The bag I’d forgotten I was holding gave a strange buzz. Right. John’s things were in there, those slippery, strange clothes that were thin as paper but somehow kept you warm. Honest to Pete. He was too old to be an athlete. I’d tell him that if he lived. He could take up fly-fishing or something. My fingers closed on his phone and pulled it out.
It was his work. John still did some consulting here and there. Shoot. I should tell them, shouldn’t I? He loved some of those folks. I typed in his code (0110, our anniversary), but it didn’t work. He must’ve changed it after being hacked or something, not that he said anything to me. I typed in his birthday. That didn’t work, either. Sadie’s birthday. There.
His screen was lit up with texts. I put on my reading glasses.
After a second, I took off my reading glasses and put the phone down. Held down the little button so it would turn off. My face felt hot, my hands like ice. My heart felt sick and slow, flopping like a dying bird.
I glanced around. Could anyone tell? Were they looking at me? Did they know?
No. Everyone else was worried about their own people. I should worry about John. His brain was bleeding. Juliet would be back in a minute.
Shame. That’s what I felt. Shame and humiliation, and fear that everyone would see on my face what I had just learned.
CHAPTER THREE
Juliet
On the day her father had his stroke, Juliet Elizabeth Frost was considering leaving her perfect life and becoming a smoke jumper in Montana—husband, children and job be damned.
The thing was, her life really was perfect. Excellent health, fabulous education, a career as an architect that earned her a ridiculous salary. She had a husband who loved her and was from London with a dead-sexy accent to boot. They had two healthy daughters and lived in a beautiful home overlooking Long Island Sound. Juliet drove a safe, fancy but not too pretentious German car. They brought their daughters on vacations to places like New Zealand and Provence. She spoke French and Italian. Her boobs had survived nursing two babies, and while they might not be perky anymore, they weren’t saggy, either.
She knew a lot of successful, intelligent women, though her mother was her true best friend. She tolerated her younger sister and was sometimes even fond of her. Her father, who had always been distracted where she was concerned, had recently morphed into a raging asshole . . . and Juliet was going to have to tell her mother about it. Soon.
None of this explained why she was currently sitting in her closet, having a panic attack, hoping she’d faint.
The girls were at school, thank God, and Oliver was at work, designing jet engines. It was lucky that Juliet was working from home today, because last week, when she had a panic attack at work, and the idea of her coworkers, her boss, and Arwen seeing her hyperventilating and crying and possibly fainting . . . no. She’d had to get down eight floors and rush into the Starbucks on Chapel Street, and thankfully, the restroom was free. The first time it hadn’t been, and she’d slid to the floor and had to pretend she was having a sugar crash in order to keep the barista from calling the ambulance.
Today, the panic attack had just sneaked up on her right during the conference call with her team at DJK Architects, one of the best firms in the U.S. Seemingly out of nowhere, it came . . . that creeping, prickling terror that started in her feet and slithered up her legs, making her knees ache, her heart rate accelerate. Keep your shit together, she ordered herself. Her boss, Dave, was drawing out the goodbyes with his usual jargon . . . “So I think we all have our action points” and “we’ve really drilled down on the issue,” all those stupid clichés. Would it kill him to just end the damn meeting?
Her heart was beating so hard, and she was trying not to blink too fast, but the sweat was breaking out on her body, chest first, then armpits and crotch, back of the legs, forehead. In another ten seconds, she’d start to hyperventilate.
“Arwen, e-mail me those numbers, okay?” she said. Her voice sounded strained and thin.
“Already done.”
Of course it was. “Great! Talk soon, everyone!” Her voice was a croak. She clicked the End button, closed the computer just in case the feed was still live, and bolted for the closet.
Sometimes, the hyperventilation caused her to pass out, which was actually a lot easier than talking herself down, that forced slow breathing, the mantra of you’re fine, you’re fine, you’re fine, slow down, slow down, slow down. Fainting was lovely. If she fainted, everything grayed out gently, giant spots eating up her vision, and it felt as if she were falling so slowly.
Then she’d wake up, normal breathing restored, on the carpeted floor of her expansive closet—because so far, four of the six panic attacks had been in the closet, conveniently—safe among her shoes and sweaters. Like a nap. Like anesthesia. Juliet loved anesthesia; last year, she’d had to have a uterine biopsy, and the IV sedation was the best feeling she’d had in ages. She wished she could’ve stayed in that state, that lovely, floating, almost unconscious state, for a long time. Totally understandable why people got hooked on those drugs.
The attack was passing. No pleasant fainting this time, apparently. She’d have to shower again, since she was damp with sweat, and change, and get her current outfit to the dry cleaner’s. If Oliver noticed their dry-cleaning bill had seen a significant bump, he hadn’t said anything. Then again, that was her job: pick up dry cleaning on the way home from the office.
None of these was the reason she was sitting hunched in her closet.
The problem was Arwen.
No. No, she wasn’t the problem. Juliet hated women who blamed other women for their issues . . . or maybe their own lack of success.
But the problem was maybe Arwen. Arwen Alexander, Wunderkind.
Yes. Fuck it, Juliet’s heart started racing again. Come on, fainting! You can do it! A laugh/sob popped out of her lips.
The panic grew. Fast. Like a mushroom. Like cancer. How had she been reduced to sitting in a fucking closet with the full-on shakes when she had a perfect life?
In the past few months, everything Juliet took for a fact seemed fluid. She’d always wanted to be an architect, but did she anymore? Somehow, inexplicably, it felt like she was living the wrong life. How could that be? Every detail had been planned, mapped out, worked for and achieved. Harvard, check. Yale, check. Oliver, check. Two healthy daughters, check and check and thank God. This house that she’d designed in the town she loved. Check. Parents who loved her and had a solid (ha!) marriage.
But suddenly it all felt wrong. Never before had Juliet questioned that she was on the right path . . . until now.
Was she a good mother? A good wife? She loved her girls, of course she did. She’d die for them. Kill anyone who threatened them with a song in her heart and a smile on her lips. She did everything she could for them, and from the outside, it probably looked like she was a good mother.