CHAPTER
FOUR
I sit on the floor of the dressing room, the lingering perfume of roses reminding me of a wedding. My replacement will be a beautiful bride. I imagine her gazing up at Richard, promising to love and honor him, just as I did.
I can almost hear her voice.
I know how she sounds. I call her sometimes, but I use a burner phone with a blocked number.
“Hi,” her message begins. Her tone is carefree, bright. “I’m sorry I missed you!”
Is she truly sorry? Or is she triumphant? Her relationship with Richard is now public, though it began when he and I were still married. We had problems. Don’t all couples, after the glow of the honeymoon fades? Still, I never expected him to tell me to move out so quickly. To erase the tracks of our relationship.
It’s as though he wants to pretend we were never married at all. As if I don’t exist.
Does she ever think about me and feel guilty for what she did?
Those questions batter me every night. Sometimes, when I’ve lain awake for hours, the sheets twisted around me, I shut my eyes, so close to finally succumbing to sleep, and then her face leaps into my mind. I sit bolt upright, fumbling for the pills in my nightstand drawer. I chew one instead of swallowing so it takes effect faster.
Her voice-mail greeting gives me no clues about her feelings.
But when I watched her one night with Richard, she looked incandescent.
I’d been walking to our favorite restaurant on the Upper East Side. A self-help book had recommended that I visit painful places from my past, to release their power over me and reclaim the city as my own. So I trekked to the café where Richard and I had sipped lattes and shared the Sunday New York Times, and I wandered past Richard’s office, where his company held a lavish holiday party every December, and passed through the magnolia and lilac trees in Central Park. I felt worse with every step. It was a horrible idea; no wonder that book was languishing on the discount rack.
Still, I’d pressed on, planning to round out my tour with a drink at the restaurant bar where Richard and I had celebrated our last few anniversaries. That was when I saw them.
Maybe he was trying to reclaim the spot, too.
If I’d been walking just a bit faster, we would have reached the entrance at almost the same moment. Instead I ducked into a storefront and peered around the edge. I caught a glimpse of tanned legs, seductive curves, and the quick smile she flashed at Richard as he opened the door for her.
Naturally my husband wanted her. What man wouldn’t? She was as delectable as a ripe peach.
I crept closer and stared through the floor-to-ceiling window as Richard ordered his girlfriend a drink—she had champagne tastes, it seemed—and she sipped the golden liquid from a slim flute.
I couldn’t let Richard see me; he wouldn’t believe it was a coincidence. I’d followed him before, of course. Or rather, I’d followed them.
Yet my feet refused to move. I greedily drank her in as she crossed her legs so the slit in her dress revealed her thigh.
He was pressed close to her, leaning down as his arm curved over the back of her stool. His hair was longer, brushing the collar of his suit in the back; it suited him. He had the same leonine expression I’d come to recognize when he closed a big business deal, one he’d been pursuing for months.
She tossed back her head and laughed at something he said.
My nails dug into my palms; I’d never been in love with anyone before Richard. At that moment I realized I’d never hated anyone, either.
“Vanessa?”
The voice outside the dressing-room door jars me out of the memory. The British accent belongs to my boss, Lucille, a woman not known for her patience.
I run my fingers under my eyes, aware mascara is probably pooled there. “Just straightening up.” My voice has grown husky.
“A customer needs help in Stella McCartney. Sort out the room later.”
She is waiting for me to emerge. There is no time to fix my face, to erase the messy signs of grief, and besides, my purse is in the employees’ lounge.
I open the door and she takes a step back. “Are you unwell?” Her perfectly arched eyebrows lift.
I seize the opportunity. “I’m not sure. I just . . . I feel a little nauseous. . . .”
“Can you finish the day?” Lucille’s tone holds no sympathy, and I wonder if this transgression will be my last. She answers before I can: “No, you might be contagious. You should leave.”
I nod and hurry to grab my bag. I don’t want her to change her mind.
I take the escalators to the main floor and watch pieces of my ravaged reflection flash in the mirrors I ride past.
Richard is engaged, my mind whispers.
I hurry out the employees’ exit, barely pausing for the guard to search my purse, and lean back against the side of the store to slip on my sneakers. I consider a taxi, but what Hillary said is true. Richard got our house in Westchester and the Manhattan apartment he’d kept from his bachelor days, the one he slept in on nights when he had late meetings. The one where he hosted her. He got the cars, the stocks, the savings. I didn’t even put up a fight. I’d entered the marriage with nothing. I hadn’t worked. I hadn’t borne him children. I’d been deceitful.
I hadn’t been a good wife.
Now, though, I wonder why I accepted the small lump-sum payment Richard offered me. His new bride will set the table with china I selected. She’ll nestle close to him on the suede couch I chose. She’ll sit beside him, her hand on his leg, laughing her throaty laugh as he shifts into fourth gear in our Mercedes.
A bus lumbers past and spews hot exhaust. The gray plume seems to settle around me. I push away from the building and walk up Fifth Avenue. A pair of women carrying large shopping bags nearly crowd me off the sidewalk. A businessman strides past, cell phone pressed to his ear, his expression intent. I cross the street and a biker whips by, just inches away. He yells something in his wake.
The city is tightening around me; I need space. I cross Fifty-ninth Street and enter Central Park.
A little girl with pigtails marvels at a balloon animal tied to her wrist, and I stare after her. She could have been mine. If I’d been able to get pregnant, I might still be with Richard. He might not have wanted me to leave. We could be coming here to meet Daddy for lunch.
I’m gasping. I unfold my arms from across my stomach and straighten up. I keep my eyes fixed ahead as I walk north. I focus on the steady rhythm of my sneakers hitting the pavement, counting each step, setting small goals. A hundred steps. Now a hundred more.
At last I exit the park at Eighty-sixth Street and Central Park West and turn toward Aunt Charlotte’s apartment. I crave sleep, oblivion. Only six pills are left, and the last time I asked my doctor for a refill, she hesitated.
“You don’t want to become dependent upon these,” she said. “Try to get some exercise every day and avoid caffeine after noon. Take a warm bath before bed, and see if that does the trick.”
But those are remedies for garden-variety insomnia. They don’t help me.
I’m almost at the apartment when I realize I’ve forgotten Aunt Charlotte’s wine. I know I won’t want to go back out, so I turn and retrace my steps a block, to the liquor store. Four red and two white, Aunt Charlotte had requested. I take a basket and fill it with Merlot and Chardonnay.
My hands close around the smooth, heavy bottles. I haven’t tasted wine since the day Richard asked me to go, but I still crave the velvety fruit awakening my tongue. I hesitate, then add a seventh and eighth bottle to my basket. The handles dig into my forearms as I make my way to the cash register.
The young man behind the counter rings them up without comment. Maybe he’s used to disheveled women in designer clothes coming in here in the middle of the day to stock up on wine. I used to have it delivered to the house I shared with Richard, at least until he asked me to stop drinking. Then I drove to a gourmet market a half hour away so I wouldn’t run into anyone we knew. On recycling day, I took early-morning walks and slipped the empty bottles into neighbors’ bins.
“That all?” the guy asks.
“Yes.” I reach for my debit card, knowing that if I’d gone for expensive wines rather than fifteen-dollar bottles, the charge wouldn’t have cleared my checking account.
He packs the bottles four to a bag, and I push the door open with my shoulder and head for Aunt Charlotte’s, the reassuring heft pulling down my arms. I reach our building and wait for the arthritic elevator’s doors to creak open. The journey up twelve flights takes an eternity; my mind is consumed with the thought of the first mouthful sliding down my throat, warming my stomach. Blunting the edges of my pain.
Luckily my aunt isn’t home. I check the calendar hanging by the refrigerator and see the words D-three p.m. Probably a friend she’s meeting for tea; her husband, Beau, a journalist, passed away suddenly after a heart attack years ago. He was the love of her life. As far as I know, she hasn’t dated anyone seriously since. I set the bags on the counter and uncork the Merlot. I reach for a goblet, then replace it and grab a coffee mug instead. I fill it halfway, and then, unable to wait a moment longer, I raise it to my lips and the rich cherry flavor caresses my mouth. Closing my eyes, I swallow and feel it trickle down my throat. Some of the tightness slowly eases out of my body. I’m not sure how long Aunt Charlotte will be gone, so I pour more into my mug and take it and my bottles into my bedroom.
I slip off my dress, leaving it crumpled on the floor, and step over it. Then I bend down to pick it up and place it on a hanger. I pull on a soft gray T-shirt and fleecy sweatpants and climb into bed. Aunt Charlotte moved a small television into the room when I first arrived, but I rarely use it. Now, however, I’m desperate for companionship, even of the electronic variety. I reach for the remote and flip through channels until I land on a talk show. I cup my mug in my hands and take another long drink.
I try to lose myself in the drama being played out on-screen, but the topic of the day is infidelity.
“It can make a marriage stronger,” insists a middle-aged woman who is holding the hand of a man seated beside her. He shifts in his seat and looks down at the floor.
It can also destroy it, I think.
I stare at the man. Who was she? I wonder. How did you meet her? On a business trip, or maybe in line for a sandwich at the deli? What was it about her that drew you in, that compelled you to cross that devastating line?
I’m clutching my mug so tightly my hand aches. I want to hurl it at the screen, but instead, I refill it.
The man crosses his legs at the ankle, then straightens them. He clears his throat and scratches his head. I’m glad he’s uncomfortable. He’s beefy and thuggish-looking; not my type, but I can see how he’d appeal to other women.
“Regaining trust is a long process, but if both parties are committed to it, it’s very possible,” says a woman identified as a couples therapist on the screen below her image.
The drab-looking wife is babbling on about how they’ve rebuilt trust completely, how their marriage is now their priority, how they lost each other but have found each other again. She sounds as if she’s been reading Hallmark cards.
Then the therapist looks at the husband. “Do you agree trust has been reestablished?”
He shrugs. Jerk, I think, wondering how he got caught. “I’m workin’ on it. But it’s hard. I keep picturing her with that—” A beep cuts off his last word.
So I got it wrong. I thought he was the cheater. The clues were present, but I misread them. Not for the first time.
I bang the mug against my front teeth when I go to sip more Merlot. I slide down lower in bed, wishing I’d left the television off.
What separates a fling from a marriage proposal? I thought Richard was just having some fun. I expected their affair to blaze hot and extinguish itself quickly. I pretended not to know, to look the other way. Besides, who could blame Richard? I wasn’t the woman he’d married nearly a decade ago. I’d gained weight, I rarely left the house, and I’d begun to search for hidden meanings in Richard’s actions, seizing upon clues that I thought indicated he was tiring of me.
She is everything Richard desires. Everything I used to be.
Right after the brief, almost clinical scene that officially ended our seven-year marriage, Richard put our house in Westchester on the market and moved into his city apartment. But he loved our quiet neighborhood, the privacy it afforded. He’ll probably buy another place in the suburbs for his new bride. I wonder if she plans to quit work and devote herself to Richard, to trying to become pregnant, just as I did.
I can’t believe I have any tears remaining, but more slide down my cheeks as I refill my mug again. The bottle is nearly empty and I spill a few drops on my white sheets. They stand out like blood.
A familiar haze settles around me, the embrace of an old friend. I experience the sensation of blurring into the mattress. Maybe this is how my mother felt when she had her lights-out days. I wish I’d understood better back then; I felt abandoned, but now I know some pain is too fierce to battle. You can only duck for cover and hope the sandstorm passes. It’s too late for me to tell her, though. Both of my parents are gone.
“Vanessa?” I hear a gentle knock against my bedroom door and Aunt Charlotte enters. Behind her thick glasses, her hazel eyes look magnified. “I thought I heard the television.”
“I got sick at work. You probably shouldn’t come any closer.” The two bottles are on my nightstand. I hope the lamp is blocking them.
“Can I get you anything?”
“Some water would be great,” I say, slurring the s slightly. I need to get her out of my room quickly.
She leaves the door ajar as she walks toward the kitchen and I pull myself out of bed, grabbing the bottles and wincing as they clink together. I hurry to my armoire and place them on the floor, righting one when it nearly topples over.
I’m back in the same position when Aunt Charlotte returns with a tray.
“I brought some saltines and herbal tea, too.” The kindness in her voice ties a knot in my chest. She places the tray by the foot of my bed, then turns to leave.
I hope she can’t smell the alcohol on my breath. “I left the wine in the kitchen for you.”
“Thank you, honey. Call if you need anything.”
I drop my head back to the pillow as the door closes, feeling dizziness engulf me. Six pills are left. . . . If I let one of the bitter white tablets dissolve on my tongue, I could probably sleep through until morning.
But suddenly I have a better idea. The thought shears through the fog in my mind: They’ve only just gotten engaged. It isn’t too late yet!
I fumble for my bag and grab my phone. Richard’s numbers are still programmed in. His cell rings twice, then I hear his voice. Its timbre belongs to a bigger, taller man than my ex-husband, a juxtaposition I always found intriguing. “I’ll get right back to you,” his recorded message promises. Richard always, always keeps his promises.
“Richard,” I blurt out. “It’s me. I heard about your engagement, and I just need to talk to you. . . .”
The clarity I felt a moment ago wiggles away like a fish through my fingertips. I struggle to grasp the right words.
“Please phone me back. . . . It’s really important.”
My voice breaks on the last word and I press End Call.
I hold the phone to my chest and close my eyes. Maybe I could have avoided the regret ravaging my body if only I’d tried harder to see the warning signs. To fix things. It can’t be too late. I can’t bear the thought of Richard marrying again.
I must have dozed off because an hour later, when my cell vibrates, it jolts me. I look down to see a text:
I’m sorry, but there’s nothing more to say. Take care. R.
At that moment a realization seizes me. If Richard had moved on with another woman, I might be able to eventually patch together a life for myself. I could stay with Aunt Charlotte until I’d saved enough to rent my own place. Or I could move to a different city, one with no reminders. I could adopt a pet. Maybe, in time, when I saw a dark-haired businessman in a well-cut suit turning a corner, the sun gleaming off his aviator shades, I wouldn’t feel my heart stutter before I realized it wasn’t him.
But as long as he is with her—the woman who blithely stepped up to become the new Mrs. Richard Thompson while I pretended to be oblivious—I will never have peace.