Eliza Starts a Rumor(19)
A few days later, Amanda ran off to Disney World with the girls. She surprised them at school with packed bags and promises of breakfast with Cinderella and dinner with Minnie Mouse. Her youngest daughter, Sadie, had insisted on going on the teacup ride three times in a row, and when they were done, she vomited on Amanda’s sandals. While she was washing the remnants of regurgitated funnel cake and cotton candy from between her toes, Amanda heard them yell, “Daddy, Daddy!” and they both ran into their father’s arms. He had followed the charges on her credit card and found them. He whispered in Amanda’s ear, “If you ever pull anything like this again, I’ll have you charged with kidnapping, and you won’t even be able to get a job here as Dopey.”
After that her mind turned from fantasizing about leaving him to fantasizing about his death. She would lie in bed thinking of the phone call from Cedars-Sinai saying, “Your husband had a massive heart attack,” or of a policeman at their door, “Your husband’s car swerved off Mulholland Drive.” Then she could be the lovely widow, and her marriage would not have been a failure, like her parents’ marriage was.
The girls both idolized their movie-making father, and the feeling was mutual. How they saw him meant more to Carson than a dozen Oscar nominations. Because of this, he was careful that they only saw “good” Carson. The loving husband that sent their mother flowers weekly and for no apparent reason. The doting dad, who, upon hearing his daughter choose her Wonder Woman action figure for show-and-tell, arranged for Gal Gadot to show up to class in full costume. The famed producer had such an eye for talent, art, and entertainment that Variety dubbed him “Hollywood’s Napoleon,” his diminutive size and impish looks contrasting greatly with his immense power.
Until the “Time’s Up” movement encouraged his previously whispered-about behavior to be shouted from the Hollywood Hills, and thus a window was created through which his wife could orchestrate her escape.
Luckily, when the news broke of Carson’s predatory behavior, Amanda was in a really good place to stand on her own two feet. She had begun seeing a therapist a year earlier and, with her help, developed the ability to ignore the disparaging things he said and believe in herself again. She was feeling stronger than she had in years. While there was no leaving the great Carson Cole before—not in one piece, that is—she was confident she could get out on the momentum of the scandal and his public crucifixion. With the world watching, he would have no choice but to behave civilly.
A woman leaves seven times before it sticks. She stopped counting the times and decided that whatever one this was, time was most definitely up. She packed four suitcases: one each for her and her girls and one filled with resale gold—Louis Vuitton and Birkin bags that she’d been collecting for this very occasion. She stuffed her carry-on with gift cards and piles of cash she’d been stockpiling ever since the night she heard him yelling, “Let’s see how far you get with whatever cash is in your pocket!”
She reserved three seats on a morning flight out of LAX. By nightfall they would be across the country in Hudson Valley, standing in the safety of her childhood bedroom, her daughters arguing over who would get the top bunk. Eliza’s text flashed up, Come home, and she exhaled in relief, responding, See you tomorrow!
At first she followed it with a smiley-face emoji, but on realizing she no longer had to pretend everything was copacetic, she deleted it and replaced it with an exploding head. The small act of candor spurred a real-life smiley face. Her first in days, for sure.
CHAPTER 12
Alison
When Alison envisioned her life with a baby she didn’t take into account the amount of napping it would involve. All the activities she’d pictured herself enjoying while Zach was sleeping—reading for pleasure, binge-watching the water-cooler shows, completing the New York Times crossword puzzles—morphed into one thing: the jumping-off point for a nap. She woke up from her morning siesta itching to go out for a walk.
Alison made sure to get out of the house every day, even though she loved her time in her new home. The smell—pine infused with new baby—calmed her as if a yogi had placed a drop of lavender oil on her forehead at the start of a meditation class. Not that she’d ever attended such a class. She laughed at the possibility—the Iron Lady turned yogini—and opened up her computer. It sounded like a perfect question for that ladies’ bulletin board. Although asking, “Can anyone recommend a meditation class?” made her feel like she was misrepresenting herself. Or was she? She didn’t even know who she was anymore.
Once online, she got caught up in the tampon post. There were now eighty comments. Some were tolerant of the question, but most women were responding with such outrage you would have thought that the mom had inquired about female circumcision. At least that was Alison’s take. She would have hoped, especially as a single mother, that a woman asking a parenting question would have been treated with more empathy. She typed in a response saying just that, but as she read it over, reminding herself that she was a new person in an old town, she chickened out.
Alison Le, wallflower?
She decided to reach out to the mom privately. She clicked on her name, Jackie Campbell, and messaged her:
Hi Jackie. I’m new in town. I’m just reaching out to you privately to say I’m sorry you were lambasted for your post on the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board. I would have hoped a woman asking a parenting question would have been treated with more respect and understanding. I wanted you to know you have my support.