by Mimi Strong
In the silence that followed, they exchanged looks. My mother was pretty drunk by then, and barely following along—which was fine by me.
The first to pronounce judgment was Noreen, who had always been a little judgmental, usually commenting on the prices of things and what sort of activities other people let their children engage in.
“He violated his wife,” Noreen said. “I'll never read another of his books again. He sounds like a monster.”
Roberta, shaking her head, said, “Things happen within a marriage. Power dynamics and stuff. A man certainly can rape his wife, and some do, but I don't feel like that's what happened here.”
Noreen's lips scrunched as her face soured. “I guess we'll never know, since we weren't there.”
My mother turned to me, her eyes a little dazed, but focused. “Tori, did he ever strike you in anger? Did he ever make you do something you weren't comfortable with?”
“I don't think so.”
Her forehead furrowed. “Yes or no. Were you on drugs?”
“No.” I shook my head vehemently. “No drugs. And no, he never scared me, not until the last day. Today. Wow, it's been a long day.”
Roberta said, “A stillborn child can destroy even a perfectly-good marriage.” Tears formed in her eyes and streaked down her round cheeks. “After our first, there was another pregnancy. My sweet little angel only made it to seven months.”
My mother started to weep. “Berta, I didn't know.” She leaned over and wrapped her arms around Roberta.
“Not many people knew,” Roberta said, wiping her cheeks with a tissue. “We moved here not long after, and we didn't want to make people sad, so we didn't say. My angel girl didn't even have a name.”
“I'm so sorry to hear about your loss,” I said as the other women said the same.
“You know, I would have left Dale,” Roberta continued. “I would have left him alone with our son, gotten in my car, and just kept driving. Those months after were the worst part of my life, having to explain to everyone who asked about the new baby. If I'd have thought Dale could take the burden of being blamed, I'd have blamed him and just ran away from all the pain.”
Noreen said, “You wouldn't have done that. You wouldn't have left your son.”
Roberta cried harder, the dam busting open. “Yes, I would have. I went to the bank to take out some money, but there wasn't any, and the account was in overdraft, to the maximum. If I'd had even a hundred dollars, there's no telling how far I would have gotten.”
My mother kept patting Roberta's hair, rocking her. “It's all right now. You and Dale are happy together, so aren't you glad you didn't leave?”
Roberta sniffed, smiling through the tears. “He is the sweetest, most honest, kind man the world has ever known, and I'm blessed.” The other ladies smiled and exchanged knowing looks. Roberta looked straight up at me and said, “But at the time, I said some terrible things to that man. It was the grief talking. I'm so glad he found a way to forgive me.”
I pulled back from the table and took a load of dirty dishes into the kitchen while the other women talked and soothed Roberta.
I didn't know what to think now, about what Smith had told me. Had he really been as awful as he'd imagined, or had the grief colored everything? And if he'd been broke, like Roberta and her husband had been seventeen years ago, before Dale started his contracting company, would that have kept Smith and his wife together through the rough patch? Being wealthy would certainly make your life different. Did having wealth make it harder to have a relationship, because it was easier to walk away?
I had his ex-wife's name in my mouth, bitter on my tongue. “Brynn,” I said to myself in the empty kitchen. I'd known some Briannas and a Brie, but never a Brynn. The name sounded rich and stuck-up, and really blond—like, platinum blond. She probably grew orchids for fun, or had her staff do it.
The ladies in the dining room had cheered up, and the sound of laughter trickled into the kitchen.
Noreen called for me, telling me to get my “derriere” out there.
I came out with a glass of water in hand and joined them at the table. “I'm sorry I kept you all up so late.”
Noreen uncrossed her arms. “Tori, do you want to be with Mr. Smith Wittingham?”
“I don't want to be without him,” I said, surprising myself at how sure I sounded, considering I'd just taken a very expensive flight to get away from him earlier that same day.
“Men make mistakes,” Noreen said. “We all do, but mostly the men make the big mistakes, lummoxes that they are. Age difference or not, if your man is not on drugs, or an alcoholic, he's a better choice than most of the men I've chosen.”
“Amen,” said two of the other women, in unison.
One of them picked up the paperback and peered at the author photograph. “Not too shabby,” she said, which made us all smile.
I picked up my purse, which felt so heavy now from the weight of the gift. Batting my eyelashes, I said, “Mommy, would you prefer to drive me home, or have me overnight as your guest?”
My mother rolled her eyes. To her friends, she said, “She claims to be an adult, but this adulthood thing is selective. Just watch, she probably has a suitcase full of laundry for me to wash.”
I gasped in pretend shock. “How did you know?”
She nodded toward the stairs. “Go ahead. The guest room's all made up.”
I went up to the room, took off about half of my clothes, and collapsed on the bed, face-down. My mother and her friends were still talking and laughing downstairs, showing no signs of stopping the party. I was glad to be around people who made me remember who I was.
The idea of phoning Smith came to mind, but it was easy to flick away, since I didn't even have his number. I had no simple way of contacting him, and maybe that was for the best.
PART 4: FUTURE BESTSELLER
Smith Wittingham
Though he had Brynn's phone number, Smith Wittingham (as per his first typist Lexie's suggestion, he'd happily dropped the “David” from his name) didn't call her until he'd finished the first draft of his novel. He'd put in a call to a very exclusive employment agency, and they'd sent a pleasant woman with a buzz cut and a dozen earrings to be his typist.
“Future bestseller,” she'd said when they reached the end.
Smith tried to be modest, but he could feel himself puffing up and floating away on shameful pride. The man stood to inherit over a billion dollars, and he'd played no small role in the family business to build it up, yet this was the first thing he'd ever done completely on his own. Well, on his own with the help of the typist, whom he gave a generous cash bonus to before they hugged chastely goodbye and she went on her way.
He still had work to do, revising some scenes and getting the wording just right, but he had it written, and all the anxiety he'd felt about the things that were unwritten simply evaporated.
Yes, it would be a future bestseller. How big would his name appear on the cover? Very big.
He went online and started looking at photos of famous actresses, wondering who might play Detective Dunham's love interest in the movie version.
Renee Zellweger was cute, but too adorable and chirpy to play the kind of emotionally damaged young women the detective liked. Cate Blanchett was scary, but in a way that aroused him. He nearly lost his boner when he saw a photo of Charlize Theron as her Monster character, but then he found some photos of Naomi Watts that made him happy. Scarlett Johansson also made him happy, as did a dozen others.
He unbuckled his trousers and clicked through some more photographs of the current hot blondes and brunettes, gripping himself as he imagined a young, talented actress calling him aside to ask about motivation in a particular scene.
“Oh, Smith,” she'd say breathlessly. “Your story moved me so deeply. I would have done this project for no money at all. I know people think genre films are no good, just popcorn fare, but your skill as an author, your sensitivity as a person, elevates everything
you touch.”
Smith closed his eyes and quickened his hands until he found release. The need dissipated, but the fantasy remained all through the evening.
He was lonely, on his own at the cabin, nothing but nature outside. The sun was setting, the sky pink. He walked out to the veranda with a glass of ice, a full bottle of scotch, and the cordless phone. When he was no longer in control of himself, he phoned Brynn.
She was surprisingly receptive. She was so friendly and warm, in fact, he wondered if he hadn't gotten a wrong number.
Brynn was living in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, in an area she assured Smith was “up and coming.”
They hadn't seen each other in fourteen years, and the moment she opened the door of her brownstone, he wondered if he'd come to the wrong house. The tight red curls he remembered were now bleached out to a strawberry blond, and straightened—as if Brynn were trying out for a Nicole Kidman look-alike position.
“Davey! You grew into your face.” She stood blocking the doorway, legs spread apart like a superhero. She wore cutoff jeans with tattered edges, with platform espadrilles, and those pale legs seemed to go on forever. The day was hot, and the place seemed to lack air conditioning, as she wore a plaid men's shirt tied under her breasts, and her smooth abdomen glistened with sweat.
“Are you going to invite me in?”
“I shouldn't. The place is a disaster, and my husband isn't home.”
“Do you two still have that arrangement?”
She crossed her arms. “Is that all you're interested in? Can't you get that closer to home, without coming over to Brooklyn?”
He looked down to make sure his feet were still on the ground. Brynn always did make him feel like there was a localized earthquake, wherever he was standing. The woman was a force of nature. Those legs. He was already hardening for her, and she likely knew it.
“Let me take you out for dinner,” he said, gesturing toward the town car, parked up the street with his new driver, Claude, at the wheel.
“Fancy car. With a driver?” She made a low whistle, as sarcastic as a whistle could be.
“He's a charming French Canadian fellow. Come with me, we'll go anywhere you like, as long as there's air conditioning.” He peeked around the side of her, into the townhouse. He saw tasteful sofas and rugs, but no children's toys. “Unless you can't leave the house… for some reason?”
“You mean kids?” Her face took on a stormy expression. “What do you think?”
He took a step back, stumbling to regain his footing as he found nothing but air, then the lower step. “Forget it,” he said, backing down another step. “I can see that coming here was a mistake.”
She flipped her strawberry hair back, and for an instant, he saw the beautiful riding instructor he'd fallen in love with, bouncing on the back of a feisty horse.
“Oh, David,” she said, smiling with the sweetness of a Disney villain. “Have you gotten that old? Do you give up so easily now?”
With that, he strode up the steps and grabbed her ass in his hands as he sought her lips with his. She leaned into his body and parted her lips, thrusting her tongue into his mouth ferociously. He ground against her hips, hardening for her, the erection dulling his thoughts.
She hopped up on him as easily as she'd hopped on a cantering horse, wrapping her bare legs around his waist. He walked into the house with her and kicked the door shut behind them.
He tore at her clothes as she tore at his, and he set her on the first thing he found suitable—the ample padded back of a sofa. He licked and sucked at her salty skin as she urged him to take her.
“Fuck me already,” she panted, spreading her legs.
He hesitated long enough to kick off his shoes, then he plunged into her, the sweet warmth of her cunt enveloping him the way he'd hoped it would. She dug her fingernails into his back as he tried to bury himself in her.
When she cried out in pleasure, he felt his own reaction begin. He quickly pulled out and pressed the tip of his cock against her ass. The head slid in easily, and as she gasped in surprise and tightened around him, he came so suddenly he thought he might go blind.
They snuck around for a few months, both in denial there was anything going on, until finally Brynn asked her husband, Marcus, for a divorce.
She moved in with Smith, in a new apartment, and slept by his side every night he was in town. She looked like an angel in her sleep, but in the mornings, she liked to wake him up by climbing on top and smothering him with her breasts.
Her favorite aphrodisiac was shopping, and he loved giving it to her. How he found time to revise his novel and send it to his literary agent was practically a miracle. It seemed like every day they were buying things for the penthouse, or to fill her closet. The first time he took her to Chanel, she thanked him by blowing him in the back of the car on the way home. With her beautiful head in his lap, great music on the stereo, and sun streaming in the tinted windows, he came in her mouth, and he felt like a god.
A year and a half later, in the fall, his first novel was released. Though he had not commanded a large advance, the publisher had confidence in the series, and paid the co-op money to ensure stacks of the hardcover were featured on the front tables of all the book chains. He had been touted as the Next Big Thing before the first copy had been bought by a consumer.
The backstory for the media: An insanely wealthy man turns away from his family business to write the detective novel that's been inside him, begging to come out. The articles practically wrote themselves.
It took surprisingly little money to find out which book stores were reporting sales figures to the New York Times, and to have a paid network of people buy out all the copies at those locations, and a few others, for good measure. He made The List, and he was certain Number One was a lock within a week.
Brynn hired an independent brand consultant, and without his book publicist's knowledge, Smith showed up for a major book signing with a black eye, courtesy of a highly skilled makeup artist.
The press and the fans ate up the story that he'd been in a bar fight the night before. With that appearance, Smith became the Bad Boy of Publishing.
Back at the apartment that night, Brynn lovingly removed the eye makeup in the bright master bathroom, where she had priceless jewelry scattered about like a child's toys.
“Remember the black eye was my idea,” she said. “Don't forget who made you who you are.”
“As soon as I hit Number One, let's get married.”
She pulled away, her expression unreadable by Smith. “Are you proposing to me?”
“I suppose I am. What do you say, Brynn? Wanna get married?”
“What if you don't hit Number One?”
He took her hand and pressed her fingers to his lips. “Don't be silly. You're my good luck charm. Everything's just going to get better and better.”
“Put a baby in me, Smith.”
“I thought you didn't want kids?”
She was already unfastening his belt. “I stopped taking my pills last month.”
“Shouldn't we talk about this?”
“Marry me and put a baby in me, like regular people do.” She wrapped her cool hand around his dick, and he shuddered at her touch.
“Brynn. I'm tired. It's been a long day.”
She squeezed him and cupped his balls with her other cool hand.
He never could say no to her.
The first Smith Dunham novel peaked at Number Four and drifted down. While the story had been optioned for movie rights, interest faded when he didn't hit Number One. The hot director who'd been talking to Smith about notes for the screenplay adaptation abruptly disappeared.
“I'm over,” Smith said to Brynn one night as they were getting ready to bed.
She looked at her watch. “Right on time.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Your mood disorder. The darkness starts up around nine o'clock and lasts until eleven. It's ten-thirty now. Just wait until tomor
row morning, and everything will be great again.”
He put down his toothbrush and crossed his arms. “Brynn, you're the crazy one, not me. Don't put something like that in my head.”
She rolled her eyes. “If you think I'm the crazy one in this relationship, you have a lot to learn about yourself.”
“Stop playing games. I mean, are you trying to make me get cold feet about marrying you?” Their spur-of-the-moment wedding was in two days, and as the date approached, things had been getting tense between them. She'd been seeing her ex-husband Marcus “just for lunch” as often as twice a week, and Smith wondered if the man was poisoning his name.
Brynn was looking at the diamond ring on her finger, and he thought of a dozen nasty things to call her, but he bit his tongue.
With a resigned sigh, he said, “I think you may be right about the mood thing. I have so much more hope when the sun is out.”
“We all do,” she said, and she kissed him with her minty-fresh mouth.
Brynn had all the high society people at the wedding, and Smith was amazed that she was better at being a billionaire than he was. The photography alone took an entire day, the day before the wedding. He was so exhausted from all the activities, he had no time left for doubts.
Then it was time to lift the veil and kiss his bride. She'd never looked so beautiful or fake, like the wax museum version of herself.
That night, she denied taking coke, but she'd clearly been into something of a pharmaceutical nature. He thought they could get some rest before the early-morning flight for their honeymoon, but she rode him like a succubus, taking every last drop he had to give.
As he drifted off to sleep, he smiled, because at last he had gotten enough of her.
They made love every day of the honeymoon, but when they returned home, everything cooled. She was busy now, tearing out two guest rooms to create a nursery and playroom. She went through three interior decorators before she even started on the nanny's quarters.
