Page 61 of We All Live Here
“Really?” She can’t keep the surprised pleasure from her voice.
“Yeah. This past year has been…a struggle. I feel obliged to pick Lennie up as much as possible, just so she knows I’m there for her, but I find that whole school-mums thing pretty bizarre. I wouldn’t know what to say to half of them. And being a guy on your own in the playground makes you an object of—I don’t know—attention? Curiosity?”
Lust, she thinks. Lust. And then puts her fingers against her mouth to stop her saying it aloud. “I know what you mean,” she says carefully.
“Of course you do. You’ve been there too.”
“I can’t bear them,” she blurts out. “It’s like being judged every day by the worst people. I mean, before, I thought it was just because I worked. And a lot of them don’t. They’ve made their children their career. And that’s fine! Each to their own and all that. But there was always this unspoken disapproval because I hadn’t managed to make cakes for the bake sale, or get the right uniform ready, or prepare a Harry Potter outfit for World Book Day. And now that Dan has gone off with Marja, well, it’s a different kind of attention altogether.”
Oh, God, but his eyes are so beautiful. Blue-green, suddenly made darker and more distinct by the color of his shirt. He has a way of focusing on her intently, as if everything she said contains an impossible worth.
“That must have been really tough.”
She can only nod.
“You know he’s going to regret it one day, right? You must know that.”
She finds it hard to believe Dan is actually going to regret finding the woman of his dreams, with her smooth caramel skin, exotic accent, and subscription toInteriorsmagazine. But she nods, as if she’s surprised by and resigned to this sad twist of Fate.
“Are you okay, though?” he says. “If it’s not too personal, I mean, are you over him?”
This is probably a loaded question. Like she could suddenly become the woman on Jensen’s date who cried and rambled on about her ex-boyfriend. So she smiles broadly, and says emphatically: “Oh, yes.With hindsight I can see we weren’t right for each other.” She fiddles with an earring. “I’m fine. I mean, it was horrible at the time, but in the long run it’s probably for the best.”
“And are you seeing anyone?”
This is most definitely a loaded question.
“Not right now, no,” she says, after considering for a moment, as if there has been a queue of suitors she has reluctantly decided to wave off for now. “I’ve been trying to focus on the kids.”
He nods understandingly.
“You?”
He looks down. “Like you, just focused on Lennie, really. What I really want to do is bury myself in work and not think about anything, but she’s a great kid and I need to make sure she gets through this period unscathed. Or as unscathed as she’s going to be.” He keeps looking down. “I guess I’ll find out in ten years when she’s in therapy.”
“I’m sure she’s doing okay,” she says. “You’re clearly a great dad.”
He raises an eyebrow and shakes his head. His hair flops briefly over one eye and he pushes it back. “I’m not sure she’d agree with you. I’m pretty sure she’d say there’s way too much homework and bath-time and violin practice and not enough television watching and McDonald’s.”
“You’re clearly very cruel.” She smiles so he knows she’s joking.
“The worst. But she only has to sleep in the cupboard under the stairs when she’s really bad.”
She is not one hundred percent certain, but she thinks his knee might be touching hers under the table. At first she had thought it was the table, but there is a definite warmth emanating from it, and when he laughs, it moves slightly. When she establishes that, yes, it definitely is a knee and not the table leg, she is almost paralyzed by what it might suggest. She barely hears the next few things he says. Her knee has become radioactive, sending heat through the rest of her body. It’s almost unbearable.
“Lila?”
“Mm?” She drags her attention back to the table.
“Did you want another drink? A real one this time?”
A brief dilemma. She doesn’t want to seem like a killjoy—haunted as she is by the way Dan would roll his eyes at this point—but at the same time she feels as if she needs all her wits about her. She needs to be the best version of herself she can possibly be. But if he’s suggesting they both have a drink, does that mean…
“Uh—vodka tonic? Hell, let’s make it a double.” She grins, as if this is just how she rolls. “What are you having?”
He stands, reaches into his pocket. “I won’t have one. I have to drive Lennie back from my mum’s later.”
Afterward, she thinks she has never felt so intensely aware of her body in her life: her smile, the angles from which he will see her, the way her hands move on the table. She tries to drink deceptively slowly—the vodka tonic is very strong—and to be light, entertaining company. She asks him a few serious questions—how long he was married (twelve years), how they met (through a friend), whether he had always wanted to be an architect, but it is only with the last question that he speaks freely. He answers any questions about his wife with the shortest possible responses and looks away when he speaks. She thinks losing his wife must have been deeply traumatic, and not just for their daughter. He seems a lot more comfortable asking questions of her, wanting to know about the girls, how it is dealing with a teenager. (“Oh, God,” he says drily. “I’m going to have to lock her in that cupboard for six years, aren’t I?”)
