It's Always the Husband

by Michele Campbell

  Aubrey shook her head. “After the way they betrayed me, that’s not enough. I’m so angry at both of them. How could I have been so blind?”

  “You like to see the best in people.”

  “You mean I’m a fool.”

  Jenny sighed. “Well, I’m glad you’re finally seeing Kate for who she is. I’m not only talking about this affair, but—” Jenny glanced over her shoulder, then walked over and closed the sliding glass door. “You know what I’m talking about. There’s a reporter from the Register out there looking for Kate right now. I’m worried about what he wants with her.”

  Aubrey focused on Jenny as if noticing her presence for the first time. Her eyes narrowed. “You mean, the reporter wants to ask Kate about—about freshman year?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but that’s what I’m afraid of. We can’t have that mess getting dredged up again, not now.”

  Aubrey picked up the glass of water and took a careful sip. Her eyes looked clearer suddenly. “Why not? Maybe that’s exactly what Kate deserves.”

  “What? You can’t be serious.”

  “Think about it for a minute. If we told people what really happened that night, Kate would be in big trouble. The police would get involved. She might even go to jail.” A nasty smile appeared on Aubrey’s face.

  “That’s crazy. You can’t do that,” Jenny said. She started to tremble.

  “Why not?”

  “We can’t change our story now. You were her biggest defender, Aubrey. You always said it wasn’t her fault. You’ve been saying that for twenty years.”

  “Just because I change my story doesn’t mean I was lying before. Maybe I was wrong before. Maybe I remembered something new.”

  “No. If you tell anyone, or God forbid, go to the police, it will come back on us. We were both there that night. We both gave statements.”

  “Maybe I don’t care about the consequences.”

  “I do. I’m the mayor of Belle River. I have a family, a business to run. I can’t afford a scandal.”

  “I have things to protect, too.”

  “Okay, but—” Jenny paused, deciding how much to reveal. There was an angry, stubborn set to Aubrey’s jaw. If Jenny didn’t take a risk and tell her what was really at stake here, Aubrey might be crazy enough to go public. She couldn’t allow that.

  “Aubrey, listen. There’s more to this than some old college scandal. I never told Tim the truth about what happened that night. If you change your story now, it could mess up my marriage in a big way.”

  “You never told Tim the truth?”

  “No.”

  “How could you keep it from him? Wasn’t Lucas his cousin?”

  “Yes. That’s exactly why I never told him.”

  Aubrey looked at Jenny with pain in her eyes.

  “I’m sorry, Jenny. I really am. But I’m tired of being played for a fool. I simply can’t do it anymore. I need to fight back.”

  “Fine, but pick some other way. Don’t destroy my marriage to get your revenge.”

  “I don’t mean to sound cold. But if you never told Tim the truth, that’s your problem.”

  Jenny looked at Aubrey, dumbfounded. The ingratitude—after all she’d done for Aubrey.

  “If Ethan’s sleeping with Kate, isn’t that your problem? He’s been cheating on you for a decade, and she tumbles into bed with half the men she meets. You act like you’re so shocked. It’s been obvious to everybody for a long time that those two together were trouble.”

  A look of horror spread across Aubrey’s face. “You knew?”

  Jenny saw she’d made a misstep. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that. I didn’t know. Not exactly.”

  “Not exactly? My God, Jenny. You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”

  “That’s not what I said. I suspected, that’s all. Can you honestly tell me you didn’t suspect yourself?”

  “Why didn’t you warn me?”

  “I didn’t want to upset you for something that was just a hunch.”

  “Kate betrayed me, you knew about it, and you said nothing. The two of you were my best girlfriends. My roommates. I was supposed to be able to trust you.”

  “You can. Me, you can trust. Kate—well.”

  “No. You and Kate are alike. You think about number one, both of you. All you care about now is not shaking things up for yourself. Anybody else be damned. Stupid Aubrey be damned.”

  “I’ve always been a true friend to you, Aubrey. A lot better than Kate was, though you refused to see it.”

  “Better than Kate isn’t saying much, is it? I get it now. Aubrey’s a mess, that’s what you always thought. Being friends with me made you feel better about yourself. Well, I’m not a doormat anymore, so look out.”

  Aubrey stalked out, leaving Jenny ashen. A few seconds passed in which she couldn’t seem to catch her breath. She turned on the faucet, wet a paper towel with cold water, and pressed it carefully to her face until she calmed down. She had guests to attend to. She would pull herself together and do what was necessary to stop Kate and Aubrey from ruining her carefully laid plans. Just like in college. The two of them could cry and whine and self-destruct all they wanted. Jenny would keep her wits about her, and triumph in the end.

  10

  Freshman Winter

  The winter of their freshman year was the coldest Carlisle had seen in ages. Snowdrifts reached to the windowsills, and giant icicles hung from the copper gutters of Whipple Hall. At night, drafts whistled through the creaky windows of the double, making Aubrey stir in her sleep. She’d turn over and burrow under the covers with a contented sigh. Like everything associated with Carlisle, the weather was magical to her. She had gotten a second job in addition to her work-study, and bought herself a down parka and snow boots with the money. She bundled happily into them each morning for the trek across the frozen Quad. The snow sparkled in the frosty sunlight as her feet crunched on the paths. Inside the overheated lecture halls, a wet-wool smell rose from her classmates’ clothes as she strained to hear the professor over the clanging of the radiators. She wanted to remember this time and place forever, all the things she learned and felt, the people she knew, every sensation.

  Aubrey had started spending her weeknights in the basement stacks at Ogden Library studying with Jenny. She adored it there. The sleet pelted against the glass of the high basement windows and reminded Aubrey of the scratching of mice. It was dim in the little corner they’d claimed as their own, and—against regulations—they plugged Jenny’s space heater into an ancient outlet beneath a scarred wooden table. Aubrey warmed her feet and imagined herself sitting by a fire in the time of Dickens, with only a candle for her light. With the musty smell of old books filling her senses, she’d lose herself in their pages.

  Aubrey was taking Novels of the Gilded Age, Eastern Religions, Intro to Astronomy, and Sanskrit (so she could read Hindu and Buddhist liturgy in the original). It was a heavy load, but she was eager to open her mind, to become worthy of Carlisle. She was writing a paper on the yoga-sutras of Pantanjali, ancient Hindu texts that promised the acquisition of supernatural mental powers through the regular practice of yoga. Was it true? She went to yoga class to investigate, so she could include her personal observations in the paper. That was the sort of amazing work you could do here. But when she tried to talk to her friends about what she was learning, most of them would say, “Cool,” and change the subject to which parties were worth going to on Saturday night. It surprised her how few people at Carlisle cared about acquiring knowledge for its own sake. Her roomies didn’t. Jenny studied to get As. Kate never studied. Kate skipped class when she felt like it and barely cracked a book. All term she would ignore her assignments, then spend Reading Week hopped up on stimulants—Dexedrine, the minuscule amount of coke she could afford since Keniston cut her allowance, and cup after cup of black coffee—so she could stay awake cramming for days. Then she’d regurgitate it for the exam and promptly forget it. Watching Kate pound uppers durin
g fall term, Aubrey worried that her heart would stop, that she’d drop dead on College Street on her way to Hemingway’s for an espresso to add to the toxic cocktail already flooding her bloodstream. But nothing bad happened. That’s how it always went with Kate: no consequences. Her grades turned out decent, so she repeated the same scam for winter term—all play and no work, stockpiling a sizable stash of uppers for exam time.

  One Wednesday night in early February, Aubrey was down in the stacks reading when she heard a knock on the window above her carrel. She’d been far away, lost in Edith Wharton’s New York, which reminded her uncomfortably of Carlisle. The heartless rich kids, the genteel wraiths who’d fallen on hard times, the strivers looking for their next advantage—they were all here. It’s not like there were no good people at Carlisle, but there were plenty of indifferent ones, as well as some who’d been corrupted at a young age through no fault of their own and couldn’t help but misbehave. Aubrey put Kate in that latter category, if she was being honest. Lately, Kate had been thumbing her nose at her father and living off handouts from the fat trust fund that belonged to Griffin Rothenberg, her Odell swain. Griff was the son of a wealthy investment banker and a Swedish fashion model. With his striking blond head on his compact jock body, he bore enough of a resemblance to Kate that they were sometimes mistaken for brother and sister. As far as Aubrey could tell, Kate thought of Griff that way. Griff followed her around like a lovesick puppy while Kate treated him with a comfortable, dismissive indifference that Aubrey found hard to watch. Aubrey carried a torch for Griff herself, though she did her best to hide it. Griff was the male Kate, really. Not only did they look alike, but he had that same careless confidence, that ease in the world, that Aubrey both coveted and lacked utterly. Griff was the boy she’d most like to lose her virginity to, but she had no hope of achieving that. He was obsessed with Kate, and Aubrey was nothing but a third wheel to be patted on the head on those rare occasions when he noticed her at all.

  At the sound of the knock, Aubrey looked up. Kate and Griff were down on their knees in the window well, making faces at her. Griff slammed a rectangular object up against the glass—a plastic tray from the dining hall.

  Jenny leaned over from the adjacent carrel and gazed up at the tray pressed against the window.

  “They’re going traying now?” she asked. It was a rhetorical question.

  The snow was deep enough that winter that the skiing at the local resorts was supposedly sublime. Aubrey had never been on skis and couldn’t afford a lift ticket to save her life, but she’d gone mad for sledding. The speed, the abandon, the sharp taste of snow in her mouth when she crashed. Traying was the Carlisle version of sledding. You blasted a stick (smoked a joint), stole a tray from the dining hall, and walked a mile in the cold to Belle River Park to the crazy steep sledding hill, where you flew down the slope using the tray as your sled. The hill had been rigged up with all sorts of homemade jumps. The most popular jumps sent you rocketing high into the air, or directed you off into the woods to confront an obstacle course of trees. The broken limbs and the concussions were piling up, to the point that the college infirmary recently sent out a memorandum warning the students not to sled. But everybody ignored it. Traying was too fun.

  “I’m going with them. Do you want to come?” Aubrey asked, shutting her book.

  “No thanks, I have an essay due for Gov.”

  Aubrey gave a thumbs-up toward the window and grabbed her coat. “If I’m not back before the library closes, could you take my books home?” she asked.

  “Sure,” Jenny said grudgingly.

  Aubrey skipped out of the bright library, down the marble steps into the crisp, cold air, pulling on her gloves as she went. She fell into step beside Kate and Griff, who were giggling uncontrollably. Obviously, they’d started the party without her.

  “What are you guys smoking? Can I have some?” Aubrey said.

  “On Briggs Street in broad daylight?” Griff said with a snort.

  “Broad moonlight,” Kate corrected.

  The moon shone in the black sky and reflected off the snowbanks, strong enough to make Aubrey squint. Their breath came out in puffs of smoke as they walked.

  “I have a fresh joint in my pocket,” Kate said. “We’ll smoke it when we get there.”

  “At least tell me what you’re laughing at,” Aubrey said.

  “Griff claims there’s a rumor we had a threesome in Dieckmann Hall.”

  “You and Griff did?” Aubrey asked, tingling with jealousy. She told herself Kate was above sleeping with Griff, and that as a consequence, he was celibate, and frustrated. But probably not.

  “Not me and Griff. Us,” Kate said.

  “Not a threesome, a foursome,” Griff said. He was laughing so hard that it was difficult to understand him. “All three Whipple Trips with some fratbro from the ten-man, on more than one occasion.”

  “No, an orgy with the entire suite,” Kate said, collapsing against Griff in giggles as she walked.

  In Carlisle-speak, Aubrey, Kate, and Jenny were known as the Whipple Triplets, or the Whipple Trips for short. And the ten-man was a notorious ten-person suite in Dieckmann Hall that, year after year, remained occupied by the wealthiest, most dissolute prepster dudes on campus. Translating the slang, a rumor was circulating that Aubrey and her roommates had gone full slut with those notorious party boys. While on the one hand Aubrey was flattered to be gossiped about, on the other she was horrified.

  They left the bustle of Briggs Street behind. Church Street was darker and quieter, lined on both sides with small apartment buildings that served as grad student housing, and two- and three-story multifamily houses, interspersed with convenience stores and gas stations. It was nearly eleven, and many windows were dark already. The occasional car passed, its wheels hissing on snow-slicked pavement. Jenny’s parents lived nearby. Aubrey could only imagine how they’d feel if they heard this scandalous rumor about their daughter.

  “Why would anyone say that about us?” she asked.

  “Because you don’t live in Dieckmann, but you’re always there for brunch on Sunday. Ergo, you spend your Saturday nights bumping uglies in the ten-man,” Griff said.

  “We like the cinnamon rolls,” Aubrey said.

  “What is that, some kind of kinky sex position?” Griff asked, and cracked up again, laughing so hard that tears leaked from his eyes and snot from his nose.

  “We go to Dieckmann for Sunday brunch because it’s the only dorm that serves cinnamon rolls.”

  “Don’t tell him that. You’ll spoil the fun,” Kate said.

  “Baby likes her skanky reputation,” Griff said, pulling Kate close.

  “I don’t,” Aubrey said.

  “Aubrey. People care enough to gossip about you. Appreciate the moment,” Kate said, and jerked from Griff’s grasp. “Let’s run.”

  Kate took off racing toward Belle River Park, as Griff belted out the chorus to “Born to Run.” Eventually Kate disappeared around a corner. Griff and Aubrey looked at each other, then took off after her. Griff shot Aubrey some side-eye and it became a race. They sprinted, neck and neck. Her legs were longer, but he was stronger and faster. Aubrey’s lungs stung from the cold. She laughed and squealed, the rumor already forgotten.

  A few minutes later the two of them passed through the gates into the hush of Belle River Park. The shadows of the trees on the snow were ghostly as Aubrey caught her breath. They wound their way to the sledding hill, where they found Kate standing in the shelter of a copse of evergreens, her face lighting up and going dark as she flicked her cigarette lighter. The park officially closed at sunset, but it was deserted and rarely patrolled, so they had no fear of detection.

  Kate succeeded in getting the joint lit.

  “Here,” she said, and handed it to Aubrey, who drew the pungent smoke deep into her lungs.

  Aubrey had never touched drugs or alcohol before freshman year, but under Kate’s tutelage, she’d quickly become a connoisseur. Pot seemed
like part of a Carlisle education, like studying Buddhism or going to art films dressed all in black. She’d smoked enough dope that she could now get a contact high just from breathing the air in the vicinity of someone else smoking, or putting her lips to the mouthpiece of a well-used bong. Or so she believed. A psychopharmacology major she knew from Sanskrit class swore there was no such thing as a contact high, that it was only a placebo effect. If that was true, why was Aubrey soaring off the first hit from Kate’s joint? The joint came her way again, and Aubrey took another toke, then grabbed the dining hall tray from Griff’s hand.

  “Me first,” she said, and ran for the sledding hill.

  As she ascended the steep hill, Aubrey’s feet sank into the snow, making each step an effort, and she slowed to a trudge. Man, she was high. Every step sent strange vibrations up her legs and spine. The cold felt warm on her exposed skin, and the snow looked indigo in the moonlight. She lost track of time. The hike up the hill seemed to go on forever, but then suddenly she was at the top, looking down. Where were Kate and Griff? Her eyes were having trouble focusing. The spot where she thought they should be was swallowed in the darkness of the evergreens. What if they’d abandoned her, here in the freezing cold? Suddenly that seemed likely, and then virtually certain. Her heart seized up. She imagined the park police finding her tomorrow morning, frozen solid, in a fetal position, and alerting the RA in Whipple, that biology girl they barely knew, who’d have to inform Aubrey’s roommates. Would Kate feel guilty at all? Would she cry? Probably not. Then something moved below. Aubrey stared right at them; she’d been staring at them the whole time. Wait, Kate was kneeling in front of Griff. Were they, could they be—?

  Aubrey threw the tray onto the snow and plopped down on top of it. The impact against the hard ground made her teeth clatter. She tasted blood, and pushed off before she quite had her balance, immediately spinning around and barreling downhill backward.