at times, it’s the greatest comfort I have right now. Even if I pretend to be annoyed that they’re constantly checking up on me, they all see through it. Because if it were any of them struggling—and it has been, many times—I would find a reason to drop by at four o’clock wherever they work, too.

“Mama, when we’re sad, we eat,” Natalia says, following me with a plate of food as I adjust the placement of two wineglasses on a table.

“I know,” I tell her. “But I swear, I can’t eat anymore.”

“You’re starting to look like a bobble-headed Selena Gomez.” She pinches my waist. “I don’t like it.”

The family knows Ethan broke up with me, and that Ami and I are “arguing” (although there’s nothing active about it; I called her a few times after our big blow-up, and two weeks later she has yet to return any of my calls). In the past ten days, I’ve been bombarded with well-meaning texts and my fridge is completely packed with food that Mom brings daily from Tío Omar, Ximena, Natalia, Cami, Miguel, Tío Hugo, Stephanie, Tina—almost as if they’ve made a Feed Olive calendar. My family feeds people; it’s what they do. Apparently my missing Sunday dinner for two weeks in a row—because of work—has gotten the entire family on high alert, and it’s driving them all crazy not knowing what’s going on. I can’t blame them; if Jules, or Natalia, or Diego went into hiding, I’d be out of my mind worried. But it isn’t my story to share; I wouldn’t know how to tell them what is happening, and according to Tío Hugo, who came by yesterday to “Um, get a business card for an insurance agent from David,” Ami won’t talk about it, either.

“I saw Ami yesterday,” Natalia says now, and then pauses long enough for me to stop fussing with the table settings and look up at her.

“How is she?” I can’t help the tight lean to my words. I miss my sister so much, and it’s wrecking me that she isn’t speaking to me. It’s like missing a limb. Every day I get so close to caving, to saying, ‘You’re probably right, Dane didn’t do anything wrong,” but the words just won’t come out, even when I test the lie out in front of the mirror. It sticks in my throat, and I get hot and tight all over and feel like I’m going to cry. Nothing all that terrible even happened to me—other than losing my job, my sister, and my boyfriend in a twenty-four-hour period—but I still feel a kind of burning anger toward Dane, as if he slapped me with his own hand.

Natalia shrugs and picks a piece of lint off my collar. “She seemed stressed. She was asking me about someone named Trinity.”

“Trinity?” I repeat, digging around in my thoughts to figure out why the name sounds familiar.

“Apparently Dane had a few texts from her, and Ami saw them on his phone.”

I cover my mouth. “Like sexy texts?” I am both devastated and hopeful if this is true: I want Ami to believe me, but I’d rather be wrong about all of it than have her go through that pain.

“I guess she just asked if he wanted to hang out, and Dane was like ‘Nah, I’m busy’ but Ami was pissed that he was texting a woman at all.”

“Oh my God, I think Trinity was the girl with the mango butt tattoo.”

Natalia grins. “I think I read that book.”

This makes me laugh, and the sensation is like clearing away cobwebs from a dark corner of a room. “Ethan mentioned someone named Trinity. She—”

I stop. I haven’t told anyone in my family about what Ethan told me. I could try to blow Dane’s entire cover story if I wanted, but what good would that do? I don’t have any proof that he was seeing other women before he married Ami. I don’t have any proof that he propositioned me in the bar. I just have my reputation as a pessimist, and I don’t want my entire family looking at me the way Ethan did when he registered that even my twin sister thinks I’m making this all up.

“She what?” Natalia presses when I’ve fallen quiet.

“Never mind.”

“Okay,” she says, fired up now, “what is going on? You and your sister are being so weird lately, and—”

I shake my head, feeling the tears pressing in from the back of my eyes. I can’t do this before my shift. “I can’t, Nat. I just need you to be there for Ami, okay?”

She nods without hesitation.

“I don’t know who Trinity is,” I say, and take a deep breath, “but I don’t trust Dane at all anymore.”

• • •

AFTER MIDNIGHT, I DRAG MY bag from my locker in the back room and sling it over my shoulder. I don’t even bother to look at my phone. Ami isn’t texting, Ethan isn’t calling, and there’s nothing I can say in reply to the forty other messages on my screen every time I look.

But halfway to my car, it chimes. It’s a brief flurry of bells and rotors and change falling: the sound of a jackpot. Ami’s text tone.

It’s ten below outside, and I’m in a black skirt and thin white button-down, but I stop where I am anyway and pull my phone from my bag. Ami has sent me a screencap of Dane’s text list, and there are the usual suspects—Ami and Ethan and some of Dane’s friends—but there are also names like Cassie and Trinity and Julia. Ami’s text says,

Is this what you were talking about?

I don’t know how to answer. Of course my gut tells me that those are all women Dane has slept with, but how would I know? They could be work colleagues. I bite my lip, typing with frigid fingers.

I have no idea who they are.

I don’t have a list of names. If I did, I would have shown it to you.

I wait for her to start typing again, but she doesn’t, and I’m freezing, so I climb into my car and crank the heat as high as it will go.

But about three blocks from my apartment complex, my phone chimes again, and I pull over with a sharp jerk of my steering wheel.

Dane left his phone here yesterday.

I spent like two hours trying to guess his passcode, and it’s fucking “1111.”

I bite back a laugh and stare at the screen hungrily: she’s still typing.

I sent myself all the screenshots.

All the messages from these women are asking the same thing—whether Dane wants to hang out. Is that code for a booty call?

I blink at the screen. Is she serious?

Ami, you know what I think already.

Ollie what if you were right?

What if he’s cheating on me?

What if he’s been cheating on me this whole time?

A fracture forms right down the middle of my heart. Half of it belongs to my sister, for what she’s about to go through; the other half will always keep beating for myself even when no one else will.

I’m sorry Ami. I wish I knew what to say.

Should I answer one of the texts?

I stare at the screen for a beat.

On his phone?

As Dane?

Yes.

I mean, you could.

If you don’t think you’ll get an honest answer from him.

I wait. My heart is in my throat, clawing its way up.

I’m scared.

I don’t want to be right about this.

I know, honey.

For what it’s worth, I don’t either.

I’m going to do it tonight.

I take a deep breath, close my eyes, and let it out slowly. Somehow, being believed at last doesn’t feel nearly as good as I’d hoped it would.

I’m here if you need me.

• • •

ALTHOUGH I’D HAD TWO MONTHS of unemployment not too long ago, I spent most of that time hunting for jobs or helping Ami prepare for the wedding, so now, keeping busy during the day has become so much more important. Because if I don’t, I think about Ethan. Or Ami.

I don’t hear from her the entire next day, and there’s a knot in my stomach the size of Texas. I want to know how things went with Dane last night. I want to know whether she’s replied to the texts or confronted him, and what happened. I feel protective, and worried for her, but there’s literally nothing I can do, and I can’t call Ethan, either, because we all know he’s on the Dane Train until the end of the tracks.

Given that I’m off tonight, getting out of my apartment—and my head—becomes a priority. I dread going to the gym, but whenever I get in front of the punching bag, I’m amazed how much better I feel. I’ve started walking dogs at the local Humane Society and have a new golden retriever buddy named Skipper that I’m considering bringing home for Mom as a surprise—whether it would be a good surprise or a bad one I’m not sure, which is why I’m still considering it. I help a few of my neighbors shovel their walkways, go to a talk on art and medicine at the Walker Art Center, and meet Diego for a late lunch.

He hasn’t heard from Ami today, either.

It’s strange to realize that as soon as I got off the career treadmill, my life suddenly started to feel like mine again. I feel like I can look up for the first time in a decade. I can breathe. There’s a reason Ethan didn’t know much about my job: I never talked about it. It was what I did, not who I was. And even though many of my breaths ache—because I miss Ethan, I do, I miss him so much it hurts—not having the weight of a corporate job on my shoulders is an unbelievable relief. I never knew I was this person. I feel more myself than I’ve ever been.

Ami calls at five, when I’ve just walked in my front door and am making a beeline for the lint roller; Skipper is a shedder, even in early February. I haven’t heard her voice in two weeks, and I can hear the way my own shakes when I answer.

“Hello?”

“Hey, Ollie.”

I leave a long, quiet pause. “Hey, Ami.”

Her voice comes out thick and strangled. “I’m really sorry.”

I have to swallow a few times to get past the clog of emotions in my throat. “Are you okay?”

“No,” she says, and then, “but yes. Do you want to come over tonight? I made lasagna.”

I chew my lip for a few beats. “Is Dane going to be there?”

“He’ll be here later,” she admits. “Please Ollie? I really want you to be here tonight.”

There’s something about the way she’s said it that makes me feel like it’s more than just sister-reconnecting time. “Okay, I’ll be over in twenty.”

• • •

I LOOK AT MYSELF IN the mirror every day, so it shouldn’t be so jarring to see Ami standing on her porch waiting for me, but it is. We’ve never gone two weeks without seeing each other—even in college. I was at the U, she was at St. Thomas, and even in the busiest week, we still saw each other at dinner on Sundays.

I wrap my arms around her as tight as they’ll go and squeeze even tighter when I can tell she’s crying. It feels like that first inhale after holding my breath as long as I can.

“I missed you,” she says through a sob into my shoulder.

“I missed you more.”

“This sucks,” she says.

“I know.” I pull back, wiping her face. “How are you?”

“I’m . . .” She trails off, and then we sort of stand there, grinning at each other through the telepathy because the answer is obvious: My wedding was ruined by ciguatera toxin, I missed my honeymoon, and now my husband may be cheating on me. “I’m alive.”

“Is he home?”

“Work.” She straightens, taking a deep breath and pulling herself together. “He’ll be home around seven.”

She turns and leads me inside. I love their house—it’s so open and bright, and I’m grateful that Ami has such a strong decorating sense because I assume if it was left up to Dane, the decor would be a lot of Vikings purple, dart boards, and maybe some hipster leather couches and a craft cocktail cart that he’d never use.

Ami moves to the kitchen, pouring us each a big glass of wine.

I laugh when she hands mine to me. “Oh, so it’s that kind of night.”

She nods, smiling even though I can tell there’s nothing happy happening in her body right now. “You have no idea.”

I still feel like I have to tiptoe around the topic, but I can’t help but ask, “Did you take his phone last night? What’s the latest?”

“Yeah. I took his phone.” Ami takes a long drink and then looks at me over the rim of her glass. “I’ll tell you all about it later.” She tilts her head, indicating that I should follow her into the family room, where she’s already got our plates of lasagna set up on two TV trays.

“Well, this looks comfy,” I tell her.

She curtsies, flops down onto the couch, and hits play on The Big Sick. We missed it in the theater and kept meaning to watch it, so there’s a sweet little ache that rises in my throat knowing that she waited to see it with me.

The lasagna is perfect, the movie is wonderful, and I almost forget that Dane lives here. But then an hour into the movie, the front door opens. Ami’s entire demeanor shifts. She sits up, hands on her thighs, and takes a deep breath.

“You okay?” I whisper. Am I here for moral support while she confronts her husband? I can’t decide whether that will be fantastic or excruciating or both.

I hear Dane drop his keys on the counter, shuffle through the mail, and then call out, “Hey, babe.”

“Hey, honey,” she calls back, brightly, falsely, and it is so incongruous with the bleak way she looks at me.

My stomach drops in a weird burst of anticipatory stress, and then Dane is there in the doorway. He sounds surprised and displeased. “Oh. Hey, Olive.”

I don’t bother turning around. “Go to hell, Dane.”

Ami chokes on her wine and then looks at me, eyes shining with amusement and tension. “Honey, there’s lasagna in the oven if you want some.”

I can feel him still looking at the back of my head—I know he is—but he just stands behind me for a few more seconds before saying quietly, “Okay, I’ll grab some and leave you two to it.”

“Thanks, hon!” Ami calls out.

She glances at her watch and then reaches for the remote, turning the volume down. “I’m so nervous, I’m nauseated.”

“Ami,” I say, leaning in, “what’s going on?”

“I texted them,” she says, and my jaw drops. “I’m screaming inside.” I see it, too—the tightness around her eyes, the way I can tell she’s holding back tears. “I had to do it this way.”

“Do what exactly, Ami?” I ask.

But before she can answer, the doorbell rings.

Ami’s attention shoots over my shoulder, toward the door leading to the kitchen, and we listen as Dane walks across the tile entryway to answer it. Slowly, so slowly I can see she’s shaking, Ami stands.

“Come on,” she says quietly to me, and then she calls out to Dane with a calm clarity I can’t believe, “Who’s at the door?”

I follow Ami out just as Dane is frantically trying to guide a woman back outside, and my blood pressure drops.

Did she text the women as Dane, and invite them here?

“Who is it, honey?” Ami repeats, innocently.

The woman pushes past Dane. “Who’s that?”

“I’m his wife, Ami.” Ami stretches out her hand. “Which one are you?”

“Which one am I?” the woman repeats, too thunderstruck to return Ami’s handshake. She glances at Dane, and her face pales, too. “I’m Cassie.”

Dane turns, ashen, and stares at my sister. “Babe.”

For once, I see Ami’s jaw twitch at the pet name, and I want to shoot a rocket of joy into the sky because I knew she hated it and just pretended to like it! Twin powers for the win!

“Excuse me, Dane,” Ami says sweetly, “I’m in the middle of introducing myself to one of your girlfriends.”

I can see the panic in his eyes. “Babe, this totally isn’t what you think.”

“What do I think it is, babe?” she asks, eyes wide with faux-curiosity.

Another car pulls into the driveway, and a woman slowly emerges, taking in the scene in front of her. She looks like she just got off work: she’s wearing nurse’s scrubs and her hair is in a bun. It occurs to me that this is not how you dress for someone you’re trying to impress; it’s how you dress for someone you’ve known for a long time and are comfortable around.

I can’t help but glare at Dane. What a complete dirtbag.

Ami looks at me over her shoulder and says to me, “That must be Trinity.”

Oh my God. My sister is currently blowing up Dane’s game, and she doesn’t even need a checklist to do it. This is nuclear-level madness.

Dane pulls Ami aside, leaning down to meet her eyes. “Hey. What are you doing, hon?”

“I thought I should meet them.” Her chin shakes, and it’s painful to watch. “I saw the messages on your phone.”

“I haven’t—” he starts.

“Yeah,” Cassie says quietly. “You have. Last week.” She looks at Ami, then at me. “I didn’t know he was married. I swear I had no idea.”

She turns and makes her way back to her car, passing the other woman, who’s stopped several yards away. I can tell from Trinity’s expression that she’s figured out what’s happening here.

“You’re married,” she says flatly, from a distance.

“He’s married,” Ami confirms.

Trinity looks back at Dane when he sits down on the doorstep and puts his face in his hands. “Dane,” she says. “This is so fucked up.”

He nods. “I’m sorry.”

To her credit, Trinity looks directly at Ami. “We haven’t been together in a while, if that helps.”

“What’s ‘a while’?” Ami asks.

Trinity lifts a shoulder, drops it. “Five months or so.”

Ami nods, breathing deep and fast, struggling to not cry.

“Ami,” I say, “go inside. Lie down. I’ll be in in a second.”

She turns and quickly dodges Dane’s outstretched hand as she passes. A car door slams down at the street and my heart lurches—how many more women are going to show up tonight?

But it isn’t another woman. It’s Ethan. He’s coming from work, wearing fitted gray pants and a blue dress shirt, looking good enough to climb.

I’m shell-shocked by what’s happening and trying to keep my shit together so I can be strong for Ami, but I still feel like I’ve been turned inside out at the sight of him.

“Oh,” Ami says from the door, loud enough for everyone to hear. “I invited Ethan, too, Ollie. I think he owes you an apology.” And then she quietly closes the front door behind her.

Trinity meets my eyes and gives me a dry smile. “Good luck with this.” Looking down at Dane, she says, “I thought it was weird that you texted me to come over after disappearing months ago.” She gnaws her lip, looking more disgusted than upset. “I hope she leaves you.” With that, she climbs into her car and pulls out of the driveway.

Ethan has stopped a few feet away to watch this interaction, his brows furrowed in recognition. He turns his attention to me. “Olive? What’s going on here?”

“I think you know what’s going on here.”

Dane looks up, eyes red and swollen. Apparently he’d been crying behind that hand. “Ami invited them here, I guess.” He lifts his hands, defeated. “Holy shit, I can’t believe what just happened.”

Ethan looks at me again and then back to his brother. “But you weren’t still . . . ? ”

“Only a couple times with Cassie,” Dane says.

“And Trinity about five months ago,” I add helpfully. This moment is in no way about me and Ethan, but I can’t help giving him my best I told you so face.

Dane groans. “I’m such an idiot.”

I can see when Ethan realizes what he’s hearing. It’s like an invisible fist punches him in the chest, and he takes a step back before looking up at me with the clarity he should have had two weeks ago.

God, it should be satisfying, but it isn’t. Nothing about this feels good.

“Olive,” he says quietly, voice thick with apology.

“Don’t,” I say. I have a sister inside who needs me and have zero time for him or his worthless brother. “Take Dane with you when you go.”

Turning, I walk back into the house and don’t even look back at Ethan as I close the door behind me.