Eliza Starts a Rumor(28)

“What? What is it?”

“You’re just so thin, I mean, even for you.”

“I haven’t had much of an appetite.”

“That never happens to me. Come on, I’ll make you something. I have a ton of leftovers and I want to hear the whole story with Carson.”

Even after all of these years, Eliza didn’t know very much about Carson Cole. Only the little scraps that Mandy fed her and the occasional mention in People magazine. He was a decade older than Amanda and not attractive in a conventional way—or in any way. He was diminutive in size but turned on the charm on a dime. His dime. It was probably why so many women ended up alone with him. That, and of course his ability to make or break them.

Hudson Valley was very far from Hollywood and Amanda was always careful to paint a pretty picture for Eliza and the world to see. It was hard to know where to begin, or if she even had the strength to reveal the truth. She followed Eliza to the kitchen and began with the here and now.

“I’m raw, enraged, humiliated, and just sick about all of it. Obviously, it goes so far beyond infidelity. I think people assume I’m complicit—that I must have known what was going on. And if I say I didn’t know, they say, ‘How could she not have known?’”

“Well, you didn’t know, and you only have to answer to yourself and your girls.”

Eliza noticed her wince when she brought up her girls. She couldn’t imagine having to explain such things to her own children.

Amanda peeled off her shoes and saddled up to the counter on the same stool she’d been climbing on since she needed a boost. It didn’t take long for her armor to come off as well.

“Dealing with the girls is the hardest part. They would never have put up with what I did. And I’m the one who taught them to be that way, to speak out, to stand up for themselves.”

As usual, thinking about her girls and what this was doing to them sent her mind reeling. She worried about them endlessly. How would they ever trust a man if their own father made them cringe in disgust? She was especially worried about Sadie. At just eleven, Sadie still pretty much worshipped her father, and people were bound to say horrible things about him to her. Even if they didn’t, the newspapers, the Internet, and the magazines at the checkout counter would all be waiting to fill her in on the tawdry details. There was no hiding from it. She thought her older daughter, Pippa, seemed to know more than she let on. People talk, and Pippa had always seemed to have eyes in the back of her head. She admonished herself again for not leaving when they were younger. They were probably embarrassed by her as much as they were by Carson. Two girls brought up in the midst of the “Me Too” movement by a mother who remained silent.

She took a deep breath and spoke the painful truth. “I taught them to be brave, while I acted like a coward.”

Eliza thought about her own daughter, about her own silence, while responding. “You’re being very brave now, and they will learn from that.”

Amanda wanted to believe her, but it was hard.

Eliza continued. “I’m so sorry I haven’t been there for you. I had no idea.”

“It’s not your fault. I went to LA to become an actress, right?” She laughed. “I could win an Oscar for my performance as the happy wife.”

“I’m your best friend. I should have seen through it.”

“How could you have? I wasn’t exactly honest with you over the years—or with myself really. I wasn’t even completely honest with my therapist because I didn’t want to deal with her advice. There were so many times that I almost told you. But once I did I feared there would be no turning back. You would never have let me continue living like that.”

Eliza understood that more than Mandy could ever know. They were both members of a different silent generation. As she placed her plate in the microwave, she assured her, “I understand, really I do. But there’s no point in bottling it up now, right? You left. You’re here. We are here, together.”

With that the floodgates opened. The conversation was tough. Painful to hear and painful to speak. But having someone know all she had been through over the years brought Amanda an unimaginable release. She spoke in great detail about everything that had happened and the effects that years of emotional abuse had had on her. It was painful to relive, and by the time she took her first bite of food it was cold again. She struggled to swallow.

“It’s cold again,” she muttered, sounding more like a child than a woman.

They both laughed as Eliza took her fork and placed her plate back in the microwave. Amanda watched her closely; her right eye twitched and she was all buttoned up to her neck.

What is she hiding?

“Why didn’t you go to the airport, Eliza?”

Even though Amanda was sitting in front of her cracked wide open, Eliza fell back into her usual m.o. and went for the joke: “The FOGO—it’s back again.”

“Fogo?”

“I renamed it, as part of my plan to combat my waning relevancy—fear of going out.”

Mandy knew Eliza wanted her to laugh, but she didn’t give in. It wasn’t funny then, and it certainly wasn’t funny now. Eliza saw the concern on Mandy’s face and came clean.

“I’ve hardly been able to leave the house since the twins’ graduation.”