CHAPTER
THIRTY-SIX
I am updating my résumé on my laptop when my cell phone rings.
Her name flashes across the screen. I hesitate before answering. I worry this could be another of Richard’s traps.
“You were right,” says the husky voice I’ve come to know so well.
I remain quiet.
“About the Visa bill.” I fear that even my slightest utterance will cause Emma to stop talking, change her mind, hang up. “I called the credit card company. There was no wine charge from Sotheby’s. Richard never ordered the Raveneau.”
I can hardly believe what I have just heard. Part of me still worries Richard may be behind this, but Emma’s tone is different from in the past. She no longer sounds contemptuous of me.
“Vanessa, the way you looked when he said he would escort you downstairs . . . that’s what convinced me to check. I thought you were jealous. That you wanted him back. But you don’t, do you?”
“No.”
“You’re terrified of him,” Emma says bluntly. “He actually hit you? He tried to strangle you? I can’t believe Richard would—but—”
“Where are you? Where is he?”
“I’m home. He’s in Chicago on business.”
I’m grateful she’s not at Richard’s apartment. Her place is probably safe. Although her phone may not be. “We need to meet in person.” But this time it will be in a public place.
“How about the Starbucks on—”
“No, you have to stick to your routine. What do you have planned today?”
“I was going to take a yoga class this afternoon. And then go pick up my wedding gown.”
We won’t be able to talk in a yoga studio. “The bridal shop. Where is it?”
Emma gives me the address and time. I tell her I will meet her there.
What she doesn’t know is that I’m going to arrive early to make sure I’m not ambushed again.
“What a perfect bride,” Brenda, the boutique’s owner, exclaims.
Emma’s eyes meet mine in the mirror as she stands on the raised platform in a creamy silk sheath. She is unsmiling, but Brenda seems too busy surveying the final fit of the dress to notice Emma’s somber mood.
“I don’t think it needs a single tweak,” Brenda continues. “I’ll just steam it and we’ll messenger it to you tomorrow.”
“Actually, we can wait,” I say. “We’d like to take it with us.” The dressing area is empty, and in a corner are several armchairs. It’s private. Safe.
“Would you care for some champagne, then?”
“We’d love some,” I say, and Emma nods in agreement.
As Emma slips out of the dress, I avert my gaze. Still, I see her reflection—smooth skin and lacy pink lingerie—in a half dozen angles in mirrors around the room. It is an oddly intimate moment.
Brenda takes the gown and carefully places it onto a padded hanger while I impatiently wait for her to leave the room. Before Emma can even finish fastening the button on her skirt, I head to the chairs. This bridal shop is one place where I can be certain Richard won’t unexpectedly show up. It’s practically forbidden for a groom to see his fiancée in a wedding gown before the ceremony.
“I thought you were crazy,” Emma says. “When I worked for Richard, I used to hear him on the phone with you, asking what you’d eaten for breakfast and if you’d gotten out for some fresh air. I had access to emails he sent asking where you were. Saying he’d phoned four times that day but you hadn’t answered. He was always so worried about you.”
“I can see how it seemed that way.”
We fall silent as Brenda returns with two flutes of champagne. “Congratulations, again.” I’m worried she will linger and chat, but she excuses herself to check on the dress.
“I figured I had you sized up,” Emma tells me bluntly once Brenda is gone. She looks at me carefully, and I see an unexpected familiarity in her round blue eyes. Before I can place it, she continues, “You had this perfect life with this great guy. You didn’t even work, you just lounged around in the fancy house he paid for. I didn’t think you deserved any of it.”
I let her continue.
She tilts her head to the side. It’s almost as if she is seeing me for the first time. “You’re different than I imagined. I’ve thought about you so much. I wondered what it would feel like for you to know your husband was in love with someone else. It used to keep me up at night.”
“It wasn’t your fault.” She has no idea how true that statement is.
A loud ding emanates from Emma’s purse. She freezes with the flute almost touching her lips. We both stare at her bag.
She pulls out her phone. “Richard texted me. He just arrived at his hotel in Chicago. He asked what I’m up to and wrote that he misses me.”
“Text him and tell him you miss him, too, and that you love him.”
She raises one eyebrow but does what I ask.
“Now give me your phone.” I tap on it, then show it to Emma. “It’s tracking you.” I point to the screen. “Richard bought it for you, right? His name is on the account. He can access your phone’s location—your location—at any time.”
He did the same thing to me after we got engaged. I eventually figured it out after that day in the grocery store when I wondered if he already knew what I’d be serving him for dinner. It was how he discovered my clandestine visit into the city, and to the wine store a few towns over.
Richard was also responsible for the mysterious hang-ups that began after I met him, I’ve realized. Sometimes they served as punishment, such as during our honeymoon, when Richard thought I’d been flirting with the young scuba instructor. Other times I believe he was trying to keep me off-balance; to unnerve me so that he could subsequently reassure me. But I don’t tell this part to Emma.
Emma is staring at her phone. “So he pretends he doesn’t know what I’m doing even though he does?” She sips her drink. “God, that’s sick.”
“I realize it’s a lot to take in.” I recognize this is an extraordinary understatement.
“Do you know what I keep thinking about? Richard showed up right after you slipped that letter under my door. He immediately tore it up, but I keep remembering this one line you wrote: ‘A part of you already knows who he is.’ ” Emma’s eyes grow unfocused and I suspect she is reliving the moment when she began to see her fiancé anew. “Richard wanted to—it was like he wanted to murder that letter. He kept ripping it into smaller and smaller bits, then he shoved them in his pocket. And his face—it didn’t even look like him.”
She lingers in the memory for a long moment, then shakes it off and stares directly at me. “Will you tell me the truth about something?”
“Of course.”
“Right after the cocktail party at your house, he came in with a bad scratch on his cheek. When I asked him what happened, he said a neighbor’s cat did it when he tried to pick it up.”
Richard could have covered the scratch or come up with a better story for it. But conclusions would be drawn after my sloppy conduct at our party; it was more proof of my instability, my volatility.
Emma is very still now. “I grew up with a cat,” she says slowly. “I know that scratch was different.”
I nod.
Then I inhale deeply and blink hard. “I was trying to get him off me.”
Emma doesn’t react initially. Perhaps she instinctively realizes that if she shows me sympathy, I’ll crumple into tears. She simply looks at me, then turns away.
“I can’t believe I got this so wrong,” she finally says. “I thought you were the one . . . He’s coming back tomorrow. I’m supposed to spend the night at his place. Then Maureen’s coming to town. We’re meeting at my apartment so she can see my dress . . . then we’re all going to taste wedding cakes!”
Her chatter is the only sign that she’s nervous, that our conversation has thrown her.
Maureen is an added complication. I’m not surprised Richard and Emma are including her in the wedding preparations, though; I remember wanting to do the same. Along with the butterfly-clasp necklace I gave her, I sought out her opinion on whether Richard would want black-and-white or color photographs in the album that was my wedding gift to him. Richard also called her and put her on speakerphone while the three of us discussed entrée options for the meal.
I put my arm around Emma. At first her body is rigid, but it softens for a brief moment before she pulls away. She must be holding back a tidal wave of emotions.
Save her. Save her.
I close my eyes and recall the girl I couldn’t save. “Don’t be scared. I’m going to help you.”
When we arrive at Emma’s place, she lays her wedding gown across the back of her sofa.
“Can I get you anything to drink?”
I barely touched my champagne; I want my thoughts to remain clear so I can figure out how Emma can safely extract herself from Richard. “I’d love some water.”
Emma bustles about her galley kitchen, anxiously chattering again. “Do you take ice? I know my place is a little messy. I was going to do laundry and then all of a sudden I just felt like I had to check on the Visa charge. He added me to that account after we got engaged, so all I had to do was call the number on the back of my card. I’ve got some grapes and almonds if you want a snack. . . . Usually I reviewed his AmEx statements before submitting them to Accounting for reimbursement, but a couple of times, he told me he’d handle it himself. That’s why I never saw the refund.” Emma shakes her head.
I absently listen to her as I look around. I know she is grasping for ways to blunt the impact of what she has learned about Richard. The champagne she quickly drank, the frantic energy—I recognize the symptoms too well.
As Emma cracks ice cubes into our glasses, I study her small living room. The couch, the end table, the roses that are now slightly wilted. Nothing else is on the end table, and I suddenly realize what I’m looking for.
“Do you have a landline?”
“What?” She shakes her head and hands me my glass of water. “No, why?”
I am relieved. But all I say is “Just figuring out the best way for us to communicate.”
I am not going to tell Emma everything yet. If she learns how much worse the reality could be, she may shut down.
There’s no need to explain that I am certain Richard was somehow eavesdropping on calls I made from our house phone during our marriage.
I finally made the connection after I saw the pattern emerge on the pages of my notebook.
When our burglar alarm erupted in the Westchester house and I fled to cower in my closet, I was initially reassured that the video cameras posted by our front and back doors showed no evidence of an intruder. Then I realized Richard had checked the cameras. No one else had verified what they might reveal.
And immediately before the siren had blared, I was on the phone with Sam. I’d made a joke about bringing guys home after a night of barhopping. I now believe Richard had set off the alarm. It was my punishment.
He feasted on my fear; it nurtured his sense of strength. I think of the mysterious cell phone hang-ups that began shortly after our engagement, how he’d booked a scuba dive for his claustrophobic new bride, how he always reminded me to set the burglar alarm. How he’d enjoyed comforting me, whispering that he alone would keep me safe.
I take a long drink of water. “What time is Richard coming back tomorrow?”
“Late afternoon.” Emma looks at her gown. “I should hang this up.”
I walk with Emma into her bedroom and watch as she hooks the gown on the back of her closet door. It appears to be floating. I can’t pull my gaze away from it.
The bride who was supposed to wear this exquisite dress no longer exists. The gown will remain vacant on her wedding day.
Emma straightens the hanger slightly, her hand lingering on the dress before she slowly pulls it away.
“He seemed so wonderful.” Her voice is filled with surprise. “How can a man like that be so brutal?”
I think of my own wedding dress, nestled in a special acid-free box in my old closet in Westchester, preserved for the daughter I never had.
I swallow hard before I can speak. “Parts of Richard were wonderful. That’s why we stayed married for so long.”
“Why didn’t you ever leave him?”
“I thought about it. There are so many reasons why I should have. And so many reasons why I couldn’t.”
Emma nods.
“I needed Richard to leave me.”
“But how did you know he ever would?”
I look into her eyes. I have to confess. Emma has already been devastated today. But she deserves to be told the truth. Without it, she will be trapped in a false reality, and I know exactly how destructive that can be.
“There’s one more thing.” I walk back to the living room and she follows me. I gesture to the couch. “Can we sit down?”
She perches rigidly on the edge of a cushion, as if steeling herself for what is to come.
I reveal everything: The office holiday party when I first spotted her. The gathering at our house when I pretended to be drunk. The night I faked illness and suggested Richard take her to the Philharmonic. The business trip when I encouraged them to stay overnight.
She is holding her head in her hands by the time I finish.
“How could you do this to me?” she cries. She leaps to her feet and glares at me. “I knew it all along. There really is something wrong with you!”
“I am so sorry.”
“Do you know how many nights I lay awake wondering if I’d contributed to the demise of your marriage?”
She didn’t say she felt guilt, but it’s natural that she would have; I am certain their physical relationship began while Richard and I were still married. Now all of Emma’s memories with Richard are doubly tainted. She must feel like a pawn in my dysfunctional marriage. Maybe she even thinks we deserved each other.
“I never thought it would go this far. . . . I didn’t think he would propose. I thought it would just be an affair.”
“Just an affair?” Emma shouts. Her cheeks flush with anger; the passion in her voice surprises me. “Like it’s some innocuous little thing? Affairs destroy people. Did you ever consider how much I would suffer?”
I feel battered by her words, but then something ignites in me and I find myself pushing back at her.
“I know affairs destroy people!” I shout, thinking of how I’d curled up in bed for weeks after learning about Daniel’s deception, after seeing his tired-looking wife. It happened almost fifteen years ago, but I can still visualize that little yellow tricycle and pink jump rope behind the oak tree in his yard. I still remember how my pen had trembled across the page when I signed in at the Planned Parenthood clinic.
“I was deceived once by a married man in college,” I say, more softly now. This is the first time I’ve ever revealed this particular piece of my story to anyone. The rush of pain that hits me is so fresh, it’s as if I’m that heartbroken twenty-one-year-old all over again. “I thought he loved me. He never told me about his wife. Sometimes I think my life could have been so different if I’d only known.”
Emma strides across the room. She yanks open her door.
“Get out.” But the venom is gone from her tone. Her lips are trembling and her eyes shine with tears.
“Just let me say one final thing,” I plead. “Call Richard tonight and tell him you can’t go through with the wedding. Tell him I came over again and it was the last straw.”
She doesn’t react, so I continue quickly as I begin to walk toward the door. “Ask him to announce to everyone that the engagement is off; that part is really important,” I stress. “He won’t punish you if he gets to control the message. If he comes out with his dignity.”
I pause in front of her so she cannot miss my words. “Just say you can’t deal with his psycho ex-wife. Promise me you’ll do that. Then you’ll be safe.”
Emma is silent. But at least she is looking at me, even though it is with a cold, appraising stare. Her eyes rake across my face and down my body, then back up again.
“How am I supposed to believe anything you say?”
“You don’t need to. Please go stay with a friend. Leave your cell phone here so he can’t find you. Richard’s anger always passes quickly. Just protect yourself.”
I step over the threshold and hear the door close sharply behind me.
I hover in the hallway, staring down at the dark blue carpet beneath my feet. Emma must be reevaluating everything I’ve told her. She probably doesn’t have any idea who to trust.
If Emma doesn’t follow the script I’ve given her, Richard may unleash his rage on her, especially if he can’t find me. Or worse, he may convince her to change her mind and go through with the wedding.
Maybe I should not have told her of my role in this. Her security should have trumped my need to unburden my guilt, to be scrupulously honest. Her faulty perception would have left her less vulnerable than this dangerous truth.
What will be Richard’s next step?
I have twenty-four hours until he returns. And I have no idea what to do.
I slowly walk down the hallway. I am so reluctant to leave her. I am about to step into the elevator when I hear a door open. I glance up and see Emma standing in her threshold.
“You want me to tell Richard I’m calling off the wedding because of you.”
I nod quickly. “Yes. Blame it all on me.”
Her brow furrows. She tilts her head to one side and looks me up and down again.
“It’s the safest solution,” I say.
“It might be for me. But it isn’t safe for you.”