Page 127 of The Husband Hour
Matt nodded. “Of course I am.”
“So, then, relax. All the years you put into this are going to pay off.”
“Let me ask you something,” Matt said, sipping the beer and finding it bitter. “Would you feel this way about the film if it was just the footage I showed you a few weeks ago?”
“The CTE angle is strong—important. But the reveal about the kid takes this thing to another level. It makes it more dramatic and personal. I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you that.”
“No,” Matt said. “I don’t.”
“So what are you worried about? Sundance?”
“No. We’ll get into Sundance.”
“Distribution?”
Matt shook his head. How could he admit that in getting the one thing he’d always dreamed of, he would lose something he now wanted more?
For the first time in four years, Lauren walked into Nora’s Café as a guest. She’d offered to work the night of the opening party, but Nora insisted that the regular waitstaff experience and enjoy the new menu along with the other guests—the restaurant regulars, local press, and a posse of shoobies Lauren didn’t recognize but who somehow had the connections to wrangle invites.
Nighttime had a way of transforming a space, and the restaurant felt larger but at the same time more intimate. Nora had rearranged the tables to create more room for people to mingle and for the hors d’oeuvres to be passed. She’d hired waiters from a local catering company to serve samples of the appetizer menu, and the dinner menu would be set out as a buffet. Her mother was in the kitchen prepping fresh doughnuts for dessert. The one speed bump was Nora’s lack of a liquor license; guests had been invited to bring their own wine.
Nora had a ’70s satellite-radio station playing over the sound system, and it filled the room with an eclectic mix of singers ranging from Carly Simon to Donna Summer. Lauren made sure her father and Ethan got pieces of the white pizza before it disappeared and then poured herself a glass of wine from Henny’s bottle of Oyster Bay sauvignon blanc.
“She shouldn’t even bother applying for the liquor license,” Henny said. “I’d rather bring my own than get fleeced for twelve dollars a glass.”
“I agree,” Lauren said, accepting a goat-cheese slider from a server. She hummed along to “You’re So Vain.” And then she saw Emerson walk in.
She had invited him during her phone call to tell him that he had a nephew. It wasn’t something she’d planned.
“I need to see him,” Emerson had said, the break in his voice moving her.
“Of course. At some point,” she said. “My sister hasn’t told him yet about his father. This is going to take some time.”
“Lauren, I know I don’t have a right to ask you for anything. But I can’t wait. He’s all I have left of my brother. I need to come now.”
She couldn’t invite him to the house. It would be too much for all of them: herself, Stephanie, and Ethan. But she couldn’t refuse him outright. As tempting as it was to hold on to her anger and resentment toward him, now they shared a nephew. And so she thought of a compromise.
“We’re all going to a party next Saturday night at the restaurant where I work,” she told him. “It will be crowded and maybe not your ideal place to meet Rory’s son, but it’s best for him that way. He’ll be around so many new people that night, you won’t raise any red flags.”
Emerson didn’t like the idea, but she stood firm and said it was either that or wait until Stephanie decided to tell her son the truth. Until he actually walked into Nora’s, Lauren hadn’t known what option he would choose.
Across the room, Stephanie stood near the kitchen talking to their father. Lauren walked over to let her know Emerson was there.
“I thought your mother would be done by now,” her father said. “Do you think Nora would mind if I took a peek in the kitchen?”
“As long as those doughnuts get on the buffet table for dessert, you can jump in and bake for all Nora would care,” Lauren said. She had suggested that her mother prepare a few batches ahead of time, but Beth was intent on them being as fresh as possible. “You’d be surprised how many people have never eaten a warm doughnut,” her mother said.
Howard left for the kitchen, and Stephanie grabbed Lauren’s arm.
“Guess who’s here?”
Lauren, surprised, said, “You saw him?”
“Saw him? He had the nerve to come over and say hi to me.”
“Wait—I don’t think we’re talking about the same person.”
“Neil Hanes. He came with his parents.”
