Page 114 of The Moment You Know

PAIGE: That sounds ominous.

DAVID: It’s not.

PAIGE: Okay. How about after work tomorrow night?

PAIGE: I’m off at 6 p.m.

DAVID: Sounds good.

They agreed to meet at the Thai Garden, a place neither of them had ever been to. When David arrived at the designated time, it was to find Paige already there, waiting just inside the restaurant.

She was wearing a wrap dress that at first glance looked very elegant, because of its mid-calf length and deep eggplant color, but as he got closer to her he noticed retro elements: the silk sash at the waist tied in a bow with long, trailing ends, the exaggerated, wide cuffs at the wrists and the matching butterfly collar that screamed The Brady Bunch.

“You look great,” he told her, not caring if that was an inappropriate thing to say to one’s ex-wife.

“Thank you. So do you.”

He was dressed in dark washed jeans and the dusty blue V-neck sweater that she’d gotten him on his 27th birthday, with a white shirt underneath. His hair was down and wavy, and she found herself disturbed by how attractive she found him. Weren’t you supposed to not be attracted to your ex-husband?

The hostess led them to a booth with a view of the parking lot and they’d barely gotten settled on their opposite sides when the waitress came by and asked if they wanted something to drink. Paige ordered a glass of Merlot and then, before she could stop herself, added, “And he’d like a fancy craft beer with a strange name. The stranger, the better. And a glass.”

David coughed.

Belatedly, Paige realized what she’d done and felt herself flushing. “Shit, I’m sorry,” she said hastily, feeling utterly mortified.

David looked at the waitress. “What she said.”

When the waitress was gone, Paige shook her head. “I really am sorry. It just came out.”

“It was actually pretty funny,” he told her, experiencing a moment of warmth at the reminder of how well she knew him, even after all their time apart.

They looked at one another for a moment, then David took a deep breath. “So, first things first,” he said. “I confronted Ashley about the emails and her excuse for fucking around with them was basically the same as her excuse for fucking around with my phone. She was trying to keep you away from me, so she wouldn’t lose me.”

Paige took a deep breath and released it, leaning forward a little. “To a certain extent,” she began slowly, as if choosing her words carefully, “I can understand her motivation, because it hurt like hell when I lost you. But my understanding doesn’t extend to her being a lying bitch and screwing with our lives.”

“I know.”

She looked down at the table, the next part needing to be said without looking at him. “When we got divorced, I told myself I wanted you to be happy but it was in an abstract, nebulous way, right? I one hundred percent thought you’d move on and find someone, get married again and have kids …” She paused for a painful moment before continuing softly, “But I never wanted to actually be confronted with it, nor did I ever think I would.”

“I could say the same.”

“And I probably shouldn’t say this because it’s going to make me sound like a terrible person—well, maybe a more terrible person—but at the same time that I wanted you to be happy, I also was secretly hoping you wouldn’t really be happy with anyone but me. Which is stupid because you weren’t really happy with me—”

“Yes, I was.”

She looked up. “Oh, David, you couldn’t have been.”

“Yes, Paige, I was,” he insisted. “Not every day, maybe, but overall I was happy. And I’ve never regretted marrying you. I’ve regretted a lot of things in my life, but being your husband isn’t one of them. Our time together was the best part of my life, too.”

At the obvious reference to the note she’d written to him in her book, Paige’s eyes started to burn. She swallowed hard, attempting to push back any unwanted tears, really not wanting to get weepy here at the table in front of David. Especially since she was an ugly crier.

She was saved by the arrival of their drinks and mustered a smile as she took her glass of wine from the waitress. Paige then watched as a glass was set down in front of David, along with a bottle of an Imperial IPA called Green Flash Palate Wrecker.

As he poured his beer, she asked, “Did you find out what happened to the book I sent you?”

His expression tightened. “Ashley got to it first, read it, then threw it away.”

Even though none of that was unexpected, Paige still felt a punch of anger as she remembered the words Ashley had spoken that night at Bender’s, right before she pushed Paige to the ground. “‘No one calls me a cunt. Especially not a fucked-up bitch like you’,” she murmured.

---