The Wife Between Us(34)
I see her again, bending down to stroke the head of the little dog in her path. I see her crossing her shapely legs and leaning close to Richard at the bar—our bar. And I see her on the day I came to his office to surprise him for lunch, back when we were still married. The two of them were walking out of the building. She wore a blush-colored dress. His hand gently touched the small of her back as he allowed her to exit the door first. She’s mine, the gesture seemed to say.
He used to touch me that way. I told him once I loved the subtle, sexy feel of his fingers there.
I get up, moving quietly in the darkness, and retrieve my burner phone and my laptop from the bottom dresser drawer.
Richard cannot marry again.
I begin to make preparations. The next time I see her, I will be ready.
CHAPTER
ELEVEN
Nellie lay in the darkness, listening to the sounds of the city waft through the bars of her open window: A honk; the shouted lyrics to “Y.M.C.A.”; a car alarm wailed in the distance.
The suburbs were going to seem so quiet.
Sam had left a few hours earlier, but Nellie had decided to stay in. If Richard called, she wanted to be at the apartment. Besides, the tumult of the past twenty-four hours had left her feeling depleted.
When she’d gotten home from the Learning Ladder, she and Sam had plastered on cobalt-blue algae masks while they waited for their Chinese food to arrive—spareribs, pork dumplings, sweet-and-sour chicken, and, in a token nod to Nellie’s wedding diet, brown rice.
“You look like a Blue Man Group reject,” Sam had said as she smoothed the paste over Nellie’s cheeks.
“You look like Sexy Smurf.”
After the morning’s tension and the inexplicable menace she’d felt at the school, it was so good to laugh with Sam.
Nellie had grabbed plastic forks from the drawer beside the sink, the one that was also crammed with packets of hot sauce and mustard and mismatched paper napkins. “I’m using the good silver tonight,” she joked. It hit her that this would likely be the last meal they shared alone before the wedding.
When the food arrived, they washed off their masks. “Ten bucks wasted,” Sam proclaimed as she examined her skin. Then they flopped on the couch and dug in, chatting about everything except what was really on Nellie’s mind.
“Last year the Straubs gave Barbara a Coach bag after graduation,” Sam said. “Think I’ll score something good?”
“Hope so.” Richard had presented Nellie with a Valentino bag the previous week after he noticed an ink stain on the one she usually carried. It was still under her bed in its protective dustcover; no way was she going to risk a kid finger-painting it. She hadn’t mentioned the purse to Sam.
“Sure you don’t want to join me?” Sam had asked as she shimmied into Nellie’s AG jeans.
“I haven’t recovered from last night.”
Nellie had wanted Sam to stay in and watch a movie with her, but she knew Sam had to maintain her other friendships. After all, Nellie would be gone in a week.
Nellie had thought about calling her mother, but their conversations often left Nellie feeling a bit on edge. Her mother had met Richard only once, and she’d immediately honed in on the age difference. “He’s had time to sow his oats and travel and live,” she told Nellie. “Don’t you want to do the same before you settle down?” When Nellie responded that she wanted to travel and live with Richard, her mother shrugged. “Okay, lovey,” she said, but she didn’t sound completely convinced.
It was now after midnight but Sam was still out; maybe with a new boyfriend, or maybe with an old one.
Despite Nellie’s exhaustion and the rituals she’d tried—chamomile tea and her favorite meditation music—she kept listening for the scrape of Sam’s key in the lock. She wondered why it was always on the nights one most craved sleep that it was elusive.
She found her thoughts returning to Richard’s ex. When she was in Duane Reade earlier picking up the face masks, she’d stood in line behind a woman who was talking on her cell phone, making plans to meet someone for dinner. The woman was petite and yoga toned, and her laughter spilled out like bright coins during the call. Would she be Richard’s type?
Nellie’s own cell phone waited within reach on her nightstand. She kept looking at it, steeling herself in case it erupted with another unsettling hang-up. As the night stretched on, its silence began to feel more ominous, as if it were mocking her. Eventually, she got up and walked over to her dresser. Moogie, her childhood stuffed dog, was perched atop it, listing to one side, his brown-and-white fuzz worn but still soft. Even though she felt silly, she lifted him up and brought him back into bed with her.
She managed to doze off at some point, but at six A.M., a jackhammer erupted just outside her apartment. She staggered out of bed and closed her window, but the insistent sputtering continued.
“Shut that fucking thing off!” Nellie’s neighbor bellowed, his words carrying through the radiator.
She pulled her pillow over her head, but it was futile.
She took a long shower, rolling her head around in circles to try to ease the ache in her neck, then put on her robe and rifled through her closet searching for her light blue dress with the little yellow flowers—it would be perfect for graduation—only to remember that it was still at the dry cleaner’s, along with half a dozen other items.