Eliza Starts a Rumor(62)
They sat back quietly and stared at the kids playing in the playground. Within minutes Alison found herself wondering what Zachary would be like at their age. Marc found himself wondering if a promise to upgrade the city’s playgrounds would secure the mommy and daddy vote. If they had expressed their thoughts out loud, they might have realized how far apart they truly were.
CHAPTER 34
Olivia
On Monday morning when Spencer left for his run, Olivia set up Lily’s baby monitor in their bedroom for his return. She was leaving nothing to chance. She watched from the kitchen as Spencer walked into the room and immediately slipped the phone under the mattress. Got you, she thought.
She was still seething when he kissed her goodbye, a Stepford smile plastered on her face.
“It should be a light day today. I’ll be home for dinner for sure.”
“Great!” she responded without breaking.
When he left, she felt a weird sense of strength come over her.
The running app was quite simple to figure out. I’m as resourceful as Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone, she thought with a laugh. Not a big laugh, but enough to pinch the anger a bit.
What she discovered threw her for a loop—that loop being a direct line from her house to Eliza Hunt’s.
* * *
—
As Olivia waited outside Alison’s house, she looked in the mirror. Her eyes were unrecognizable—as if something inside of her had come unhinged. She needed to wrangle in the anger a bit. At least she had the presence of mind to call her sitter after hanging up with Alison. Lily did not need to be anywhere near her right now. She did her four-seven-eight breathing while Alison strapped Zach into Lily’s car seat.
“Do you want me to drive?” she asked.
Olivia could picture herself ramming her car through Eliza Hunt’s garage door, so she unsnapped her seatbelt and relinquished the wheel.
On the way there, Alison logically lectured her on how unlikely it was that her very young husband was having an affair with the middle-aged moderator of the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board, but Olivia wasn’t having it.
She got out of the car at the Hunts’ house and rang the doorbell incessantly.
“I think she heard you.”
Alison may have only known Olivia a short time, but one thing was clear to her: Olivia had lost it.
She looked Olivia in the eyes, trying to ground her. “Maybe she’s not home. Let’s go.”
Olivia ignored her and rang the bell some more with the added bonus of looking through the living room window and yelling, “I’m never going away!”
Even Alison was happy when Amanda showed up to help.
“What’s going on here, ladies?” she asked.
Olivia was convinced that Amanda’s presence was indicative of Eliza being at home. She continued her doorbell campaign. How much ringing could one woman endure? she wondered. Negotiations between Alison and Amanda began. Amanda assured Alison that there was no way Eliza was having an affair. Alison informed Amanda that there was no way Olivia was leaving without speaking to Eliza in person. Amanda made a phone call and then confronted Olivia.
“She will let us in if you promise to remain calm.”
“I promise,” Olivia mumbled.
Alison didn’t believe her. She pulled her aside.
“Olivia. If for some godforsaken reason your husband is having an affair with this woman—who I’d like to add is about twenty years older than you—doing something crazy to her will make you the villain here. Do you get that?”
“Yes,” she snapped.
The door opened. They all went inside. Olivia took one look at Eliza and realized she was being ridiculous. But why was Spencer coming to her house every day? She calmly, yet maniacally, asked for an explanation.
“Why is my husband coming here every morning?”
Amanda looked at Eliza and pleaded with her eyes for her to tell the truth. Eliza acquiesced.
“Can I see a picture of him?” Eliza asked.
Olivia pulled out her phone. Eliza studied it. She could tell it was him. Then Olivia pulled up the Map My Run evidence and showed it to them both. There was nothing left to do but tell her the truth.
“I’m sorry, but I think your husband is having an affair with my new neighbor. A man who looks like him visits her every morning after her husband leaves for work.”
“Which side?” she asked, ready to rumble. Alison stopped her.
“What are you going to do, go next door and beat her up? She probably won’t even answer the door for you, and then again you won’t have proof. He can just say he runs with her and thought you wouldn’t be cool with it.”
“She’s right,” Amanda said. “It’s not enough.”
“I just want to look at her. I want to see her face.”
Mandy whispered to Eliza, who reluctantly agreed. “We can sometimes see her from my upstairs window, if she’s home. She doesn’t sit around all day,” she said, as if doing so was pathetic. When she heard her own words, they stung.
As they climbed the stairs and set up a stakeout of sorts at Eliza’s desk, Olivia suddenly felt overwhelmingly awkward about their intrusion. She had no idea that Eliza spent most days alone and was actually thankful for the company.