The Stranger Behind You

by Carol Goodman

  Chapter Two

  Melissa

  IT WAS GOING to be a perfect night.

  After a late cold spring and a spate of sultry days in May, June had produced one perfect summer evening for my Solstice Gala at the New York City Garden Conservancy. The sky was the same color as the aperol spritzes quivering atop the brass trays and the banks of dahlias and tiger lilies bordering the lawn. It had taken a bit of coaxing to convince the head gardener at the conservancy to replant the perennial borders for this one event, but I was used to coaxing recalcitrant men. Everything needed to be perfect tonight.

  Standing on the marble stairs that led down to the garden, I did a final check. The waitstaff were wearing orange silk ribbons, a symbol of suicide awareness, and matching bow ties. Plates of vegan and locally sourced hors d’oeuvres stood ready to be circulated to the guests. Provenance of said appetizers printed on recycled cardstock had been inserted in press kits. Reporters carefully chosen from the Globe—and one each from competing papers. And Whit, handsome in tux and orange cummerbund, standing on the lawn with his boyfriend, Drew, and the head gardener. Drew would no doubt be pestering the gardener about organic fertilizers and sustainable crops, but that was a small price to pay for the smile on my son’s face—something I thought I’d never see again three years ago.

  Was Whit just a trifle tense, though? Would tonight be too much for him?

  You can’t protect him forever, Cass had said when I voiced that same concern this morning.

  Why not? I had wanted to reply. Look what came of us not protecting him three years ago.

  But instead I had only sighed and asked Cass please not to be late. That was the last item on my checklist: husband present and accounted for. But of course he wasn’t here.

  I looked down at my watch, the diamond encrusted Cartier tank that Cass had given me for our anniversary three years ago. For giving me a second chance, he’d had inscribed on the back. It was only five minutes to seven. Cass had promised to leave the office at six but traffic on the West Side Highway could be heavy.

  Why not make it eight? he’d asked.

  Why not leave early? I’d countered. Or not go in at all. This gala is in honor of your son—

  He doesn’t see it that way and neither do I. I’ll be there as close to seven as I can. You know I’ve got the meeting at city hall today.

  And of course I’d relented. After all, his job paid the bills. It had bought this life where I could coax the head gardener of the conservancy into replanting his perennial borders. I’d only once put my foot down with Cass—three years ago—but then Whit had been in the hospital and I’d held all the bargaining chips.

  I looked back toward Whit to reassure myself he was okay. He was laughing at something Drew was whispering in his ear, leaning down to hear what he had to say, a lock of dark hair falling across his brow. He needed a haircut, but at least there was color in his face and light in his eyes. He was fine. More than fine. He was perfect, and so would be this night. I wouldn’t let Cass’s lateness ruin it.

  “Is Dad here?”

  Emily was right behind me tottering unsteadily in the ridiculously high heels she’d insisted on buying—$700 Manolo Blahniks in a shade of orange she’d never wear again.

  “Not yet, sweetie, you know your dad. He’ll make a last-minute entrance for effect. Why don’t you go over with Whit’s friends?”

  She made a face. “And get another lecture on why I should be vegan? Please.”

  “Drew’s been wonderful for your brother—” I began.

  “I know, I know. We all have to support Whit. I’m here, aren’t I? And in this ridiculous color.”

  It was true that orange did not suit Emily. She’d gotten Cass’s coloring—white-bread WASP—whereas Whit had enough of my Mediterranean olive tones to pull off a sultry orange. For myself I had commissioned a dress based on Frederic Leighton’s painting Flaming June, which had turned out perfect. Poor Emily was wearing a clinging nylon halter dress that wasn’t doing her figure any favors. I’d tried to suggest she try on a larger size but that had only resulted in a tearful fight at Bergdorf’s.

  “You look fine,” I lied. “And where else would you be?”

  Emily’s face reddened, which only made the dress look worse on her. “Because I have no social life, right?” She’d just finished her first year at Bard and it hadn’t gone well. I just don’t fit in! she had wailed all year long. She’d sung the same song through high school at Brearley; I was beginning to be afraid she was just one of those girls who never finds her place.

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Whatever, Mom,” Emily said, plucking an aperol spritz off the tray held by a passing waiter. “I’ll go check on Whit and make sure he doesn’t get too close to the parapet or anything.”

  It was a mean thing to say, but I didn’t have time to get into it with Emily right now. Guests were arriving, floating down the marble stairs into the garden, oohing at the banks of orange flowers, tilting back the spritzes, including Wally Shanahan, flamboyant in an orange off-the-shoulder gown that hugged every bone on her Pilates-toned figure, which was still immaculate despite her sixty-plus years. Not only was Wally married to the Manhattan DA, Pat Shanahan, currently running for governor, she was also one of the biggest donors of the Suicide Awareness Directive. She’d lost a son to suicide twelve years ago, which gave her an authority that I always thought it best to defer to.

  “Look at what you’ve done, Mel!” she cried, clasping me to her bosom. She sounded like she was scolding me, but that was just her way.

  “We’ve done,” I quickly amended. “I couldn’t have done it without you.”

  Wally wiped her eyes. “We did it for our children,” she said, her voice catching on children. Wally had only the one now, a frightfully efficient lawyer who so far was refusing to produce grandchildren. If Wally got going now about her son she would break down.

  “Look,” I said, leaning in to whisper, “Freddie Marcus is here with wife number three.”

  Wally put on the glasses that were hanging from a jeweled chain on her neck and examined the elderly banker escorting a young woman wearing a shocking-pink evening dress and snorted. “We’ve got shoes older than her, darling.”

  Of course, Wally was more than a decade older than me, but she could have been talking about all of the young women at the party: the ones who worked at the Globe who were coming now in their summer dresses fluttering like butterfly wings, except for one girl in a prim vintage polka-dot dress, librarian glasses, and heavy, mannish loafers whom I guessed was the reporter from Manahatta. I was wondering if Simon had hired her and whether he still went for the same type of shy, bookish girl he’d liked in college. The rest of the young women were all asking the same question: Where is he? Is he here yet?

  Wally picked up the refrain. “Where is that handsome husband of yours?”

  I sighed and checked my watch again. “Stuck in traffic, no doubt. He had an important meeting down at city hall today.”

  “More important than his son?” Wally asked.

  “Cass was there for Whit three years ago,” I said automatically. It had become a mantra, one repeated a dozen times a day.

  “Of course he was,” Wally cooed soothingly. “What father wouldn’t have shown up when his son landed in the ER with an overdose. It’s showing up for the everyday stuff that’s hard for men like our husbands. Speaking of which, there’s mine.” She tilted her glass in the direction of the terrace, where Pat had arrived with his entourage, creating that crackle of electricity that politicians (good politicians, Cass would say) always brought with them. He was surrounded by a gaggle of reporters who brought with them the restless, prowling energy reporters (good reporters, Cass would say) always have. Cass had had it when we met thirty years ago at Brown. It was what had drawn me to him in the beginning, before I had known where that prowling might lead him.

  “I’d better go stand by my man,” Wally said, giving me an airy kiss on the
cheek, “and save him from the vultures.”

  Saving people was Wally’s specialty. She’d saved me when I’d gotten the call about Whit. It was during a Brearley parents meeting, and Wally Shanahan had followed me out into the hall to ask if everything was all right. I knew Wally slightly because she’d helped Whit get an internship at the District Attorney’s Office, so I had blurted out that Whit was in the hospital up in Providence and that I couldn’t reach Cass. Wally had immediately called her driver to come pick us up. An hour later we were on the Merritt Parkway and I was spilling everything. All about why I couldn’t reach Cass because I’d kicked him out two months earlier when I’d found out he was screwing his secretary.

  “Does he want to come back?” Wally had asked.

  “Oh, he says he does,” I’d admitted, “but I’m not sure I want him. Look at what it’s done to Whit.”

  “And what will it do to Whit if you divorce?” Wally had asked. “Don’t you think you need your family together at a time like this? Don’t you think your boy needs his father right now?”

  Of course, Wally had been right. I called Cass, and the secretary—she was a new one; not the one Cass had slept with; he’d at least had the manners to fire her—had actually been very nice and found Cass in minutes and hired him a helicopter. When we arrived, Cass was sitting at Whit’s bedside grasping his hand—the one that wasn’t attached to the IV—in both of his. And poor Whit, looking so pale and thin, was staring up at his father the way he had during his first swimming lessons—like Cass could pull him out of the water with the power of his gaze. I had known then that I would take Cass back the next time he asked—but first I’d make sure I got a few things in return.

  A promise never to cheat again.

  A commitment to fund a foundation to raise awareness of suicide.

  A vow to always put family above the paper.

  And he’d seemed to be honoring those commitments—he’d acted the part of the dutiful, loving husband and he’d even thrown in a hefty contribution to Pat Shanahan’s campaign fund as a thank-you to Wally for taking such good care of me during a crisis. But here he was, after only three years, late to only the second annual fundraiser for SAD. How soon before he began sliding on his other promises? I eased myself away from Cy and Marjorie Ellis, old friends of Wally’s and generous donors, to glance at my phone. No messages from Cass, but there was one from Sylvia Crosley.

  Call me. Now.

  It wasn’t like her to be so histrionic. Sylvia had a reputation for being unfailingly composed, and I was fond of her, even if she had betrayed me by taking a job at my husband’s rival’s magazine. She’d been miffed she couldn’t come tonight, but there was some office thing at Manahatta she just had to attend—some “big hush-hush announcement.” Maybe Manahatta was going under. Maybe that’s why Sylvia wanted me to call her. She needed a job at the Globe.

  I looked across the lawn and saw the little boho reporter in the polka dots—what had Sylvia said her name was? Some Disney princess name like Belle or Aurora—checking her phone. Her eyebrows lifted above the rims of those ridiculous glasses, and then she started walking toward Whit, holding her phone out to him. I headed toward them to see what she wanted with him but she was making better time across the grass in her mannish loafers than I was in my spike heels. I could hear the pings of notification alerts going off as I passed the clutch of Globe reporters. How rude not to silence their phones, but of course the press had to stay connected, as Cass always said when I asked him not to check his phone at dinner.

  But it wasn’t just the reporters who were looking at their phones. Those young second wives had theirs out too and their husbands and the wealthy donors in Wally’s set, and the flaks clustered around Pat Shanahan. Even Wally herself was frowning down at her screen—She’d get a widow’s hump if she stood like that too much—and then looking up at me with an expression of—

  What?

  I wasn’t sure I’d ever seen this expression on Wally’s face before. It almost looked like—

  “Ms. Osgood?” The Manahatta reporter turned away from Whit, whose face was drained of color, and held her phone up for me to see. “Do you have any comment about the recent allegations against your husband?”

  The screen was open to a Manahatta story—I recognized the font—with the headline: “Global Predator: Six Women Accuse Caspar Osgood of Sexual Misconduct.” I felt the ground beneath my feet wobble—Never let them see you waver, Cass always said—but I managed a chilly smile.

  “I see it’s a story from Manahatta, one of my husband’s competitors. Not exactly an impartial source. Everyone knows Simon Wallace has always been jealous of Cass.” My voice hitched as I said Simon’s name. He had been Cass’s college roommate freshman year, and always . . . there. Hanging around Cass at the local bars, joining the same clubs, writing for the newspaper. He came from a working-class family in one of those depressing little New England mill towns not far from the college, and it was clear that he was trying really hard to fit in. My shadow, Cass called him. Then they had a falling-out when Cass got that promotion at the Times that Simon had wanted and he’d stopped speaking to both of us. It had hurt me that he was able to walk away from our friendship so easily, but as Cass said, it was only a matter of time before men like Simon showed their true colors. Still, Simon wouldn’t ruin Cass. No matter what had happened between them, he wouldn’t do that to us, would he? I slid my eyes away toward Wally, who was hovering nearby, hoping that she would echo my comment, but Wally only stared back with that look on her face.

  Pity—that’s what was on Wally Shanahan’s stricken face. Pity.

  “Are you saying you don’t believe the women?” the reporter demanded.

  Don’t let them put words in your mouth, Cass always said. If you don’t like the question then answer one you like better.

  “I believe my husband, who has made this foundation possible—”

  “Which was initiated by your son’s suicide attempt,” the little chit of a reporter said, swiveling back to face Whit. “Did your father’s behavior have anything to do with your suicide attempt?”

  “What a disgusting suggestion!” I shouted, stepping forward to get in between the reporter and Whit.

  “Isn’t it true that you only took your husband back because of your son’s suicide attempt?” the reporter countered. Whit’s eyes were filling with tears. He looked desperately toward me and I remembered how he had been looking up at Cass when I came into the hospital room. Like he was drowning. “Or didn’t you know that, Whit?” she added.

  “Get the hell away from my son.”

  I meant the words to come out low but in the silence that had fallen over the party they rang out like church bells. The reporter furrowed her heavy, unplucked brows. “I can understand that you wanted to protect your son, Mrs. Osgood. Is that why you kept your husband’s sexual misconduct a secret?”

  “I would never—” I began, taking a step forward and stumbling on my heels. My drink spilled down the girl’s dress, staining the cheap fabric orange. There was an audible gasp from the crowd—as if I’d done it deliberately!—and then someone was gripping my elbow.

  “Come on, Mel, let’s get out of here.” Wally’s calm, authoritative voice was in my ear but she might have been a million miles away. I was floating above the party, like one of the orange flying wish lanterns we were going to set off as a finale.

  “But the party . . . the donors . . . the lanterns . . .”

  “It’s done,” Wally said, and I could see that she was right. Pat Shanahan was being rushed to his black Escalade as if a bomb had gone off. “Let me take care of packing up.”

  As she’d taken care of everything three years ago, urging me to take Cass back for Whit’s sake.

  “Whit, darling . . .” I turned toward my son but he drew back. His face was ashen, betrayed, as if I had betrayed him. I shook my head, but I wasn’t sure to what. He must have seen my indecision. Emily had found us, but she stood next t
o her brother, arm protectively wrapped around his shoulder. I’d have been heartened by this show of familial support except for the look on Emily’s face.

  “The story says that Dad slept with three of his assistants and had one fired when she wanted to end the . . .” Emily flung up her hand. “The whatever it’s called when an older man is having sex with a twenty-five-year-old. It also says he forced a nineteen-year-old intern to give him a blowjob. I’m nineteen years old! How could he?”

  “Oh, honey,” I began, thinking of the joke Wally had made earlier—it seemed like an eon ago—We have shoes older than those girls. Only it didn’t seem so funny anymore.

  Wally was leading me away and Whit and Emily and Drew were going in the opposite direction. “Shouldn’t we be leaving together?” I asked, but Wally was propelling me over the lawn, toward a side exit where the hired car—a demure dark-gray Lexus—was idling behind one of Shanahan’s black Escalades. The driver was reading something on his phone, which he hurriedly put away when I got in.

  “Take her straight home and go in through the garage when you get there,” Wally told the driver. “And don’t you dare talk to a single reporter or I’ll have your livery license.” She slammed the door and then leaned down, resting her elbow on the windowsill. “And don’t you talk to anyone, Mel. Not even your friends.”

  Friends? I could feel a laugh bubbling up my throat. Would I have any by the morning?

  “I’ll call you tomorrow. I have a PR guy who knows how to handle these situations. Until then, just sit tight.” She reached in and gave my shoulder a hard squeeze, which I’m sure she meant to be reassuring but actually hurt. Sometimes Wally didn’t know her own strength. Then she withdrew her head and rapped her knuckles on the roof of the Lexus, as if she were urging the horses on in an old-fashioned coach. The tinted window powered up, sealing me in the plush leather interior.