you very much,” I say. I flash another smile, gripping the handles of the deli bag more tightly.
“You don’t have to be so shy, you know,” Lydia says.
Oh, okay. I’ll stop, then. All I was waiting for was you to say that. I know she means well. I smile—awkwardly—and let my eyes slide away.
“Hey!” A man comes into the foyer. “How are you, Rach?”
“Hi, Jared,” I say, feeling a genuine smile start.
“Bringing the luckiest guy in the world some lunch?”
“I am indeed. How’s Kimber?”
“She’s great. Want to see a picture? We went to Provincetown last weekend. Had a blast.”
“Sure.” Got to love a guy who whips out his phone to show off pictures of his fiancée.
He shows me seven pictures of his beloved. I’ve met Kimber a few times, and she’s quite a beauty, though I admit to being surprised the first time I saw her. Her hair is dyed a pinkish red that was never intended to be thought of as natural, she has a full-sleeve tattoo on one arm and wears brilliant peacock colors for eye shadow and liner. “You can just feel how happy she is in these pictures,” I say.
Jared grins. “Thanks, Rach. Listen, I have to run. Got a lunch that’s so boring, I might actually stab myself in the eye just to keep from falling asleep. Hey, let’s have dinner, the four of us, okay?”
“That’d be great.”
“Give the girls a kiss for me,” he says.
“Adam will see you now,” Lydia says.
“Lydia! Did you make her wait? Honestly. Rach, just go down to his office next time. You’re his wife. You have rights.” Jared gives me a mock-serious look, then leaves.
Dinner with him and Kimber would be nice, I think as I make my way down the hall to Adam’s small but lovely office. It’s so nice to see Jared smitten. In the past, he’d always dated country-club types, and I can’t remember one relationship lasting even a year. With Kimber, he met her and it was the thunderbolt, as he said.
Same with Adam and me.
“Babe!” Adam says as I go in.
“Hi. I brought lunch,” I say, going behind his desk to kiss him on the cheek.
“Oh. Wow, that’s so nice of you. Um…well, uh, no, it’s fine.”
“Did you have plans?”
“No, no. I mean, yeah, I was going to grab something with another lawyer, but it’s fine. Just let me send him a text.” His thumbs fly, his phone cheeps and he stands up. “Close the door so we can have some privacy, okay? What did you bring me?”
“Turkey and avocado.”
“’Atta girl.” He smiles at me and gets up.
Adam’s office has a little couch and chair, in addition to his desk, and we sit there as I unpack our lunch. He checks his phone, then slides it into his pocket.
Sometimes I feel like whipping that thing out a window. My cheeks hurt, which means I’ve been clenching my teeth.
“How are the girls?” he asks. “Are they with your sister?”
“No, with Donna,” I say. “Jenny’s working.”
“Right. But does she have regular hours and stuff?”
He’s never really understood how much work Jenny has had to do to get where she is, or how much time goes into making a wedding dress. He’s a guy, after all.
“She does. Regular hours and then some.” I take a bite of salad.
Then Adam’s door opens, and in comes Emmanuelle St. Pierre, one of Adam’s coworkers. “So where were we?” she says.
Then she sees me and freezes for the briefest second.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “Adam, I thought we were having lunch today. Did I have the wrong day?”
Just let me send him a text.
Him.
And so I know. I know.
Adam is cheating on me with her.
“Emmanuelle, you remember my wife, right? Rachel, you’ve met Emmanuelle, I think. The holiday party at the club?”
I’ve seen your vagina, I want to say.
“Um, mmm-hmm,” I mumble, because my mouth is full of unchewed arugula.
You fucking slut, is my next thought, but then again, of course she’s a fucking slut; she couldn’t be a slut without fucking, could she?
“Emmanuelle and I are working on a case together,” Adam says.
“Really,” I say, swallowing the mouthful of roughage without chewing. Really, Adam? Because you do corporate tax law, and she’s a criminal defense attorney, and even your stupid little housewife knows that you would not work on a case together.
“Adam, I didn’t mean to interrupt your little…picnic,” she says, and her eyes run over me, making me feel childish in my pink sweater, silly with my “trying to be artistic” earrings, like a failure in my little wifey-goes-out-to-lunch dress. She’s wearing a sleeveless black turtleneck dress, Armani, maybe. Jenny would know in a heartbeat. Her glossy, dark red hair is pulled into an unforgiving twist. Tiny gold hoop earrings. A wide, hammered gold ring on her right forefinger. No other jewelry. Black ankle boots with thin, thin heels that must be four inches high. Red soles. Those are… What’s that name? Christian Louboutin, right. Ridiculously expensive.
These details are razor-sharp, slicing through my brain with barely any blood spilled.
I’m wearing a heart necklace. As if I’m in third grade or something.
No. There are pictures of my children inside there. I’m a mother. Emmanuelle is not a mother, no sir.
Not yet.
“I guess I’ll talk to you later, Adam,” Emmanuelle says easily. “Nice to see you again, Rachel.” Then she’s gone. The smell of her perfume lingers like radiation.
Adam exhales. “So. What else have you got planned for today?” His face is studiously bland.
“You fucking liar,” I say, and then I throw his iced tea in his face and walk out of his office.
* * *
THE UPSIDE OF having three toddlers is they don’t leave you much time for thinking. I make the girls supper, read them poems as they eat, then finish their macaroni and cheese, because that stuff is delicious. I let them have a longer bath than usual, and read them extra stories and play Animal Kisses, in which they close their eyes while I woof, meow or moo softly in their hair till they guess which animal I am, or giggle so hard they can’t. For once, they’re all smiling and sweet when I give out their final hugs. No one gets out of bed, no one asks for water, no one cries.
Clearly, I’m the world’s most amazing mother.
I go downstairs, pour what has to be a ten-ounce glass of wine and sit on the couch and wait.
The look on his face, his wet, green-tea-drenched face, was almost funny.
Oily black anger twists and rises inside me. I try to dilute it with a few swallows of wine, but it stays.
I can’t be too angry about this. Well, of course, I can be… I am. But I can’t make decisions in anger. There are five of us to consider, not two.
Jenny has left two messages for me. Does she sense something? I haven’t answered.
Adam has not contacted me. That terror I felt last weekend shudders back to life.
Does