The Wife Between Us(85)
“I know. This client is really demanding!”
“You’ve been working hard, too,” I said as if it had just occurred to me. “He doesn’t need to rush. Why don’t you suggest he have a nice dinner and book a hotel? Just come back in the morning. It’ll be easier on both of you.” Please, take the bait.
“Are you sure, Vanessa? I know he wants to get home to you.”
“I insist.” I faked a yawn. “To tell you the truth, I’m looking forward to watching some trashy television and vegging out. And he’ll just want to talk about work.”
The idle, dull wife. That was how I’d wanted her to think of me.
Richard deserved better, didn’t he? He needed someone who could appreciate the intricacies of his job; who would take care of him after a rough day. Someone who wouldn’t embarrass him in front of his colleagues. Someone who was eager to be with him every night.
Someone exactly like her.
Please, I’d thought again.
“Okay,” Emma had eventually replied. “I’ll just check with him, and then if he agrees, I’ll let you know what time we land tomorrow once I switch the flights.”
“Thank you.”
As I hung up the phone, I realized that, for the first time in a long while, I was smiling.
I’d found my perfect replacement. Soon Richard would be done with me and I’d finally be free.
Neither of them knew what I’d orchestrated. They still don’t.
PART
THREE
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
I tear down the stairs, slipping as I round the corner to the third floor. My hip smacks against the edge of a step before I can catch myself on the railing, sending pain radiating up the left side of my body. Yanking myself upright, I press on with barely a pause. If Richard decides to take the stairs rather than the elevator, we will run right into each other.
The thought propels me even faster, and I burst out of the stairwell into the lobby just as the elevator doors press themselves together. I want to watch the numbers flash on the panel above the elevator to see if it stops on Emma’s floor. But I can’t risk taking even a few seconds to check. I race onto the street, where a cab is pulling away from the curb. I bang on the trunk and the red brake lights flash.
Scrambling in, I lock the door before collapsing against my seat. I open my mouth to give the address of Aunt Charlotte’s apartment, but my words catch in my throat.
The aroma of lemons surrounds me. It winds through my hair and permeates my skin. I can feel the sharp citrus notes invading my nose and trickling down into my lungs. Richard must have just exited this cab. Whenever he was agitated—when his features tightened and the man I loved seemed to disappear—his scent always grew stronger.
I want to flee again, but I can’t afford to wait for another taxi. So I roll down the window as far as it will go as I give the driver my destination.
My letter is only a page long; it will take just a minute for Emma to scan it. I hope she has time to do so before Richard makes it to her door.
The driver turns onto the next block, and after a final glance out the window assures me that Richard isn’t following, I lean my head back against my seat. I wonder how I’d missed the flaw in my plan to escape my husband. I had so much time to formulate it; after his office holiday party, it became my full-time job, then my obsession. I was so careful, and yet I’d made the greatest possible miscalculation.
I didn’t think about how I would be sacrificing an innocent young woman. I could only desperately latch onto my getaway. I’d almost given up hoping it might be possible. Until I realized he’d never let me go unless he believed it was his idea.
I was certain of this because of what he’d done to me before when he’d thought I was trying to leave him.
I had begun to withdraw from my marriage right before the Alvin Ailey gala. I was still relatively young and strong. I hadn’t yet been broken.
Immediately after the gala, when Richard confronted me in the kitchen, he’d looked down at my right wrist, which was turning white in his strong hands. It was as if he didn’t even realize he was twisting it; as if someone else were responsible for the birdlike cry of pain that had escaped from my lips.
Richard hadn’t hurt me bad before that night. Not physically, anyway.
At times he’d paused at the brink of what I now recognize as the edge. I’d recorded each of those episodes in my black Moleskine notebook: in the cab after I’d kissed Nick at my bachelorette party; at Sfoglia when a man at the bar had bought me a drink; and on the evening when I’d confronted Richard about Duke’s disappearance. At other times he’d come even closer. Once he’d thrown our framed wedding picture to the floor, shattering the glass and also hurling a ludicrous accusation at me: that I’d been flirting with Eric, the scuba instructor, during our honeymoon. I saw him stop by our room, Richard had yelled at me, as I recalled how my husband had left bruises on my upper arm after helping me out of the boat. Another time, shortly after one of our visits to the fertility doctor, when he’d lost a big client, Richard slammed the door of his office so hard a vase fell off an étagère.
He’d also seized my upper arm on a few more occasions, squeezing it too tightly, and once when he was questioning me about my drinking and I dropped my eyes, he grabbed my jaw and yanked my head upright so I was forced to look at him.