“Ugh,” said Hugh, pulling away, glancing at his watch. “I’m late. I have to change and meet Kate at the fundraiser.”
She rose and walked the expanse of his office, got his tux from the closet, and laid it across the back of the couch. Another stunning item, heavy and silken. She ran her fingers lovingly along the lapel. He rose, and she helped him dress, hanging his other clothes, putting them back in the closet. She did his tie. In his heart, he was a little boy. He wanted to be attended to, cared for. Maybe everyone wanted that.
“You look wonderful,” she said, kissing him. “Have fun tonight.”
He looked at her long, eyes filling again.
“Soon,” he said, “this charade can end.”
She put a gentle hand to his cheek, smiled as sweetly as she could muster and started to move from the room.
“Anne,” he said, grabbing for her hand. “I love you.”
She’d never said it back. She’d said things like me, too or she’d send him the heart-eyed emoji in response to a text. Sometimes she just blew him a kiss. He hadn’t seemed to notice, or his pride was too enormous to ask her why she never said it, or if she loved him. But mainly, she thought it was because Hugh only saw and heard what he wanted to.
She unlaced her fingers and blew him a kiss. “Good night, Hugh.”
His phone rang, and he watched her as he answered.
“I’m coming, darling,” he said, averting his eyes, moving away. “Just had to finish up with a client.”
She left him, his voice following her down the hall.
In her office, she gathered her things, a strange knot in the pit of her stomach. She sensed that her luck was about to run out here. She couldn’t say why. Just a feeling that things were unsustainable—that it wasn’t going to be as easy to leave Kate as he thought, that on some level he didn’t really want to, that once things reached critical mass, she’d be out of a job. Of course, it wouldn’t be a total loss. She’d make sure of that.
There was a loneliness, a hollow feeling that took hold at the end. She wished she could call Pop, that he could talk her through it. Instead her phone pinged. The message there annoyed her.
This is wrong, it said. I don’t want to do this anymore.
Just stay the course, she wrote back. It’s too late to back out now.
Funny how that worked. At the critical moment, she had to give the advice she needed herself. The student becomes the teacher. No doubt, Pop would be pleased.
Anne glanced at the phone. The little dots pulsed, then disappeared. The girl, younger, greener, would do what she was told. She always had. So far.
Anne looked at her watch, imbued with a bit of energy. If she hustled, she could just make it.
THREE
Selena
As Selena was settling into her seat next to the other woman, the train just died on the track, emitting a defeated groan. The lights went dark, then came back up. She waited.
Please, she thought.
If the train left the station now, she could still make it home to see the boys before they were asleep. She glanced at her seatmate, who was staring out the window. All she could see was the curtain of her glossy black hair, the edge of her elegant profile. Did they know each other? she wondered again.
Selena texted Graham, the cheating bastard:
Train delayed!
Ugh, he wrote back. Nanny gone. I’ll start bedtime. Boys waiting for you. Love you!
She loved how he didn’t use Geneva’s name. Hadn’t she read something about that? Distancing. Like: I never had sexual relations with that woman.
His text sounded repentant, didn’t it? It was the exclamation mark, a thing he rarely used. All editors hate the exclamation point; it’s a cheat. The dialogue should speak for itself. But, in texting, it communicated warmth, enthusiasm, brightness—something. If he’d resorted to it, he must feel like a monster. He was a monster.
Love you, she texted back reluctantly. No exclamation point.
But she did. Always had, all their years together. He made her laugh. He knew just how to rub her shoulders. He was strong; he handled the business of their lives, chopped firewood, did the landscaping. He had been, in many ways, a good husband. And she did love him. Odd. Because she also hated him with equal passion. That rumble inside. That volcanic mix of sadness, anger, love. Villages would be reduced to ash when it finally erupted.
Selena looked out the window.
Black.
All she could see was the faint reflection of the other woman’s face in the glass. There were only a few other people in the car now. Many had gotten up and left to find alternative transport, she guessed. Selena could have moved to another seat, so that they each had a section to themselves. But was that rude?
Her face.
What was it?
The other woman’s cheekbones were high and pronounced. Her dark eyes an abyss. There was a sensual shape to her mouth, something almost sweetly crooked. She was about to make polite conversation when the other woman spoke. A whisper, something Selena didn’t hear at first. When she later would look back on this first encounter, she tried to find reasons for what happened next.
Maybe it was just one of those strange, deep connections that take you by surprise like falling in love. Or was it that delay, the darkened car, the powerlessness of waiting?
Sometimes it just happened that way with women, an instant intimacy. Selena had experienced it a number of times. You just look at each other—and you know. The journey from girlhood to womanhood, the hopes and dreams they all share, how life rarely delivers, and, even if it does, how it’s never quite what you expected. There’s no glass slipper, no Prince Charming. That princess updo, it hurts after a while, your hair pulled too taut, the pins too sharp. The disappointments, the dawning of reality. And, yes, all the good things too—real love, true friendship, the birth of children. You just look into her eyes, and you know the path, the journey, all the hills and valleys, the cosmic joke of it.
The other woman spoke again.
“Did you ever do something you really regretted?”
It was almost a whisper. Maybe she was just talking to herself—which Selena did all the time. Whole conversations in the shower.
Who were you talking to? Oliver, her oldest, the curious one, wanted to know the other night.
Myself, she told him.
That’s weird.
At least she could be sure someone was listening, engaged. Often, she had excellent advice for herself in the shower, as if there was a little therapist in her head, one who had all the answers.
“Yes,” Selena said now. “Of course.”