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Inside, among a backdrop of dinosaur bones, paintings of woolly mammoths, and plaques heralding Arthur Aldrich, the nineteenth-century railroad baron, for funding paleontological digs all over the world, the party has begun. The student waitstaff looks presentable enough in their tuxedos, despite their Technicolor hair and stretched-out earlobes. I look around at the guests. People are drinking and laughing, but many look...off.They keep worriedly glancing at their phones—it’s obvious why. I want to tell them for the love of God to juststop.
“Kit, darling!” Judge Packard and his wife, Johanna, approach, breaking me from my spiraling memory. I straighten up—these are some of my biggest donors, and I need to focus. I give the Packards a convincing smile and, as they move forward to kiss my cheeks, I can smell that the judge has had a couple of vodkas already.
“Lovely party,” the judge says, the ice cubes in his drink clinking noisily.
“Such a fun locale!” Johanna agrees. “I haven’t been here since my kids were little. Where’s your gorgeous husband?”
I curl my toes.Way to be subtle.“Greg couldn’t make it,” I say brightly. “He’s not feeling well.”
“Really? What a shame...”
There’s a feisty, don’t-bullshit-a-bullshitter expression onJohanna’s face. So Johanna knows. She must have read the e-mails—for some reason, Greg’s e-mails to Lolita, along with a few other sordid gems, made it onto a “Worst of Aldrich University” post on Facebook. It’s likely no one else outside our universe cares—though I can bet money that Harvard, Princeton, and Brown have put together their own “worst of” lists—but everyone around here definitely knows everything.
I went straight home after dropping Aurora off at school because I knew Greg didn’t have surgery scheduled until later. I found him in the kitchen, reading a recent issue ofGolf.He barely looked up as I approached. It’s a sharp contrast to how he used to greet me: springing effusively from his chair, peppering me with kisses, sometimes even sweeping me into the bedroom.
“I read those messages of yours in the hack,” I said in a dark voice to him. “Care to explain who Lolita is?”
Greg’s face clouded. His eyes lowered. “If you must know, I’ve never seen those e-mails before today.”
If I must know?It’s suddenly aprivilegeto be let in on a husband’s dalliances? “They werein your deleted mail. Of course you saw them.”
“Someone must have hacked me. Planted them there. Honestly, Kit, I have no idea.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I could lose my job because of this.”
His voice sounded plaintive—even afraid. But his eyes blinked rapidly, something that always happened when he was in a bind.He’s lying.I thought of the last e-mail I read from Lolita:Don’t shut me out.The only thing getting me through this quotidian existence is you.Greg didn’t even write her back. Had he broken it off with her? Had heghostedher? Should I feel sorry for this woman? Is she even age appropriate?
Quivering with rage, I told Greg not to come to the gala. I wanted it to bemydecision, not his. Then I went upstairs. Greg didn’t follow. He didn’t try to defend himself, prove to me he hadn’t written the e-mails. When I went downstairs again, he was locked in his office, on the phone. My first thought was:He’s calling her.But hewas probably on the phone with his boss, the chief of surgery at the hospital. He was probably trying to save his position.
Now I wonder if I’ve made the wrong choice in letting Greg stay home tonight—it’s as if I’ve given him a gift. It would be satisfying to see him squirm. For Johanna Packard to askhimher questions. Forhimto suffer some of the whispers and looks instead of me.
A hand touches my shoulder. My father, the Aldrich University president, looks dapper in his tuxedo—he’s whittled off his belly in the past few months, probably due to one of the exercise fads he’s always trying. If I were in a better mental state, I’d ask him which one it was. “Oh.” I feel my throat catch. I was hoping Dad wouldn’t be here, considering the hack. Then again, maybe he’s showed up because he doesn’t want to spook our donors. “Dad. Hey.”
My father gives Johanna Packard his million-watt smile, which seems to have some kind of voodoo effect on women of a certain age. “I realize Kit’s probably in the middle of a grand speech, but may I borrow her for a moment?”
Already a few paces away, Dad turns back, raising one eyebrow at me as if to say,You’re coming. All around me the volume is beginning to rise, and I catch snippets of conversation. One man waves a supersize iPhone at his wife. “How long has this been going on?” A robust man has his own iPhone pressed to his ear. “Do you realize those pictures are now on apublic website?”
I feel worse with every step. Why hadn’t I asked Patrick’s last name? Why hadn’t I woken up when he did and followed him down to the lobby? If only I could call him right now, hear his voice, escape this nightmare...
My father stops at a reproduction of a prehistoric crocodile and gives me a stern, almost reproachful look. “So where’s your husband?”
Your husband.He can’t even say Greg’s name. I work hard to keep my shoulders back. “I told him not to come.”
“I see.”
I wave to the Lowrys, another Big Fish couple, across the room as a way of distraction. “So has the IT team shut down that Planett page yet?” I then ask my father. “What’s the status on getting the systems up and running? The donors are freaking out.”
Dad’s eyes narrow. “I’m handling it. Don’t worry.” Then he sighs. Shakes his head in shame. “I just can’t believe he’ddothis to you, Kitty.”
I nod. I play the role of the humiliated, gutted, heartbroken woman. But there’s more to how I feel than just that. As the hours go on, a new feeling has supplanted my heartbreak. Knowing what I know, I should have fucked Patrick all night. I should have had a grand time, the best sex of my life. And I would have been way more discreet about it, too. I wouldn’t have put it on my goddamne-mail.It’s bad enough that Greg cheated, but he’d cheated so foolishly, so sloppily, almost like he wanted to get caught and humiliate his family.
Now everyone will think our marriage is a sham. People will feel sorry for me. They’ll whisper speculations about why Greg strayed. My daughters might even get drawn into the gossip. People might dig up how Greg and I met, how that connected to my first husband. They’ll think,Well, well, well,isn’tthatironic?
“Kit? Hey! Kit!”
It’s Lynn Godfrey, my coworker. Tonight, she wears a sleeveless, floor-sweeping red dress and five-inch pumps, and her white-blond hair is piled on top of her head in a French twist. She waves at me from across the room as though we’re old friends, though I’m certain Lynn is brimming with schadenfreude—she definitely knows about Greg’s e-mails. It wasn’t lost on me how bitter Lynn felt when I got to go to Philadelphia to attend toherclients.
I murmur an excuse to my father that I have to go. Then I cross the room to Lynn. She’s watching me, holding two filled martini glasses.
“Got this for you.” She proffers one of the cocktails as I approach. “It looks like you need it.”
