Page 22 of Little Secrets
“That you know of. Stop defending him.”
“He’s Sebastian’s father.”
“So? That’s not enough.” Sal’s voice is pained. “You can’t use your son as an excuse anymore.”
“I still love him.”
“So what?” His voice explodes, and the few heads in the bar turn in their direction. The new server watches them from the far end, her face knotted in suspicion and concern. It probably looks to her like Marin and Sal are having a lovers’ quarrel, the way they’re sitting so close to each other, their discussion emotional and heated. “Where has love ever gotten you? You ask me, Mar, love is way overrated. Fuck love. We should be with people welike. And trust.”
“Like you? Sleeping with the new waitress?” Marin turns and gives the new server a pointed glance, then raises an eyebrow at Sal. He leans back, surprised she figured it out. Of course she did. She knows Sal. “Youlikeher, huh? Which will last, what, a few months, tops, until she ends up quitting because you’ve moved on to the next one and now it’s awkward to work together? You’re always one bad breakup away from a sexual harassment lawsuit, my friend. What the hell do you know about marriage, or commitment, or relationships?”
Sal visibly deflates, sagging onto his barstool like she let the air out of his tires. Marin regrets her words instantly. She bit back too strongly, and it’s not okay, because Sal isn’t trying to hurt her. Despite the tough exterior, Sal is as sensitive as they come. He nevergot married, never had children, and it’s a sore spot she shouldn’t have poked.
“I’m sorry.” Marin takes his hand. He lets her hold it, and a few seconds later, he gives her palm a squeeze. He heals as fast as he hurts, thank god. “I’m a bitch. That wasn’t about you. You didn’t say anything you haven’t said before.”
“Yeah, and I keep hoping one of these days you’ll actually hear me.” The expression on his face reminds her of how he looked when he asked her to come back to him in college and she told him she was dating Derek. Puppy-dog eyes. Downturned mouth, now surrounded by salt-and-pepper scruff. “You’ve always been too good for him, and I hate that you don’t know that. He did this to you before, and there weren’t any consequences, which is why he knows he can do it again.”
“Wow, thanks, Sal.” She dropped his hand. “Blame the woman. So it’s my fault he’s cheating?”
“No.” Sal thumps a hand on the counter. “But it’s your fault you’restaying. He cheated on you the first time while you were pregnant. Who does that? And yet you stayed. You had Sebastian. And now here you are again. Come on, Mar. Who knows how many others there are? Ones that you don’t know about, and never will.”
Sal’s honesty is like a sledgehammer. Blunt force trauma to the heart, no bullshit, no wasted movements, no needless words.
“We’re still married,” she says quietly. “I made vows.”
“So did he!” Sal’s voice is thunderous. It alarms her; he rarely ever raises his voice. She’s still facing the bar mirror, and behind her she sees heads pop up again. The waitress’s gaze laser-cuts her from across the room. She doesn’t even know Marin, and already she hates her because she’s upsetting Sal.
“You don’t have to stay in a bad marriage as penance for what happened with Sebastian, Mar. Don’t you understand that? Neither is your fault. Havana wasn’t your fault. Enough already.”
He doesn’t mean the Cuban city. All best friends have a shorthand way of speaking, and Havana was their nickname for a woman named Carmen, a Nordstrom sales consultant of Cuban descent whom Derek slept with when Marin was pregnant with Sebastian.
After four rounds of IVF, it was her first pregnancy that had gone past twelve weeks, and Marin was both elated and terrified.
Derek swore it was only the one time. Ironically, it was Sal who’d told her. He’d been on a date, sitting at a restaurant at a table by the window, when he saw Derek walk by arm in arm, laughing, with a woman who wasn’t Marin. Sal told her about it the next morning, but she insisted he had to be mistaken, that either it hadn’t been Derek, or Sal hadn’t seen what he thought he saw. They argued, with Sal accusing her of being willfully blind and she accusing him of trying to stir up drama because he always thought the worst about her husband.
Then, two days later, a saleswoman from Nordstrom called to tell Derek that the Ferragamo shoes he’d ordered had come in. Derek’s Nordstrom account must have been attached to Marin’s phone number, and the woman didn’t realize she was leaving a message on his wife’s voicemail. Her greeting back then was generic, the autogenerated “You have reached two-zero-six nine-seven-one…”
Marin replayed the message twice, certain she’d misheard it.
“Hey, Derek, it’s Carmen. Your Ferragamos are in. I’ll be at the store till close if you’re planning on coming in… If you do, maybe we could get a drink? I had a really great time the other night. I, um… I can’t stop thinking about you. Hope to see you later. Bye.”
Marin confronted Derek when he got home, playing the message on speakerphone while he cringed. He apologized, begged for her forgiveness, insisting it was a one-night stand, that the pressures of IVF and all the stress of trying to get pregnant had gotten to him, and he’d lost control. What was she supposed to do? They had a baby on the way, and she wanted it—needed it—to work. They went tocouples therapy, and while they eventually found their way back to each other after Sebastian was born, they were never quite the same. Breaking trust will do that.
Sal moves closer, until his face is inches from hers. His breath smells faintly of garlic, but it doesn’t bother her, because hers probably does, too. Sometimes she wonders if she damaged Sal more than she thought. If maybe the reason he can’t commit to a relationship is because of what happened with them in college. He’s never said so. And she’s never asked.
“You’d be better off without him,” he says. “You could start fresh. Derek is rich as fuck. You’ll get half of everything. That’s plenty.”
“You mean like Tia?”
Sal knows who she’s talking about. Tia is a friend of theirs from college who married a wealthy chef and restaurant owner. For ten years, she lived in a house overlooking Lake Washington. She didn’t have to work. She stayed home with their daughter, playing tennis and volunteering on charity committees. Then Bryan met another woman. The divorce was ugly. Bryan hired better lawyers than she did, and while she got a settlement, he got everything else. And went on to open two more restaurants. Tia now lives in a condo and shares custody of her daughter with her ex-husband and the woman he left her for.
Marin hasn’t seen Tia in over a year. The last time was when her old college friend dropped off a casserole when the news about Sebastian broke. Tia said she was “happy in her new life,” but it’s hard to imagine how happy she could be. What Tia lost when she divorced Bryan can never be replaced. Time with her daughter. Financial security. Status.
Marin doesn’t want to be happy in a new life. She wants to be happy in the one she already has… or used to.
“You’re not Tia,” Sal says. “You’ve always worked. Tia never did.”
“You know I couldn’t afford to live how we live on my own.” Shefeels awful for saying it, but it’s true. The salons make money, but it’s a fraction of what Derek earns.
