Always the Last to Know(8)

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.

She just didn’t feel like it these days. Brianna had grown sullen and withdrawn—she was twelve, so it wasn’t the world’s biggest surprise. But the thing was, Juliet hadn’t done that with her mother. She adored her mother, every day, every year. Sloane was right behind Brianna at ten . . . Would she stop talking to her, too? Oliver had been a little . . . distant, maybe. And if there was one thing Juliet couldn’t stand, it was distant. Her father had been that way (except with Sadie). And Dad had been especially distant with Mom.

Of course things stopped being hot and heavy after fifteen years of marriage. You couldn’t keep that shit up, no matter how hard you tried, how many thongs you bought. Things became expected and comfortable, and that was good, wasn’t it? Even if she tried really hard to be spontaneous and exciting, she and Ollie knew each other inside and out. Would she find herself walking her parents’ path, barely speaking, being invisible to the other?