“It wasn’t awful,” Josie interrupted.
“And I drank so much Coke that I felt hyper. I kept having to use the bathroom.”
“I don’t even remember that,” Josie said.
“What do you remember?”
This was something they were working on in couples therapy: they were striving to ask each other honest questions, to relearn each other.
“I remember you giving me your gloves when we walked to get a drink after the movie because I’d forgotten mine,” she said.
She also remembered a thought she’d had during the movie. But she wasn’t ready to tell Frank what it was yet.
• • •
They had agreed they would not have sex. Since Frank had moved back into the house the previous week, they’d shared a bed, but they hadn’t gone beyond cuddling.
After dinner, Josie changed into her pajamas in the bathroom, feeling a little shy. She and Frank hadn’t seen each other undressed in months.
When she came back into the bedroom, Frank was standing by the foot of the bed, holding something in his hand.
She approached and saw what it was: a velvet jewelry box.
“I know you took off your wedding ring,” Frank said. His voice was trembling. “And I didn’t want you to put that one back on. I wanted us to have new rings. I want us to have a new marriage.”
He opened the box to reveal two simple rose-gold bands, one thicker than the other, nestled together in a single slot.
“Is it okay?” Frank asked.
By way of an answer, she reached for his and slid it onto his finger. Then she lifted her hand so that he could mirror the gesture.
• • •
She had been so afraid to sleep with her husband again. She’d thought it would take months, that they would redevelop the physical side of their relationship gradually. But when Frank climbed under the covers with her and held her in his arms, what she feared most—that Dana would intrude—never happened. Josie and Frank were utterly alone in the room. He kept looking into her eyes as his hand stroked her hair. It felt to Josie like perhaps the most intimate moment they’d ever shared.
She was the one who leaned in for the first kiss. She was the one who reached for his T-shirt and tugged it off, then guided his hand to her top button. His body and touch felt both familiar and unfamiliar to her.
Afterward, she lay with her head on his chest, his arms encircling her, his steady heartbeat lulling her to sleep.
* * *
Chapter Thirty
* * *
Seventeen years earlier
ON THE MORNING AFTER they met at the party, Frank called Josie at eight o’clock.
The sharp peal of the phone didn’t awaken her, even though she hadn’t gone to sleep until two in the morning. She’d been lying there, remembering the handstands and milkshakes and Frank’s warm lips.
“Is it too early to call?” She’d laughed, because Frank was whispering. “I just wondered if you’d like to go to a movie tonight.”
He picked her up at seven. He wore jeans and a dark blue jacket. His hair was a little messy, as if he’d run a hand through it. She’d spent the day cleaning her apartment, doing laundry, and running errands, propelled by a gust of energy that she knew stemmed from her excitement over the night’s possibilities.
“Wow,” Frank said when he walked into the tiny living area of her one-bedroom. “It even smells good in here.”
She’d laughed again and offered him a beer, but they decided to get a drink after the movie instead, because it was starting soon. He’d waited while she locked up, then they’d walked out together into the night. By the time they reached the theater, they were holding hands.
The movie they saw was Hope Floats. The film had been out for a few years, but neither of them had caught it the first time around. It was playing at the same theater where Josie would see La La Land years later, the one that revived popular movies a few years after their release.
Josie adored Sandra Bullock and had loved nearly every film she’d starred in. Frank bought them a huge tub of popcorn and what he called a “bucket o’ Coke” with two straws. The theater wasn’t crowded, and they found two seats right in the middle.
The movie opened with Sandra’s character going on a talk show, thinking she was about to get a makeover. Instead, she was ambushed by the news that her husband had been having an affair with her best friend.
The snarky talk show host was telling a stunned-looking Sandra that her best friend didn’t want to hurt her. “So much for a light comedy,” Frank whispered.
Then the camera cut to the young actress who played Sandra’s daughter, sitting in the front row of the audience, sobbing behind her thick glasses as she learned her family was imploding.
Frank exhaled loudly.
“How could they do that to her?” he muttered.
“To Sandra?” Josie whispered.
“No,” Frank said. “To the kid. Why isn’t anyone comforting her?”
And Josie had thought, I want this guy to be the father of my children.
* * *
Chapter Thirty-One
* * *
Six months later
“DON’T START DREAMING UP projects or we’ll never get out of here,” Josie warned.
“See you in two hours,” Frank cracked as he got out of the minivan.
“One extension cord!” Josie called after him. “That’s all you’re authorized to buy.”
She looked in the backseat. Izzy was asleep, her head lolling to the side. Zoe was engrossed in a book.
Then she turned back to watch Frank disappear into the store, a dark-haired guy in a T-shirt and khaki shorts, looking younger than his forty-one years. Indistinguishable from the other fathers and husbands streaming into the Home Depot.
Frank had left the car running because it was so warm outside that they needed the air-conditioning. The radio played softly.
The song “Before He Cheats” by Carrie Underwood came on. Josie instinctively reached to turn the knob to another station.
Reminders were everywhere, still. Frank said they existed for him, too. Some Josie was able to move through. She’d gone into Starbucks for coffee several times in the past month. Others were proving more difficult to navigate.
Frank left his iPhone on the dresser every night now. He never took it into the bathroom, either. Josie checked it whenever she felt the urge; that was part of their new agreement.
Maybe the reminders weren’t such a bad thing, Josie thought. They were like the scar she had on her knee from when she’d been a child and had been running too fast, not looking where she was going.
She thought about what had happened that morning, when the girls had piled into their bed. “Family hug!” Frank had said, reaching around to grab Josie, smushing the girls in between them.
She thought about what had happened last night, when Frank’s iPhone had buzzed as they’d sat on the couch watching Modern Family. Josie had physically jolted. Frank had picked up his phone off the end table and held it out quickly. “It’s from my brother. Stu.” She’d nodded, but a few seconds later she’d eased out from beneath Frank’s arm and had gotten up to refill her mug of tea. She’d needed a moment away from Frank.
“Do you think you’ll stay with him?” Karin had asked when they’d gone for a walk a few days earlier.
“Yes,” Josie had answered. “As long as . . .”
“As long as he doesn’t cheat again?” Karin had filled in when Josie didn’t continue.
Josie had nodded, but that wasn’t what she had meant. It wasn’t that simple. As long as things stay different, she’d thought. As long as we keep on truly knowing each other.
It was astonishing, how you could become entwined with someone, sharing a bedroom and a life, without truly being intimate.
“I’m bored,” Zoe complained. “Where’s Daddy?”
“Look.” Josie pointed.
Frank was holding up the white looped exten
sion cord, pumping his arm like he was a prizefighter raising a trophy. He was grinning.
“He’s coming,” Josie said. She found herself smiling back at Frank. “See? He’s coming back to us.”
* * *
Acknowledgments
* * *
Most authors send manuscripts to early readers for critiques before turning the books into their editors. This has traditionally been my practice, too. But The Ever After had only one reader from its inception to the final manuscript: Sarah Cantin. Although Sarah has been involved with my books since my debut, this is the first one she has edited. Her strength and sensitivity—both personally and professionally—didn’t just improve this novel, they made it possible.
As always, I’m deeply grateful to my wonderful agent, Victoria Sanders, and her team—Bernadette Baker-Baughman and Jessica Spivey.
At Atria Books, I’m thankful for the tireless work of my smart, funny publicist Ariele Fredman, as well as to the lovely Judith Curr, Suzanne Donahue, Lisa Sciambra, Chelsea Cohen, Ann Pryor, Jackie Jou, Albert Tang, Yona Deshommes, and Paul Olsewski. And a special shout-out to Haley Weaver.
My thanks to my wonderfully supportive and loving family: Nana and Johnny; Robert, Saadia, and Sophia; and Ben, Tammi, and Billy.
To my three boys—Jackson, Will, and Dylan—thank you for putting up with a mom who mutters to herself when she writes and occasionally veers abruptly to the side of the road to scribble something in the notebook she keeps tucked in the car’s console. You three are my heart.
• • •
There’s one final person who should be acknowledged here, but I don’t know her name. We’ve never met. Her story was the inspiration for this book.
It began with an overheard conversation in a coffee shop.
Two women, seated at the booth behind mine, were loudly discussing the plight of an acquaintance who had received a text from her husband—a text intended for another woman.
The story that unfurled over the next few minutes was transfixing: There were code names involved, to shield the participants in the affair. Hidden restaurant receipts. Fake business trips. The extent of the seemingly loving husband’s subterfuge was stunning. But the most shocking piece—at least to me—was that the wronged wife didn’t collapse into grief, or throw her husband’s belongings out a window.
Instead, she transformed into a detective.
She became determined to piece together every last detail of the affair, to decipher the extent of her husband’s deception.
This book began to bloom in my mind immediately.
In the past, a husband or wife who had reason to suspect infidelity might seek out a private investigator. Today, the same technology that allows cheating spouses to conduct an affair in the shadows—burner phones, social media passwords, dating apps—can be utilized as tools to uncover evidence of the same.
Statistics indicate that an affair occurs in one of every three marriages—and the real number may be higher. In The Ever After, after hearing how often infidelity is an issue for her physician’s patients, my main character, Josie, thinks to herself, “It really was an epidemic.” The line is fictional, but the facts informing it are not.
Writing this book felt markedly different than my previous novels. Perhaps it’s because, as a former investigative journalist, I was able to exercise specific narrative muscles I’d long ago retired. It could also be because I—like you—know many people who have suffered the consequences of an affair. Often, they involve the last people you’d suspect. The story behind the unraveling of my characters’ marriage is both universal and unique. As are their emotions.
I hope that Josie’s story will provide an inside glimpse of this largely secret epidemic and its aftershocks. As for me, I still think about the anonymous woman whose entire world shattered as she glanced down at her phone to read an incoming text from her husband. Maybe they underwent therapy and recommitted to their marriage. Maybe she left. But I hope that whatever fork in the road she chose, it was one that will lead her, eventually, toward a second chance at a happily ever after.
The Ever After
SARAH PEKKANEN
A Reading Group Guide
This reading group guide for The Ever After includes discussion questions and ideas for enhancing your book club. The suggested questions are intended to help your reading group find new and interesting angles and topics for your discussion. We hope that these ideas will enrich your conversation and increase your enjoyment of the book.
* * *
Topics and Questions for Discussion
* * *
1. Josie quickly taps into latent detective abilities in order to discover the full extent of her husband’s deception. If you realized a romantic partner had lied to you, would you also try to find out everything that had happened? How difficult do you think it would be to track down all the information you’d want?
2. When Karin confesses her own infidelity to Josie, she says, “It became an affair the moment I answered his text. The moment we created a secret”. Do you agree? If so, would you feel differently if it had never escalated to physical contact? What do you think constitutes an affair?
3. How did your opinion of Frank change over the course of the book? Were you able to sympathize with him?
4. When confronted about his emails with Dana, Frank initially says it was “just flirting,” which he amends to “only kissing” when pressed on the issue. How important do you feel the specific physical acts that transpired are, as opposed to the betrayal of trust and acts of deception? Why does Frank think it will be less upsetting if he minimizes how far he went with Dana? Do you think it would be more or less hurtful to Josie if Frank had slept with Dana, but only seen her on one occasion?
5. In the wake of Frank’s affair, Josie’s instinct is to “make him feel the same sort of agony” that she is experiencing. At times, she expresses the desire to physically hurt him, or to have her own affair simply to even the score. Given the circumstances, was she justified in wanting revenge? In what situations is it okay to wish someone else pain, or to make petty choices?
6. In chapter twenty-one, Josie recalls the memory of when she first realized her parents hid things from her and lied. In the same moment, she experiences a shift in her own relationship to honest communication, recalling how “she’d joined in their game of pretend. She had become a faker, too”. What is the significance of this memory for Josie, and how does it relate to her present-day life?
7. Josie asserts that she may be able to reconcile with Frank, on the condition that she could “make sure that this was the only time” he had an affair. At the end of the book, do you feel confident that Frank’s affair with Dana was his first and only time cheating on Josie? Why or why not?
8. Amanda theorizes that Frank may have—subconsciously—gotten caught on purpose. Do you believe this was the case? If so, do you think it was because he wanted to confess but didn’t know how, as Amanda reasons, or did he have another motivation for sabotaging himself?
9. Josie insists that she doesn’t want to fall back into her marriage because “she didn’t know how to be without Frank, or out of guilt because of the children”. Nevertheless, throughout the novel it is evident that their daughters, Zoe and Izzy, are one of Josie’s primary considerations in choosing whether to give Frank a second chance. Do you think staying in a marriage just to protect the children is ever a good idea? Why or why not?
10. Josie is ultimately convinced that Frank never had feelings for Dana. If he had cared for Dana, would that change how you understand what he did? If so, in what ways?
11. Through therapy, Frank and Josie both uncover the impact their childhoods and relationships with their families had on their own attitudes and communication styles. Do you think their separation will have a lasting impact on Izzy and Zoe, and if so, what will that impact be?
* * *
Enhance Your Book Club
* * *
1. Although Dana is a key
character in The Ever After, we see only the briefest glimpse of her and her husband, Ron, and never in person. Yet they are dealing with parallel circumstances to Josie and Frank. Write a scene from the perspective of Dana or Ron. In what ways might their experience be distinct from what we saw Josie go through? Has Dana cheated before? Has Ron? What does their marriage look like? Does Ron truly believe the version of events that Dana tells him? How does Dana feel about her affair with Frank? Consider these or any other questions about their side of the story as you write, and share your piece with your reading group.
2. As a result of the variety of definitions of infidelity, it can be challenging for researchers to study or get a sense of how pervasive it is. Nevertheless, it remains a subject many psychologists and sociologists are compelled to learn more about. Take a look online at some articles on the subject from recent years, such as www.businessinsider.com/science-of-cheating-2017-8. Did any findings surprise you? Discuss with your group.
3. Consider reading one of Sarah Pekkanen’s other novels, such as The Perfect Neighbors, Things You Won’t Say, Skipping a Beat, or her cowritten novel, The Wife Between Us, for your group’s next meeting. You can also connect with Sarah Pekkanen on Facebook and Twitter, and learn more about Sarah’s books or invite her to Skype your book club by visiting www.sarahpekkanen.com.
Want more Sarah Pekkanen?
A smart, funny, and poignant debut novel about the desire to have it all, the relationships that define us, and the complicated, irreplaceable bonds of sisterhood.
The Opposite of Me
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The Ever After Page 24
