Page 7 of The New Year's Party
All of them had wanted that, the Original Four: Bennett and Phelps, Doug and Will. Ever since they started hanging out their freshman year at Marquette High School, they had dreamed of their prison break out of the depressed post-industrial wasteland of northern Indiana.
After high school, each of them had made their own version of an escape—Will to Ball State for college, where he met Jenn; Bennett to IU, where he met Olivia; Phelps with his brief stint in Nashville during his ill-fated engagement to Bunny; Doug with his year in Portland working for that fitness start-up that, in retrospect, may or may not have been a complete fabrication. But somehow, they’d all boomeranged back to the area they’d so desperately sought to escape, like some irresistible force was working against them—except for Bennett.
Bennett alone was securely outside state lines, free from the place that made him feel like fingers were closing around his neck. Doing what he dreamed of—living in Chicago, teaching high school, and coming home to his personal Blue Heaven.
He couldn’t wait to waltz back in tonight with Olivia by his side. A man who finally knew who he was, what he wanted, and what he was willing to do to keep it.
Chapter 2
Olivia
December 31, 9:15 a.m.
Olivia took a long shower after stashing the marinating chicken in the fridge. Bennett had practically shooed her upstairs.
Damn, it wasn’t even lunchtime and she was already tired.
Back in October, when Bennett fast-balled the New Year’s plans at her, she hadn’t known what to say, since “Hell, no!” wouldn’t have gone over well. She’d hoped the plans would just kind of dissolve on their own. Phelps wasn’t exactly famous for this follow-through.Something will come up,she reassured herself.There will be some drama or another and Phelps will cancel.It wasn’t an unrealistic expectation, considering the volatile lives of her husband’s high school friends. Four years ago, the party was canceled last minute because Doug, who was supposed to host, was in jail for intent to deal. Three years ago, there had been a half-hearted attempt to organize something, but then Phelps’s dad had a heart attack and Will’s kids caught the flu...
When the official paper invitation—no simple email for Phelps—arrived at the beginning of December, she nearly freaked out. She was the one to bring in the mail, and for half a second, she actually considered burying it in the recycling bin... but that was ridiculous. Gilded paper invite or not,Bennett knew the party was on, and shredding and burying the over-the-top card would accomplish nothing except draw attention to the very thing Olivia had been so desperately hiding.
As she lathered her hair with shampoo, she reminded herself it had been five years. Five whole years of relative stability, during which they’d had two more kids and bought a house. She and Bennett were doing fine. Anyway, it’s not like they’d had no contact with the old crowd since the last party. Bennett spent a couple weekends a year with Phelps and checked in with Doug on the phone every so often, and even though Olivia hadn’t seen any of them in person, she followed them all on Facebook and heard the updates through Bennett. Maybe the party would be fine.Finewas a word Olivia often used. In the absence of things being “great” or “awesome” as Bennett liked to say, she could mostly honestly say they were “fine.”
She liked her life and worked hard to cultivate gratitude, since it didn’t spring effusively up from her like it seemed to for Bennett. She practiced the habit of murmuring five things she was thankful for over her morning coffee—an agnostic’s version of prayer, she supposed.
Yes, everything was fine... except for how her organs felt crowded inside her body, like her bones were tightening, squeezing them into smaller and smaller spaces, like she couldn’t take a full breath. She massaged the shampoo deep into her scalp. She’d always been “wound tight,” as her father said—approvingly, meaning she was conscientious—but recently, it didn’t feel so good.
She could hear Bennett whistling through the cracked bathroom door of their pitched-roof master suite in the old attic space of their small Chicago bungalow. Normally, it would annoy her that he’d told her to go relax and then came upstairs after her... but right now, the feeling in her chest wasn’t annoyance. It was envy. Of the ease Bennett hadin his body, the charming confidence with which he interacted with everyone. If only Olivia could be more likethat. Someone who knew what to say at parties. Someone who didn’t feel stiff and awkward and out of place everywhere she went. It was partly how she’d been raised, she always thought. They were a serious family, especially after Emily died, and as a teenager, Olivia was more used to going to the Lyric or a performance at the Goodman with her parents than attending drunken parties with her peers. She wasn’t opposed to drunken parties—it’s just, she could never find her rhythm. Her limbs felt too long, her mouth too pinched, her efforts at conversation too stilted.
In the end, she had learned the painful truth that it was better to keep things to herself, insecurities included. That people liked herbetterthat way. That her allure was in her silence.
“Aaah!” she yelped as she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Sorry! Just me!” said Bennett. He was naked. He slid open the shower door. “Mind if I join you?”
“Uh...” she said, heart still pounding.
“A little tense?” He reached forward and massaged her wet shoulders.
“You scared the shit out of me,” she said with a laugh, shaking off his hands and leaning her head back to rinse out the shampoo. She knew he was upstairs, but hadn’t heard him come in. “I thought you were cleaning up. Watching the kids.”
“I finished the dishes. And the kids are all in front of the screen. I figured I’d steal ten minutes up here with you...”
Bennett squirted bodywash into his palm while Olivia let the hot water run through her hair.
A desperate feeling clenched her. She wasn’t one to make last-minute decisions. She wasn’t one to cancel plans. She was the steady one who did what was expected and played to her strengths. And yet...
“I just... Thinking about New Year’s tonight...” she said. Her heartbeat felt hot inside her, hotter than the water on her skin. The words tumbled out. Her last desperate reach. “Maybe I could stay home with the kids? Catch up on some projects for work? Save the favor with my parents?”
Bennett was silent for a minute. Then, he laughed bitterly. “You’re that desperate to bow out?”
Ugh—the disappointment in Bennett’s tone was so unfairly outsized. Would it be that tragic for Olivia to miss? They hadn’t even done one of these parties in half a decade!
“I’m notdesperate,” she said. “I’m just... tired. You know I can barely make it to ten o’clock most nights. Wouldn’t you have more fun... without me?”
“Olivia...” Bennett’s tone turned cajoling, but she could hear the layer of frustration just underneath. “I thought we had a plan. I thought you were even a little excited, finally. Come on. What happened to you, me, and the air mattress?”
“I...” She shrugged, trying to show Bennett this was all so casual, as if her heart wasn’t racing so fast it was making her breathless. “It’s just, aren’t they more your friends? You guys have that high school bond. I’m just... one of the partners.”
