Page 18 of This Is How It Started
“Yep, it’s done now.” I sip my wine, finally able to relax. “On another note, Adam got an offer from Sony for his company.”
“No shit. A good offer?”
“I think so. Adam says he’ll never have to work again, but coming from my brother, that could mean they’re giving him lunch money and an Xbox.”
Josh’s lips curve up in that double-take smile that won me over the first time we met, and suddenly I’m not angry at him anymore.
“What’s his plan?”
“He doesn’t know. Maybe you could talk to him.”
“Me?” Josh hitches his shoulder. “Rach, I don’t have the first clue about the gaming industry. I wouldn’t even know what something like Adam’s company is worth. Doesn’t he have people for that?”
“I’m sure he does, but he could use some moral support. I’d ask Stephen but...” I trail off because I don’t have to say it. Josh knows. It’s not that my brother-in-law is a bad person; he’s just completely wrapped up in himself. Any advice he could give Adam would wind up being all about Stephen.
“I’ll call him,” Josh says. “I’ve been meaning to grab a beer with him anyway.”
Our food comes. Josh picks the artichokes off his salad and slides them onto my plate. I in return give him my cherry tomatoes. We’ve been doing this so long that I can’t remember when it started. You would think we would order a different kind of salad by now, one without artichokes and cherry tomatoes. But this one suits us just fine.
Something outside catches Josh’s eye, and it’s as if his body goes on high alert. I follow the direction of his gaze to a small group of people standing outside the restaurant. A line is starting to form for Tino’s, but it looks as if these people—two women and two men—have already eaten and are either getting ready to part ways or have just met up. They’re huddled together, talking.
Josh is still staring at them, riveted.
“Do you know them?” I ask and turn back to Josh.
He shakes his head at first, then suddenly utters, “I went to Cal with a couple of them.”
“Why don’t you go say hi?” I say, feeling a subtle shift in him as soon as the words leave my mouth.
“Nah.” He scrubs his hand through his hair and seems uptight, which is uncharacteristic for him. “They wouldn’t remember me.”
I don’t understand why, if he remembers them, they wouldn’t remember him. As far as I’m concerned, Josh is pretty memorable. I turn back around to have another look, and they’re gone.
When I face Josh again, he’s still staring through the plate glass window.
Chapter 8
Our Seventh Anniversary
It’s been a year since my father died, and life is slowly getting back to normal.
Adam wound up holding on to his company, determining the time wasn’t right to sell. All the self-help and grief books say to avoid making big decisions after experiencing the death of a loved one, so I guess it was smart of him to wait with Sony. And it’s not as if he needs the money. His latest game is a top seller, and his earlier one is a perennial favorite.
It’s Hannah I’m most worried about. Her marriage seems to be unraveling. Despite it—or maybe because of it—my sister is desperate to have a baby. The problem is Stephen is never home. And when he is, he’s working on briefs or doing whatever lawyers do, mostly ignoring her. Last week, my sister, usually Ms. Decorum, had a knock-down, drag-out fight with him over the phone in the middle of Nordstrom’s lingerie department.
I know this through Josie, who is my sister’s personal shopper (God forbid Hannah pick out her own clothes). Even though I consider the three of us Gold kids close—there isn’t anything we won’t do for one another—Hannah would die if she knew Josie had told me. Pretty dumb for a woman with an advanced degree from Stanford. Josie is my best friend, after all.
In any event, even though Adam and I are open books, Hannah has always been private. Especially when her life doesn’t follow her neat little script. Even in high school when she was a senior and I was a freshman, she kept her boyfriends secret from the rest of us, going to such crazy lengths as having them pick her up down the street, where we couldn’t meet them. Mom thinks she takes after my father. But Adam and I think Hannah is a chip off the old Mommie Dearest block.
No one does the secret life of Shana Gold like Shana Gold. After my dad left her for Brooke, Mom threw herself a sixtieth birthday party at the Log Cabin at the Presidio. The venue, built in the 1930s, was used as a clubhouse by the army and has this incredible rustic vibe with views of the bay that go on forever. To rent the venue, there’s a waiting list two years long. I know this because at least three of my high school friends reserved the cabin even before they got engaged. But my mother has friends in all the right places. She managed to snag it with only a few weeks’ notice just in time for her birthday. The only catch was the party had to be held on a weeknight. Here she was, on the cusp of a divorce, her husband with a woman half my mother’s age, and she invited two hundred of her best friends to dance the night away.
My siblings and I sat back, watching the greatest charade in the history of the Gold family. No one seemed to notice that my father wasn’t even there.
This is why I’m not surprised Hannah is pretending that everything is fine with her and Stephen, even though I know it’s not. Judging by all the time she’s spending with Josie, shopping, she’s either really bored (my sister is not a shopper) or trying to change up her appearance to impress her absent husband.
But today I’m not going to think about Hannah or anyone else in my family because it’s Josh’s and my seventh wedding anniversary. And instead of going to a fancy restaurant for brunch, we’re celebrating by upholding our Saturday morning ritual.
“You ready for this?” Josh places the breakfast tray down and slides into bed next to me. “I used chocolate chips this time. The blueberries were moldy. These may be my best pancakes yet. Happy anniversary, baby.”
