by Sara Shepard
“Men,” Tina spits. “They always want ’em younger. Up for anything.”
“Well, if these e-mails are true, this girl certainly was that,” Marjorie chuckles. She looks at Laura. “Chauncey is furious. Says it makes the whole department look unprofessional.” Chauncey is the head of the hospital, a man we all quietly fear.
“This hack makes everyone look unprofessional,” Tina says with a shrug.
“Wonder who exposed him?” Marjorie turns to the coffeemaker to refill her to-go cup. “Someone put Greg’s shit all over Facebook. There are tons of e-mails on the hack server, though—why’d they target him?”
“Guess he has some enemies.” Tina’s gaze returns to me, and there’s something about it that seems smug. Could she know? “I’d be surprised if Strasser came in today. If that happened to me, I’d hide under a rock forever. Move out of the country.”
As if on cue, Marjorie’s phone pings. Her eyebrows shoot up. “Speak of the devil. Dr. Strasser has come down with the flu. Awfully convenient! He’s asking Alice to reschedule his surgeries.”
“Coward,” Tina spits. She glances at me once more. I pretend to fiddle with my Fitbit.
In a fragrant cloud of bubble gum and hand sanitizer, Tina hurries away to speak to Alice in scheduling. Marjorie is off to attend to recovering patients. I busy myself at the desk, staring at the stack of memos that temporarily replaces some of the data we’d stored on the network, but my mind is thudding. I need to know.
I head for the ladies’ room and shut myself in a stall. It’s not hard to find the link to the database where all our Aldrich e-mails have been dumped. I find Greg Strasser’s folder right away. After scrolling through his inbox and finding nothing incriminating, not even a weird Amazon purchase, I open his trash folder—and voilà. There they are, a whole list of them, practically the only messages Greg threw out. His e-mails are titled things like Sucking your sweet tits and I came over and over just thinking about you and I love looking at your juicy ass. I feel dirty just reading the words.
But maybe this scandal is a good thing. Greg will focus on it for a while instead of me. It might make him pliable. Agreeable. I might be able to effectively get my point across and get out of him what I need.
My breathing begins to slow. Yes, I’m going to speak to Greg. And I’ll make him see my side. I have to.
5
KIT
WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017
On Wednesday morning, pre-work, I wander the cheese department of Whole Foods with Aurora in tow. My daughter searches out a brand of low-fat mozzarella string cheese she insists she must have in her school lunch. I’m still in a fog from the night in Philly. All I think about are Patrick’s dancing eyes. The strong grip of his hand. The feel of his lips on mine.
Did it really happen?
That night in the hotel, I’d lain awake, praying he’d knock on my door. I both wanted it and dreaded it. After he didn’t show, I felt disappointed. Our bond had been so instantaneous, so powerful—the opposite of what I have with Greg. I can’t even recall the last time Greg looked at me with such intensity . . . and I don’t know if he ever will again. Maybe I shouldn’t have squandered the opportunity.
But then I told myself, thank God nothing happened. I have everything I want right here. Okay, so my husband and I had a truncated honeymoon phase. Greg and I got together during such a fraught—though terribly romantic—time, but it’s hard to keep those intense feelings up. I fell into Greg’s arms after my first husband died very young and very unexpectedly. Greg was a white knight on a steed. But I don’t need rescuing anymore.
Or perhaps our disillusionment with the marriage is because we didn’t vet one another properly before making a commitment. I was busy being the shocked and fragile widow, Greg was so good as the character of the admired hero . . . but those aren’t our real selves. Once we stripped off those costumes, maybe we weren’t as interesting to one another?
Still. I’m not giving up. Perhaps Greg and I just need a vacation alone, a better one than the trip we took to Barbados over the holidays. Maybe we need to take up a new hobby together. Or maybe I should push couples counseling again. I’d brought it up as recently as our Barbados trip, insisting that a friend from college had used a great therapist who was only a few blocks from our house. Greg’s reply had been “Oh great, we’d tell her all our problems and then see her out later at the local grocery store, buying toilet paper. No, thanks.”
I pick up a wedge of Gouda. Drop a box of crackers into my cart. Then my phone buzzes. I hope, irrationally, that it’s a text from Patrick—that he’s somehow found me. But it’s Amanda, my assistant. You need to see this.
Attached is a screen grab of the hack database I already know about—I was briefed about the Aldrich hack as soon as I got off the plane from Philly and have already met with the PR team to strategize talking points if I happen to be interviewed, as the university president’s daughter. On a server, for public consumption, are the inner lives of more than twenty thousand students like my daughter Sienna; administrators such as myself; athletes; my father, the president; and even students from years ago, like my first husband, Martin.
And speak of the devil . . . it’s Greg’s folder of e-mails that’s open. As a hospital employee, he is on the server, too. Several e-mails to someone named Lolita Bovary are circled.
I frown. I’ve already looked through Greg’s e-mails. I looked at my own, too, and Sienna’s, just to be sure there isn’t something I’m missing. But these e-mails are from Greg’s trash folder, which I hadn’t thought to open.
A second text pings in, and then a third. I squint at the new images Amanda has sent, not understanding what I’m reading. More e-mails are circled, dated as recently as a few months ago. They say things like I want to bend you over on the MRI machine. I thought of you today and went into the bathroom to masturbate. You look so sexy in that short skirt. Do a dance for me, next time I see you.
These e-mails aren’t to me.
I sink against one of the cheese cases. The woman Greg is writing to signs her name Lolita. And she submits to him like a child. Thank you, she writes. I’m flattered. You’re so cute. She never has any requests of her own, but it’s clear she’s enjoying the attention.
Bile rises in my throat. I can’t believe this is happening.
Then I realize something else: Amanda wouldn’t have trolled for dirt on my husband. Someone sent this to her. Someone made her aware.
“Mom? You okay?”
Aurora’s face is full of alarm. She so closely resembles Martin with her dark hair and her green eyes and pouty mouth—it’s like looking at a ghost. Before I can hide what I’ve read, her gaze falls to my phone screen. Her brow furrows. A vein in her neck pops.
I press my phone to my chest. “I’m fine.”
But Aurora’s skin has gone pale. It’s clear she saw Greg’s name in the address line. “Mom?” she asks, her voice hoarse. “Was that in the hack?”
I turn to a display of blue cheese, grab the biggest hunk, and drop it into my cart. I hate blue cheese. It will rot in our fridge for weeks. But I need a distraction from Aurora. I can’t look at her. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
My heart pounds as we go through the checkout line. I hold it together as I drive Aurora to school. She gives me a long, inquiring look before she gets out of the car, but I pretend to be very committed to a story about the economy on NPR. After she trudges into the school building, I speed out of the school parking lot and merge onto the highway, typing while driving.
Who knows about this? I write to Amanda with shaking hands.
Amanda’s reply bubble is meek and regretful, like it wants to blurt out what it knows and then run quickly away, don’t-shoot-the-messenger style: Everyone.
* * *
That night, I stand at the foot of the Aldrich University Natural History Museum stairs,
gazing at the royal purple banner that announces the evening’s event. The night is everything I imagined when I put together the plans: It’s a beautiful, early spring sunset. Limos wait at the curb. The city twinkles magically. I pictured myself standing right here, hand in hand with Greg. I figured people would see an attractive woman in a slate-gray, low-cut silk gown that showed that, at thirty-nine, I’m still as fresh and beautiful as any undergrad, definitely too young to have a nineteen-year-old daughter. I imagined my glossy lips curving into a dazzling smile, and my husband giving me a lingering kiss at the corner of my mouth. It would be enough of a gesture to show everyone that our marriage is rock-solid, nothing to see here.
Now the only accurate prediction is the dress.
I glance once more at my reflection in my compact. Inside, I am trembling—raging, really—but I don’t have a hair out of place. I drop the compact back into my clutch, hold the hem of my gown, and start up the stairs alone . . . as though I meant to come solo all along.
“Mrs. Manning?” A guy stops me, and for a moment I think it’s him; I’ve been seeing Patrick ghosts everywhere. But this is a young kid in jeans, a black T-shirt. “Do you have a comment about the hack?” he asks. A reporter, then. He must recognize me as the president’s daughter.
“Nope,” I murmur, hurrying past.
“Have you been in touch with any of the universities that were targeted?” another voice dogs me. “Any idea who’s behind it?”
I duck my head. If I knew that, don’t you think I’d have already done something about it?
But Kit Manning-Strasser does not bark at journalists. I duck my head and push through the door, where, thankfully, the reporters aren’t welcome. My chest buzzes. At least the reporter didn’t ask about Greg’s e-mails. He’s practically the only person who hasn’t.
Inside, among a backdrop of dinosaur bones, paintings of woolly mammoths, and plaques heralding Arthur Aldrich, the nineteenth-century railroad baron, for funding paleontological digs all over the world, the party has begun. The student waitstaff looks presentable enough in their tuxedos, despite their Technicolor hair and stretched-out earlobes. I look around at the guests. People are drinking and laughing, but many look . . . off. They keep worriedly glancing at their phones—it’s obvious why. I want to tell them for the love of God to just stop.
“Kit, darling!” Judge Packard and his wife, Johanna, approach, breaking me from my spiraling memory. I straighten up—these are some of my biggest donors, and I need to focus. I give the Packards a convincing smile and, as they move forward to kiss my cheeks, I can smell that the judge has had a couple of vodkas already.
“Lovely party,” the judge says, the ice cubes in his drink clinking noisily.
“Such a fun locale!” Johanna agrees. “I haven’t been here since my kids were little. Where’s your gorgeous husband?”
I curl my toes. Way to be subtle. “Greg couldn’t make it,” I say brightly. “He’s not feeling well.”
“Really? What a shame . . .”
There’s a feisty, don’t-bullshit-a-bullshitter expression on Johanna’s face. So Johanna knows. She must have read the e-mails—for some reason, Greg’s e-mails to Lolita, along with a few other sordid gems, made it onto a “Worst of Aldrich University” post on Facebook. It’s likely no one else outside our universe cares—though I can bet money that Harvard, Princeton, and Brown have put together their own “worst of” lists—but everyone around here definitely knows everything.
I went straight home after dropping Aurora off at school because I knew Greg didn’t have surgery scheduled until later. I found him in the kitchen, reading a recent issue of Golf. He barely looked up as I approached. It’s a sharp contrast to how he used to greet me: springing effusively from his chair, peppering me with kisses, sometimes even sweeping me into the bedroom.
“I read those messages of yours in the hack,” I said in a dark voice to him. “Care to explain who Lolita is?”
Greg’s face clouded. His eyes lowered. “If you must know, I’ve never seen those e-mails before today.”
If I must know? It’s suddenly a privilege to be let in on a husband’s dalliances? “They were in your deleted mail. Of course you saw them.”
“Someone must have hacked me. Planted them there. Honestly, Kit, I have no idea.” He ran his hand through his hair. “But I could lose my job because of this.”
His voice sounded plaintive—even afraid. But his eyes blinked rapidly, something that always happened when he was in a bind. He’s lying. I thought of the last e-mail I read from Lolita: Don’t shut me out. The only thing getting me through this quotidian existence is you. Greg didn’t even write her back. Had he broken it off with her? Had he ghosted her? Should I feel sorry for this woman? Is she even age appropriate?
Quivering with rage, I told Greg not to come to the gala. I wanted it to be my decision, not his. Then I went upstairs. Greg didn’t follow. He didn’t try to defend himself, prove to me he hadn’t written the e-mails. When I went downstairs again, he was locked in his office, on the phone. My first thought was: He’s calling her. But he was probably on the phone with his boss, the chief of surgery at the hospital. He was probably trying to save his position.
Now I wonder if I’ve made the wrong choice in letting Greg stay home tonight—it’s as if I’ve given him a gift. It would be satisfying to see him squirm. For Johanna Packard to ask him her questions. For him to suffer some of the whispers and looks instead of me.
A hand touches my shoulder. My father, the Aldrich University president, looks dapper in his tuxedo—he’s whittled off his belly in the past few months, probably due to one of the exercise fads he’s always trying. If I were in a better mental state, I’d ask him which one it was. “Oh.” I feel my throat catch. I was hoping Dad wouldn’t be here, considering the hack. Then again, maybe he’s showed up because he doesn’t want to spook our donors. “Dad. Hey.”
My father gives Johanna Packard his million-watt smile, which seems to have some kind of voodoo effect on women of a certain age. “I realize Kit’s probably in the middle of a grand speech, but may I borrow her for a moment?”
Already a few paces away, Dad turns back, raising one eyebrow at me as if to say, You’re coming. All around me the volume is beginning to rise, and I catch snippets of conversation. One man waves a supersize iPhone at his wife. “How long has this been going on?” A robust man has his own iPhone pressed to his ear. “Do you realize those pictures are now on a public website?”
I feel worse with every step. Why hadn’t I asked Patrick’s last name? Why hadn’t I woken up when he did and followed him down to the lobby? If only I could call him right now, hear his voice, escape this nightmare . . .
My father stops at a reproduction of a prehistoric crocodile and gives me a stern, almost reproachful look. “So where’s your husband?”
Your husband. He can’t even say Greg’s name. I work hard to keep my shoulders back. “I told him not to come.”
“I see.”
I wave to the Lowrys, another Big Fish couple, across the room as a way of distraction. “So has the IT team shut down that Planett page yet?” I then ask my father. “What’s the status on getting the systems up and running? The donors are freaking out.”
Dad’s eyes narrow. “I’m handling it. Don’t worry.” Then he sighs. Shakes his head in shame. “I just can’t believe he’d do this to you, Kitty.”
I nod. I play the role of the humiliated, gutted, heartbroken woman. But there’s more to how I feel than just that. As the hours go on, a new feeling has supplanted my heartbreak. Knowing what I know, I should have fucked Patrick all night. I should have had a grand time, the best sex of my life. And I would have been way more discreet about it, too. I wouldn’t have put it on my goddamn e-mail. It’s bad enough that Greg cheated, but he’d cheated so foolishly, so sloppily, almost like he wanted to get caught and humiliate his f
amily.
Now everyone will think our marriage is a sham. People will feel sorry for me. They’ll whisper speculations about why Greg strayed. My daughters might even get drawn into the gossip. People might dig up how Greg and I met, how that connected to my first husband. They’ll think, Well, well, well, isn’t that ironic?
“Kit? Hey! Kit!”
It’s Lynn Godfrey, my coworker. Tonight, she wears a sleeveless, floor-sweeping red dress and five-inch pumps, and her white-blond hair is piled on top of her head in a French twist. She waves at me from across the room as though we’re old friends, though I’m certain Lynn is brimming with schadenfreude—she definitely knows about Greg’s e-mails. It wasn’t lost on me how bitter Lynn felt when I got to go to Philadelphia to attend to her clients.
I murmur an excuse to my father that I have to go. Then I cross the room to Lynn. She’s watching me, holding two filled martini glasses.
“Got this for you.” She proffers one of the cocktails as I approach. “It looks like you need it.”
I wave it away. “I never drink at the gala.”
Lynn snorts. “I went through quite an ordeal to get this. It’s a madhouse at that bar.”
She points a manicured fingernail toward one of the bars, and I see my daughter’s friend Raina Hammond mixing a cocktail. Raina gives me a cheerful wave, almost like she’s been waiting to catch my eye. I don’t smile back—something unnerves me about that girl. Before I left for the gala, I’d called Sienna; she’d told me she might go to a party with Raina later. Sienna also mentioned the e-mail hack, pausing awkwardly as if she wanted to bring something up but was afraid of what my reaction might be. Greg’s e-mails, naturally—so she read them, too. I’d nearly hung up on her, I was so desperate to get off the call.
I want that cocktail after all. I take a long sip, about to ask Lynn how the night is going—we should compare notes about donors. Suddenly, someone slams into me from behind. The martini splatters my arms and bodice. “Oof!” I cry out.
