She would hide it, even from him—but this was going to devastate her.
Without thinking, Simon stood up with Charlie cradled in his arms, opened the cabinet on the wall, and pulled the plug on the modem. “Come on, Charlie, let’s get you outside.”
“Simon,” Clare said again, arriving at the entrance to the kitchen still in her midnight-blue satin pajama set with the matching robe cinched tight around her waist. Her hair, not yet brushed, hung over her shoulders just past her breasts.
Before they had gotten married, he had wondered if his amazement about this woman would eventually fade—if waking up to her every day for a lifetime might become commonplace. From his place at the kitchen table, his coffee still steaming, his toast now cold, he looked up into her frustrated expression. It had been fourteen years since he met her and six since their wedding day—she still devastated him. His chest tight with fear, he looked into her dark brown eyes.
“Yes? What’s up?”
Her eyes flew wide with irritation. “Didn’t you hear me? The internet! It’s down!”
“Is it? That’s weird. I’m sure it’s the service provider. They’ll have it up soon enough.” He took a sip of his coffee. “Want some?”
Clare stood at the kitchen door, one hand on her hip, staring him down. She narrowed her eyes, then turned on a dime and headed across the marble entrance.
“Clare!” he called, sloshing his coffee down his T-shirt. “Shit. Clare, wait!” he shouted after her.
She was already past the mahogany circular table with this week’s large floral display featuring five dozen white roses and light-blue hydrangeas, shoots of spiky green somethings that Simon couldn’t identify reaching tall with the purple hollyhock. Her robe fluttered out behind her, her bare feet silent but determined and headed right for his office door.
“Please,” he begged her.
She turned the handles on the double doors to his office and flung them both wide before her. In two steps, Clare had her hands on the cabinet hiding the modem and other various wires and receivers from view. By the time he reached her, she had the modem in her hands and was inspecting the backside.
“The provider is down?” she asked, her tone clearly accusing. She grabbed the exact right cable and plugged it into the exact right port. Shit, he didn’t even think she knew what a modem was. “How bad is it?” she asked, closing the cabinet and turning back to him. “I mean, for you to do this and imagine for even half a second you’d get away with it. It must be bad, right?”
Simon, his shoulders limp with defeat, stared at his wife. “It’s bad, yes.”
Clare’s chin jutted forward, her nostrils flared slightly as she sucked in air and filled her chest. “Okay,” she said, exhaling long and hard. She closed her eyes, shook her head once, and shrugged. “What can you do?” She was talking to herself. “A bad review from Donna Mehan…in the Times.” She paced toward his desk, then back. “How bad? Be honest, because I’m going to go upstairs and read it anyway as soon as I calm down.”
Simon hesitated for a moment. There was no way to even soft-sell it. The review was brutal. “Scathing,” he said.
Clare sucked another lungful of air through her nose, chest full, shoulders wide, her hair a tangled halo around her face. “That bitch,” she hissed. “That pompous, full-of-herself…overrated, bitch!” Clare spun away from him and headed for the office doors.
“Clare.” He trailed after her. “Don’t—”
“Don’t what?” she snapped, already climbing back up the stairs.
“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.” He raced after her and Charlie, the dog’s long white hair bouncing as he chased his mom up the stairs. The puppy clearly thought this whole morning was fantastic fun.
“Like what? Shoving Donna Mehan’s National Book Award right up her tight ass?”
“Yes, obviously don’t do that. But moreover…” On the landing halfway up, where the single staircase split into two, he caught up to her and managed to grab hold of her wrist. Clare stopped and faced him. “I need you to make me a promise.”
“What?” she snapped.
“No social media. Not today, not tomorrow…not for the whole week, in fact.”
“That’s barbaric.”
“Can you honestly tell me you’re capable of not biting right now?”
“Of course not.”
“Exactly my point, and you haven’t even read the review yourself yet. When that happens, your head is going to explode right off your shoulders. In that frame of mind, well, I don’t like to even imagine the flame war you’re likely to start.” He tried smiling at her.
Clare pursed her lips and turned her head, softening…barely.
Simon took a step closer, then another, daring to pull his seething wife to him. He wrapped his arms around her. Charlie, feeling left out, pawed at their legs. Simon lowered his lips to her ear, “Besides, you’re setting a bad example for Charlie.”
They both looked down at the fluffy Maltese, wagging his tail, tongue hanging from his mouth. Clare’s shoulders sank a few inches.
“Oh, you damn dog,” she whispered, and bent down to pick up his squirming, happy body. “How’s a woman supposed to stay enraged at her mortal enemy with you and that stupid cute face always ruining the moment?” She nuzzled the dog’s ear and took a deep breath. “Fine,” she said to Simon. “I promise, no social media for the day.”
“For the week.”
Clare scowled at him, but Charlie licked her face. “This dog, he’s your dirtiest trick yet.”
“A week?” He kissed her other cheek, then her lips.
“Fine, a week,” she said, pulling away. “But if I’m even still a little mad by next Sunday,” Clare declared and started back up the stairs with Charlie in her arms, “I’m going to find a way to publicly annihilate that puffed-up bitch. But don’t worry, it’ll be subtle.”
So, that was settled. The plan was a subtle, public annihilation—they were maybe going to need two weeks.
Chapter 4
Eileen
The last-minute flight from Denver to San Francisco had cost a fortune. Eileen put it on one of their almost maxed-out credit cards and hoped the charges would clear. For the last six months, the realization that she was almost assuredly going to have to go back to spending her days doing work she hated had sunk in deeper with the arrival of every ballooning credit card statement.
As usual, she pushed the thoughts aside. She didn’t have the strength to mourn her sister and worry about money at the same time.