“What people wear isn’t hurting anyone. I’m going to sit here and enjoy my off-season lobster roll.”
“Do lobsters go out of season? I thought they caught them in Maine year round.”
Brad shrugged. “I always think of lobster as a summer food, but who knows? Did you know that thing everyone attributes to Anthony Bourdain about not eating seafood on Mondays isn’t true?”
“What’s that?”
“It used to be conventional wisdom that restaurants got their seafood deliveries on Tuesdays, so on Monday, you’re eating the oldest fish. Thus you should not eat in seafood restaurants on Mondays. But that’s not really true anymore.”
“Oh, right. The sushi place near my apartment is closed on Mondays. I wonder if that’s why. No one wants to eat sushi on Mondays.”
Brad laughed. “Right. True or not, I bet sushi consumption drops off on Mondays.”
Brad’s gaze snagged on an athletic blond woman who jogged by wearing only a sports bra and bike shorts.
Lindsay snapped her fingers. “I’m over here, buddy.”
“Sorry,” Brad murmured. Then he turned his attention back to her. “So. Oh, get a load of those two guys by the bar cart over there. Frat bros or gay couple?”
And maybe it was some kind of residual childhood trauma, but something flopped over in Lindsay’s stomach. It was a completely innocent thing. Brad wouldn’t have gone after the jogging woman. He was just looking. He was a heterosexual male with a pulse; he was allowed to look. It was unreasonable for Lindsay to demand Brad’s constant attention when she herself sometimes looked at other men.
And Lindsay’s parents’ situation was so different. There’d been strain in their marriage for as long as Lindsay had been aware enough to recognize emotions. They fought constantly. Lindsay’s mother threatened to leave at least once a week, and then finally, Lindsay’s father hadn’t bothered to hide the affair with his secretary, and her parents had signed the divorce papers.
She didn’t think she and Brad had that dynamic, but they’d only been together for a year. Surely her parents had liked each other enough once to get married. Was Lindsay just doomed to repeat the same patterns?
She could admit that she’d had a foot out the door as a way to safeguard her own heart. She didn’t want to repeat her parents’ old patterns.
But had that been fair to Brad? Probably not, because even Lindsay could now acknowledge that catching him with Phoebe was more an excuse than a reason to end the relationship. Brad’s explanation of what happened with Phoebe, which Lindsay now believed, ran roughshod over the narrative that she’d been telling herself for so long. And he’d shut down thatNew York Timeslady. That had to mean something. But could she trust him? Could she trust herself?
She knew love was real. Her friends, particularly Lauren and Paige, had found great, loving relationships, and they seemed so happy. Lindsay was cynical, but deep down, she wanted that, too.
She pushed away from her desk and went to the kitchen to refill her coffee. She hoped she wasn’t making a mistake in giving Brad a second chance.
***
Brad followed Lindsay to their table and looked around. From the outside, the restaurant looked like a pub. It was called the Deer & Goose, like some old British pub, and the signage reflected that. But inside, the restaurant looked like an interior designer had run away with a wilderness theme. There was a huge reclaimed-wood feature wall in the back, from which hung framed watercolor paintings of trees. Each table had a tiny flowerpot with some kind of coniferous tree thing in it, reminiscent of the little trees his mother always bought at Christmastime.
Brad glanced at the menu, then looked at Lindsay. She did look pretty tonight. Her dark hair fell around her shoulders, and she had on a pink cardigan over a floral dress, like she’d actually tried to look nice for this date. Or it wasn’t a date. Brad wasn’t totally sure.
“So how does this reviewing thing usually work?” Brad asked.
“Well, we don’t want them to know I’m a critic, so we definitely don’t speak aloud about that.”
Brad mimed zipping his lips.
“Order whatever you want, but let’s order different entrées so we can try each other’s. I’ve been wanting to try this sausage dish since I saw it on the online menu.”
“Ooh, maybe I’ll order the toad-in-the-hole.”
Lindsay narrowed her eyes at him. “Isn’t that just an egg in a piece of toast?”
“Only if you’re an American.”
“You’re an American.”
“In England, toad-in-the-hole is a Yorkshire pudding with sausage, onions, and gravy. This menu says they use a chicken apple sausage, which sounds tasty. But partly, I want to judge the Yorkshire pudding.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever had one.”
