The Perfect Marriage(5)
The thing about restraining orders, Haley had learned, was that they really weren’t worth the paper they were written on. For James to complain about any violation, he’d have to file something in court. So far, he hadn’t. Nonetheless, Haley’s divorce lawyer had repeatedly warned her that if she kept flouting the injunction, James’s patience with her would end.
Staring at the Instagram photo of Mandy’s bony arms, Haley poured herself another glass of wine and began to contemplate what offensive she could launch to ruin James and Jessica’s celebration of their love. Calling in a bomb threat required minimal effort, but James would know it was her, and her efforts would be for naught.
That didn’t mean that she couldn’t report, anonymously of course, some other type of suspicious activity that the police would be required to investigate. Yes, Officer, I’m seeing some very shady-looking characters entering the building. I think one of them is carrying a gun.
But even assuming that was enough to warrant a police drop-in, it still wouldn’t dampen the festivities. With Haley’s luck, it would only add to the merriment. She could imagine Jessica laughing in her Jessica way. We were having such an amazing time that the police thought something illegal was going down!
Back to the drawing board, then . . .
The more she thought about it, the more it seemed that this occasion required her personal intervention. James’s loft had a crap security system: a buzzer alerting the residents that their guests had arrived and enabling them to unlock the door remotely. Haley could wait behind some other invitee and follow them in. It would have to be someone who didn’t know her . . . but most of Jessica’s friends only knew of her—James’s batshit psycho of an ex-wife—and wouldn’t recognize her on sight.
Once she got inside, Haley would be behind enemy lines, which meant that she needed backup for this mission. She mentally scrolled through a list of potential accomplices before realizing Malik would be perfect. He was ridiculously handsome, and big too: six three, with a basketball player’s biceps. Even an armed security guard would think twice about forcibly removing Malik from the premises.
He’d come with her too, even though it was late notice. She’d make Malik an offer he couldn’t resist: hang there with her for fifteen minutes, after which they would go back to her place, and he could do whatever he wanted to her for as long as he desired.
2
James glanced at his watch. He was one of the last people he knew who still wore a timepiece rather than check their phone every thirty seconds. It was all part of the persona he’d meticulously cultivated. If you were in the business of selling people million-dollar pieces of art, you needed to establish that you were a person of impeccable taste. In this case, James did so with a Patek Philippe chronograph.
That horological symbol of Swiss precision told him it was still nearly thirty minutes before the first guests were slated to arrive. He stepped out into the living room. The calm before the storm, as it were.
Few of tonight’s attendees had ever been to his home before. Those who had were mainly Jessica’s friends. James’s contributions to the guest list were by and large work colleagues and clients. The loft would undoubtedly impress them, so different from the limestone town houses, Upper East Side classic sixes and sevens, and new-construction penthouses they called home.
He still could not fathom what he’d been thinking back then, but he distinctly recalled that when he’d first set foot in this place, he’d known he’d live in it with Jessica someday. The fact that he was married to Haley at the time somehow hadn’t entered into the equation, even though it had been her idea for them to find a new place rather than continue to live in her bachelorette apartment, as she had called their home on Riverside Drive.
By the time the renovation work on the loft was finished (new kitchen and new master bathroom), so was his marriage to Haley. She’d never lived here. Instead, Jessica moved in only a few months after James.
Before beginning his affair with Jessica, James had never been unfaithful to a partner; he’d never even thought cheating was something he was capable of doing. Nor had he ever been “the other man,” always staying clear of married women, even when they offered him no-strings-attached sexual relationships in his single days.
James was forty-two when Jessica came into his life, and by then he’d had more than his share of experiences with women. Much more than his share, all false modesty aside. But within minutes of being in Jessica’s company, he realized that he’d previously been completely ignorant about love. It was like how he’d thought he understood the Sistine Chapel because he’d studied it in school. But when he finally stepped into the Vatican and looked up at the ceiling, he realized he’d never comprehended it at all.
He knew it was somewhat twisted logic, but James was convinced that everything had transpired exactly as he’d predicted from the outset because the universe’s imperative to bring Jessica to him could not be denied, just like nothing could have stopped the universe from taking his father in that accident. Of course, that did not mean he was blameless. Or that he wouldn’t someday pay a price for his sins.
Tonight the loft looked even bigger than its three thousand square feet because nearly all their living room furniture had been put into storage, replaced by rented bistro tables and chairs. The fact that everything in the space was white—the chairs, the tablecloths, the tulips, and the vases in which they stood—gave the place an even more cavernous feel. Even the waitstaff charged with walking around and serving the hors d’oeuvres wore uniforms consistent with the alabaster theme.