Page 37 of The New Year's Party
The streamers rustled.
“Hey.” It was Bennett, his party hat on his head, held witha string under his chin and shedding glitter. A kindergartner could have done a better job with that hat. Not to mention it was boring as hell. No fucking imagination.
“Nice hat,” said Phelps as he spooned his specialty mayo-mustard-dill sauce onto the salmon. The secret was a pinch of brown sugar. “Oh, I’ve been meaning to ask... what’s going on with Olivia? She seemed a little upset...”
Bennett didn’t answer. Instead, he leaned his lanky form against the counter. His jaw was tense. In fact, Phelps now realized Bennett had been tense since he arrived, right under his good humor. Phelps frequently didn’t realize the things he himself realized, until later. Like there was some delayed reaction to what he saw.
“What’s wrong?” Phelps slid the salmon filet, now covered with pale green-flecked sauce, onto the preheated sheet pan. It sizzled on contact.
He was about to put it into the oven when Bennett said, “Why did you sleep with my wife?”
Phelps nearly dropped the pan, but at the last minute caught it, burning his thumb against the oven rack. He bit back a cry of pain and slid the pan in. Closed the oven door.
His thumb was throbbing. Served him right for only wearing one oven mitt.
“What?” he said as he straightened up, yanking off the oven mitt and slapping it down on the counter. “And also,what?”
There was a charged silence. Well, he wasn’t going to speak first.
“I’m going to level with you,” said Bennett. His voice and face were calm, but not calm like a beach. Calm like a rock. Like a cliff. Like the cliffs of fucking Dover. “You slept with Olivia five years ago. I’ve known for a while, okay? We don’t have to let this dominate the evening. I just want you to have your chance to come clean and apologize.”
Phelps leaned against the counter, casually turned on thefaucet to cold, and stuck his thumb right underneath the icy current.
“She told you this?”
“Not until today. But I already knew before.”
Phelps couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. “So you decided now would be a good time to talk about this.”
Bennett shrugged. “Olivia brought it up, and now that it’s out there, we might as well deal with it man-to-man.”
Ah. Old sins. They came to get you. He’d just never thought this particular one was even worth the devil’s notice.
“Well?” pressed Bennett.
“I’m gathering my thoughts,” said Phelps dryly. He didn’t feel upset. He felt curious, that was for damn sure. But he wasn’t idiotic enough to think that this could play out rationally. He could feel the electric charge in Bennett, and if Phelps denied it too quickly, if he didn’t handle this with kid gloves...Damn, his thumb was throbbing.
He vaguely registered a new arrival. The sound of the front door opening and closing—Doug’s voice, too loud. “Ted! You came!”
Then Ted Kristos’s reedy voice, greeting everyone.
“Will, I saw you on the news, man! Did you know you went viral?” he was saying.
Back in their Speech and Debate days, Ted’s voice was plummy, confident. He played his voice like an instrument. Now, he talked from the sinus. It didn’t seem like a great idea for Ted and Doug to be at the same party together... the druggie and the dealer... Well, Phelps couldn’t do anything about it now. No one got kicked out of this party. Those were the ground rules. He made a mental note to collect Ted’s keys, then switched his focus back to Bennett.
There was a brief spark in his stomach that might flame into rage if he let it—rage that Bennett would come at himlike this, in his own house, just assuming Phelps was a morally bankrupt asshat—
“We should talk about this later,” Phelps said as he summarily doused the rage. His voice was totally, 100 percent calm.
Bennett had no idea how calm Phelps could be when he set his mind to it. How he could muscle all his anger and passion and resolve deep down, and then act cold as a motherfucking iceberg. Like when he’d left Bunny in the night. He’d moved to Nashville in good faith after they got engaged, even though he’d never left the Midwest, except for his eighth-grade trip to Washington, DC. For a brief moment, he’d deceived himself into setting aside his reservations, and believing that he and Bunny could make a new life together. An exciting life; an enviable life; the kind of life his parents never could have dreamed of. Then, three weeks later, he was getting into his car, without even packing his stuff. He just started driving. His pulse wasn’t even racing. His head felt like he’d dunked it into Lake Michigan in the winter. Cool and clear. He had to go. He couldn’t stand Bunny’s oppressive ambition, her constant questioning of what he’d done and where he’d been and how his job search was going—and the horrible gut feeling that Bunny was never going to make it as a country star. It didn’t take a genius to realize that Nashville was a whole city of musicians competing for at most five slots. Maybe Phelps was a failure, maybe he was just the kind of Rust Belt kid who would coast through life and never amount to anything special, but at least he knew his limits, at least he wasn’t shooting for the fucking stars. Bunny was going to make a fool of herself, and he could notbearto stand back and watch her dreams slowly burn while everyone laughed from the sidelines. He could handle being a failure, but he couldn’t handle being a fool.
It was obvious that he had to leave, so he did. Then it wasjust a matter of living with the consequences... or hiding from them. Hiding was just as solid an option.
“Later?” Bennett said. “Why not now?”
“Because,” Phelps said in his most reasonable voice, “I still have a table to set, and this salmon will be done in exactly fourteen minutes, and I swear to God I am not letting it get a second past done, because, Bennett, you know I love you, man, and I want us to work our shit out, but I am not serving overcooked salmon to my fucking guests.”
He heard Bunny shout from the other room, “I have more dildos in the car! Hang tight!” He sincerely hoped Ted was the one asking.
