The Wives(65)

My stomach drops when she pulls onto the freeway. I clutch the steering wheel tighter and focus on her bumper. It’ll be hard keeping up with her in this traffic. I manage to stay a few cars behind, and when she veers off the highway, I’m right behind her, my heart beating hard, several people honking at me. Ten minutes later, after trailing her through a dull suburban neighborhood, she pulls into a dingy apartment complex called Marina Point. There is no marina in sight, just blocky buildings with hard edges painted prison gray. The measly plots of grass surrounding them are yellow and patchy. Everything looks jaundiced, and the few people who are milling about outside are congregated on a staircase, smoking. If I opened my window I’d know if it was pot or cigarettes, but I don’t have time. Regina drives over the speed bumps like they’re not even there. I wait for her to zip past the buildings, like maybe this is a shortcut, but she pulls into a numbered space—a resident.

I look around at the shabby disarray, my car idling in the road. This isn’t right. A woman with a Louboutin collection doesn’t drive that car, or live here. I decide she’s visiting someone, a quick stop on her way home. Maybe she’s dropping papers off to a client. But when she gets out of the car she takes her briefcase and folders with her, struggling to hold on to everything while she locks the car manually. I have to be able to see which unit she goes into. I quickly park across the street and wait until she’s up the stairs before hopping out. Jogging, I reach the third floor just in time to see her door close. The sound of the dead bolt echoes in the concrete corridor as Regina locks herself inside. I glance around. There are no welcome mats, no plants decorating the doorsteps, just four empty doors, their numbers displayed beside them on cheap plastic plaques. A place of last resort. I stare solidly at her door for several minutes, 4L. And then I knock.



Her face is bare when she opens the door. In the few minutes she’s been home she’s already washed off her makeup. It’s interesting that she’s the type who immediately washes off her day while I fall asleep in mine.

She doesn’t even try to hide her shock; she moves quickly, shoving the door closed. It swings toward me with force, but I am too fast. I wedge my foot in the gap and flinch when it squeezes painfully against my toes.

Regina yanks it open, glaring at me. Without her makeup, she looks like a child. An angry, insolent child who isn’t getting her way.

“What? What do you want?” She holds the door trying to keep me out, red nails sharp against the peeling gray.

“You know what I want,” I say. And then I do something I am even surprised by: I push past her and enter her home without invitation.

She turns her body to face me, her mouth slightly open. I see her eyes search around the room, looking for her phone. Who will she call—Seth or the police? I find it before she does, lunging toward it on the dining table. I pocket it before she can stop me and stare at her solemnly.

“I just want to talk,” I say. “That’s all I’m here for.”

She considers the hallway outside for a moment. I can feel her decision in the air. If she screams for help who will come?

She must decide that her chances are better with me because she closes the door, all rigidness gone from her body. There is a feverish nervousness about her as she walks past me. It’s smell and energy, a woman trapped in a room with someone she’d rather avoid. I’m contemptuous about the fact that she’s not as interested in me as I am in her. Isn’t it the mark of a woman to want to know things about other women? We abuse the information...compare ourselves rather than keeping it all separate. Even as I study her clean face and thick hair, I’m comparing.

“All right, Thursday,” she says. “Let’s talk.”





      THIRTY


There are expensive things in this inexpensive apartment. A leather sectional that once fit into a large living room, thick coffee table books stacked on top of a marble table. Everything is too big, which makes the room small and suffocating. I glance out of the window above the wrought iron dinette for escape, and see nothing but more rows of insipid gray buildings. It’s really warm in her apartment, the heat turned all the way up to feel like summer. She’s in total life denial, I think. Regina walks over to a section of the couch farthest from where I am standing, and sits down without inviting me to do the same. She curls up in the corner, a tiny ball of a woman. I take a seat, anyway, perching myself across from her on the edge of the leather so that I almost slide off. I try not to stare, but when you’ve wondered about a person for so long it’s hard not to.

“Well?” she says. “What do you want to know?”

So different from the How can I help you? attitude earlier, surrounded by her ferns and wood and educational plaques. Here, in her living room, her things surround me.

“I want to be told the truth,” I say.

“The truth?” she says, incredulous. “I don’t think you ever wanted the truth, Thursday. You wanted Seth. I know about all of it...”

“What does that even mean? And why did you say that you and Seth were only together for five years?”

“Because we were,” she says, exasperated. And then she adds, “Before you came along.”

“You mean when it was just you two?”

“No! Oh my God, you really are crazy...” She shakes her head in disbelief. “Thursday, you had an affair with Seth. You’re the reason we got divorced.”