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“She just said that you might have some stuff from your past that you don’t want to share with me,” he finally said. “And I thought wetold each other everything.” God, could he really be that naive?Everything?If couples told each othereverything, we would all most certainly be alone forever. Get real.
“Collin. Let me tell you what happened. Your best friend Gale practically accosted us with some weird sex club,withyour sisters, mind you, and it was in really bad taste. Yes, I’d had a lot to drink that night and got sick, but who isreallythe sicko in this instance?”
“Bea, I’m not judging you. I wouldn’t judge you. If you did have anything to tell me, well, you should.” He didn’t know the truth. If he knew, I’d already be out the door. The whole wedding would have been called off. Right?
But there was doubt present in Collin where it hadn’t been before. She’d set it up so I’d have to lie to his face. Happy to do it, I had been already for some time, but something else was in his head now. A sinister seed she had planted about my moral character. It felt as if he was looking at me in a totally different way. No longer fully on a pedestal.
“Judgingme? Honey, there’s nothing to tell. You’re making assumptions based on something Gale told you. Something thatsheinstigated. She brought us to that place. I’d never seen it before.”
“Bea...”
“What did she tell you, Collin?” I was afraid to ask, but I had no choice. I needed to know what I was dealing with so I could perform whatever damage control was necessary.
“She thought that it was a fun bachelorette place. Like a burlesque show. She said Dave told her about it, that some of the Harvard guys go.”
The relief I felt was nearly orgasmic. Gale didn’t know the truth. Not really. She was just trying to ruffle my feathers, stir up drama and involve Collin. It made so much sense. Dave? Harvard guys?Their recommendation? Yep. Of course they knew the house on East Eighty-First Street.
But then the thought occurred to me...
What if that was exactly what Gale wanted me to think? She wanted me eating right out of her hand, ready to crush me with those frightful paws of hers when I wasn’t paying attention. Ihadto keep paying attention.
“Burlesque? Collin, please. I don’t think that’s what it was,” I said.
“Right. She agreed, but she said you seemed to already know that going in. Like you’d been there before.”
So shewasplanting little seeds, the gardener of my nightmares. Was that it?
“I just told you I haven’t.”
“Right, but—”
“You think I’m lying to you? We’re getting married in two days!” Collin didn’t say anything. The panic resurfaced. Truth or not, he was questioning his faith in me. Exactly what Gale wanted in the end. “Aren’t we?” I asked him.Pathetic.
“I just think we need to be honest with each other. If there’s something that went on in your past, when you were fresh to New York or whatever, you can tell me about it. Okay? I’m going to be your husband. It won’t make me stop loving you, but I don’t want there to be any secrets between us.”
I wanted to marry Collin, but that did not include telling him the truth about my mother or her husbands or the other men or anything else I had purposely concealed from him. That was the past and he was my future. They would not coexist. Why were modern-day couples so hung up on knowing every little thing about their beloved? It wasn’t the key to happiness. The opposite. We’re all a damn mess. Don’t we deserve a little privacy in that regard?
I had to deliver the performance of a lifetime.
“Collin. There are no secrets between us. Please don’t be upset. Now, I know you don’t want to hear this, but Gale is in love with you, and she would sayanythingif it meant even the slightest chance that you would leave me. Whatever she thought about that house or my reaction to it, it really has nothing to do with me. She just wants you and she thinks she deserves you. More than I do, that’s for sure. You and I don’t come from the same world, Collin. We don’t talk about that very much because it doesn’t seem to be an issue for you, at least so far, but if you’re looking for an easy out based on a hearsay gut feeling from a jealous foe like Gale Wallace-Leicester, maybe you’re the one who needs to be honest with me.”
A lone tear fell from my cheek.
My voice broke at the very end.
It was some of my finest work, with a supporting nod to my own sincere desperation at the thought of losing everything.
But how could Collin argue with any of that?
He couldn’t.
“Oh, Bea. Please don’t cry. I’m so sorry,” he apologized, nearly brought to tears himself. “I really am sorry. I shouldn’t have said anything. I don’t know what I was thinking. Between work and my family and then Gale said that stuff. Shit, I’m sorry, I was just losing it. There’s so much stress in my life right now, but you always stand by me with your full support. That’s all I could ask for. You’re a magnificent woman and I’m so sorry, Bea. So sorry. Do you forgive me?”
I didn’t find his deeply apologetic display very attractive, but the sentiment was appreciated, since I was legitimately worried everything was about to fall apart. Did Gale really think I would come clean to Collin? Did she actually know everything and want totorture me? Or did she really know nothing and just want me to torture myself?
It certainly seemed plausible that Dave could know about East Eighty-First Street based on the reputation that preceded him. Told Gale about it. She took it and ran with it. But in my heart of hearts, it also felt like too much of a coincidence. But it was impossible. There was no trace. Was there?
I was questioning everything. I hated it. I hated her. I hated myself for underestimating her presence as sheer amusement and nothing more, because I was wrong. As it turned out, Gale Wallace-Leicester, mules, moles and all, was a worthy adversary indeed. Why had I wanted such a thing?
