Olive Oil and White Bread (32 page)

Angie smiled in spite of her mood. “Don't I know it.”

Alice sipped her coffee.

And Angie knew it was time to tell her.

The story poured out of her like water, along with all the things she'd put together after learning the details. Jillian's nights out with “the girls,” which Angie now wondered if it was more like “the girl,” her distance and silence lately, the haunted look in her eyes, the weight loss, their fight, the cruel things they said to each other. All of it. Her eyes welled up a couple of times, but she managed to hold it together in front of her mom, even though the combination of remembering, her stress, and the fact that she hadn't eaten more than a bite of food in the past three days threatened to push her over the edge. She kept a grip on her emotions and took a large gulp of coffee when she finished, wincing as the hot acidity hit her empty stomach.

Alice took it all in, nodding at times, cocking her head at others,
but never interrupting. When Angie was finished, silence ruled the kitchen for several long moments as Alice absorbed her daughter's words. Angie knew she was rolling all the information around in her head. It was how her mother dealt with things. She ingested all the material presented to her, took time to examine it from all angles, and then gave her carefully structured opinion. This was why it was better to talk to Alice than Joe about such matters. Joe was all emotion. He'd have started cursing Jillian after Angie's second sentence, and that's not what she needed. Not yet, anyway.

Angie could tell when Alice was ready to talk because she set her coffee down and folded her hands on the table in front of her.

“Have you talked to Jillian since you've been here?” she asked.

Angie shook her head. “She's called my cell and texted about a hundred times. I told her I needed some time.”

“She's called here a couple times, but always hung up. Her number's been on the caller ID.”

“You didn't tell me that.”

“You didn't tell me anything,” Alice countered, though gently. Angie grimaced. “I wanted all the information before I got involved in any way.” Alice wet her lips. “It was just those couple weeks?”

Angie's head snapped up. “What do you mean ‘just those couple weeks'? She slept with somebody else, Ma. I think it's a little more complicated than ‘just those couple weeks.'”

“But she ended it pretty quickly, and then she told you about it.”

“What?” Angie was incredulous.

Alice made a calming gesture with her hands. “Calm down, Angelina. I'm simply thinking out loud. All right?”

“Fine.”

“Has anything like this happened before?”

Angie shook her head. “I don't think so. Though who knows? It's not like I saw this coming. I mean, I knew something was bothering her, but I never expected this.” She swallowed hard, disguised her disgust by sipping her coffee.

“Do you think she's sorry?” Angie gave her a look and Alice raised her eyebrows in a gesture of
what?
.

Angie flashed to Jillian's face that last time. She had been in anguish.
Much as Angie wanted to not care, to say that it was the least she deserved for what she'd done, it was hard. She answered her mother honestly. “I think she's devastated by what she's done. And yes, I think she's sorry.”

“Do you still love her?”

It was a question Angie had asked herself many, many times over the past seventy-two hours, and despite her hurt and her anger, she always came back to the same answer: yes. With all her stomped-upon, aching heart, yes. Angie nodded grudgingly.

“All right,” Alice said, sitting up straight with determination. “Good. Then we need to figure out how you go about fixing things.”

Angie stared at her, trying to keep her anger at bay. “Just like that? You think it's that simple?”

Alice's voice took on a stern tone, the tone she used when she was pulling rank and being Mom. “No, Angelina, I don't think it's simple at all. I think it's very, very complicated. And I am not happy with your partner at this point in time. Not happy at all. Now. You two have been together how long?”

“Sixteen years.”

Alice blinked as if momentarily taken aback. “Has it been that long?” At Angie's nod, she added, “Wow. Time really does fly, doesn't it?” Pulling herself back to the conversation at hand, she continued. “All right. So, you've been together for sixteen years. Do you want to flush those sixteen years down the toilet?”

“Of course not, but I'm not the one who—”

Alice cut her off with an upheld hand. “No, we're not laying blame right now. We're answering questions. Important questions. Do you want to flush the past sixteen years down the toilet? Yes or no?”

“No.”

“Good. Are you willing to listen to Jillian with an open mind?” At Angie's silence, she studied her daughter. “What?”

“She blames me. She says I didn't pay enough attention to her.”

“Did you?”

Resentment began to bubble up. “Seriously, Ma?
I
am not the one who went looking for somebody else, and I can't believe you're
going to side with
her
and make her straying
my
fault.
She
made the mistake, not me.”

“That's right.” Alice slapped a hand on the table and leaned toward her daughter. “She made a mistake.
She made a mistake
. I'm not saying it was right. I am certainly not excusing her. But we all make mistakes, and if the person who loves us the most in the world won't give us a chance to explain—and hopefully forgive us—who will?”

Angie scoffed. “So I'm supposed to just go to her all ‘Okay, so you took off your clothes for somebody besides me. No biggie. All is forgiven. Let's go out to eat'?”

Alice tilted her head and her expression showed just how ridiculous she thought her daughter was being. “No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is, if there's a reason that Jillian made her mistake, you'd better deal with it if you have any shot of moving forward together.”

“So I take the blame?”

Alice sighed. “Did I say that?”

“You said maybe there's a reason Jillian made a mistake.”

“Is there?”

Angie's eyes filled. “This is so unfair,” she said softly. “I didn't do anything.”

Reaching across the table, Alice closed her hand over her daughter's. “Oh, sweetie, I know. I know you didn't. My point is that people screw up. We do stupid things. We do things we immediately regret. And somebody like Jillian is going to beat herself up over it for years, mark my words. I know it, and you know it. So if
you
don't forgive her and
she
can't forgive herself, where's she going? Where are the two of you going together? That's the big question for you: can you forgive her?”

“I don't know,” Angie whispered.

This was extra stress that Jillian feared she was ill-equipped to handle, but she had no choice. She sat in Starbucks across the table from Shay and blinked at her as she ran possible responses to Shay's question through her brain in an attempt to come up with a good lie.

You look like death warmed over. What the hell is going on, Jill? Is everything okay? Are
you
okay?

She'd never lied to Shay. Their friendship was too important. She was always upfront with Shay, even when she didn't want to be; that's why she was sitting here instead of thinking of a little white lie that would've gotten her out of this meeting. At the same time, Jillian thought maybe it would be good to talk to somebody. She'd been rattling around the house alone for days. Maybe talking to somebody who knew her well would help. But this situation, this was not going to sit well with Shay. How could it possibly seem nearly as hard to tell her what had happened as it had been to tell Angie?

“Jillian.” Shay's voice was firm, her eyes lined with concern. She reached across the small, round table and covered Jillian's hands with her own. “You're scaring me. Talk to me.”

“I cheated on Angie.” It just came blurting out of her mouth. Not the way she'd intended to present it, but there it was, and she was slightly relieved.

Shay stared at her, her mouth working, but no sound coming out. She let go of Jillian's hands and sat back in her chair as if all her energy had suddenly left her body. Slowly, she began to shake her head from side to side, disbelief, shock, and disappointment all clearly written on her face.

Jillian swallowed, wondered momentarily if she might get sick. “I know,” she said. “I know.”

“Wow.” Jillian could see that Shay had more to say, but she just uttered that one word and continued to shake her head, as if doing so would change the words Jillian had said.

“It was a mistake,” Jillian said. “It was a mistake. It didn't last long, and I told Angie about it right away. She's at her parents' for a little bit. I'm hoping . . .” She let her voice trail off, suddenly understanding that no explanation was going to remove that look from Shay's eyes. That look of judgment. That look of disillusionment. That look of disgust. “Shay, please.”

“How could you?” Shay said, her voice low. “You saw what I went through. You
know
how awful it was. How could you do that to Angie?”

Jillian wet her lips, focused on the table top. “I was just…weak. She looked at me like I was gorgeous, Shay, and I was weak. It didn't mean anything; I never even touched her, it was always her touching me. I just…I melted. It had been so long since I felt like that. I couldn't help it. It just happened.”

“Bullshit.” Shay spat the word at her, interrupting her with a sneer. “That is a giant load of bullshit. Cheating doesn't ‘happen.'” She made air quotes to stress her sarcasm. “It didn't ‘happen,' Jillian. You did it. You.
You did it
. You are responsible. All the pain and anguish Angie is going through right now?
You
caused it.”

Jillian swallowed, no response forthcoming. Really, what could she say? She didn't think she was making excuses for what had happened, it wasn't her intention, but maybe that's exactly what she was doing.

“I can't believe you'd do that to somebody you profess to love.”

“I do love her.” Jillian was feeling defensive, and she didn't want that, didn't feel she had the right to it. She'd expected disappointment from Shay, but not this kind of anger. It squeezed her heart. “I do.”

“Right,” Shay snorted. “I can see that.” She stood suddenly. “You know what? I can't even look at you right now.”

“Shay . . .” Jillian watched as Shay gathered her things and left the building, not looking back, not saying goodbye. Jillian's eyes filled with tears. Two best friends in one week: gone. It was no less than she deserved. Right?

She wanted to lay her head down on the table and cry.

For the past few evenings, Jillian had wandered the house looking at photos of family and souvenirs from trips she and Angie had taken. The hallway from the foyer was covered with framed pictures. Jillian's mother. Angie's parents. The four Righetti kids before they hit their teens. Dom, Pam, and their daughter Gia just weeks after her birth. The five Righetti nieces and nephews. When Jillian had met Angie, there were no nieces or nephews. Now Angie's brothers had five kids between them and Jillian's brother Brian had two. Seven new lives had come into being while Jillian and Angie were together. It amazed
her. And the thought of losing some of them, of losing the entire Righetti clan, squeezed her heart painfully.