The first time my husband laughed at me in public, really laughed in that sharp, cutting way that makes everyone else in the room suddenly fascinated by their plates, I told myself it was a fluke. The seventh time, on our seventh anniversary, I finally believed him. He laughed when he saw the candles.
Not a fond little chuckle, not an embarrassed, “You really went all out, huh?” but a full, unrestrained laugh that bounced off the high ceilings of our Portland dining room and landed squarely on my bare shoulders. I was standing there in a dress I’d bought specifically for tonight—a deep green wrap dress that made my eyes look brighter and my waist look smaller—holding a heavy, steaming dish of coq au vin that had taken me four hours to make. “Jesus Christ, Melissa,” he said, reaching for his phone instead of the wine I’d selected.
“What is this, some Hallmark movie? We’re not twenty anymore.”
He said it like “twenty” was a disease I hadn’t grown out of yet. Around the table, the other three couples shifted in their seats.
Gerald, his boss, cleared his throat in that managerial way that said he’d really rather be anywhere else. Gerald’s wife, Maryanne, studied her empty plate as if the pattern on the china had suddenly become the most fascinating thing she’d ever seen. Todd smirked into his whiskey.
Of course Todd smirked. Todd always smirked. He was Derek’s buddy from the sales floor, the kind of man who bragged loudly about “crushing numbers” and quietly about “crushing it at the strip club,” thinking he was clever on both counts.
His girlfriend Ashley, twenty-six and gorgeous in a sharp, polished way I never had been at that age, hid a smile behind her hand. I saw it anyway. The table looked exactly the way I’d planned.
Cream-colored linens, freshly ironed that afternoon. Brass bowls low enough not to block conversation, filled with eucalyptus I’d personally picked out at the Saturday market. The beeswax candles—those specific ones that smelled like honey and bergamot—burned in tall, simple holders, casting golden light over the china we’d registered for seven years ago and used exactly four times.
