Chapter 98: PARKER : 021

“ — getting wrapped up with the wrong people.” Sam smiles, ready to go for the throat. “Going bottom-fishing, hooking up with people from his past that were long gone and good riddance.”

Angela flinches, but I know she’s giving Samantha benefits of doubts she doesn’t deserve.

“His past wasn’t all bad,” she says.

“I guess we’ll see.” Samantha smiles

A befuddled look crosses Angela’s face, but we’re interrupted by the waiter, who’s brought the entree.

“What’s this?” Angela didn’t order grilled cabbage leaf, and I have no idea if she’ll like it.

“The chef chars the leaf and serves it with a silken miso flan.” Duncan points to Angela’s plate. “And that’s a smoked almond milk Anglaise with fennel pollen. You’ll love it.”

“Oh,” says Angela. Looking baffled, she picks up the wrong fork.

“You’ve never had it?” Samantha tries to sound shocked.

“No.”

“Well, I guess they took it off the TGI Friday’s menu.”

Angela blinks, unbelieving. She looks right at me as if to ask if she really just heard that.

“Sam … ” I say.

Samantha changes the subject. “So. This is the Angela from that birthday card you got the other day.”

Of course it is. Sam’s being a bitch for no reason. I catch Duncan’s eye and realize something awful: Duncan told on me. Out of all the people in the world, Duncan’s my only friend who survived my transition from poverty to wealth. He’s the only person outside my family who knew me back in the day and still knows me now. That privileged position means he knows most of my secrets. Including, I’m now remembering, that I had a highly inappropriate crush on my stepsister growing up.

I look from Duncan to Samantha, from Samantha to Duncan. Duncan knows I know, and he’s smiling. The son of a bitch thinks this is funny.

“That’s me,” says Angela.

“It came in a red envelope.”

“I don’t remember,” Angela says.

“I do. Because that was the day Parker fucked me in the ass for his birthday. Well, me and some other girl.”

Angela looks at me, unsure how aghast to be. My mouth hangs open. But what should I do? Lie? Who says something like that at any dinner table — let alone one where dinner for four will likely top a grand?

“He was so distracted,” Samantha goes on, now looking down at her fingernails, picking them. “I guess he thought he was done hearing from that part of town.”

“It’s not that,” I say.

“So you weren’t distracted?”

I find myself stammering. I already told Angela that the card unseated me and made me get in touch. “Yeah, but — ”

Sam laughs. “I remember exactly what you said, ‘Why is this piece of shit bothering me?’”

“My dad!” I look at Angela. “I said that about my dad!”

“But you said it, of course,” Samantha goes on, still cleaning her nails, still pretending to be casual. “Just like the thing about how you were above all that now.”

“I’ve made a good life for myself, and — ”

“Right, right. I remember how you wouldn’t shut up about it.” She laughs and then — unbelievably — reaches across the table to put her hand on Angela’s. Then to Angela, she says, “He almost couldn’t cum, he was so distracted.”

Angela’s eyebrows clench. She’s staring directly at me.

“ … while he was fucking me in the ass,” Samantha added helpfully.

Too low for Samantha to hear, Angela hisses, “Is what she’s saying true?”

Before I can answer, Samantha says, “You’re lucky to be out of that shithole, Angie. Parker’s right: only the world’s crap stays there.”

Angela’s head cocks, her eyes furious.

“I — ” I start to say.

Angela just shakes her head, stopping me. She pulls her napkin from her lap and slaps it on the table then stands.

“Looks like you are that guy after all,” she says, “and apparently always have been.”

I rise to chase her as she rushes from the restaurant, but Duncan grabs my hand. I shake him off, but Samantha grabs my other wrist.

“There’s press outside,” says Duncan. “Let her go.”

I don’t want to. I want to punch Duncan in his face, and damn what anyone thinks. I want to beat him nearly to death then slap Samantha into the wall, which she’d probably like a little too much.

But I don’t do any of it, or follow Angela, because Duncan says something that stops me.

“Don’t,” he says. “Maybe she liked you back then, but she wouldn’t like who you are now.”

Slowly, in a daze, I sit.

Not because I don’t want to chase her, but because I know that Duncan is right.