More deceit, she thought, suddenly feeling ill. Luke noticed the subtle change in her and apologized.
“I’m sorry, baby.” He stood to give her a hug. She acquiesced, happy to have avoided further confrontation. She felt an unexpected wave of comfort come over her—it was quickly washed away by guilt.
CHAPTER 36
Olivia
Aside from avoiding Spencer by feigning “the worst period in the history of periods,” Olivia spent the next few days trying her best to unravel all of the lies that had come before. To try and put a timeline together of just when the affair had started.
Olivia had conferred with Andie Rand again. Even though this affair was now a sure thing, physical evidence was needed if she wanted to overturn their prenup. The best form of proof would be a picture of the two of them together. It would be a tough thing to get because a photo of them running together would be just that, a photo of them running together. If she really wanted proof, the photo needed to be intimate.
A plan to catch him in the act had been hatched over margaritas at Eliza’s and was to be executed over Thanksgiving weekend. Olivia told Spencer that she had to go to Miami with her parents to visit her grandmother, with the excuse that her grandmother wasn’t doing well and she wanted her to spend time with Lily. She knew it would go uncontested, as there was no missing a York Thanksgiving for Spencer. She also knew that Spencer would jump at the chance to copulate with his mistress in every room in their house. It was exactly what he had told Olivia when they first looked through the blueprints: “Six thousand square feet of places to fuck!” he had proclaimed. He rarely spoke that way around her, since he knew she hated it. She hated the word “fuck,” vastly preferred “making love” or even the British slang “shagging.” She wasn’t a prude, but she just wasn’t turned on by vulgarity. She wondered if Ashley was, if she yelled out dirty words when they were having sex. Did Ashley Smith fill a need of Spencer’s that she didn’t? When she shared those self-deprecating thoughts with her new crew, their responses blew her away.
“It has nothing to do with you,” and “I hate to tell you this, but I doubt this is the first time he’s cheated.”
It had never entered her mind that this wasn’t his only affair, that it was possible he had been unfaithful before. It was so hard to believe, until suddenly it wasn’t.
Olivia thought back to an incident that happened before they were married, a drunken night with his frat brothers when they talked rather disgustingly of passing around a girl they referred to as “Motel Michele” during their last year of college.
“Spencer checked in first,” one of them joked. “And last,” another chimed in.
She saw Spencer shoot the guy a look, “a shut the hell up” kind of look. She asked him about it later. He insisted, “I shot him a look because it wasn’t true. I would never cheat on you, baby.”
She chose not to question him further. The invitations for their wedding were already in the mail. She reprimanded herself for it now and swore never to stick her head in the sand again. She was so angry about this ruse of a life. She thought about the fool she was, and all of those friends of his, knowing what a shit he was on one hand while toasting their wedding vows with the other. Their girlfriends probably knew as well; the Becks did for sure. She’d counted them as her friends, too.
Lily reached up to her with her dimpled little hands, batting her lilac eyes. Olivia was so in love with this baby girl. She hoped it would dissipate the bitterness. You have your beautiful baby. You have your integrity. You have your whole life ahead of you. She begged herself to think better, not bitter. It was all so brutal.
Olivia began her investigation of Spencer’s affair by checking her past Open Table reservations to see when they had had their forced double date at the little Greek restaurant on Madison Avenue. She would forever think of that place as an integral scene in her Greek tragedy, as opposed to how she’d thought of it before—the place with the yummy lamb meatballs and spicy grilled octopus. Open Table had the reservation listed at one month before her due date; but clearly, at that point, Spencer and Ashley were quite familiar with each other. She jumped forward in her mind to the day that Lily was born, the night really, as she came into the world a little before three o’clock in the morning. Was there any sign that it was going on then?
She desperately wanted to think not, as she ran the evening over in her head. Spencer was present and focused throughout the entire birth experience, from what she could recall. She wasn’t exactly focusing on him.
Then she remembered: She remembered the one odd thing that occurred at the hospital, and as she did, tears stung her eyes.
She had drifted to sleep soon after they arrived in her room, and Spencer had kissed her atop her head and said, “Get some sleep. I’m going to get some air, pick us up some bagels and good coffee.”
About an hour or so later the nurse wheeled Lily’s little bassinet into the room. They had teased her thick patch of jet-black hair into a mock pompadour. Olivia laughed thinking about the fun the nurses must’ve had with Lily’s unusually abundant newborn locks. She had gingerly propped herself up to greet her baby.
“She looks like Elvis!” Olivia had exclaimed.
The nurse laughed as she placed Lily in Olivia’s arms. “That’s exactly what your sister-in-law said!”
“My sister-in-law is on a business trip in China,” Olivia replied, not thinking much about it.
“I must be confused,” the nurse answered, adding, “I haven’t slept much.”
In retrospect, thought Olivia, the nurse wasn’t confused. Spencer had brought that woman to see her baby and passed her off as his sister. In fact, she had seen her baby before her own family did. He couldn’t be that cruel, could he? But then she remembered that he had bought a house and moved them out of the city to be near his mistress.
She took a break from thinking, crawled back into her bed, and cried. The rain crashing against the windows could barely drown out her sobs. I can’t do this for a second more, she thought. I’ll manage without the money.
She logged on to the Hudson Valley Ladies’ Bulletin Board and wrote a post. She didn’t think about it, didn’t weigh one word over another; she just wrote. She closed her laptop, crawled back under the covers, and went back to sleep.
CHAPTER 37
Eliza & Olivia & Alison & Amanda
Eliza woke up with what felt like a hangover, except that she didn’t drink. She wanted to go out to her desk and spy for Olivia, wanted to turn on her computer and approve posts for the bulletin board, but today the thought of getting out from under the covers made her anxious. I’m getting worse, she thought. It frightened her. The longer she stayed inside, the scarier the outside world became. She was dressed in layers upon layers of clothing, a pair of underwear and a sports bra under her flannel pajamas. On top of it a long cardigan sweater covered the dried-up blood that she hadn’t bothered to wash off of her arm where she had deliberately cut it the night before. The weather report quoted unusually high temperatures for this time of year. Even the rain didn’t cool it down.
Luke was beginning to notice that her behavior was, at the very least, strange. The previous night, upon seeing her layers, he’d asked her, “Are you feeling OK, honey?”
“I’m fine,” she’d answered blankly.
He reached over and put the back of his hand on her forehead to see if it felt warm. She jumped a good foot in the air.
“I’m sorry, you startled me,” she said. Poor Luke, the most loving man she’d ever known, couldn’t even touch his wife’s forehead. It might be the time to tell him that I can’t leave the house, she thought, but they were both so tired, and she knew that he had to perform an early root canal the next morning. How can I bring it up now? It never felt like the right time.
What she didn’t know was that he wanted to delve deeper, to ask his wife what was going on. There
had been hardly any intimacy between them all summer. He thought she was depressed because the kids had left. He felt it, too. He thought he should just give her time, not make her feel worse by throwing his needs into the mix, but it seemed like more than that. She literally jumped at the touch of his hand. And it hadn’t been the first time. Last week when he reached behind her and rubbed her shoulders, an act that usually caused her to lean in, she recoiled.
Eliza shut her eyes in an effort to go back to sleep, to cut her long, lonely day by an hour or two. She drifted off, but soon found herself in the middle of a nightmare. She opened her eyes wide, hoping to expel the awful images of her dream from her head. The pain that was once encapsulated in her memory felt as if it had metastasized and was now spreading throughout every cell in her body. She got out of bed with the feeling that no place was safe, went down to the kitchen, and put a pod of Kona coffee in the Keurig. She was thankful again for the bulletin board, thankful for the distraction.
Sitting at her desk, sipping her coffee, she looked out across the lawn to her neighbors’ house. It looked like no one was home; their cars were not in the driveway. She turned her attention toward the bulletin board. Truffles Goldstein, the shepherd/retriever mix, was still missing. She wondered if he were to run by her window right then, if she would have the courage to go after him. She doubted it. Just yesterday she noticed a woman in a blue sedan idling outside her house. From where Eliza stood it looked like she was crying. Her gut told her it was another situation like the distressed patient at Luke’s office. How many women had she spooked? She wanted to go outside and say “Can I help you?”; she even put on her sneakers, but she couldn’t do it.
At least, according to the comments on the board Truffles was thankfully alive and well.
I believe I saw the missing dog at the playground in Memorial Park. I called out his name, but he took off.
Truffles spotted at the parking lot behind the dry cleaners this morning. No luck catching him.
And today from the Goldsteins themselves, still desperate to get Truffles back:
Remember if you see Truffles, yell “Treat!” And don’t look Truffles in the eye. He’s very skittish. Thank you for helping to bring our boy home!
Eliza reattached the picture of Truffles, hoping to keep him fresh in people’s minds. She was a bit behind in approving new members and posts. She began with the posts. The first one she saw made her feel completely out of touch with this generation of mothers. As she read it, she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
My two-year-old is showing innate musicality. He is constantly banging things and I notice a distinct beat. Can anyone recommend the best drum set for preschoolers?
She wanted to suggest two wooden spoons and some pots but refrained. Last week a mother of a three-year-old was looking for a math tutor. She couldn’t wait for the comments. In her head she imagined a barrage of “What, are you crazy? Let a kid be a kid! Math for a three-year-old?” But, to her surprise, people responded with names of tutors and computer programs. She thought back to the torture of flash cards and times tables with the twins, and that was in elementary school. These poor babies, she thought. Maybe she was a dinosaur. Maybe those Valley Girls were right.
She was ready to give up and crawl back into bed, this time in front of a movie or a reality show, when the next post demanded her attention:
Dear Anonymous Adulteress,
I know who you are. We met when I was pregnant. What kind of woman sleeps with a pregnant woman’s husband? I’m coming to get you!
Anonymous Wife
“Oh my God,” Eliza said out loud. She wondered if she should call Alison or Olivia herself. She decided on Alison. Within a half hour, her doorbell rang. These women don’t believe in the phone, she thought as she looked in the mirror to see if she was in any way presentable. She looked like a hot mess.
“One second!” she yelled, whipping off her sweater and pajama top and throwing on a somewhat cleaner Wisco sweatshirt. A little better, she hoped. She answered the door with a smile and her best attempt at self-deprecating humor, “Would you believe I woke up like this?”
Olivia looked worse than she did, even with all of her youth and beauty. This poor girl, she thought. Both she and Alison had their babies with them; they were carrying them in their car seats as if they were baskets of fruit. Both had fallen asleep on the drive over. Eliza looked down at the sleeping infants and thought of her own babies at that age. Right there at arm’s reach, able to control everything and everyone they interacted with. She longed for those days.
“Do you want some coffee?” she asked, with a motherly smile.
They both nodded and followed her into the kitchen. Eliza pulled some homemade mini blueberry muffins out of the freezer and threw them in the microwave. She reached out to Mandy and before long they were all sitting around the kitchen table commiserating with Olivia.
“Is Ashley Smith even on the bulletin board?” Amanda asked Eliza, after hearing what was going on.
“Yes. She joined the morning after my first post. She probably checks the comments all the time—I would, if I were her.”
They all nodded in agreement.
“What are you hoping to achieve with this post?” Amanda came right out and asked Olivia, adding, “From the two minutes I’ve known you, I know you’re not going to really get her.”
“Maybe I am,” Olivia said, unconvincingly. They could all see she was barely able to eat her muffin, let alone go next door and pummel Ashley Smith.
“Alison could defend me. Temporary insanity.”
“One can only hope it’s temporary,” Eliza added, thinking more about herself than Olivia.
“I know you all want me to be strategic and wait this out, but I’m done. Every day I feel more damaged. I can’t take care of Lily like this. I feel like she senses it.” She looked around Eliza’s suburban kitchen and continued. “I thought I was going to have all of this.” She pulled a family photo from a high school lacrosse game off the fridge. “I came here for this storyline.”
It threw Eliza. This pretty young girl wanted to be her. She wanted to have her seemingly perfect life. She felt like a fraud.
“It’s not all rainbows and butterflies, Olivia.”
“I know that—I was prepared for storms and termites, but not this. This is too much.”
Alison steered the conversation away from sentiment and toward reality. “Just let me call Andie Rand to see where you stand with the proof you have right now. Please?”
“Fine. But it doesn’t mean I’ll listen. I can’t lie next to this man anymore. I need to confront him.”
Alison called Andie, who, she reported, was in a meeting.
“Let’s wait for her to call back. You’ve waited this long.”
Olivia stood so dramatically that it almost made them laugh.
“I’m done with this! Eliza, please post my post!”
Eliza looked to Alison for direction. Alison threw out, “Let’s at least make sure Ashley is home.”
“She’s not. I saw her drive off about an hour ago.”
“Why does that even matter?” Olivia protested.
“Because maybe this post will smoke them out. Put yourself in her shoes. What would you do if you were home and read it?”
“I’d get the hell out,” Mandy interjected.
Eliza agreed, but added, “Me too, but I would probably call Spencer first.”
Olivia began to get her mojo back. “And Spencer will probably call me to suss out what’s going on.”
“Exactly! So, if that happens, you won’t answer your phone, and then, hopefully he will come here to save Ashley or to calm Ashley.”
“Or to fuck Ashley.” As the words rolled off Olivia’s tongue, they left a bitter taste.
“On the bright side, that would make for the best photograph!” Eliza pointed out, adding, “L
et’s sit by the window in the living room and wait for her to come home. Then I will post it.” She realized that it was best for Olivia to be in control. “Does that sound smart to you?”
“OK. I’ve waited this long,” she agreed. Olivia popped a muffin in her mouth, and the women smiled at her newfound strength.
They fed and burped the babies, a wonderful distraction, with Eliza and Mandy begging to take a turn, and Alison and Olivia happily relinquishing control. Sitting among this newly formed friend group felt inspiring to Eliza: The beauty of women who didn’t know each other very well having one another’s backs simply because of the sisterhood. On one side of her sat Mandy, whose personal life was front-page news, and on the other, Olivia, who may as well have been standing there naked, she had exposed herself to them so fully. It made Eliza feel like a sham. She wanted to come clean and finally release the secret that had been tucked away in the depths of her soul for so long. In the end, she was too afraid, and only admitted to her agoraphobia without divulging its hideous cause.
“I have crippling anxiety. I don’t leave the house,” she blurted out.
Her admission was met by two stares and an encouraging pat on the back from Mandy. She continued. “Since the twins’ graduation, I’ve been consumed with fear whenever I try to go out. I’ve gained weight and I hardly bother showering. I barely recognize myself.” It wasn’t entirely true. She did recognize herself: She was the same girl from those four awful months of high school.
They all looked at her sympathetically. Mandy with tears in her eyes.
“Did something trigger it?” Alison asked. She was very familiar with agoraphobia; she had used it as a defense in a murder case. Eliza panicked. She should have realized that these women would want to get to the bottom of her problems. Luckily for her, Ashley Smith provided a diversion.
Eliza Starts a Rumor Page 21
