"What just happened? " she said. "I genuinely don't know," Marcus said. "She gave you her card. " I see that Vivien Bennett does not give her card to people. Clare said, I have watched her be approached by city councilmen at charity events and not give her card. She looked up at him.
She gave it to you. Marcus picked it up now, turned it over. Nothing on the back, he set it down. You going to call? Clare asked.
Marcus looked at the card, looked out the window at the rain, thought about the bills on his kitchen table arranged in order of urgency, thought about Deshawn asleep at home, terasaurs and brachiosauruses rotating through his dreams. Thought about what it felt like to have someone look at you and see something worth keeping. I don't know yet, he said, and he meant it. At the corner table, Viven was speaking quietly to Thomas Whitmore. Thomas looked less settled than he had before.
His hands flat on the table, his mouth a thin line. Andrew was looking at his phone. The dinner had broken apart in some fundamental way. The structure of the evening dismantled by the truth that had moved through the room like weather. "Are you okay? " Marcus asked.
Clare thought about that for a genuine second, not a reflexive second. An actual one. "I'm terrified," she said. "I don't have a plan. I don't have a next step.
I have no idea what Monday looks like. She looked at him. And I feel more like myself right now than I have in 5 years. Marcus nodded. That's how it starts, he said.
What? Being broke and terrified, being free, he said. She laughed short and real and complicated the laugh of someone who was feeling three things at once and couldn't separate them. Marcus, she said, "Yeah, thank you. " She said it simply, not dramatically, not with the weight of the debt she thought she owed him, just cleanly one person to another. For stopping, Marcus felt something settle in his chest.
Not happiness exactly, more like rightness. You'd have figured it out, he said. Maybe, she said, but probably not tonight. He picked up his coffee. Cold now, drank the rest of it anyway.
Outside the rain was still falling steady and unchanging. The way rain does when it's decided it's staying the night. The restaurant was thinning out now later than he'd realized. The Friday crowd drifting toward home. The corner table was paying their bill.
Thomas Whitmore standing adjusting his jacket. Andrew pocketing his phone. Viven was looking toward Marcus and Clare one last time. Marcus met her eyes across the room. She held the look for exactly two seconds.