Marcus said nothing. "Not like, not like it's some medieval thing," she said quickly as if she could read his expression. "Nobody's forcing me. It's just it's been talked about for a long time. " "Since Andrew and I were teenagers, and our families used to vacation at the same place in the Hamptons, it was always just this understanding. And tonight is supposed to be. " She stopped.
"Tonight is supposed to be what? The dinner where I say yes. " her voice dropped. Where it becomes official, where I smile and shake hands and let them plan the rest of my life. Marcus looked at her for a long moment. And you don't want to.
It wasn't a question. Clare looked at him with an expression that was somewhere between relief and grief. I don't even know him. She said, "Andrew, I've been in the same room with him maybe seven times in my entire life. He seems perfectly nice.
He's probably a great person, but I don't. She exhaled. I don't feel anything. And every time I try to tell my grandmother that, she looks at me like I'm speaking a foreign language. Like feelings are something I invented to be difficult.
Marcus picked up his coffee mug, set it back down. Why tonight? He said, "If this has been building for years, why run tonight? " Clare was quiet for a moment. Because she told me this morning that if I don't agree tonight, if I leave this dinner without giving them an answer, she's cutting me off. She said it flat, like she was reporting a weather forecast.
Financially, housing, the trust, the job she helped me get at her company, all of it, she said. Claire's voice caught for just a fraction of a second. She smoothed it back out fast. She said she's done watching me waste my potential on what she called romantic fantasies. Marcus exhaled through his nose.
How old are you? 24. And you don't have anything outside of what she provides? Clare shook her head slowly. I went to the school she chose.
I majored in what she suggested. I took the job she arranged. I live in an apartment two blocks from her office because she wanted to be nearby in case you need anything. She paused. I built my whole life inside the life she built for me.
And I never even noticed until about 6 months ago when I woke up one morning and couldn't remember the last time I'd made a single decision that was actually mine. Marcus turned the coffee mug in his hands. He didn't say anything for a moment. Outside Atlanta traffic moved through the rain, blurring headlights, muffled horns, the sound of tires on wet asphalt. The restaurant around them hummed with other people's dinners, other people's evenings, other people's ordinary Friday nights.
You know what I was doing before you grabbed my arm? Marcus said finally. Clare blinked. No, leaving. He glanced toward the exit.
I was about to walk out that door and go home and sit at my kitchen table and stare at a stack of bills. I don't have the money to pay and figure out how to explain to my 8-year-old son why we have to move again. He looked back at her. Third time in two years. Because I can't keep up the rent.