Camille’s already at the corner table when I walk in, 2 cappuccinos ordered, hers half gone, mine still steaming, and she stands up to hug me like we haven’t seen each other in months instead of 3 weeks, her perfume warm and familiar, her arms tight around my shoulders for a second too long, the way people hug when they’re lonely and don’t want to admit it out loud.
“You look tired,” she says, sitting back down and tucking one leg under herself.
“Good tired or bad tired?” “Is there— is there a good kind?” “There’s the kind where you’ve been doing something interesting.” She waves a hand, vague but expressive.
“Like you stayed up all night reading or you were, you know…
busy.” A slight eyebrow raise, teasing but not pushing.
“And then there’s the kind where you just haven’t slept because your brain won’t shut up.” “You’re giving me a mix of both, I think.” “I thought so.
You’ve got that— what’s the word.
The look.
Like you’re running on fumes but also sort of alive.
It’s— it’s confusing.” “It’s confusing to live it, trust me.” “It’s always a week with you lately, though.
Every time I see you, you’ve got some new weight, or a new secret, or—” She stops herself, catching the edge of something she didn’t mean to say.
“Sorry, that— that came out more intense than I meant.” “No, it’s—” I start, then stop, because I’m not sure what it is.
“It’s fine.
It’s been a weird month.” “Weird how?” I don’t answer that directly, I can’t, so I just shrug and take a sip of my cappuccino, letting the foam sit on my upper lip for a second before I wipe it off.
She watches me the whole time, not in a creepy way, just paying attention, the way people do when they actually give a damn, which is still a thing I’m getting used to.
I look for it the second I sit down.
Guilt, evasion, a flicker of anything in the shape of a woman who’s been having lunch at the Greenwich Hotel with someone else’s husband.
What I find instead is just Camille, unbothered, scrolling something on her phone before she remembers she’s supposed to be talking to me and puts it face-down on the table with a little slap, annoyed at herself.
“Sorry, sorry, I’m— I’m terrible at that.
Tate’s always—” She waves at the phone.
“He says I have a problem.
He’s not wrong.” “It’s fine, honestly.” “No, I— okay.” She exhales, recenters herself with a little shake of her head.
“How’s Lenore?
Still— still terrifying?” “Extremely.
She told Grant his fence joke wasn’t funny the first time he made it, in front of everyone.” “Oh my god.” Camille’s whole face lights up.
“Which— which fence joke?
The deer one?” “The deer one.
He’s been telling it for like 4 years, and she just—” I drop my voice into my mother’s flat register.
“‘You said that already.
It wasn’t humorous then either.'” “No.” Camille’s laughing now, a real laugh, her hand over her mouth.
“She did not.” “She did.
In front of the Marchettis and the Hendersons and— I don’t even remember who else, just— just the whole dinner party.” “I like her already, I really do.” “You say that about everyone’s terrifying mother.
You said it about mine before you’d even met her.” “I have a type.” Camille smiles into her cup, that self-satisfied little smile she gets when she knows she’s being consistent.
“Women who don’t apologize for taking up space.
There aren’t enough of them at this school, honestly, everyone’s so polite.” She says “polite” like it’s a curse word.
“It’s exhausting.” “You’d survive maybe one dinner with her before she found something to interrogate you about.
She’d ask about your childhood, your marriage, your— your 5-year plan.” “I survived growing up in Lyon with my own grandmother, I think I can handle your mother.
My grandmother once asked a boyfriend of mine— in front of the whole family— whether he intended to ‘financially provide or merely decorate.'” “She did not.” “She did.
I was 16.
He never came back.” “That’s kind of impressive, honestly.” “It was mortifying.
But also, she wasn’t wrong.
He was very decorative.” Camille shrugs, that particular French shrug that manages to convey an entire paragraph of feeling without a single word.
“Anyway.
I’m not scared of Lenore.” “Lyon,” I say, leaning forward a little, because this is new territory and I’m genuinely curious now.
“You never really talk about it.” “There’s not much to tell, honestly.
I mean—” She pauses, fiddling with her cup.
“Small city, big river, a ballet school that took itself far too seriously for a town that size.
I trained there from 6 until 17, and then my hip decided it had other plans, and that was that.” “What happened with the hip?
If you— I mean, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.” “No, it’s— it’s okay.” She takes a breath, and for the first time since I sat down I see a flicker behind her eyes, not guilt, something older.
“A bad landing.
A really bad landing, and a doctor who didn’t think a 16-year-old needed details.
Torn labrum, surgery, a year of physical therapy that didn’t fix enough of it.
By the time I could dance again the company had already replaced me twice over.
Two girls.
You blink and there are 3 other girls standing where you used to stand.” She snaps her fingers.
“Like that.” “That sounds devastating.” “It was, for a while.
Then it was just my life, you know?
The thing that happened.
The thing I don’t do anymore.” “What does that mean exactly, the— the just-my-life part?” “It means I miss being good at something nobody could take credit for but me.
Dancing was mine.
My body, my hours, my—” She stops, searching for the word.
“My thing.
And now it’s gone and I’m a mom and a wife and a volunteer at a school full of women who don’t apologize, which is great, I love it, but—” “But it’s not the same.” “No.
It’s— it’s not.” “Do you ever think about going back?
Not performing, obviously, but teaching?
Choreographing?” “Sometimes.” She looks down at her cup, tracing the rim with one finger.
“Tate thinks it’s a charming idea I’ll grow out of.” She says it without much heat, flat and matter-of-fact, weather she’s stopped being surprised by.
“He means well, he really does, he just doesn’t understand that some women don’t grow out of the thing they actually wanted.
They just stop talking about it.” “Is that why you married him?
Tate, I mean.
For the quiet?” “I married Tate because he was kind, and I was so tired of men who weren’t.” She says it casually, almost offhand, but underneath it there’s a heaviness she’s not showing.
“After Lyon I dated men who treated unreliable like a personality trait, like being late and forgetting my birthday and never calling was just who they were and I was supposed to be fine with it.
And then Tate showed up.
On time.
Called when he said he’d call.
Remembered things I said in passing.” She lets out a small, humorless laugh.
“It felt like winning a prize I didn’t know I’d entered for.” “That sounds nice.” “It is nice.” She turns her cup a quarter turn on the saucer, not quite meeting my eyes.
“Tate is a good man, Margaux.
I want to be clear about that.
But sometimes good isn’t the same as enough, you know?
Like, he’s good and he’s kind and he’s steady, but he doesn’t see me.
Not the way I need to be seen.” I almost choke on the cappuccino, and I have to set it down too fast, foam sloshing dangerously close to the rim.
“Are you— are you okay?” “Fine.
Wrong pipe.” I could say the exact same sentence about Grant, word for word, and the fact that she’s just handed it to me unprompted makes it almost impossible to read her as anything but exactly what she looks like.
A woman who’s tired in the specific way marriages make you tired.
Not a woman hiding a hotel receipt.
Almost.
“Does Tate know you feel that way?” I ask.
“Tate doesn’t ask questions that would let me say it.” She finally looks up, and there’s nothing in her face I can identify as guilt, just tired and a little wry.
“He’s not a bad husband, he’s just comfortable, he assumes things are fine unless I say otherwise.
And I don’t say otherwise.
So.” “Does Grant ask?” The question lands harder than I expected, and for a second I can’t find the words.
“Not— not in a long time.” “When did he stop?” “I genuinely couldn’t tell you.
That’s the part that scares me.
It wasn’t a single day I could point to, it was just a slow fade, a quiet thing.” “That’s the worst kind.
The single bad days are easier to survive than the slow ones.
At least with a bad day you know what you’re dealing with.
The slow ones just— just erode you.” “Then we’re the same kind of tired, you and me.” She reaches over and touches my arm, light, brief, her hand warm from the cup.
“We should do this more.
I don’t have many friends here, not real ones.
Everyone at that school is performing something, and I’m so tired of acting.” “I’m not performing right now.” “I know.
That’s why I like you.” Her eyes are clear when she says it, no flicker, no hesitation, just warmth.
I sit there with her hand still on my arm, unable to tell if what I’m looking at is guilt wearing a very good disguise or just loneliness, plain and ordinary, entirely unconnected to my husband.
The not knowing sits in my stomach worse than either answer would on its own, and I finish my cappuccino slowly, watching her face the whole time, looking for a crack that never comes.