“I know.” Laurel held up her hands before Parker continued. “I know, which is one of the reasons I feel stupid. I wasn’t jealous—I’m not jealous—of her, that way. If I was, I’d feel even more stupid because he was so obviously not interested in her that way. I don’t think she was either. In him.”

“Then what’s the problem?” Emma asked her.

“It was just ... when I came in and saw them, sharing wine, laughing. They looked so right together.”

“No, they don’t.” Parker shook her head.

“You didn’t see them. They looked beautiful and smooth and perfect.”

“No. Beautiful and smooth, okay. Perfect and right, no. They’d look attractive together because they’re both attractive. That’s not the same thing as right.”

“That’s profound. That’s actually profound,” Mac decided. “And I know exactly what you mean. Sometimes I’ll do photographs of couples and I’ll think this is a pretty shot, they look great together. But I know they don’t look right. I can’t change that, fix it, arrange it. Because they’re not, and that’s all.”

“Exactly.”

“Okay, they looked beautiful. We’ll stick with that. And for just a minute, I felt stuck, separate. It’s stupid.” Laurel pushed at her hair. “It was like looking through a glass wall, and that I was on my side, they were on theirs.”

“That’s insulting, to all three of you.” Emma stopped placing flowers to poke Laurel in the shoulder. “And none of you deserve it. Deborah’s a nice woman.”

“Who is Deborah?”

“You don’t really know her,” Emma told Mac. “But she’s a perfectly nice woman.”

“I didn’t say she wasn’t. I don’t really know her either. I’m just saying I don’t think she’s ever waited tables or sweated it out in a restaurant kitchen.”

“That’s reverse snobbery.”

Laurel shrugged at Parker. “Sure it is. I told you I felt stupid about it. And I got over it. I did. I know it’s my problem, and I don’t like it. But it’s what I felt for that moment. And I felt it when she realized he was having dinner with me, that we were together, and I could see that flicker of what-the-fuck? on her face before she got rid of it. She was perfectly nice,” she said to Emma. “It wasn’t her fault I felt that way, which makes it worse. It snuck up on me. It does sometimes. Then we had a lovely dinner. Really lovely. So there was this part of me under the part having that really lovely dinner that felt even more stupid for the reaction. I hate feeling stupid.”

“Good.” Parker nodded. “Because when you hate something, you stop doing it.”

“Working on it.”