CHAPTER
TWENTY-EIGHT
I walk through the employees’ door and take the elevator to the third floor. I find Lucille refolding sweaters. She’s been shorthanded because of me; she is doing my job.
“I really am sorry.” I reach for the pile of pewter cashmere. “I need this job, and I can explain what’s been going on. . . .”
She turns to me as my voice trails off. I try to read her expression as she appraises my appearance: confusion. Did she think I would simply pick up my check and leave? Her gaze halts at my hair, and I instinctively turn to the mirror alongside the sweaters. Of course she’s perplexed; she has only known me as a brunette.
“Vanessa, it’s I who am sorry, but I gave you several second chances.”
I’m going to beg some more, but then I see the floor is filled with customers. A few other saleswomen are watching us. Perhaps it was even one of them who told Lucille about the dresses.
It’s futile. I put down the sweaters.
Lucille retrieves my check and hands it to me. “Good luck, Vanessa.”
As I walk back to the elevator, I see the black-and-white intricately patterned gowns hanging in their rightful place on the rack. I hold my breath until I’ve safely passed them.
That dress had fit me like a glove, as if it were custom-made for my curves.
Richard and I had been married for several years by then. Sam and I were no longer speaking. Duke’s disappearance had never been resolved. My mother had also unexpectedly canceled her upcoming spring trip to visit us, saying she wanted to go on a group tour to New Mexico.
But instead of withdrawing from life, I’d begun to ease back into it.
I hadn’t had a sip of alcohol in nearly six months, and the puffiness had dissipated from my body like helium slowly leaking from a balloon. I’d begun to rise early each morning to jog through the broad streets and gentle hills in our neighborhood.
I had told Richard I was focusing on getting healthy again. I thought he believed me, that he simply accepted my new behavior as a positive shift. After all, he was the one who’d printed out the itemized bills the country club emailed to him every month before they charged his credit card. He’d begun to leave them on the kitchen table for me with the liquor charges highlighted. Turns out, I had never needed to bother with the Visine and breath mints; he’d known exactly how much I’d been drinking during those committee lunches.
But I was changing more than just my physical health. I’d also begun a new volunteer job. On Wednesdays, I commuted on the train with Richard, then caught a cab to the Lower East Side, where I read to kindergarteners at a Head Start program. I’d gotten to know the program’s organizers while delivering books for the club’s literacy program. I only worked with the children for a few hours each week, but it gave me purpose. Stepping back into the city was rejuvenating, too. I was feeling more like my old self than I had since my honeymoon.
“Open it,” he had said the night of the Alvin Ailey gala as I looked down at the glossy white box tied with a red bow.
I untied the silk, lifted the lid. Since marrying Richard, I’d grown to appreciate the textures and detailing that separated my old H&M staples from fine designer pieces. This dress was among the most elegant I’d ever seen. It also contained a secret. From a distance, it appeared to be a simple black-and-white pattern. But that was an illusion. Up close, every thread was deliberately placed, stitch upon stitch creating a floral wonderland.
“Wear it tonight,” Richard said. “You look gorgeous.”
He put on his tuxedo and I brushed aside his hand when he began to tie his bow.
“Let me.” I smiled. Some men in black tie look like boys on their way to the prom, with their slicked-back hair and glossy shoes. Others seem like pompous posers, the wannabe one percenters. But Richard owned it. I straightened the wings of his bow tie and kissed him, leaving a trace of pink glossing his bottom lip.
I can see us that night as if from above: Exiting our Town Car into the lightly falling snow and walking arm in arm into the gala. Finding our table card that said Mr. and Mrs. Thompson: Table 16 in flowing script. Posing for a photo, laughing. Accepting flutes of champagne from a passing server.
And, oh, that first sip—those golden bubbles crushing in my mouth, that warmth trickling down my throat. It tasted like exhilaration in a glass.
We had watched the dancers leap and soar, their sinewy arms and muscular legs whirling, their bodies twisting into impossible shapes, while drums frantically throbbed. I didn’t realize I was swaying back and forth and lightly clapping until I felt Richard’s hand give my shoulder a gentle squeeze. He was smiling at me, but I felt a flush of embarrassment. No one else was moving to the music.
When the performance ended, there were more cocktails and passed hors d’oeuvres. Richard and I chatted with some of his colleagues, one of whom, a white-haired gentleman named Paul, sat on the board of the dance company and had bought a table for the dinner benefit. We were there as his guests.
Dancers mingled among us, their bodies rippling sculptures, looking like gods and goddesses who’d descended from the sky.
Usually at these types of social events, my face hurt from smiling by the end of the night. I always tried to look engaged and cheerful to compensate for my not having much to say, especially in the dull silence following the inevitable question, the one strangers always think is so harmless: “Do you have children?”
But Paul was different. When he asked what I’d been up to and I mentioned volunteering, he didn’t say, “How nice,” and seek out a more accomplished person. Instead he asked, “How did you get into that?” I found myself telling him about my years as a preschool teacher and my volunteer work with Head Start.
“My wife helped get the funding for a wonderful new charter school not too far from here,” he said. “You should think about getting involved with it.”
“I would love that. I miss teaching so much.”
Paul reached into his breast pocket and pulled out a business card. “Call me next week.” He leaned in a bit closer and whispered, “When I say my wife helped with their funding, I mean my wife told me to write them a big check. They owe us a favor.” His eyes crinkled at the corners and I grinned back. I knew he was one of the most successful men in the room and that he was still happily married to his high school sweetheart, a white-haired woman who was chatting with Richard.
“I’ll make introductions,” Paul continued. “I bet they can find a spot for you. If not now, maybe at the start of the school year.”
A waiter offered us glasses of wine from a tray, and Paul handed me a fresh one. “Cheers. To new beginnings.”
I’d misjudged the force of our glasses connecting. The delicate, thin rims collided with a crash, and I was left holding a jagged stem while wine coursed down my arm.
“I’m so sorry!” I blurted as the waiter rushed back to me, offering his stack of cocktail napkins and removing the broken stem from my hand.
“Completely my fault,” Paul said. “I don’t know my own strength! I’m the one who’s sorry. Hold on, don’t move, there’s glass on your dress.”
I stood there while he plucked a few shards out of the fine knit, putting them on the waiter’s tray. The conversations around us had halted for a moment, but now they resumed. Still, I felt everyone’s heightened awareness of me. I wanted to melt into the carpet.
“Let me help,” Richard said, coming to stand next to me. He blotted my damp dress. “Good thing you weren’t drinking red.”
Paul laughed, but it sounded forced. I could tell he was trying to remove some of the awkwardness from the moment. “Well, now I really owe you a job.” Paul looked at Richard. “Your lovely wife was just telling me how much she misses teaching.”
Richard crumpled up the damp napkin in his hand, put it on the waiter’s tray, and said, “Thanks,” dismissing the man. Then I felt Richard touch the small of my back. “She’s great with kids,” he told Paul.
Paul’s attention was caught by his wife, waving him over. “You have my number,” he told me. “Let’s talk soon.”
The moment he left, Richard leaned closer to me. “How much have you had to drink, sweetheart?” His words were innocuous, but his body held an unnatural stillness.
“Not that much,” I said quickly.
“By my count you had three glasses of champagne. And all that wine.” His hand increased its pressure on my lower back. “Forget dinner,” he whispered in my ear. “Let’s head home.”
“But—Paul bought a table. Our seats will be empty. I promise I’ll stick to water.”
“I think it would be better if we left,” Richard said quietly. “Paul will understand.”
I went to get my wrap. While I was waiting, I saw Richard approach Paul and say something, then clap him on the shoulder. Richard was making excuses for me, I thought, but Paul would perceive the subtext: Richard needed to get me home because I was far too tipsy to stay for dinner.
But I wasn’t drunk. Richard only wanted everyone to think I was.
“All set,” Richard said to me when he returned. He’d already called for our car, which was waiting just outside the building.
The snow was coming down more heavily now. Even though our driver proceeded slowly through the mostly empty streets, I felt nauseated. I closed my eyes and leaned as far back against the door as my seat belt would allow. I feigned sleep, but I’m pretty sure Richard knew I didn’t want to face him.
He might’ve let it go—let me walk upstairs and fall into our bed.
But as I climbed the steps toward our front door, I stumbled and had to catch myself on the railing.
“It’s these new heels,” I said desperately. “I’m not used to them.”
“Of course it is,” he said sarcastically. “It couldn’t be all those drinks on an empty stomach. This was a work event, Nellie. It was an important night for me.”
I stood silently behind him as he unlocked the front door. Once inside, I sat on the tufted bench in our entranceway and removed my shoes. I placed them side by side on the bottom stair, aligning the heels precisely, then I removed my wrap and hung it in the closet.
Richard was still there when I turned around. “You need to eat something. Come on.”
I followed him into the kitchen, where he pulled a bottle of mineral water out of the refrigerator and silently handed it to me. He opened a cabinet and took out a box of Carr’s water crackers.
I ate one quickly. “I feel better. You were right to bring me home. . . . You must be hungry, too. Do you want me to cut you up some Brie? I just bought it today at the farmers’ market.”
“I’m fine.” I could tell Richard was about to disappear as he had done during other arguments that I’d tried to forget; he was struggling to keep his anger from surfacing. From swallowing him.
“About the job,” I said quickly, trying to defuse it. “Paul just offered to introduce me to people at the charter school. It could be part-time or it might not even happen.”
Richard nodded slowly. “Is there a special reason you want to be in the city more frequently?”
I stared at him; of all the things he could say, I didn’t expect this. “What do you mean?”
“One of the neighbors mentioned seeing you at the train station the other day. All dressed up, he said. Funny, but when I called you that morning, you said you’d been swimming laps at the club and that’s why you hadn’t answered the phone.”
I couldn’t deny it; Richard, with his laser-quick mind, would trip me up if I tried to lie. Which neighbor? I wondered. The station had been nearly empty at that time of day.
“I did swim that morning. But then I went to see Aunt Charlotte. Just for a short visit.”
Richard nodded. “Of course. Another cracker? No?” He slid the cardboard tab back into the slot of the box. “There’s no reason why you shouldn’t visit your aunt. How was she?”
“Good,” I blurted as the pounding of my heart softened. He was going to let this go. He believed me. “We had tea at her apartment.”
Richard opened the cabinet to return the crackers, the wood door swinging between us and momentarily hiding his face.
When he closed it, he was looking at me. He was very near. His narrowed eyes seemed to sear through mine. “What I can’t figure out is why you waited until I left for work, got all dressed up, took the train into the city, came home in time to cook dinner, and sat there eating lasagna with me but never once thought to mention that you’d visited your aunt.” He paused for a moment. “Where did you really go? Who were you with?”
I heard a sound like a bird’s cry and realized I’d made it. Richard was gripping my wrist. Twisting it as he spoke.
He looked down and instantly let go, but white ovals from his fingertips remained, like a burn.
“I’m sorry.” He took a step back. Ran a hand through his hair. Exhaled slowly. “But why the fuck did you lie to me?”
How could I tell him the truth? That I wasn’t happy—that everything he’d given me wasn’t enough? I’d wanted to meet someone to discuss my concerns about my marriage. The woman I’d sought out had listened intently to me and asked a few thought-provoking questions, but I knew one session with her wouldn’t be enough. I was planning to sneak back into the city to see her again next month.
But it was too late to conjure a plausible excuse for my deception. Richard had caught me.
I didn’t even see his open palm coming until it connected with my cheek with a loud crack.
For the next two nights, I hardly slept. My head throbbed and my throat felt raw from crying. I covered the scattering of bruises on my wrist with long sleeves and dotted extra concealer over the dark half-moons under my eyes. All I could think of was whether I should stay with Richard or try to leave him.
Then, while I was attempting to read in bed but not absorbing any of the words on the page, Richard gently tapped on the open guestroom door. I looked up to tell him to come in, but at the expression on his face, my words dissolved.
He was cradling the cordless house phone. “It’s your mother.” His face creased. “It’s Aunt Charlotte, I mean. She’s calling because . . .”
It was eleven o’clock at night, past the hour my aunt usually retired. The last time I’d talked to my mother, she’d said she’d been doing well—but she hadn’t returned my most recent calls.
“I’m so sorry, baby.” Richard held out the phone.
Reaching for it was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.