The Loyal Wife_A gripping psychological thriller with a twist

by Natalie Barelli

  Chapter Five

  Patti looks up at me through her ugly, thin-rimmed glasses. She’s such a strange woman, she makes my skin crawl. She always sits up really straight, like she’s the quintessential, well-behaved secretary. Like she takes pride in being Mike Mitchell’s personal assistant, when everyone knows that just means she picks up his laundry and books restaurants for his lunches. I’ve never had concerns about her because, frankly, she’s not his type. I can’t see that she’s anyone’s type, in fact, but she must be because she’s married—to a guy equally as weird, I might add—as I found out at the last Christmas party.

  She always wears some super-modest outfit, and today, true to form, she’s got on a buttoned-up pale-yellow shirt with a round, decorative collar and a pair of corduroy pants. It could be an uber-cool street fashion outfit on someone else—maybe, at a stretch—but on her it just looks like she’s going for some kind of demure look and ends up looking just weird. I honestly cannot picture her wearing that blue piece of nothing, nor would I want to.

  “Hello, Tamra. Were we expecting you?”

  We.

  Patti has worked for Mike for three years, and she is quite the lioness protecting her cubs when it comes to access. Sometimes that’s annoying. Some days if I call to check his schedule, she’ll pause for a moment, as if pondering whether it’s appropriate to tell me. Or maybe I’m just imagining it.

  “Hi, Patti. No, don’t get up, please. How are you?”

  She sits back down slowly. “Very well, Tamra. But Mike isn’t here.”

  “Oh, right. What a shame. I wanted to surprise him, take him out to lunch.”

  She raises an eyebrow—understandably, since I’ve never done that before.

  “You should have called, made an appointment.” Then I guess she remembers who I am because she flashes a toothy smile.

  “Yeah, I know. It’s just that sometimes it’s a good idea to be impulsive, you know, keep the romance alive, don’t you think?” I wink at her, which makes her blush. I look around the office, trying to spot the owner of a size-small blue thong, but no one stands out. They’re mostly guys who work here.

  “When will he be back?”

  She glances at her computer screen. “Not before three, at the earliest.”

  I wonder if he’s with her. I lean forward, trying to catch a glimpse of the schedule. She quickly swivels the monitor away, just an inch, before adding, “Strategic meeting, over at headquarters.”

  I nod.

  “Was there anything in particular?”

  “Not really, no.” I perch on a corner of her desk. She widens her eyes and quickly moves things around the desk to make room for me. Or to protect her stuff from me, I can’t tell.

  “Tell me, Patti, anyone new in the gang? Anyone joined up the cause lately? As an intern, perhaps?” I take another look around, craning my neck a little to see above the computer screens dotted about the place.

  “Hum, no, I don’t— except for—”

  Aha. I knew it.

  “—Johnathan in the mailroom, why? Has Mike said anything? Because I —”

  “No,” I sigh. “Mike hasn’t said anything. I was just wondering.”

  “Are you all right, Tamra? You seem a bit jumpy.”

  I play with the paperclips in the small bowl on her desk, then I lean forward and blurt out, in a low voice, “Do you know if Mike is fucking anyone behind my back?”

  She recoils with a gasp. “Tamra!” She has her hand on her chest, like I’ve given her a heart attack. Suddenly, she annoys the crap out of me even more than usual, with her sanctimonious attitude and her crush on my husband. I’ve always known she was in love with him. She pretends it’s from some kind of motherly instinct, which frankly, I find more than a little creepy. I bet she goes home at night, and, well— enough said.

  I shake my head. “Sorry, Patti, I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “Well, I…”

  “I mean, I already know he’s fucking someone behind my back. What I meant was, do you know who it is?”

  I forgot to lower my voice, and eyes are popping above computers everywhere, eyes that only moments ago were looking down at their work, oblivious to my existence. Now, they’re all trained on me.

  “I think you should go, Tamra,” she says sternly, averting her eyes.

  “Oh wait, it’s not you, Patti, is it?”

  * * *

  She was going to call security. To have me removed. Me. I’m his wife. His legally, lawfully, miserably wedded wife, and she wanted security to escort me. I spared her the trouble and left.

  Now I sit in the car and cry, with my face in my hands. I let out great big sobs of grief because I’m frightened. I don’t want my marriage to be over, but I think maybe it is.

  My cell rings in my bag. I dry my cheeks with the back of my hand, drawing in puffs of air, and fish around until I find it. I answer it without looking.

  “Hello?”

  “Hey, girlfriend, what’s happening?”

  I chuckle, wiping the rest of my tears. “Hi, Lauren.”

  A couple of seconds pass before she says, “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing, I’m fine,” I wail.

  “You’re sounding anything but fine, Tamra. What’s happened?”

  “Nothing, really. I’m fine.” This time I’m more in control of my voice.

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes. Really, stop fussing.”

  She sighs. “If you say so. No, scratch that. I don’t believe you, but suit yourself. Do you want to know why I called you?”

  “Because you love me and you miss me?” I sniffle, wishing it was Mike on the other end.

  “There’s that, but I’m doing a special showing today. Come with me. I could use the help. Tell me what I should be showing off to people.”

  “Me? Don’t be ridiculous! How would I know? You’re the real estate expert.”

  “But you’re great at everything, and especially with homey things.”

  Homey things. Thanks, Lauren.

  “It’ll be fun,” she insists. “It’s an amazing house.”

  “I don’t know. I’m kinda busy today.”

  “I need you, Tamra!”

  I sigh. “Oh, why not?”

  “That’s my girl.”

  * * *

  She’s not lying. The house is amazing. It’s a classic colonial house—not unlike ours, in fact—but this is much, much larger. The facade is rendered so instead of the usual brickwork, it’s a lovely pale gray.

  “Wow. How much do they want for it?”

  “One point five.”

  We walk up the porch, and I lay a hand on the banister, turn around, and take in the view. “Really?”

  “Why, you’re interested?”

  I sigh. “Not right now, no.”

  We go through the house together, admiring the tall windows, rounded at the top, and the enormous fireplaces. It’s so quiet here, even quieter than where we live.

  “I’m thinking of leaving Mike,” I say, apropos of nothing. I’m not looking at her. I’m studying the marble countertop.

  She snorts, then laughs, then she takes in my face and she stops abruptly.

  “Did I just hear you correctly?”

  I look at her, and my bottom lip quivers.

  “Oh, Tamra.” She draws me into a tight hug, and I rest my forehead on her shoulder.

  “What happened?”

  I pull away. “Sorry. I shouldn’t have done that now. You’re working.”

  “Don’t be silly. No one’s coming for another fifteen minutes, at least. Come and cry on my shoulder. I’m glad you told me. I knew something was up. What happened?”

  “Mike is having an affair.”

  Her hand flies to her mouth. “Are you serious? Who?”

  “I don’t know who.” I tell her what I found, and her mouth tightens with anger.

  “What a lowlife.” She’s so mad, I almost recoil at the force of her words. “You must come and stay
with me. We’ll go back to your house after this and pack your things.”

  I shake my head. “I can’t just walk out.”

  “Sure, you can.”

  “I need to make plans.”

  She’s about to argue, but I raise a hand, palm out. “Let me go through it my way, okay?”

  She nods. “Sorry.” She leans back against the counter top. “You know I’m here for you.”

  “I know.”

  “Did you tell him? That you were leaving? What did he say? Did he beg? Did he cry? Did he get on his knees and swear he would never do something like that again? You didn’t believe him, I hope.”

  “I haven’t told him anything yet. I only just found out.”

  “I see. When are you going to?”

  I say nothing for a moment. “I wanted to wait until I had spoken to a lawyer.” Then I tell her about the visit to his office and the argument with Patti. She puts her hand on her mouth, the way she does, to stifle the laughter.

  “It’s not funny, Lauren.”

  “I’m sorry, you’re right.” She squeezes my arm.

  I sigh. “So I guess I have to tell him, because one way or another, he knows that I know.”

  “Hey, that’s a good thing! No point in pussy-footing around. You gotta rip that Band-Aid off and get it over and done with, girlfriend.”

  “It’s just that—”

  The doorbell rings, and we both jump. She shoves a pile of brochures at me.

  “Here. If anyone asks, hand them one of these and take their details down on this form.”

  “What? No way, I’m going home.”

  “No, you’re not. You’re helping me, remember?”

  So I stay and take potential buyers through the house, and it’s more fun than I imagined. It’s kind of like playing house, literally. In my head I pretend it’s mine. In what feels like no time at all, the viewing is over, and I help Lauren lock up.

  “You should get your real estate license.”

  I scoff. “You must be kidding!”

  “Why not? It’s not that hard. I could help you, then when you pass your exam, you can come and work with me!” She beams.

  I laugh. “No. I don’t think so. Anyway, Mike wouldn’t like it. He doesn’t want me to work.” Then, a short pause before I catch myself. “Oh, my God, I can’t believe I just said that.”

  “It’s none of Mike’s business anymore, remember that.”

  “I know.”

  More than once, Lauren has asked me why I don't get myself a job. Don't I get bored all day alone in that great big house? Having peddled the lie—without meaning to—that I was an accountant before I met Mike, it's hard to explain why I'd get a job, say, waitressing. I couldn't exactly say it was the only skill I had, other than answering phones. So I just got into the habit of saying, Oh, no, Mike doesn't want me to work, because that's something people understand.

  “You won’t need the money, of course,” she says, “because you’re going to take him to the cleaners. You won’t have to work a minute in your life. But it would be good for you, and I bet you'd be good at it.”

  We’re at her car now, and I help get the brochures into the trunk. I wish I hadn’t said anything.

  “I wonder how Maddie will take it,” she muses.

  I wish she wouldn’t call her ‘Maddie’. I find it annoyingly intimate. Only Mike is allowed to call her Maddie, or at least that's what she says to me.

  “I’m sure she’ll be delighted," I mumble.

  She punches me lightly on the shoulder. “Cut it out.”

  “You’re right. Hey, have you noticed how thin she is?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “She’s bony. I don’t think she eats much.”

  “You know what girls are like at that age. Don’t you remember?”

  “Not like this.”

  She shrugs, then brings me into her warm hug. “Let me know what I can do to help, okay? It’s you I’m worried about.”

  Chapter Six

  When Mike and I were dating, on a whim, I told him that in my spare time I volunteered at a charity that helped homeless women. “I just think that I’m in a privileged position, and I like to give something back. I think there should be more of that, don’t you?”

  He took my hand in his and kissed it softly, brushing his lips on the tips of my fingers. “You’re the most remarkable woman I’ve ever met,” he said, his eyes swimming. “I think that I’m in love with you.”

  So I rushed out the next day and called all the charities in the area that worked with homeless women until I found one that could use my unskilled—but unpaid—time. And a really funny thing happened: I love it. I’m actually really good at it, too. I never stopped doing it after that. Right now, I volunteer at the Catherine Duval Center for Women. It’s an outreach program and I help with the paperwork, I make calls to find available beds in shelters, I help prepare food that we provide for free, and sometimes it’s just a matter of being a shoulder to cry on.

  A few months ago, Joan came in. She was in her fifties, wearing what had once been an expensive coat but was now frayed at the cuffs and stained at the hem.

  Her story shocked me. She had been married for thirty-odd years and had two adult children. She had never held a job, concentrating instead on being a housewife and mother. Her husband was a lawyer, and one day he came home to tell her he was leaving. He had been having an affair with his twenty-something-year-old secretary for a few months, and they were moving in together.

  Joan blamed the shock and the ensuing depression for the lack of interest she took in her own affairs. Hubby moved out and left her alone in the house—the children having long left the coop—until one day, she received an eviction notice because the house was up for sale. Joan had assumed that she would keep the house; instead, she was given seven days to ship out. Then it turned out that her name was not listed on the deed to the home. It had never been, because hubby bought it in his name, and his name only.

  I was incredulous. “Didn’t you ask about that? At the time?”

  “I thought I was on it. I was signing whatever papers he put in front of me. I never asked because I just assumed he knew best.”

  To add insult to injury, over those last few months before he moved out, hubby rearranged his affairs so that on paper, he looked broke. So the house was sold from under Joan’s feet, and she received not one cent from it, due to some creative accounting on the part of hubby.

  “Didn’t you have your own bank account?”

  “What would I do with it? I didn’t earn any money. We had a joint account, and not long after he moved out, my credit cards stopped working, and my access to the account had been canceled.”

  I couldn’t fathom how one person could do that to another.

  “I gave him and our children my entire adult life,” she said, echoing my thoughts. I patted her knee, I hugged her, I provided Kleenex, but deep down I thought, how could you have been so stupid?

  She wanted to know if there was any form of assistance she might be entitled to. Just to help her out, while she got herself together. “But not welfare! I wouldn’t stoop this low!”

  “It’s not stooping,” I told her. “It’s a safety net. It’s the mark of a good society: helping those who find themselves in a bad situation because bad things happened.” Her clothes, her smell even, said everything about how she shouldn’t turn her nose up at any kind of help. I gave her all the relevant information, then I put her in touch with a good lawyer.

  “But I can’t afford a lawyer!” she shrieked.

  “You can afford this one, I promise. Call him.”

  Having a husband in high places has its privileges. The lawyer in question, Mario, was—and still is—somewhere between a friend and an acquaintance, and his wife and I do Pilates together. He agreed to look after Joan, pro bono. I should call Mario, find out what happened.

  Now, I can’t help but wonder if that’s going to be me, in that tattered old chair, dryin
g my tears on the sleeve of a scruffy coat. Because the truth is, I have no idea what our financial situation is, and where I fit in. I don’t have my own money. Just the money he transfers every month into my bank account. A kind of generous allowance.

  I should never have gone to his office this morning. It was a mistake. I hadn’t meant to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, I just wanted to check out the staff. See if there might be a bright new young thing, giving me the evil eye. Now I’m puzzled why I haven’t heard from Mike as I check my phone, again. He must have heard by now, about my little disturbance. I’m dreading that conversation.

  I never thought we would split up. When Mike asked me to marry him, it wasn’t with one knee on the ground; it was over a green salad at lunch, his eyes searching my face for reassurance, as if this moment was anything other than the happiest one of my life.

  “Did you bring me a ring?” I asked, cocking my head, trying to look like it was all a joke, because otherwise I’d have burst into tears.

  He grabbed the can of Diet Coke sitting on the table and pulled the ring off. “I’ll get a better one, I swear, as soon as we leave here, today, now, if you promise to spend the rest of your life with me.”

  I still have that Coke tab ring, in a box, wrapped in soft tissue.

  But all that to say, that I can’t remember for the life of me where I put my copy of the prenup, although I think I remember what was in it: he keeps everything, and I can keep what I brought in. That amounts to fake diamond earrings and a whole lot of knockoff fashion. Maybe there was a clause? Some kind of consolation prize for the injured party? Isn’t that how it works? It should be, if it isn’t. There should be a clause that says that if he leaves me, I get a lot more than a Coke tab ring.

  I’m going through all the shoe boxes and hat boxes that have piled up in my walk-in closet, but I can’t find it. I have a little desk downstairs, a small antique thing with bowed legs and inlaid rosewood that Mike bought me for my birthday one year. He was so excited about it.