She hesitated. “Thank you.” She couldn’t avoid replying to him in front of the girls, but it chafed that she had to be gracious, that she couldn’t say what she really wanted to: If I look so nice, why’d you have an affair with another woman?
She saw bright headlights as Karin’s minivan pulled into the driveway. “I’m off, girls, see you soon.” She deliberately excluded Frank from her good-bye.
• • •
Josie was dying to tell Amanda what was going on.
Amanda would be warm and sympathetic, but more important, she’d give Josie a fresh perspective. So few people knew about what had happened. Maybe Amanda would say something that would help Josie figure out what to do next.
“No, no, a thousand times no,” Karin said when Josie floated the idea on their way to pick up Amanda. “You know what she’s like. She’ll stand up at the next PTA meeting and say, ‘Should we set up a meal delivery schedule to help Josie during this awful time?’ ”
“She’s not that bad. But, yeah, she probably would let something slip.” Josie sighed. “You’re right. I won’t tell her.”
• • •
When they arrived at the bar, they found it surprisingly crowded. Louie’s had two big connecting rooms, each filled with high round tables and wooden booths. An event was taking place in the back room. Josie could see men and women wearing name tags and mingling.
“Is it a high school reunion?” Amanda wondered. The hostess had seated them at a table that afforded them a direct view into the gathering.
“I bet it’s an office thing,” Karin said, squinting. “Everyone looks uncomfortable. Check out their body language.”
The waitress approached and all three women ordered glasses of chardonnay. “The universal frazzled-mom beverage,” Karin said. “Now, how about food? Hummus and pita? Maybe a cheese plate, too?”
“Yum, yes,” Amanda said. “You look so skinny, Josie. What’s your secret?”
“Oh, I’m just cutting down on carbs.” She knew if she met Karin’s eyes she’d give something away, so Josie reached for her glass of water and took a big sip.
“Wait, this is interesting,” Karin said. She tilted her head in the direction of the back room. “Everyone just sat down. But they’re all at tables for two. They went from a group into couples just like that.”
Josie studied the pair nearest to them. The guy was staring down at his drink; the woman’s teeth were clenched in a smile. If she had to guess, she would’ve said they were out on a first date, and that it wasn’t going particularly well.
“I don’t know,” Amanda said. “Check out the man in the purple sweater. He’s, like, a hundred years older than the woman he’s with. They can’t be together.”
“And what about those two?” Josie flicked her eyes toward a corner of the room. “She’s in a little black dress, and he looks like he just came from the gym.”
When the waitress arrived with their wine, Karin asked: “What’s happening in there?”
“Speed dating,” the waitress replied.
“Seriously?” Josie looked more carefully into the room. She would have said most of the speed daters were in their late thirties or early forties. If she divorced Frank, these would be her people.
“Jeez, I’m glad I’m not out there anymore,” Amanda said. “Remember what it was like? All those awful dates, all those lonely Saturday nights.”
Josie took a sip of her wine, noticing Karin’s eyes flick toward her.
“Hey, Miss Lonelyhearts, what universe did you exist in?” Karin said. “I loved being single. Never having to compromise on what movie you’d see or whether you had to have your husband’s obnoxious law school roommate stay with you when he came to town . . .”
“It almost sounds like that isn’t a hypothetical, Karin,” Josie said. She knew Marcus’s former roommate drove Karin nuts, and that he visited every couple of years.
“All I’m saying is that being single now, in our forties, when we know ourselves so much better and can make wise choices, wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world,” Karin declared.
No, that isn’t all you’re saying, Josie thought.
Amanda began talking about the dog her children were begging her to adopt, and although Josie tried to listen, her gaze kept being pulled back to the speed-dating room.
One of the men was actually quite attractive. She could only see his profile. He had very close-cropped hair, probably to camouflage his receding hairline, but on him it looked good. His shoulders were muscular and his nose was strong and straight.
Everyone in that room had a story of heartbreak, a tale of loneliness. She wondered what the man’s narrative was. Perhaps his wife had left him. Perhaps she’d died.
He was the sort of man Josie would be interested in getting to know if she were single.
Wait, was she single? Josie wondered. Not technically. But in spirit, yes.
It was far too soon to go on a date, though. Aside from the fact that she’d only seen the guy’s profile and knew nothing about his character, this wasn’t like when Josie was nineteen and tried to speed through heartbreak by meeting a new guy as soon as possible. You couldn’t use a hookup to smother the emotions that stemmed from the implosion of a twelve-year marriage.
“You’re so quiet tonight,” Amanda said. Amanda was one of those people who really seemed to see you when she looked at you. She regarded Josie as she waited for a response.
“Sorry, long week . . . I guess I’m just tired,” Josie said.
“Everything okay?” Amanda asked.
“Yeah, it’s just . . . Frank and I are having a thing. A fight.”
“Hoo boy,” Karin said, her foot nudging Josie’s under the table in warning.
The waitress passed by their table. “Another round?”
“Not for me, I’m driving,” Karin said.
Josie didn’t realize she’d drained her glass. “Sure, I’ll have one.”
“Me too,” Amanda said, even though she still had half of her drink left. “So, what are you fighting about?”
“I just . . .” A lump formed in Josie’s throat and she shook her head. It was the kindness in Amanda’s voice that did it.
Amanda’s right hand reached across the table and covered Josie’s left one.
“He had an affair. You can’t tell anyone, okay? Please.”
When Amanda spoke, her voice contained no surprise.
“I thought it was something like that,” she said.
Josie’s head jerked up. “What? How’d you know?”
If lovable, clueless Amanda had already caught on, then Josie had no hope. Everyone else would figure it out, too.
“Because of this.” Amanda squeezed Josie’s hand. “You aren’t wearing your wedding ring.”
• • •
Two glasses of wine later, she’d told Amanda everything. “What do you think?” Josie asked. “There’s no way I can stay in this marriage, right?”
Amanda didn’t answer immediately. She just kept looking at Josie, a thoughtful expression on her face. “You don’t have to decide right now,” she finally said.
“That’s what my new therapist seems to think, too.”
“It’s hard when your life is following a certain direction, then it veers onto another path,” Amanda said. “Uncertainty can be terrifying.”
Josie nodded and dabbed at her eyes with the napkin Karin passed to her. “Yes. That’s it exactly.”
“I think you need to talk to Frank,” Amanda said. “Once you really understand why it happened, it’ll be easier for you to decide what to do.”
“Why it happened?” Karin echoed. “It happened because he’s a scumbag—sorry, Josie, but it’s the truth—and he doesn’t deserve her understanding.”
Josie dragged a triangle of pita through hummus and popped it into her mouth. She immediately regretted it; the bread was tough and chewy and the hummus was as bland as paste. She took a big swallow of water to wash it down.
“Frank wants us to go to a marriage counselor,” she said.
Amanda shrugged. “Just because you go doesn’t mean you’re promising to save the marriage. But it might at least calm things down. At the moment you hate him, right?”
Josie nodded. “Passionately.”
Amanda looked directly into her eyes again, and Josie had the feeling Amanda had never seen her more clearly. “It’s one thing to hate your husband,” she said slowly. “But it’s another to hate the father of your children, isn’t it?”
* * *
Chapter Fifteen
* * *
One year earlier
IT WAS MOMS’ NIGHT out at Louie’s, and the waitress had just delivered a round of chardonnay to their table of three. Josie and Karin were treating Natalie, another parent from the elementary school, who was moving to Cleveland because her husband had secured a tenure-track teaching job at a university there.
Josie hadn’t known Natalie long, but they’d sat together in the back row of a bumpy school bus on the way to a field trip at a petting zoo at the very beginning of the year, and the experience had bonded them. “Like war veterans,” Natalie had joked.
The night had started with cocktails and conversation about their kids—Izzy’s tantrums, Natalie’s comic tales of her potty-training attempts for her two-and-a-half-year-old, Karin’s worry that the twins had begun to stockpile snacks beneath their beds, which could lead to hoarding (though Josie was pretty sure Karin was exaggerating in an effort to entertain them).
Then Karin held up her palm: “You know what? We talk about the kids all the time. Let’s put the kibosh on that tonight.”
“Are husbands off-limits, too?” Natalie asked.
“No, they’re good,” Karin decided. “As long as it’s something relating to you. Like, let’s not talk about their jobs or how busy they are or that kind of bullshit.”
“What about the fact that Charles and I haven’t had sex in three months?” Natalie asked.
“Hang on,” Karin said. She signaled the waitress and ordered a fresh round. “You were saying?” she prompted.
“It’s not his fault, poor guy. I just look at him and think”—Natalie gave a little shrug—“Eh. The sex was never spectacular, to be honest,” she continued. “Maybe if we hadn’t known each other forever it could have been different. But I remember Charles in the second grade, crying because someone’s shoe flew off and hit him in the head during kickball. I used to think the fact that we knew each other so well was a good thing. But now I wonder . . . would life be more exciting with someone else?”
Karin shook her head. “No,” she said decisively. “The problem is, when you live with someone for years, there isn’t any mystery. How can you be expected to want to rip off someone’s clothes when you’ve picked up their gross tissues because they missed the trash basket, and when they walk past you and you realize ten seconds later that they farted?”
“Husbands are disgusting,” Josie said, laughing.
“So what about you?” Natalie asked. “Do you guys have, like, regular sex?”
“Marcus would want it three times a day if I let him,” Karin said. “He’s the horniest guy I know. But we only do it about twice a week. Maybe three times.”
“Three times a week is good!” Josie exclaimed. “Wow, don’t tell Frank or he’ll be jealous.”
“What about you?” Natalie asked.
Josie shrugged. “Maybe twice on a good week,” she said. The number still sounded low. “It was more before Izzy was born,” she added.
“Yeah, the second kid is the sex killer,” Natalie said. “I don’t even know if I’d want to have sex with anyone else at this point. I mean, a hot bath, a good movie, a night alone in my bed without a little kid crawling in and kicking me . . . that’s probably my biggest fantasy right now.”
“Even if Brad Pitt showed up and begged me to sleep with him, I’d probably be too worried about how I looked naked to enjoy it,” Josie joked.
“Do you think our husbands care?” Natalie asked. “I mean, that we don’t look the same as we did when we first met them.”
“Marcus says he loves my stretch marks because they are from carrying our babies,” Karin said.
Josie felt a surge of envy. Sweet, adoring Marcus, who always put his wife first. No wonder Karin was so confident. Josie drained her glass of wine.
“I read this article in a magazine once,” Natalie said. “It talked about how most women need to feel an emotional connection with their husbands in order to enjoy sex. But the thing is, it’s the opposite for most guys. They need to have sex to feel emotionally connected to their wives. So when one side gets out of whack, the whole relationship falls apart. It’s like a catch-twenty-two.”
“Well, you know what they say,” Karin said. She looked at Natalie, then at Josie, and raised her eyebrows. “If you don’t have sex with your husband, someone else will.”
• • •
The first time Josie suspected something, she let herself be convinced it wasn’t real.
It was the night of one of Frank’s big business events. A cocktail hour would lead into dinner at a fancy hotel in the heart of town. Tons of people from his industry would be there; Frank’s company had purchased three round tables.
Zoe was six years old then, and Izzy was three.
“Are you sure you should drive?” Josie asked that morning as Frank looped his tie into a knot around his neck.
“Yeah, I won’t drink that much,” he said.
“Just take a cab home if you do,” she said. “I can drive you into work tomorrow.”
The dinner was an annual event. Frank always looked forward to it because he got to catch up with old colleagues. Spouses were never included. Josie wasn’t sure whether she felt relieved or disappointed about that; it would have been nice to dress up and be served a fancy dinner, to chat with other adults and sip martinis. But Frank was always so busy networking at these events, and although she was friendly with some of his coworkers, she didn’t know them well enough to sustain a long conversation, so she often felt bored.
Even worse, she felt boring. “What are you up to?” people would ask. She could talk for a few minutes about her little toy-sale business, but those conversations ran out of steam quickly. “And the kids? They’re good?” Frank’s colleagues would say, their expressions indicating they were only interested in a superficial answer. Josie didn’t know about the intricacies of their jobs, or the personalities of the players in the industry; Frank and his colleagues spoke a language she couldn’t infiltrate. “Oh, they’re a handful!” Josie would laugh, and Frank’s colleagues would laugh, too, then move on.
Maybe she’d suggest to Frank that they get a sitter next weekend. The two of them could go out to a nice dinner on their own. It had been a while since they’d done that.
As for tonight, she’d order pizza and pop the cork on a bottle of cheap rosé and put on a movie for the kids, she decided. It wouldn’t be as good as a custom-made martini, but it would still be a treat.
Her evening passed uneventfully. They watched Beauty and the Beast—the great version with Emma Watson; Josie fast-forwarded through the scary parts—and at around eight o’clock, right after the credits rolled, Josie told Izzy it was time for bed.
“My tummy hurts,” Izzy complained.
“Too much pizza,” Josie said, hustling Izzy into the bathroom and squirting toothpaste onto her toothbrush. “You’ll feel better when you lie down.”
Izzy fell asleep easily, leading Josie to deduce that the claim of a stomachache was a ploy to delay bedtime, and a half hour later, Zoe was tucked into bed, too.
Josie took a hot shower—she’d been so rushed she’d skipped one that morning and had felt grimy all day—then she’d tidied the kitchen before letting Huck out the back for his final pee of the evening.
She’d intended to read in bed, but the shower and rosé and low-key evening had left her feeling so relaxed that she’d dozed off at
around nine thirty.
She’d awoken to the sound of retching.
“Izzy?” she’d called as she’d run toward the bathroom. But Izzy hadn’t made it that far. She’d vomited on her bedroom carpet.
“Oh, sweetie,” she said.
Izzy started to cry. “I’m sick,” she said.
“I’m so sorry, baby,” Josie said. “Does your tummy still hurt?”
“Yes,” Izzy wailed miserably.
She carried Izzy into the bathroom and helped her rinse out her mouth with tap water and left her sitting on the bath mat, promising that she’d be right back. She dampened a towel and cleaned up the mess on the carpet as best she could, but the room still smelled awful. She grabbed a fresh towel, threw it over the stain, and pulled the door shut. She’d have to deep-clean the rug tomorrow, but this was the best she could do for now.
Then she looked at her phone.
It was 12:17 a.m. Where was Frank?
She sat on the closed lid of the toilet and rubbed Izzy’s back while she called his cell. It rang a couple of times, then she heard his voice mail message, ending with “Hit me at the beep.” Maybe his group had decamped to a bar. If it was loud, he wouldn’t hear his phone. She didn’t bother leaving a message, knowing he’d see the missed call once he checked his phone.
She helped Izzy gargle with a bubble gum–flavored kids’ mouthwash, then she carried her daughter to her bed, settling her into Frank’s side. She put a plastic trash can on the floor, along with yet another towel, and she left the bathroom light on. Izzy felt slightly feverish, but Josie knew medicine might upset her stomach even more.
“I need Teddy,” Izzy said, and Josie sighed and got up and braved Izzy’s room again, searching for her little brown bear.
Josie kept her phone by her side, and forty-five minutes later, still wide awake, she phoned Frank again. She listened to the ring, then heard his voice mail message again. “Where are you?” Annoyance turned her whisper into a hiss. “Izzy is sick. Come home!”
It was after one in the morning. Bars in the city were still open, but it was a weeknight. This was ridiculous.
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