Did she say “Claire”?
“It’s like she’s doing it on purpose.”
“Maybe she doesn’t think anyone else knows about her and John.”
My heart stops.
My stomach bottoms out.
My fingertips go numb.
What did they just say?
Are Roxie and Lainey talking aboutme?
My heart races at such a clip, an Olympic sprinter wouldn’t be able to catch it. My hand reflexively goes to my mouth as I stifle a gasp.
“Shouldn’t we tell her?” Lainey says. “John’s so brazen about it. You’d think she’d at least notice, but at this point I think she’s the only one who doesn’t know.”
“I’m not getting involved,” Roxie says, and I can hear her rip a towel out of the dispenser. “Besides, she’ll find out soon enough.”
Seconds later, I hear the door of the bathroom open, then shut, and then I’m wrapped in the fluorescent hum of the quiet bathroom.
This... can’t be right.
There must be a mistake.
I gingerly undo the lock on the stall and slowly walk out, making sure there’s no one else there.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror, and suddenly a pit caves in my stomach.
I fear there is a fool looking back at me.
Numbly, I wash my hands and then head back out to the dining room, where the auction portion of the evening is about to begin.
But before I can get inside, something sparkly catches my eye in the corner under the stairs.
Silver sequins.
I walk toward the low whisper of quiet voices, careful not to make any noise, and then I see him. My husband—one arm pressed into the brown brick wall, the other on the hiked-up thigh of the blonde.
They’re half kissing, half talking. She’s giggling into the nape of his neck, and I can’t seem to make myself look away.
I’m frozen, my feet a pair of cinder blocks, wanting to run and hide, to hit the rewind button and pretend none of this is happening, but I can’t move.
And then I hear a woman’s voice behind me. “Oh, Claire, there you are—” She stops short and my world shifts into slow motion.
John turns and meets my eyes. The blonde’s smile fades, but only for a second. The woman behind me puts a hand on my arm. It’s Marcie, the other mom who helped organize this fundraiser. She must see what I see because she wraps an arm around my shoulder and gives me a little tug as John moves out of the shadows and into the lobby area where I’m standing.
“Claire, babe, it’s not what it looks like—”
I blurt, “Not what it looks like?Not what it looks like?What does it look like, John?”
“Hey, let’s talk this out. I can explain—”
But he can’t explain away what I’ve just seen. There is no excuse, no reason, no acceptable explanation for any of it. And we both know it.
The world as I knew it is over, and everything about my life is about to change.
