A Good Marriage(76)
“You never like anybody,” she’d snapped at Zach. “Have you ever thought about whether the problem is you?”
Zach’s eyes had flashed. But then Amanda watched his face shift like he’d just decided something. Calmly he set down his knife and fork and leaned back in his chair, arms crossed. Just glaring at her. In silence. Amanda had squirmed in her chair. It felt like an eternity before he finally spoke.
“What did you just say?”
Zach was looking at Amanda like he despised her. Like he wanted her dead. No, like she already was dead, and all that remained was the disposing of her body.
“Nothing,” she’d said quickly, wrapping her hands around her belly. “I didn’t say anything.”
Even now, Amanda felt queasy remembering. But she couldn’t risk staying silent. Certainly not about her dad. Case would be back in a few weeks. Amanda needed to find her voice immediately.
She could even start right then, but with something small. She could call Zach at work and tell Taylor she needed to speak with him directly. Then she could do that simple, ordinary thing other wives did every single goddamn day: ask her husband if he would be home for dinner. And she could act like she was entitled to the answer.
Full of purpose, Amanda rolled over and grabbed her phone. But there was already a new voice mail. Not from an unknown number, luckily. This was a 212 area code. She tapped to listen.
“Hello, Mrs. Grayson, this is Teddy Buckley, your accountant from PricewaterhouseCoopers?” he began. “We had an appointment this morning? I’m at your office, and no one is answering. I don’t know if we got our signals crossed, but I really do need to meet with you as soon as possible. I’ll come back tomorrow.”
Shoot. Had she really just forgotten, though? Or had it been more deliberate than that? But leaving Teddy Buckley waiting outside the foundation’s office at such an early hour was rude, not assertive. Amanda was going to need to be a lot more precise in how she stood up for herself if she was going to get Zach to listen.
The phone lit up with another call. Carolyn.
“Hello?”
“How was the dinner party?” Carolyn asked. The sound of a busy Manhattan street was in the background—horns, voices—and Carolyn was breathing hard, as though she was walking quickly. “Did Sarah give you shit about Zach not being there?”
The “shit about Zach” role belonged to Carolyn. She got territorial.
“It was a little awkward,” Amanda said. “But they were all really sweet and understanding in the end.”
“Hmm. Sweet,” Carolyn said skeptically. “Just don’t get too sucked in. You know how those women can be.”
“Those women” were any of the wives and mothers Amanda had become friends with in any of the towns they’d moved to over the years. To Carolyn they were all the same. But Amanda believed that Sarah and Maude were different. They were real friends. They cared about her. She didn’t want Carolyn to undermine that.
“Hey, could you meet for a run after work?” Amanda asked. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“What?”
“I’ve been thinking about what you said—what you’ve been saying—about Zach.” Amanda sucked in a breath. It was amazing how scary it was, admitting just that.
“And?” Carolyn sounded cautiously optimistic.
“I want to talk to you about it when I see you.”
“Um, okay, sure.” Carolyn sounded disappointed now. “But I can’t tonight. Tomorrow?”
Amanda resisted the urge to press. “Great. See you at the usual spot, eight o’clock tomorrow night.”
When Amanda got out of the shower, there was a text from Sarah: Coffee? Maude and me. In 15 at Blue Bottle. They often met at the café on the corner of Seventh Avenue and Third Street before starting their day. Amanda used to go to Blue Bottle even more often, to read in the afternoon, before things with the foundation began heating up. She’d loved sitting there, watching the neighborhood writers at work—Park Slope had so many—like the young, shaggy-haired dad with the 26.2 sticker on his computer who always seemed so focused. Amanda could feel it in the air, the magic of all those stories being built. Sometimes, she imagined asking that dad what he was writing, or how many marathons he’d run. But of course she never had.
Yes! See you there, Amanda replied.
It was amazing that Amanda and her friends all had the flexibility for late-morning coffee dates. But then both Maude and Amanda were their own bosses, and Sarah was technically an employee, but only of Amanda’s. Sarah did like mentioning that at every opportunity, though. Not in a hostile or resentful way, more like she wanted to be sure that Amanda knew she hadn’t forgotten. Sarah didn’t need the paycheck, of course. She’d taken the job at the foundation to give something back to parents who really needed it—a break from the ungrateful contingent of the Brooklyn Country Day PTA.
Amanda dressed quickly in one of her casual, quirky summer dresses, the kind she’d finally learned were exactly right for daytime summer in Park Slope (when paired with pricey but “minimalist” sandals). She headed down the hallway feeling almost cheerful. It had been nearly twelve hours since the last call. More than two days since she’d last thought Daddy was following her. She knew better than to get her hopes up, but there was the chance that he’d slithered back into his hole.