Page 13 of Cruel Lies

"—might be what?" Paula prompts. Her tone is so warm, so soft, and so completely, monstrously fake that I genuinely cannot believe I didn't hear it before. "Todd might be what, sweetie?"

The sunny smile she's giving me. The effusive compliments.I almost didn't recognize you? Have you lost weight?

She isn't being weird because she's a bad friend.

She's being weird because she knowsexactlywhat's coming for me, and she's enjoying the view from the front row.

A lever inside me clicks over. I actually feel it happen, a physical sensation, like a circuit breaker tripping in a basement. All the heat—the rage, the grief, the snotty, weepy, lie-on-the-bathroom-floor-and-bemoan-my-fate heat—drains right out of me.

What's left behind is cold and fanged.

I close my mouth.

And then I smile.

I've given birth twice without an epidural. I once pitched a roomful of venture capitalists with a fever of a hundred and two. I can produce a convincing smile under conditions that would break a lesser woman. Watch me do it right now, like a magic trick. A radiant, toothy beam, bright and easy, that does not so much as hint at the fact that I just clocked my best friend as the homewrecker who's sabotaging my marriage.

"Todd might betaking me on a surprise trip," I lie. "For our anniversary. I found, like, a little stash of plans. I wasn't supposed to see, so don't say anything, okay?"

I don't know if it's my imagination or not, but I could swear I see a ripple of something pass across Paula's face. She catches it fast, though. One microsecond of a falter, and then she's back to normal Paula Sampson, my best friend of a decade and a half, my son's teacher.

"Oh mygosh!" she squeals. "That's soromantic.Todd's such a good guy!"

"He's one of a kind," I agree.

"You two are couple goals, honestly."

"Aren't we just?"

A bell rings somewhere inside the building. A moment later, the front doors burst open and a stampede of nine-year-olds comes pouring out like someone kicked over a beehive. Paula straightens up, adjusts her hair, and puts on her no-B.S. Ms. Sampson face.

"There come the hyenas," she laughs. "I should get to my post. But Cali—" She bends down one more time, cups her hand on my elbow again, and looks at me with those big, sincere, treacherous eyes. "I just want you to know, if you ever needanything,okay? Anything at all. I'm here for you. Always have been."

I look at her hand on my arm. French tips. So pretty.

"I know you are," I say. "That means more than you realize."

She beams, satisfied, and turns to wave at a clump of parents getting out of a Tahoe. I watch her go, this tall, glowing, gorgeous woman who slept in my bed, and I feel absolutely nothing where the love for her used to be.

No. That's not quite true.

I feel one thing.

I feelfocused.

I've become a new woman in the ninety seconds since I caught a whiff of Sweet Spun Vanilla Betrayal through my driver's side window. Up until this moment, I'd been thinking about this whole thing the wrong way. I thought I was avictim.I'd been thinking aboutgetting even.Expose Todd, make him grovel, andthen take the moral high road of forgiving him and letting our marriage resume its happy natural state.

But getting even is for people who are content with staying behind. If that's your goal, the very best you can hope for is a tie, two people equally bloodied, nobody ahead.

Fuck that.

I don't want to get even.

I want to getahead.

And Paula's reaction tells me everything I need to know: that she and Todd are completely clueless. I bet they're giggling to themselves in bed.She's so slow and gullible, isn't she? Your soft, sad, curvy little wife has no idea what we've been doing.

But in reality,they'rethe ones who are a step behind, all because of one innocuous-looking little scale.