“Haven’t I told you that I come here three nights a week for dinner?” Alistair said, his dimples showing. “Tonight’s a bit later than usual, but we both had late meetings.”
For a moment Emily figured they worked together, but then something clicked: this woman wasn’t his coworker, she was his ex-wife. Granted, Emily had only Googled her briefly, just long enough to know she wasn’t still a threat, and yet here she was, tucked into a cozy booth with her supposed ex-husband, sharing a romantic late-night meal.
“I’m Emily Charlton,” she said with a broad fake smile. “You must be Alistair’s ex. Don’t worry, he only has nice things to say!”
The woman made a face like she’d spotted a dead rat. “Excuse me?”
“Oh, it’s not like we sit around talking about you, but he showed me pictures of the kids and said what a great mom you are.”
“Emily.” Alistair’s voice was grave, as if he were announcing a death. “This is Louisa. She is not my ex. And we are on a date.”
Emily’s hand flew to her mouth. “But they look . . . so . . . My God, when they say men have types, it’s really accurate.”
“And you are?” Louisa asked. She had regained her composure and looked like she sensed a fight and wasn’t planning to back down.
“I’m Emily Charlton,” she said.
Alistair helpfully explained, “Yes, Emily is married to a friend of mine. Miles is a good bloke. Haven’t seen him in a while. Tell him not to be such a stranger, okay?”
Emily felt her mouth fall open. That asshole. Who did he think he was? And more to the point, how did he know?
Alistair turned back to Louisa and clinked his wineglass to hers. As Emily continued walking to the bathroom, she could hear him say, “She’s a little mental, that one. But she means well.” Louisa’s laugh tinkled like a wind chime.
She’d barely finished washing her hands when her phone lit up with a text.
You’re not the only one who can Google
Followed by a thumbs-up emoji. Emily tried not to scream.
She had no choice but to walk past the happy couple on her way back to the bar and was irritated to overhear them discussing Trump’s Russian involvement. Louisa was engaged with current events too? How lucky for him.
“Can I get you another now?” the cute bartender asked.
Emily drained her drink and pushed the glass toward him. “Yes, please. And an IV if you have one.”
“Is this seat taken?” The voice behind her was a whisper; the only reason she could hear it at all was because it was so close to her ear. She whipped around and nearly fell off her bar stool.
“Miles? What are you doing here?” She jumped off the stool and threw her arms around her husband’s neck.
“I couldn’t let my baby drink alone,” he said, helping her back on her stool and then taking the one next to her. He tucked his overstuffed garment bag at their feet and placed his laptop bag on the bar.
“Oh my God. This is crazy! When did you get here? How long are you staying? And how did you know where to find me?”
He grinned and Emily thought: He is really freaking good-looking. Why am I always forgetting how much I want him the second he’s out of sight?
“I landed at JFK an hour ago. I wanted to surprise you. I’m here for two nights. And I showed up at Miriam’s house with a giant bouquet of baggage-claim flowers, but she said you’re staying at Karolina’s now, and that I could probably find you here. I left the flowers for her after one of the kids came downstairs crying. I think I woke them.”
“Why are you only here for two days? How can they do that to you? It’s not even long enough to get over the jet lag.” Emily took his hand in hers.
“Because I’m not here for work. I missed my girl. I have a meeting on the twelfth that I can’t miss, so it’ll have to be a quick visit.” He leaned over and kissed her, and Emily immediately felt her body respond. “Is Karolina going to mind if I stay with you tonight, or should we get a hotel room for some privacy?” Miles murmured.
“Karolina is in Bethesda for the night. The place is all ours.”
This time when he kissed her, he slipped his tongue in her mouth and lightly bit her bottom lip the way he knew she loved. “That is very good news.” And then to the bartender: “Check, please.”
Emily took his hand and followed him to the door. She couldn’t help but give one final look around the restaurant.
“Did you forget something?” Miles asked, holding her hand with one of his and slinging his bags with his other.
“What? No, of course not. Come on, let’s get back home and I’ll show you this new lace thingy I got. Only there’s not much lace. And the crotch seems to be missing . . .”
23
Home to the Custom-Fit Vagina
Miriam
What do they put in these Goldfish to make them so addictive? Miriam wondered for the thousandth time as she shoved a handful in her mouth. It wasn’t like they were Reese’s peanut butter cups. Hell, they couldn’t even compete with a good old-fashioned Dorito. They were a toddler’s snack cracker! But she found them so damn delicious.
So much for the calories burned on that three-mile walk-run, she thought, chewing loudly and enjoying her quiet, empty kitchen. Click, click, click. Miriam typed and clicked, typed and clicked, allowing only a few seconds to study each result before moving on to the next. She was a master Googler, researcher extraordinaire, and her investigation into Graham’s little doctor visits had yielded excellent results. Next up: the arrest. She needed all the intel available before suggesting a meeting with Trip, Graham’s lawyer, and decided she’d start with an exhaustive history of DUIs in Maryland—specifically anyone who had managed to clear his or her name after refusing a sobriety test. After that, she’d start trying to find out the names of all the cops on duty the night Karolina was arrested—not just the ones who’d brought her in—and see if anyone remembered anything suspicious. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she was sure she could uncover something.
Paul walked down the stairs in jeans and a fitted T-shirt, looking freshly showered.
Miriam clicked off the sordid Graham headlines.
“Whatcha looking up?”
“I just finished an article on how progressive certain towns in Montana are. Maybe we should move there?” she said, unsure why she didn’t want to talk about Graham and Karolina with him. It wasn’t a lie—she had just read that article—but what did she think she was hiding?
Paul peeled the top off a yogurt, licked it, and tossed it in the garbage. “Didn’t you just complain bitterly about how hard it was to get a drink in Utah?”
Miriam nodded. “Our kids would have a huge geographic advantage when applying to college. They could name their Ivy.”
“Benjamin is only eight!”
“Yes, but it’s never too early to think about these things. While all these Greenwich crazies spend the next ten years and tens of thousands of dollars on tutors and coaches and camps, we can move to Montana. And our kids will be just as likely to get in, if not more so.”
Paul scooped the last of his yogurt. How could he finish an entire cup in three spoonfuls? “You sound like an insane person. You might have gone to Harvard and I went to Arizona State?”
“So?” she asked.
“So . . . we’re both doing fine.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Come here,” he said, wrapping his arms around her. “What are we fighting about?”
Miriam didn’t say anything.
“We have a great home in a great town. The kids are thriving. You’ve made friends. What’s so awful about where we’re living?”
“Nothing’s awful. That’s not my point.”
“Well, then what is your point?”
“I don’t know . . . I just feel like we need a change.”
Paul nudged her chin up so she was looking at him. “Maybe what we need is to relax and enjoy it. Three kids in the span of three years. My company took off. Y
ou left your job. We moved out of the city. I’m not sure more change is the answer.”
“You’re right,” Miriam said.
“Good.” He kissed her on the cheek. Always the cheek.
“Where are you off to?” she asked when he pulled his fleece off the hook in the mudroom.
“Oh, a few of the guys are meeting up at the gym. For a squash game before work.”
“At ten in the morning?”
“Yeah, one of the younger guys thought it would be good team building.”
“So . . . where’s your gym bag?” Miriam asked as innocently as she could manage.
Paul looked momentarily confused. “Gym bag? Oh, it’s in the car already. I’ll be home in time for dinner, okay? Love you, honey.”
“You too . . .”
Miriam listened as the garage door opened, Paul’s car started, and the garage door closed. She watched through the mudroom door as the Maserati pulled away before she typed in the website that revealed all the hacked Ashley Madison user information, and then she searched every email address she knew for Paul. Once again, nothing turned up. Why did she keep doing it? She liked to think that if he were going to cheat on her, he’d at least be smart enough to use a fake email address. She’d never know if he didn’t want her to know, it was time to accept that. But did she really think Paul was capable of it? Then again, had you told her a couple years earlier that he’d be all but retired, living in the suburbs, playing squash and poker, and driving around a Maserati, she would’ve laughed herself to death. There was something contagious about suburban living that she didn’t remember from the city. When everyone you spoke to all day, every day, wore glitter headbands and yoga pants, it became normal.
Miriam glanced at the clock. It was time to get dressed or she was going to be late to the breakfast. When Ashley had asked Miriam if she’d like to join a weekly breakfast chat with a group of local moms, Miriam had initially begged off. Breakfast chat? What the hell was that? But then she tried to figure out what else she was doing at ten-thirty in the morning on a Friday. Or any day, really. Ashley had assured her a hundred times that it was fun and relaxed and super-casual—that everyone came in workout clothes—but Miriam knew better by now. Even though it took nearly an hour, she showered, shaved her legs, blew out and straightened her hair, applied full makeup, and dressed in a pair of newly ripped jeans and a rag & bone cold-shoulder sweater. Was she trying too hard to look twenty-five instead of thirty-five? she wondered as she grabbed her purse and jumped into her Highlander. Probably. But so was everyone else.
The moment she walked into the hostess’s dining room, Miriam could see that once again she had seriously miscalculated. Eight women clad exclusively in dry-wicking stretch fabrics sat around the table, nibbling on blueberries and throwing back Bellinis. All had their hair pulled into ponies or buns or glitter stretch bands; all wore cropped Lululemon leggings and tanks with built-in bras; the only thing that varied was the shade of neon on their Nike sneakers. No makeup. Sweaty-looking. Just as Ashley had promised.
“Oh, didn’t Ashley tell you?” Evie, their hostess, asked Miriam as she handed her a Bellini. “We schedule our breakfast meetings for ten-thirty so everyone can come right from their nine a.m. Soul classes or CrossFit or SLT or Bar Method or Orangetheory or beach boot camp or whatever.”
“Yes, and it gives us plenty of time to get drunk then sober up before pickup at three!” another woman called, raising her champagne flute in the air.
“Can’t pull a Karolina Hartwell,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. “My God. A DUI with kids in the car? Life-ending.”
“You’d have to move,” Evie said, sipping her cocktail. “Just list your house and get the hell out of town, because it’s over.”
Ashley said, “Karolina is actually a friend of Miriam’s.”
The room got so silent Miriam could hear someone swallow. This was almost an entirely different group of women than the ones who were at the sex-toy party she’d attended. Ashley had told her these women were a sort of rival clique with little overlap.
“She’s a really good person, and this whole situation is just . . . a giant misunderstanding.” Miriam took the only empty seat, at the head, and helped herself to a bowl of yogurt and a blueberry mini-muffin.
The women exchanged glances and moved on.
“Di, did you get Andrew to agree to Jamaica for Christmas next year?” said a tall, thin woman in all-black spandex. “I have to pay the deposit this week.”
Di, a pretty blonde who looked to be in her early thirties, shook her head as though something grave had happened. “I keep trying! I can’t reach him at all during the day when he’s at work, and when he comes home at night, he doesn’t want to talk about any planning. It’s so frustrating!”
Nods all around.
“I’m sure he’d rather rent the villa with you guys than go to my parents’ in Scottsdale again. Go ahead and count us in.”
This got everyone talking about their Christmas plans, despite the fact that it wasn’t yet Memorial Day: Montego Bay, Turks and Caicos, the new Aman in the Dominican. Which quickly segued into plans for Presidents’ Week (Galápagos, Alaska, fjords in Finland, shopping in Paris) and ended in a heated debate about the best place for spring skiing out west: Deer Valley, Jackson Hole, or Aspen.
Evie walked around the table, refilling champagne glasses. “Would anyone prefer a Bloody Mary? I can ask Mina to make up a batch.”
A handful of women, including Miriam, raised their hands. Why not? Champagne gave her a headache, and what else was she going to drink at eleven in the morning? Coffee? Juice? She lived in Greenwich now. Please.
The woman sitting to Miriam’s left turned and introduced herself as Josie. “How old are your kids?” Josie asked.
“Oh, I have an eight-year-old boy and five-year-old boy-girl twins,” Miriam said, barely noticing the assumption that she had children, something she never would have assumed of anyone in New York City. “What about you?”
The woman smiled and Miriam couldn’t tell if it was one of bitterness or exhaustion or joy. “Five, actually.”
“Wait—five children? Or five years old?”
Another indiscernible smile. “Oldest boy is four. Then a three-year-old girl and a two-year-old girl. Of course we thought we’d roll the dice for one more boy—my husband’s idea—and we got twins. Identical boys, eighteen months. I think we’re probably done.”
“What—probably?” Miriam hated to sound so horrified, but never in her life had she met someone with five children under four. How was this woman even alive right now?
“Well, you never really know, do you? I’m only thirty-three.”
“Yes, of course. You have lots more time. Lots,” Miriam hurried to say, but Josie had already excused herself to refresh her drink.
“Don’t let her get to you,” Ashley whispered, leaning in.
“My God,” Miriam said, shaking her head. “How does she raise all those kids?”
“She doesn’t.”
“Doesn’t work?”
“Doesn’t raise the kids,” Ashley said. “She’s one of those who thinks of kids as a status symbol. Like, the more you have, the more money you have. She has two au pairs, a full-time live-out driving nanny, and weekend help all day Saturday and Sunday. She’s not exactly overextended.”
“Still. Five kids under four? And she looks like that? It’s so epically unfair.”
“You set up a meeting with Dr. Lawson and you could look like that too,” Ashley murmured under her breath. “He has offices in the city and in Greenwich. Does beautiful work and is very discreet. Even his waiting rooms are totally private. Just say the word.”
“There is no way plastic surgery gave her that body.” Miriam looked at Josie’s long legs and the nearly nonexistent hips and the long, flowing beach waves.
“No, not all of it. Good genes gave her the legs. Near-starvation and three hours a day of cardio make her skinny. But the tight abs? The pert nose?
The cheerleader breasts?” Ashley cupped her own breasts here and pushed them up toward her neck. “Those are all Dr. Lawson’s. Not to mention the well-Botoxed forehead and the plumped-up lips. Tammy, a nurse in his office, did those.”
“Wow,” Miriam breathed. “No wonder everyone looks so much better than me.” She’d always figured it was stunningly obvious when someone had plastic surgery: the Jennifer Grey nose, the Renée Zellweger lips, the Joan Rivers pulled-too-tight face, the Heidi Pratt boobs. But every last inch of Josie looked natural and in proportion.
Ashley glanced around the table. “By my count, every single woman at this table has had something done except one.”
“Who? Evie? She doesn’t seem like the type.”
“You.”
“Oh, come on. You can’t be serious,” Miriam said.
“I’m completely serious. Every single one.”
“What did you have?” Miriam couldn’t envision that a single thing about perky blond Ashley wasn’t God-given. Except maybe the highlights. But even those looked sun-kissed and natural.
“Me?” Ashley sipped her mimosa. “Please. What haven’t I had done? I was scheduled to get my eyes done in eight weeks, but I think I’m going to do my vagina instead.”
“Your . . . vagina?”
Ashley nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it forever, ever since Claire did it. You remember meeting her for the first time there, right? At the sex-toy party?”
Miriam squinted. She vaguely recalled the hostess saying she’d just gotten her vagina “done,” but no one had elaborated.
Ashley continued, “Things with Eric are still up in the air. He knows I know about Ashley Madison, and he’s saying all the right things. It’s going to take some time to figure out how we move forward, together or separately. So I figure do the vag now and it’ll pay dividends no matter what: either for Eric, who may think twice about affairs with married women if his own wife is like a teenager down there. Or for the next man. If I have to be back out there dating again”—with this, she shuddered—“then you better believe I’m going to give myself every advantage.”