The cooking segment was short and mostly funny. They used footage of Erin lowering the beaters into her soufflé batter with the mixer turned on, sending spatters of chocolate goo all over the counter and herself. But Leo also managed to capture the conversation where Arturo had asked about Ben and Erin had said he was too busy at work to make it. Leo captured Erin's emotions well—it was clear she wasn't happy with Ben—and she got the distinct sense that the purpose of the scene was to set up the conflict for coming episodes.
And now she was packing her schedule to keep herself too busy to think.
Currently she was sitting in a Starbucks in North Dallas, near her old school.
She nursed a skinny vanilla latte while she waited for school to let out and for Dave to join her. She figured he'd hate to miss out on the plotting of her next exploit—bar top dancing—since it was bound to be dramatic and Dave lived for all things theatrical.
"Hey, stranger."
Erin jumped as Dave slid into the chair across from her. She'd been so lost in thought she hadn't seen him come in.
She smiled. "Hey, Daddy-oh. How's the fam?"
"Same old, same old," he said. "Tia still rules the roost, except lately her loyal chicks are always in revolt. Oh, and in new news, Marina won't take off her Elsa dress. Literally, she wears it every day and refuses to leave the house if we dress her in any other item of clothing."
"Her Elsa dress?" Erin cocked an eyebrow.
"Oh, yeah, I forget sometimes that you don't speak toddler." He grinned. "Elsa is the badass ice princess from Disney's Frozen. Every girl under three feet tall wants to be her, and every dad in these United States wants to shoot himself in the head when he has to hear 'Let It Go' for the four-thousand and forty-second time in a row."
"Ah." Erin nodded and tried to seem as unfazed as she might have been in the past at this type of parenting anecdote, though part of her was dying to tell Dave that she and Ben were trying to have a baby.
She was still considering it when he beat her to the punch. "By the way, Missy's preggers again."
Erin's jaw dropped. "For real?"
He nodded solemnly. "For real. If it's triplets again, we're screwed. We're gonna need a Duggar-style laundromat and an industrial van."
Erin laughed. "Maybe it's quadruplets."
He grabbed his throat and tottered on the edge of his chair. "Kill me. Kill me now." And then he glanced up when the barista called out "grande white mocha" from behind the counter.
He came back studying the side of his cup. He turned it around so the handwriting was facing Erin. "How in the hell can they mess up Dave?"
She burst out laughing when she deciphered the scribbled letters, which appeared to spell Dick.
"Maybe they're trying to tell you something."
He made a face at her. "So," he said, "you're going Coyote Ugly on us, huh? Don't you think you're a little too old to be dancing on bars?"
Erin stuck out her tongue at him. "I suppose you think I deserved that."
He grinned again, and Erin found herself missing the good ol' days of experiencing Dave daily during their teachers' lounge lunchtime gossip sessions. She didn't know how Missy dealt with his energy on a round-the-clock basis, but she imagined their household was a riot. A far cry from the quiet tension of her own half-empty house these last few months.
As if reading her mind, Dave said, "What's Ben think about you putting your hot bod on display for a bunch of drunk frat boys to drool over?"
Erin rolled her eyes. "I'm not stripping. Just dancing."
His green eyes twinkled. "That's a damn shame."
She reached forward and batted his shoulder. "Randolph David Barber. What would Missy think of you talking about another woman's bod?"
"I'd put Missy up there next to you if I could get her to do it," he said. "She's even hotter when she's with child." His chest puffed as he dragged out the last two words, emphasizing the virility that had put her in that state. Then he sank back into his chair and gave Erin a curious look. "How can I help you pull off this particular list item?"
She shrugged. "I figured you'd want to be there to witness it. Plus I want to brainstorm with somebody about the best place to pull this off. Sherri's in Austin, Hil's got her hands full, and my mom isn't exactly up on the local bar scene." She paused long enough for a grimace to cross her face. "And Ben's hardly ever home long enough for an actual conversation these days."
Dave looked suddenly eager, as if glad she was the one to bring it up. "What's up with the two of you?" he said. "Are things OK since the…you know." He paused, his voice growing low and dramatic. "The premiere?"
Erin pressed her lips together, contemplating the question. "Yes," she said. "And no." She paused. "Honestly it depends on the day." Her eyes misted as she thought about the "commando" night, how their old intimacy had felt so solid and intact—not like they were making up from a fight but like they'd never fought in the first place. But since then, they'd been going their own ways again. Even though they were officially "trying," they hadn't had sex in over a week.
Dave was studying her, not with his usual jokey demeanor but like a concerned friend. "You're going to be OK, right?" Lines had appeared on his forehead. "I saw what they did with that last episode of the show. Seems like they're building up to an explosion."
Erin's expression remained mild. "Oh, things are going to explode, all right." She was thinking about the finale show, which made her stomach drop like Disney's Tower of Terror every time it entered her head. But she wasn't ready to talk to Dave or anybody else about her plans for that night.
"When's that dancing scene gonna come back and haunt you?" he asked. "I keep waiting for it. It's like I watch the show holding my breath."
"You and one-point-six million others," Erin muttered. She sighed. "It's the episode after next. And your guess is as good as mine as to how awful it's going to be." She paused for a beat. "But I'm not that worried about it, honestly. Ben knows I didn't cheat on him, and that's all that matters."
"Glad to hear it."
Erin caught the double meaning in his words. That scene with her and Leo really was damning if even Dave doubted her fidelity. She decided to change the subject.
"So. Bars," she said. "What do you think?"
He leaned back in his chair again and took a long sip of his coffee, his expression growing thoughtful. "That's a no-brainer. Coyote Ugly."
Erin gave him a sideways look. "I'm not going to New York for this." Although she certainly could. She had to be in New York for the live finale in less than a month which would still give her time to complete the list before her birthday if she was creative.
"Not New York. Fort Worth. They opened last fall, I think." He shook his head. "Don't you read the news?"
"No time," she said. "Unless it's on theSkimm."
"You Millennial, you." He was three years older than her and a member of Gen Y by all definitions, but he still liked to hold the fact that he'd been born in the first breath of the '80s over her head.
She ignored him. "I wonder if you have to work there to dance?"
"There's an easy answer for that," he said.
She shrugged. "Yeah, I'll Google it." She reached for her phone.
He put up a hand to stop her. "No, I meant fill out an application. You can always use another paying client, right?"
Erin burst out laughing. Honestly, Dave was great for her well-being.
"I think I can be a little more creative than that. How's this Saturday night? Think you and Missy can swing a babysitter?"
"Are you freaking kidding me? For this I'd risk the four-year-old burning the house down. Count us in."
* * *
By Thursday night, Erin had rounded up more friends for Saturday's Coyote Ugly excursion. She needed the support—plus if she tried to chicken out, they'd make her go through with it. Sherri couldn't come because her parents were driving in from Midland, and Erin didn't ask Hilary. It wasn't her scene. Instead she asked Angie Ru
ssell, another friend from her teaching days at Northside, and Viola Smothers, a girl from her yoga class she'd reconnected with now that she was going again, if sporadically. Erin wasn't sure how long she could keep it up. She liked rapid motion during exercise—like running. The slow, rhythmic yoga postures were like systemic torture.
But Viola was twenty-eight and single, making her one of Erin's only friends who still partied…and so Erin told her in the text to bring friends. She'd thought afterward that she should have asked Viola where to go for bar top dancing, but then she wouldn't have had an excuse to hang out with Dave twice in one week.
She hoped Ben would come, but she didn't think he would. Things were a mess at the satellite lab, and he was in Florida again. His schedule was such a yo-yo that Erin couldn't keep track of it. He was flying in tonight, but she couldn't remember when or if he'd said he was flying out again.
Erin's phone buzzed with a text. Speak of the devil—Ben was leaving the airport. Her stomach churned. She'd secretly hoped Ben's flight would land after the show tonight, not before it. She glanced at the time…7:02. He'd make it home just in time for the opening credits.
It wasn't the episode, not the dance class, but Erin's nerves were flaring again anyway. Tonight's list item was the triathlon, and all day long her brain had flitted over memories of Leo's moody flirting after the race, the way he'd avoided Ben with his camera. She just had a bad feeling about it.
At exactly 7:55, Ben's key sounded in the back door lock. Erin ran to the kitchen to throw her arms around him, but he leaned back to hold her at arm's length, looking as if he'd never seen her before. She furrowed her brow and then remembered she'd had her appointment with Mia today—her formerly long, thick locks were now shaped into a sleek, chin-length bob.
She reached up to run her fingers through her hair, shaking her head so it fanned out around her face. "Like it?"
"I…well, wow. It's really different. I mean, yeah."
She laughed. "Liar."
His relief when YOLO's opening music started was comical. As they made a dash for the couch, Erin laughed again and said, "Don't worry. It'll grow back."
Ben kicked off his shoes, and Erin snuggled into his side on the sofa. When her image first appeared on-screen—the opening sequence that ran with every episode—he squeezed her shoulder and planted a kiss on the top of her head. A shiver ran through her body, and she drew in a shaky breath. Would he still feel like doing that after tonight's episode, or would it make him angry all over again and shatter the truce their marriage was resting on right now?
They both watched, transfixed. It was a good night for the show. Fabian Hale, the internet start-up CEO from Providence, fulfilled his dream of giving a TED Talk (YOLO had helped him make it happen, which seemed to Erin a little like cheating, but the audience didn't know that.), and the footage showed snippets of his speech on artificial intelligence, along with his standing ovation. After Fabian, Carsyn Caro stole the show for a second week by helping to deliver a baby.
Leo had told her about that one…they couldn't get the permissions necessary to do the shoot in an actual hospital delivery room, so Carsyn had trained with a doula and assisted in an at-home water birth. Erin's co-workers had freaked out at the raw footage, which by all accounts was gory—she'd chosen not to look. But the parts that made it to the show were clean and clinical with creative camera angles that avoided showing body parts the FCC frowned upon during network prime time.
Carsyn's segment was long and engaging enough that Erin almost forgot to be nervous. And so when her face flashed on-screen to tease the next segment after commercial break, her stomach leapt into her throat, and she had to swallow back the butterflies.
During commercials Ben pulled away from her and started untucking and unbuttoning his shirt.
"Aren't you going to watch?" she asked when he stood up.
"Be right back. I'm dying." He jogged out of the room, and she giggled when she heard the toilet flush thirty seconds later. He had just come in from a long flight. Of course he had to pee.
When he came back he'd changed out of his slacks and button-down and was wearing basketball shorts with no shirt. Erin lifted an eyebrow, her heart doing a little flip-flop. She didn't know how he was finding time to stay fit—the hotel gym?—but Ben's body was even better now than it was back when he was marathon training. She, on the other hand, was fighting with the scale these days. She had to work twice as hard to reap half the benefit, especially after she'd stopped the triathlon training. It was like when she hit thirty-four, she'd turned some invisible corner.
Ben dropped onto the sofa and eyed the TV, twisting Erin's thoughts back to YOLO and giving new life to the butterflies in her stomach. The show wasn't back yet—there was a paper towel ad on the screen. But then that faded to black, and the segment opened on a close-up of Erin and Ben seated in the show's studio.
"Whoa," Ben said as Erin's jaw slackened.
She gripped his arm as if the couch wasn't enough to support her.
What is this? What are they doing?
Erin knew, of course, that YOLO had these interviews. The crew had shot studio segments with all cast members at the start of filming. This wasn't the first time they'd pulled snippets from them. But the suddenness of seeing both of their faces on-screen jarred her, and it must have jarred Ben, too, because his body was completely rigid.
Erin listened to her own voice explaining how she'd made an overall list of thirty-five goals, and she and Ben were completing as many items as they could together. "Like the beer brewing and the traveling and the rock climbing," she heard herself saying on-screen. "And the triathlon. And of course,"— at this she glanced lovingly at Ben—"the wedding." The on-screen version of Ben smiled down at her.
And then the scene morphed to Erin training for the triathlon at the park near her house, at the neighborhood Y, at the greenway on her bike—alone every time. Greg's voice-over pointed out that plans change, and the early days of marriage were often harder than expected as two people got used to balancing the demands of work and life with the heightened demands of a marriage. On-screen they revisited scenes from the last few episodes—Erin alone on the cliff face, Erin's tearful end of Ben's phone call, Erin looking solemn and melancholy as she sat with an empty chair beside her at the rehearsal dinner. And then finally, Ben, the camera following him as he sprinted up the aisle amid cheers from beleaguered guests.
Finally the triathlon footage appeared again, this time depicting Erin's prerace stretch, alone on a sidewalk, lining up for the race with Ben nowhere in sight. Alone. Alone, alone, alone.
She dared to glance at Ben's face, and his features were carved in stone, a storm in his eyes. "They're not subtle, are they?" He glared over at her, and Erin felt her insides shrink a little. Ben had never looked at her like this, not in all the years she'd known him. "Damn," he added, shaking off her hand from his arm. "It's not like I could help having to do my job," he growled. "This is complete crap."
"I know," Erin said faintly, torn between wanting to calm him down and wanting to see the show. She was numb inside—she didn't want to watch, but she had to know how bad it was. She avoided his gaze as she added, "It's just two more weeks of this story line we have to get through." She gritted her teeth. "And remember it's just ratings. They're doing it for the ratings. It's meaningless."
"I don't have to watch this garbage."
His eyes were on the screen, though, and at that moment the camera was on Erin as she glanced around, clearly searching for him, before the race started. The camera panned the crowd, which didn't include Ben, and Erin's expression was one of bleak disappointment. She remembered that moment, and it was true—she'd been looking for Ben. And when he wasn't there she'd felt every bit as let down as her expression laid bare. She couldn't breathe over the lump in her throat.
And then Ben stomped out of the room, and Erin was left to watch the rest of the segment alone. In fact, she watched the last thirty minutes of the show al
one because Ben never came back into the room, and she didn't get up to find him. She tried not to dwell on the irony.
* * *
Once the show ended and the teaser for next week's segment, which included the same cheek-to-cheek shot of her and Leo that had caused havoc on premiere night, morphed to commercial, Erin ignored her buzzing and flashing phone and walked with trepidation to the bedroom.
She found Ben lying prone on their bed, his face buried in a pillow. Tentatively she perched on the edge of the bed and placed a hand on his bare back. He didn't move, but she heard his voice, muffled by the pillow, say, "I guess I really screwed up, huh?"
Erin's forehead wrinkled as her brow furrowed. He'd screwed up? She'd fully expected his anger to be directed at her, not himself.
"What do you mean?"
She crawled around him and scooted to the center of the bed. After a dragged-out moment, Ben turned his head and rolled onto his side. He wore a gloomy, defeated expression.
"I wasn't there," he said. "Over and over again, I didn't show up. You tried to tell me that, but I was too busy to hear it. That's what you think, right?"
A knot of foreboding formed in Erin's throat. "Ben…" she started.
"No, you don't have to tell me, because I saw it. It was there all over your face." He paused, not looking at her exactly but more through her. After a few seconds he shook his head. "You know how bad things were for me at work right then," he said, finally fixing his gaze on her. "The timing was terrible. You could have told them that, done something…" His voice trailed off.
Erin felt suddenly exhausted, too tired to argue, but she said, "I did tell them that, Ben. I told Leo—"
"Leo." Ben spat out the word like a wad of sour tobacco. "Leo wanted you to be the lonely, rejected wife. I was there, Erin. I was at the finish line. But Leo didn't want that to show up in this little story he was concocting, did he? Otherwise why wouldn't they have used any footage from after the race?"
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