“Nasty shiner.” He breaks the silence.
“You’re telling me. It was like my heart wasn’t beat up enough, let’s give her outward bruises too.”
The dimple appears. He’s always appreciated my dry humor.
“Wait. You did that to her?” Woods looks from one of us to the other.
“Yes. Another thing you and I have in common,” I say brightly. “Black eyes compliments of Satcher Gable.”
“The fuck, Satcher?” Woods says, ignoring my comment.
Satcher barely looks at him. “A moment when you have time, Billie. I’ll be in my office.”
I nod, and he walks out without acknowledging Woods.
Savage.
After lunch, I meander over to Satcher’s office. I’m trying to pretend that whatever he has to say to me isn’t important. When I walk in, he’s sitting behind his desk working, a half-eaten container of salad in front of him.
“What are you working on?” I sit down in the green chair running my fingers over the fabric.
“Now that you’re here I can invest my time into growing my other companies. Thank you, by the way. You did me more of a favor than I did you.”
I shrug. “Rhubarb feels like the only good thing I have left ... even though it’s not mine.”
He has a weird look on his face.
“So, what did you want to talk to me about?”
He leans back, propping his hands behind his head, and stares up at the ceiling.
“I don’t want to tell you what to do,” he says.
“Then why do I get the feeling that’s exactly what you’re going to do?”
His eyes flicker from the ceiling to my face.
“This is still my company, Billie. I care about what happens here. And if Pearl finds out that you’re meeting up with Woods at bars—”
“She’s not going to find out. And it’s not going to happen again,” I rush.
“She has a lot of loyalty with the other employees. If she left, they’d follow her. That could set us behind for months. Not to mention, Woods still has a significant share of Rhubarb; if he wanted to, he could make things very difficult for us.”
“Stop,” I say.
I’m agitated at myself and Satcher. He has no right.
“What I do in my spare time is none of your business.” I stand up. “You don’t have to protect me from Woods! I know how to handle him.”
“I’m trying to protect you from you,” he says.
My mouth goes dry and the tips of my ears tingle like they always do when there’s too much emotion to deal with.
“We never tried to work it out. I ran and it gave him the excuse to take the easy road.”
“God, you’re dense.” He leans back in his chair, tapping a finger on his desk absently. “He should have chased you. None of what happened was on you, Billie. He’s the one who fucked up. There is no excuse for cheating, ever. If he wanted out of your marriage, he could have done that without being a complete fucking scumbag.”
“But he didn’t.” My voice rises. “We all make mistakes. Why do you even care, Satcher?”
I’m livid. I can’t believe Manhattan’s slutttiest man is lecturing me on relationships.
“Because I would have chased you.”
The silence following his declaration is bloated. At first I’m too shocked to respond. When the anger finally catches up to me I stand so abruptly Satcher’s eyes grow wide.
“Fuck you,” I say. “You’re just another man who dropped me for someone else.”
I know it’s awful. I shouldn’t have said it, and it’s definitely not fair considering I was the one who pushed him away. But despite how much of a role I had in his decision to be with Jules, despite how he argued against it—he did it. Left me for her. He has no right to judge Woods.
“I think you should leave,” he says. “You’re not being rational.”
Trigger words. I stand so abruptly the green velvet chair topples over.
“You’re an asshole,” I say before marching for the door.
“But at least I’m an asshole who knows what I want,” he calls after me.
I slam his office door so hard I hear Satcher curse on the other side of it. Since when does Satcher know what he wants? He’s been flouncing from one model to the next for years.
Chapter Twenty-Six
On Sunday morning I go see an apartment that’s for lease in Brooklyn. I take a cab since the weather has turned and I don’t want to bother with the subway ... yet. The neighborhood isn’t terrible, and travel to and from work will be a hassle, but the thought of having my own space outweighs every negative thought I have. Before Woods cheated on me and I ran home to Washington I’d only ever had roommates: the girls at college and then my husband. And even though I spent two years living in my parents’ guest house, it still felt like I was living at home with them. This will be my very first solo apartment and I am going to be completely broke paying for it. The owner, an overenthusiastic blonde who is donning a Bride hoodie, is getting married and moving in with her husband-to-be.
‘’We want to start a family right away,” she tells me, kicking a stray tennis ball under the bed.
I watch it roll out the other side and hit the wall. Stacked near the front door are a couple of beat-up rackets. I spot a photo of said fiancé on the nightstand; he’s a standard American guy wearing a letter jacket and holding a beer. I’d bet my life his parents had a country club membership Upstate where they played tennis together.
“So anyway, we need a bigger place,” she finishes.
She looks no older than twenty-three. I want to tell her to run, to avoid the marriage thing until she’s lived with him a few years. But I’m familiar with this type of hopeful devotion. She babbles on about her fiancé’s two bedroom walk-in, the original hardwood floors, and the extra closet space as she shows me around her tiny studio (which doesn’t have a closet). There’s a bathroom I can barely turn around in, a small gas stove, an olive green fridge that groans like it’s in pain when she opens it, and a view of an alley with a dumpster overflowing with trash. I stare down at a cat who is ripping open a bag of garbage with its claws and say, “I’ll take it.”
She seems relieved, and I remember how eager I was to start my life with Woods all of those years ago. She has me fill out an application and I write her a check for first, last, and security. I can move in right after the holidays, which is perfect because Jules will be gone through Christmas to visit her family. I will have the apartment to myself until it is time to move.
When I get back to Jules’, no one is home so I make myself a sandwich and itemize my belongings. I don’t have much more than I arrived with. I’m going to need things: a bed, a small table, a wardrobe. I’m going to have to tell Jules tonight. I wonder if she’ll sublease this place and move in with Satcher? The thought makes me lose my appetite and I throw the rest of my sandwich in the trash. I tell myself that it won’t be so bad. All I have to do is get through the holidays and then I will be wonderfully free. No more bumping into them on the way home from a date night, no more seeing Satcher’s shoes next to the umbrella rack, no more agonizing about whether they are having sex behind her closed bedroom door. My only consolation in this whole situation, versus the one with Woods and Pearl, is that I love Jules and genuinely want her to be happy.
My feelings for and about Satcher are confusing. He was my friend, and then he was my lover, and now we’re at an impasse where I’m not sure what I’m allowed to call him other than boss. The tension between us doesn’t go unnoticed. By Wednesday, we’ve done such a bang-up job of avoiding each other, Woods comes into my office to ask if everything is okay. I stare at him for a long time, the question hanging between us. Woods is the person who knows me most—it is an uncomfortable thing to admit, but we spent a little under a decade showing each other our best and worst. Maybe sharing my situation with someone who knows me as well as he does would ... help.
I open my mouth to say something, but noth
ing comes out. I can smell his Juicy Fruit from across the room and I have to work my way past the pangs of nostalgia that stir in my heart: youth, a love I thought endlessly powerful, my entire future ahead of me. I suppose the only thing to say is the truth.
“I’m confused,” I admit. “Dazed and confused.”
Woods grins at the movie reference and sits in the chair facing my desk.
“Spill,” he commands.
“You’re my ex-husband,” I say. “Entirely inappropriate.”
“And go!”
I can’t hold back my smile at the way he ignored my excuse, because he does know me. I have to be pushed to share feelings. It’s never been easy for me to talk about matters of the heart.
“I got my own place,” I say. “In Brooklyn.”
He nods slowly. “Ah. Have you let Jules know?”
I shake my head.
“You and Satcher…”
I groan. “I don’t want to talk about that.”
“You two were a disaster waiting to happen.”
I sit up straighter, bothered by his words. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Come on, Billie. What do you two even have in common?”
“What do you and Pearl have in common?” I shoot back.
Woods stares at me dumbstruck, which is why I don’t immediately notice the door opening behind him.
“Clearly more than the two of you did.”
I look up to see Pearl standing in the door to my office. She’s wearing a T-shirt and jeans, her hair tied back in her signature messy knot. I hadn’t heard her come in, but of course she’s here. Woods isn’t allowed to be alone with me without her supervision. Pearl and I have had little to no interaction since her miscarriage. She returned to work with what seemed like a new determination to pretend that I don’t exist, and I have been perfectly all right with the fact that I never have to talk to her.
“Then why are you so threatened?” The words come before I can stop them. Fighting words. I didn’t intend on fighting, but sometimes the fight finds you.
Woods groans, and Pearl steps deeper into my office like she’s ready to deal with things head-on. Her lips are pursed, and her wide eyes gun me down with every blink. Great, I just started a girl gun fight.
“He was married to you and he didn’t want to be. Now he’s marrying me. What is there to be threatened about?” She feels really good about her words.
I watch as she crosses her arms over her chest. It’s my turn to serve the insult, but I’m too angry to formulate words. The rage makes me lightheaded. My vision swims in and out of focus and my limbs tingle as I make an effort not to jump up from my seat. It’s bad enough that she did what she did, but to be self-righteous about it?
I wonder if my true self is still there, buried underneath the various forms of myself that I’ve cultivated over the years: blog Billie, divorced Billie, Wendy, the Billie who came back to New York to prove to everyone that she’s fine. But the Billie of old, the one Satcher has referenced on occasion, would not argue with someone she thought beneath her. Pearl believes herself to be Woods’ hero. It’s comical really, that she thinks she swooped in and saved him from something bad (me).
“Pearl…” It’s Woods who breaks the silence, Woods who stands up and looks from one of us to the other like he’s deciding how to handle the situation.
“Let’s go,” he says.
I shift my eyes from Pearl to Woods. The downcast movement of his eyes and his quick herding of Pearl toward the door makes me want to lash out at him, call out his weakness. Did I really expect him to defend me in front of his fiancée? No, but I didn’t expect him to be with someone like Pearl either. How could he? She is a watered-down version of me. And she knows that, she knows it. Which is why my presence bothers her so much. I watch them leave and then I raise my fist and hit it hard on the desk, flinching when it makes contact. I hate them. I hate all of them. But, mostly I hate myself. I lost my husband and business—all to that insufferable creature. I don’t care what I’ve told myself in the past about Woods bearing the burden of responsibility for cheating on me; right now I’m angry, and every ounce of that anger is directed at Pearl.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The annual Christmas party ... I volunteer as a party planner mostly to keep myself busy. I act like it’s not a big deal, that I want to call a hundred restaurants to do things like secure a private room and set a menu. In reality, I just want to keep busy and not go home. Home is where Satcher is, and work is where Woods is. And now every inch of my life is invaded by the men I couldn’t hold on to. The plus side: if I pull off the best Christmas party, I’ll gain favor with the staff. Currently, half of them are Team Pearl, while the other half are with me. I choose a place called Summertime Sunday, all bohemian decor. It looks like a foreign market inside with brightly colored scarves strewn from the ceiling and jewel-toned lanterns on every table. At Christmastime they string lights everywhere and the effect leaves me breathless. It’s perfect.
On the day of the party, we’ve wrapped up the last of our holiday posts by noon. The office is buzzing with holiday excitement. In the break room are platters of Christmas cookies and spiked eggnog. Satcher had twenty bottles of Champagne delivered this morning and people are milling about wearing Christmas sweaters and sipping on the endless supply of bubbly. Everyone is in good spirits with it being the last day of work before the office closes until after the new year. Loren has hung tinsel from desk to desk, and Pearl set up a Christmas tree the week before. Satcher comes into work wearing a Santa hat and the ladies swoon, including me.
I’m walking by the break room when one of Pearl’s lackeys says, “I’d be his naughty elf...”
I roll my eyes, though I can’t blame them. For the last few weeks I’ve tried not to look at him. Every single time our eyes meet I feel a sharp pang of sadness. I hate myself for feeling that way; it’s not like we spent years in a relationship, though judging my hurt level, that’s exactly how it feels. I remind myself that we were friends long before our forage into romance, and that we can be friends again with some effort on my part. I just need to ... forget.
I leave the office early to run home and change. The apartment is empty when I get there. Our Christmas tree sits in front of the window, the lights on. It’s the first time I’ve been alone in the apartment for months and I soak it in, standing in the near dark and staring at blinking lights hoping for an emotional recharge. After ten minutes, I reluctantly head to the bedroom to change.
Last week while buying presents to send home to my parents, I spotted a dress hanging in the window of a boutique. It was out of my budget, my eyes bulging when I saw the price tag. Initially I’d handed it back to the salesgirl, but during the five steps it took to reach the door I changed my mind. It was Christmas, after all; I could splurge and buy myself something this one time. I marched back to where she was still standing, and taking it from her hands, I carried it to the register and pulled out my credit card before I could change my mind. Now I carefully clip off the tags before tugging it over my head. The dress is silver, the fabric so soft and slinky it runs through my fingers like water. When it drops around my body, it hugs all the right places. I borrow one of Jules’ coats and head out the door. Holiday traffic knots up every intersection, and by the time I’ve stopped at the bakery to pick up the cake, I’m already twenty minutes late to the party. When I finally walk through the doors everyone is already standing around with a drink in their hands. When they see me they cheer. I laugh, shaking the snow out of my hair, and slip out of the coat.
I’d been too busy to wonder if Satcher would bring a date to the party. And, of course, that date would be Jules. I smooth a smile across my face, beautifully empty, and walk toward them. I’m so good at this. When did I become so good at this?
“Billie!” Jules hugs me while Satcher looks on quietly.
As soon as Jules completes her hug, she’s back at Satcher’s side. She twines her arm through his a
nd clutches his bicep, looking around the room.
The throbbing bleed of emotion comes, emptying into my chest, painfully constricting, then dropping like lead to my stomach.
“Hi, Satch,” I say quietly.
He’s angry with me. There’s no expression on his face when he looks at me, but his eyes flash. I can’t stand it, his anger.
I duck my head, shameful tears rising to fill my eyes. And then I feel a hand on my back. I know that hand, I lean into it from years of practice.
“Satch. Nice to see you, Jules.” Woods’ smooth voice dries up my eyes.
I’ve never been so glad to see him. How can a person who left you to drown also have the power to make you feel okay?
“Wish I could say the same,” Jules quips.
“It’s been three years, Julia,” Woods says. “Maybe we can play nice just for one night. Especially since Billie put the night together?”
Jules’ lips tighten, but she doesn’t argue.
“Where’s Pearl?” Satcher asks.
“She was feeling under the weather.”
“She seemed fine in the office this afternoon.”
I glance at Satcher. What’s he getting at? I’m frankly quite glad Pearl isn’t here to ruin the night. Let her stay at home sipping her organic tea and feeling superior.
“Well, you know how it goes. This time of year there’s always something sneaking up on you.” Woods smiles stiffly and I notice he already has a cocktail in hand.
“Hey, do you mind getting me one of those?” I ask.
He smiles genuinely for the first time and nods at Jules and Satcher before heading to the bar.
“I think I’ll get a drink too,” she announces. “Something about Woods’ face makes me want to drink…”
“I’ll get it for you,” Satcher says, touching her arm.
“No, I’m fine. This is your Christmas party, my love. You mingle.”
I recoil at the pet name. She leaves and then there’s just Satcher and me standing awkwardly in the middle of the room. My tongue feels caked with awkwardness, all elbows and knees.
F*ck Marriage Page 16
