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“Did you fire the staff?” he asked, avoiding her question.
“I relieved Lydia, yes. And reduced Maritza’s schedule.”
I’d never once liked that tone. You know the one. The rich-bitch tone. Condescending, carefully cadenced to have the most impact. But right then, watching her spew it at the senator, yeah, I fucking loved it.
“Without consulting with me?” he asked, neck getting red.
“On the running of my household?” she asked, cocking her head to the side a bit.
“Now, Jennifer,” Bertram started, voice dripping with condescension. “I don’t think now is the time for you to be making any big decisions. You are clearly still in mourning.”
“Big decisions,” she mused, taking a slow breath. “Like selling Teddy’s drug and sex den?” she asked, chin lifting as the words landed, making Bertram open and close his mouth twice. “Because I’m afraid it is already too late for that. I had a realtor there taking pictures today. Don’t worry, I already got rid of the drugs. There won’t be any new scandals when the realtor goes through the house finding the illegal stash put there by the senator’s son.”
And then, right then, I got to watch a seemingly unflappable man go from red to purple as he stood there, speechless for a long moment.
“Jennifer, obviously, you are in shock. You should…”
Oh, that was a bad idea.
Should was not the word she wanted to hear from the likes of him.
“In shock? In shock? Yes, yes I guess you could say that. I am shocked that you had my staff spying on me, lying to me. That you allowed your son to sully your good family name with drugs and whores.”
“Jennifer, some men have shortcomings and it is up to his wife to understand them, help them through them…”
“Help them through them. Help him through them. And, how, pray tell, Bertram, was I expected to help him through anything while my jaw was broken? My ribs bruised so badly that I could barely move…”
“Jennifer, airing family business in front of outsiders is unbecom…”
“Unbecoming,” she scoffed, an odd, almost hysterical laugh. “You know what is also unbecoming? The fact that at your last election party, my ass had been whipped so raw that I was wearing an adult diaper under my dress so I didn’t bleed through it. That was sure unbecoming too, wouldn’t you say? How much more was I supposed to understand? How many more times did he need to beat me to help him through his anger issues?”
To that, Bertram paled. Not because this was news to him, I was sure, but because she was speaking of it.
“I am going to put you in touch with a good therapist,” Bertram said, reaching into his jacket to find his wallet, digging through it. “Clearly, your grief has given you some sort of break. You know very well that Teddy never raised a hand to you. He was always a loving husband.”
“Oh, thanks. I can’t wait to not call this,” she said, crumbling the card he produced up in her hand. “Don’t worry, Bertram,” she said, voice low and lethal. “I know what I married into. I know how this works. I keep my mouth shut about my abuse, about your knowledge of it. About the drugs and whores. You get to go on keeping up appearances, keep your office. But understand this, I am not under your thumb anymore. You leave me alone to live out my life in peace. And I won’t need to have a sit down with some news station about the dark secrets of the Ericsson family.”
To that, Bertram’s jaw ticked, but he was thinking about it, considering all the possible outcomes. “How can I be sure that you won’t change your mind?”
“I don’t want this life, Bertram,” she said, waving a hand around at the house. “Let me go. Let me start over. Tell your team to claim that the grief has made it too hard to be in this house, or around our old friends, that I wanted some time away from the spotlight. In a year, everyone will forget I existed. So just let me do that. Move on. Without interference. The first time you show up at my door without an invitation, and I will be shopping around for the reporter who could blow this whole thing up.”
Bertram looked away for a long minute, brain racing around, before he turned back, lips almost twitching, like he was holding back a smile.
“I guess I underestimated you, Jennifer,” he said. “You could have been quite an asset.”
“Too bad I was some low-brow trailer trash, huh?” she asked, venom slipping from her lips. “If we have an agreement, Smith will see you out.”
When I came back in, she was sitting on the steps, body shaking.
“I’m sorry,” she said, voice small. “I know I shouldn’t have said… any of that.”
