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Did it really happen?
That night in the hotel, I’d lain awake, praying he’d knock on my door. I both wanted it and dreaded it. After he didn’t show, I felt disappointed. Our bond had been so instantaneous, so powerful—the opposite of what I have with Greg. I can’t even recall the last time Greg looked at me with such intensity... and I don’t know if he ever will again. Maybe I shouldn’t have squandered the opportunity.
But then I told myself, thankGodnothing happened. I have everything I want right here. Okay, so my husband and I had a truncated honeymoon phase. Greg and I got together during such a fraught—though terribly romantic—time, but it’s hard to keep those intense feelings up. I fell into Greg’s arms after my firsthusband died very young and very unexpectedly. Greg was a white knight on a steed. But I don’t need rescuing anymore.
Or perhaps our disillusionment with the marriage is because we didn’t vet one another properly before making a commitment. I was busy being the shocked and fragile widow, Greg was so good as the character of the admired hero... but those aren’t our real selves. Once we stripped off those costumes, maybe we weren’t as interesting to one another?
Still. I’m not giving up. Perhaps Greg and I just need a vacation alone, a better one than the trip we took to Barbados over the holidays. Maybe we need to take up a new hobby together. Or maybe I should push couples counseling again. I’d brought it up as recently as our Barbados trip, insisting that a friend from college had used a great therapist who was only a few blocks from our house. Greg’s reply had been “Oh great, we’d tell her all our problems and then see her out later at the local grocery store, buying toilet paper. No, thanks.”
I pick up a wedge of Gouda. Drop a box of crackers into my cart. Then my phone buzzes. I hope, irrationally, that it’s a text from Patrick—that he’s somehow found me. But it’s Amanda, my assistant.You need to see this.
Attached is a screen grab of the hack database I already know about—I was briefed about the Aldrich hack as soon as I got off the plane from Philly and have already met with the PR team to strategize talking points if I happen to be interviewed, as the university president’s daughter. On a server, for public consumption, are the inner lives of more than twenty thousand students like my daughter Sienna; administrators such as myself; athletes; my father, the president; and even students from years ago, like my first husband, Martin.
And speak of the devil... it’s Greg’s folder of e-mails that’s open. As a hospital employee, he is on the server, too. Several e-mails to someone named Lolita Bovary are circled.
I frown. I’ve already looked through Greg’s e-mails. I looked at my own, too, and Sienna’s, just to be sure there isn’t something I’m missing. But these e-mails are from Greg’s trash folder, which I hadn’t thought to open.
A second text pings in, and then a third. I squint at the new images Amanda has sent, not understanding what I’m reading. More e-mails are circled, dated as recently as a few months ago. They say things likeI want to bend you over on the MRI machine. I thought of you today and went into the bathroom to masturbate. You look so sexy in that short skirt. Do a dance for me, next time I see you.
These e-mails aren’t to me.
I sink against one of the cheese cases. The woman Greg is writing to signs her nameLolita.And she submits to him like a child.Thank you,she writes.I’m flattered. You’re so cute.She never has any requests of her own, but it’s clear she’s enjoying the attention.
Bile rises in my throat. I can’t believe this is happening.
Then I realize something else: Amanda wouldn’t have trolled for dirt on my husband. Someone sent this to her. Someonemade her aware.
“Mom? You okay?”
Aurora’s face is full of alarm. She so closely resembles Martin with her dark hair and her green eyes and pouty mouth—it’s like looking at a ghost. Before I can hide what I’ve read, her gaze falls to my phone screen. Her brow furrows. A vein in her neck pops.
I press my phone to my chest. “I’m fine.”
But Aurora’s skin has gone pale. It’s clear she saw Greg’s name in the address line. “Mom?” she asks, her voice hoarse. “Was that in the hack?”
I turn to a display of blue cheese, grab the biggest hunk, and drop it into my cart. I hate blue cheese. It will rot in our fridge for weeks. But I need a distraction from Aurora. I can’t look at her. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
My heart pounds as we go through the checkout line. I hold it together as I drive Aurora to school. She gives me a long, inquiring look before she gets out of the car, but I pretend to be very committed to a story about the economy on NPR. After she trudges into the school building, I speed out of the school parking lot and merge onto the highway, typing while driving.
Who knows about this?I write to Amanda with shaking hands.
Amanda’s reply bubble is meek and regretful, like it wants to blurt out what it knows and then run quickly away, don’t-shoot-the-messenger style:Everyone.
That night, I stand at the foot of the Aldrich University Natural History Museum stairs, gazing at the royal purple banner that announces the evening’s event. The night is everything I imagined when I put together the plans: It’s a beautiful, early spring sunset. Limos wait at the curb. The city twinkles magically. I pictured myself standing right here, hand in hand with Greg. I figured people would see an attractive woman in a slate-gray, low-cut silk gown that showed that, at thirty-nine, I’m still as fresh and beautiful as any undergrad, definitely too young to have a nineteen-year-old daughter. I imagined my glossy lips curving into a dazzling smile, and my husband giving me a lingering kiss at the corner of my mouth. It would be enough of a gesture to show everyone that our marriage is rock-solid, nothing to see here.
Now the only accurate prediction is the dress.
I glance once more at my reflection in my compact. Inside, I am trembling—raging, really—but I don’t have a hair out of place. I drop the compact back into my clutch, hold the hem of my gown, and start up the stairs alone... as though I meant to come solo all along.
“Mrs. Manning?” A guy stops me, and for a moment I think it’shim;I’ve been seeing Patrick ghosts everywhere. But this is a young kid in jeans, a black T-shirt. “Do you have a comment about thehack?” he asks. A reporter, then. He must recognize me as the president’s daughter.
“Nope,” I murmur, hurrying past.
“Have you been in touch with any of the universities that were targeted?” another voice dogs me. “Any idea who’s behind it?”
I duck my head.If I knew that,don’t you think I’d have already done something about it?
But Kit Manning-Strasser does not bark at journalists. I duck my head and push through the door, where, thankfully, the reporters aren’t welcome. My chest buzzes. At least the reporter didn’t ask about Greg’s e-mails. He’s practically the only person who hasn’t.
