The Wives(15)
I’d love to! Meet you at Orson’s in ten? Here’s the address.
I type the address into my phone and make a U-turn. I barely glanced at myself in the mirror before I left this morning. As I wait for a light to change, I pull down the car’s visor and, flipping open the mirror, I study my face. I look pale and washed out, and my eyes are puffy from last night’s crying. I dig in my bag for a lipstick and quickly mop it across my lips.
Orson’s is a hole-in-the-wall breakfast spot with a block-letter sign above the door. There is a golf-ball-size hole in the O with a series of spiderweb cracks around it. I walk inside, the smell of eggs and coffee thick in the air, and look around for an empty table.
The place is packed, filled with the type of people I can’t imagine Hannah and her fine cheekbones being friends with. Mohawks, pink hair, tattoos—one woman has seven piercings in her face alone.
I find a table by a window where I can see the door and toss my purse into the empty seat across from me. Too often I’d been in coffee shops where desperate people try to pilfer your chairs. Hannah walks in ten minutes later, wearing a red dress and glossy black flats. Her hair is pinned back, but wisps of it fall around her face like she was caught in a strong wind.
She looks frazzled as she slides into her seat and pushes the strands behind her ears. “Sorry I’m late. I’d just gotten out of the shower when I got your text.” She pulls off her sunglasses and sets them on the table while she presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose.
“Headache?” I ask.
She nods. “Caffeine headache. I’ve been trying to cut back, but I think I’ll have one today.”
“I’ll go grab us coffees if you tell me what you want,” I say, standing up. I have the sudden urge to protect her. She nods, looking around.
“Yeah, I suppose we can’t risk losing our table.”
She tells me her order and I walk up to the register and get in line. It’s then that I start sweating. Like, what the hell am I doing? Is this to get back at Seth? No, I tell myself as I reach the front of the line. I’m searching for my own form of community. I need to understand myself, and the only way to do that is to get to know the other woman who has made similar choices. Besides, it isn’t like I could find a polygamy group online, like one of those MOPS meetings mothers attend.
I place our order and carry the number on a stand back to the table. Hannah is chewing on her nails and staring at a coffee stain on the table.
I glance at her arm, to the place where I saw the bruise yesterday. It’s gone from purple to a dim blue.
She sees me looking and covers it with her hand, perfectly manicured fingers wrapping around her arm.
“An accident,” she says.
“Looks like finger marks.” My comment is offhanded, but she looks startled, like I’ve just slapped her. I study her eyes. They’re so perfectly blue they look painted, her lashes flicked up with expertly applied mascara. It’s all too perfect, I think. When things are that perfect, something is wrong.
While we wait, she chats about another renovation she wants to do on the house, but her husband is dragging his feet. I gravitate between liking and hating her as I smile and nod. How ungrateful to live in such a beautiful place and to never be satisfied with it. Wasn’t Seth exhausted by her demands? I imagine he’ll tell me about it soon, ask what I think about the renovation she wants. Seth always confers with me about these things, almost like he’s asking permission. I’d tell him to give her what she wants, of course. It would make me look good. Hannah suddenly changes the subject and asks questions about my condo and how I’ve decorated it. Her interest flatters and confuses me. I’m grateful when our food and drinks arrive. I stare down at my plate, at the omelet that is healthier than one I would have ordered had I been by myself, and have the desperate urge to tell her something personal. “I found out last night that my husband is cheating on me.”
Hannah drops her fork. It clatters onto her plate and then does a flip landing on the floor. We both stare at it.
“What?” she says. Her response is so delayed it’s almost funny.
I shrug. “I’m not sure how to process it. We had a fight last night and I stormed off.”
Hannah shakes her head and bends to pick up her fork. Instead of asking for a new one, she pulls an antibacterial wipe from her handbag and polishes it clean.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “My God, here I am blabbing about... I’m really sorry.”
She sets down her fork and stares at me. “Seriously, that’s terrible. I’d be an absolute mess. How are you even holding up?”
“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I love him.” She nods, like this is answer enough.
She studies me over her plate of egg whites. She’s barely touched her food. I want to tell her to eat, that she has a baby to grow.
“I’m pregnant,” she says.
I feign surprise. I don’t have to try very hard because I’m genuinely shocked that she told me, a complete stranger.
My eyes travel to her belly, flat and firm.
“I’m not very far along,” she admits. “I haven’t told anyone.”
“Your...husband?” I ask. Though I want to say, “Our husband?”
“Yes,” she sighs, “he knows.”