The Status of All Things (22 page)

I finally break the silence. “Where’s Nikki?”

He looks out the window, the Eiffel Tower in front of the
Paris casino lighting up the otherwise black desert sky. “She said she’d be waiting for me in her suite.”

I glance at Liam’s profile in the darkness of the cab. “I’m sure it makes ours look like a studio apartment.” I laugh, hoping to break through the tension still lingering between us.

“There was mention of a basketball court and a lap pool.”

“Because that’s normal,” I snicker, then sigh when Liam doesn’t join me.

But then, a few seconds later, his chest starts to heave as he releases a hearty laugh, tears spilling from his eyes, and suddenly we’re both howling so hard I wonder if we’ll wake Jules. “How the hell did we get here?” he manages to say in between our roars.

Our laughter subsides as I stare up at the lights of the Aria as we pull into the circular driveway. “I was just thinking the same thing.” I watch him rub his right hand. “Nice right hook, by the way. I thought you were a lover, not a fighter.”

“Sometimes you have to be a little of both,” he says as he throws the driver a twenty and delicately prods Jules awake. “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you to the room.”

We lift Jules out of the cab, each of us holding on to an arm tightly as we make our way to the elevator. “Where’s Kevin?” she slurs.

“Last time I saw him, he was in a pile on the floor,” I say, smiling sideways at Liam as we step inside. “He was a jerk. Besides, you have Ben, remember? The love of your life?”

“Whatever,” Jules says after a few minutes of silence, the only sound the soles of Liam’s shoes scuffling against the carpet as we trudge down the hall. “He doesn’t look at me that way anymore.”

“What way?” Liam asks as he slides the key card into the
door, then watches Jules closely as she makes her way to the bed and falls into it.

“The way Kevin did. Like he wants to devour me,” she says as she sprawls out. “The room is spinning.”

I walk over to the bed and prop her up on the pillows. “Try to keep sitting up,” I say as Liam hands me a Sprite from the minibar that I hold to her mouth. “Take a sip.”

Liam sits on the edge of the bed. “Kevin looked at you like an object. He didn’t give a shit that you were almost incoherent—he just wanted to fuck you.”

“Exactly,” she says. “At least someone wants to.”

I think about how much Ben travels and wonder again if he is having an affair, if it is more than him just being exhausted. “Jules, did something happen? Did Ben—”

“You’re not getting any other info out of her tonight, Detective,” Liam interrupts, and wraps a blanket around Jules, her eyes sealed shut, her mouth hanging open.

“You still think we should have let her make the mistake?” I challenge as I follow him out of the room to the couch, my heart shattering a little over Jules’ admission. If she and Ben couldn’t make it, a part of me doubted if anyone could.

“Of course I don’t!” Liam says, a flare of anger in his voice. “Not after that guy got rough with you.” He shakes his head, as if remembering it all over again. “But I still believe what I said to you—this is Jules’ life to live. We can’t judge it. We can’t control it. We have to let her make her own choices. Just maybe not when she’s hammered!” He rolls his eyes and throws his feet on the table, stretching his arms out, the key to Nikki’s suite resting on the table next to his cell phone. There was a part of me that didn’t want him to leave—even after everything that has been said tonight, his presence was still warm and comforting, much
like the soft blanket he had wrapped around Jules a few minutes earlier.

“Well, her life or not, it still makes me think. If she and Ben are in this much of a tailspin, then what does that mean for the rest of us?”

He pulls me in close against his chest and runs his hand through my hair. “When will you learn?”

“Learn what?” I whisper as I close my eyes, the pressure of his hand on my head making my eyelids heavy, all the alcohol and drama finally catching up to me.

“That nobody’s perfect,” he says softly, right before I drift off to sleep.

• • •

Memories from the night before come flooding back like high tide at sunset when I pull open my eyes, surprised to find myself next to Jules, who is facedown beside me in the king bed. I roll over, noticing my shoes sitting neatly on the floor. The last thing I remember is falling asleep on Liam’s chest—had he carried me in here? I lean forward to see out the door of the bedroom, hoping to glimpse his long legs dangling off the couch, but it’s empty. I feel a pang—he’d gone to spend the night with Nikki after all.

It still shocked me that he’d hit that guy last night—he’d always been the one to break up fights, not start them. What had gotten into him? The speed with which he was transforming made me uneasy. First it was cars and clothes. Now he was sucker-punching someone at a club. What would be next?

The room moves slightly as I stand and steady myself before moving forward, desperate to locate my overnight bag and the bottle of Advil tucked inside, my head almost exploding when I
bend down to look for it. Finally, I grip the container in my hand and shake two pills out of it, gulping them down with a bottle of water Liam must have set next to the bed before he left. I palm the extra capsules I grabbed for Jules and lie back in bed, waiting for her to wake from the dead, worried that she’s going to feel much worse than me, and not just because of the alcohol.

Instinctively I reach over and grab my cell phone, quickly sending Max a text to ask how his bachelor party went the night before, attaching a photo that we had taken at dinner, our heads tilted together as we raised our glasses in the air. I stare at Jules’ face in the picture, the anticipation she was feeling now obvious. Last night, I had thought it had been because we were all together, but now I realize there may have been more to it. I had always viewed her as someone others were drawn to—she never had a shortage of women scrambling for her friendship at her kids’ school, of clients wanting her to create a beautiful cake. She had even charmed the parking attendant at the Starbucks we frequented off La Cienega—him letting her park for free and saving her the best space in the lot. But clearly she was craving something more. Something she didn’t feel like she was getting from Ben.

Max pings me back a picture of him with a line of full shot glasses, him shrugging his shoulders as if to say, “Well someone’s got to do it!” He looked happy. I click over to my Facebook feed, cringing at Jules’ incoherent status update from the night before about twerking at TAO. There are several typos, and no punctuation, so unlike her usual updates, which I know for a fact she double- and triple-checks, even sometimes asking my opinion before posting. I laugh despite myself when I see Ben’s comment telling her to stop drinking and go to bed.
If he only knew what good advice that really was.

I hear Jules moan before I feel her move beside me, rolling over as if she were filled with concrete. “Oh my God,” she says as her hands shield her eyes from the daylight streaming through the slight opening in the curtain. I silently hand her the ibuprofen and bottle of water, alarmed by the green tone her skin has taken on.

“Thank you,” she whispers, and lies in silence for a few minutes, eyes closed. I watch her closely—last night playing in a loop in my head.

“Jules,” I finally say when her eyes open again.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“You—”

“Yes, I remember. At least most of it—parts of the night keep flashing through my mind like a slide show. I just can’t remember how it ended,” she whispers, her bloodshot eyes fearful, and I couldn’t decide if her panic stemmed from not remembering if she had cheated on Ben, or if she was scared I’d be the one to tell him if she did.

“It ended with Liam smashing his fist into that guy’s nose and shoving your drunk ass into a taxi.”

“What?” Jules sits up quickly and then grabs her head in pain, leaning back slowly and taking a deep breath before continuing. “Liam? No way. I don’t believe it.”

“Believe it,” I say as I fill in all the blanks of the night for her, including Nikki’s appearance, her face darkening when I mention how the guy she was sitting with grabbed my arm.

“I’m sorry,” she says, her voice small. “Did I ruin your night? I really wanted you to have a great night.”

“Hey, stop. I had a great time. I’m okay. The question is, are you?”

“I don’t know,” she says, her sadness penetrating the air
between us, neither of us knowing the magic words to make it dissolve.

“What’s going on with Ben? Or I should say, what’s
not
going on with Ben?”

Jules squeezes her eyes shut as she tries to locate the right words. “I guess I just thought, when you gave me my makeover, that Ben would go nuts. That he was going to see me as hot again.”

“You were hot before this!” I interject. “And Ben has always told you how beautiful you are. I’ve heard him.”

“I know he still thinks I’m attractive. But we’ve been in such a rut. He’s traveling more than ever, and when he is home, we’re so busy with the kids that we can’t even connect. I think I just want him to throw me up against a wall like he used to—when he was so into me that he couldn’t control himself. And when you gave me a firmer stomach and killer haircut and he barely even glanced my way, I think something snapped inside of me,” she says as the tears begin to fall down her face like a waterfall.

“What happened? Did he cheat on you?” I question, sitting up despite the pounding in my head, imagining what I’ll say to him when I see him—how dare he hurt my best friend!

She shakes her head and I breathe a sigh of relief. They were still okay.

“I started to question things—to come apart on the inside.” She takes a long pause before continuing. “But he isn’t the one who’s making the mistakes, Kate. It’s me.”

“But nothing happened last night, Jules. We stopped it before anything could—”

“You’re right,” she interrupts. “I didn’t actually cross the line. But I wanted to. And not just last night.” She shakes her head.

“I don’t understand,” I say gently, even though I think I’m
starting to, the pieces of the puzzle clicking together in my mind.

“Something happened with my boss recently. The guy you saw at the restaurant yesterday.”

I remember how the energy shifted as he breezed through the kitchen, that I could feel a tension in the air as he’d sampled the fudge—an awkwardness between them I couldn’t figure out. I swallow my breath and, as I wait for her to tell me the story, squeeze her hand to let her know that whatever she’s about to reveal, I will understand. Slowly, she tells me that after a particularly stressful night at the restaurant, her boss, Tim, had grabbed a bottle of the restaurant’s best single-malt scotch from behind the bar and offered her a deep pour. They were both distraught that the
L.A. Times
food critic had dined there earlier, and their server had tripped and spilled an entire glass of wine all over his crisp white shirt and Burberry tie, causing him to leave abruptly. Three glasses of scotch later, they had gone from being incredibly depressed and wondering if the restaurant could survive a bad review, to laughing about the look on his face as the waiter frantically attempted to wipe the reviewer’s crotch with his napkin. Another half glass later, he’d tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, whispering how much he liked her new look as he’d leaned in so closely that she could see a light speckle of tan freckles dotting his skin that she’d never noticed before. Just as their lips began to come together, the executive chef had banged on the back door, in search of the cell phone he’d left behind. They had broken away from each other quickly, Jules grabbing her bag off the counter and rushing out the door into the cold wind without saying good-bye, shaking at what might have happened if they hadn’t been interrupted—perplexed that she had felt both excited and sickened at the same time.

“I threw up when I got home. All those years of marriage and
that’s all it takes for me to want to throw it all away? Four glasses of scotch?” She cries harder.

I let her catch her breath before responding. “I get that you came close to making a big mistake—you’re human. But you chose to leave the situation. You could have stayed and picked things back up the second you were alone again, yet you didn’t. That counts for something.”

“Maybe,” she says as she wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “I felt terrible.”

“Okay. But then why almost do it again last night?” I ask gently, afraid that if I push too hard she’ll shatter into a million pieces.

She sits quietly for a moment before answering, her chest heaving up and down. “As much as I felt disgusted with myself for almost cheating on Ben, for how much I had
wanted
to kiss my boss, there was a part of me that loved the rush of it all—the way it felt to not be Evan’s or Ellie’s mom, to not be Ben’s college sweetheart. To be desired like that again—I can’t explain the feeling, but it’s overpowering. It’s almost like the whole world slips away for those moments. I don’t expect you to get it. I’m not sure I even understand it myself. All I know is last night, I wanted to feel that way again—no matter the consequences.”

I put my hand over hers but say nothing. It was true, I didn’t understand. I’d give anything to have what she and Ben have, problems and all. But what I did know was that whatever she was feeling, it was real. “So what happens now?” I ask slowly, still trying to sift through my own conflicted feelings—that Jules was on the brink of throwing everything away and I wasn’t sure how to stop her. Even though she was like a sister to me, I had no clue about the one thing that was eating her up inside. Was it because she knew I didn’t want to see that her relationship
could be flawed—that I couldn’t accept that people’s lives were far more complicated than they let on, even my closest friend’s?

“I don’t know,” she says as she takes a small sip of water. “I need to think.”

“Where do things stand with your boss?”

“He pulled me into the freezer the next day and we both agreed that it was the scotch talking. But to be honest, there’s still something there, an undercurrent that keeps drawing me to him. And I’m pretty sure he feels it too.”