This woman, now walking toward me nervously, was having an affair with my husband and I wasn’t fuming with rage. My husband had broken his vows in less than a few months and other than feeling tricked and betrayed, I mostly felt relieved. Now I knew why he’d been acting like such a prick and drinking himself to sleep. It’s not a good answer, but it’s an answer.
When I saw Gabe with Delilah it made me want to rip my heart out, but I didn’t feel that way now. When we were teenagers and Cort found out I lost my virginity to Gabe he tried to make me jealous by saying he had sex with Nancy Woodhouse (which turned out to be a lie) and I listened to the news the same way I watched Helene walk toward us at Surrey’s.
I loved Cort. It wasn’t a passionate love—I knew that—but maybe it wasn’t even a romantic love at all. This realization hit me in those few seconds it took Helene to come up to the table. I felt like someone had dropped a ton of invisible bricks on my head. And Helene hadn’t even opened her mouth.
“Hey, Helene,” Anna said. “Have a seat.”
Helene sat down and put her hands in her lap. When the waitress came we all ordered coffee. She seemed to sense the tension in the air because she scurried off immediately after taking our orders.
“Helene—,” Anne began. “I told you I wanted to talk to you about something but it’s actually Cat who has the questions.”
Helene shifted her eyes to me. She looked like a frightened animal about to get shot between the eyes.
“You look worried,” I said. I couldn’t believe it, but I actually felt sorry for her, the way she looked like that. I could tell Anna did, too.
“I am,” she said.
“Why?”
“Because I don’t know what your questions are.”
“I think you do,” I said, softly. “I only have one.”
She dropped her eyes.
“I saw you at the banquet,” I said. “You were there to see Cort. I knew you were fired from the Blue Note. So it got me wondering—”
“I’m not having an affair with him.”
“If you are, you don’t have to lie. I just want to know. Wouldn’t you want to know, if he was your husband?”
“That man would never be my husband.” Her voice was so hardened and out of character that it unsettled me. I swallowed. She continued, “He’s your husband, so I don’t want to say anything bad about him, and I definitely don’t want to upset you, but …” She took a deep breath, searching for her resolve. “… that man would never be my husband. He doesn’t deserve the air he breathes.”
The waitress arrived with our coffee. She took out her notepad in case we wanted food, but thought better of it when she saw the expression on our faces.
“Why did you go to the banquet to see him?” Anna asked, her eyebrows furrowed in a tight knot. She laid her hand on top of Helene’s. I thought of doing the same thing—Helene looked so frightened and confused—but I decided to keep my hands on the table until I knew what the hell was going on.
Helene focused on Anna. Her eyes welled with tears. When they fell, she didn’t wipe them away immediately. The way she was crying told me that she had cried a lot in the past few days, maybe even weeks—so much so that the tears had become part of her everyday life.
I understood how that felt.
I’d married the wrong man because I’d given up on the man that held my heart. And I’d cried many nights because of it. Because of my stupidity. If not for vanity and the need to appear strong, I would have cried at the table too. Instead, I waited for Helene’s answer.
“I’m pregnant,” the girl said. Saying the words aloud made the sobs choke in her throat. She covered her face with her hands. When she did, Anna and I exchanged confused looks. What did this have to do with Cort?
“So you went to the banquet to get your job back?” I asked.
Helene shook her head. With her face still covered, she said, “Cort is the father.”
At first I thought I didn’t hear correctly. Her voice was muffled. But when I saw the look on Anna’s face, I knew I’d heard right: Helene was pregnant and Cort was the father.
Before we got married Cort said I would learn to love him just as much as I’d loved Gabe because he’d treat me like a queen.
Some queen.
“I thought you said you weren’t having an affair with him,” I said, my voice trembling.
I pictured Cort’s face that day he demanded we start a family. His face looked different to me now, even in my mind. Suddenly the rage that eluded me earlier hit me full-force.
That fucking bastard.
“I’m not,” Helene said. She uncovered her face, which was now red and wet and splotchy. Anna handed her a napkin. She used it to clean herself up, but it didn’t do much good. She looked awful. “It was only one time.” She steadied her eyes on me now. They were pleading. Pleading what? I didn’t know. “The night before the wedding.”
The night before the wedding – his bachelor party. The night I’d been stuck at that lame yuppie bar. The night Gabe sent over the bottle of Champagne. The night I talked to Cort on the phone so I could hear a friendly voice and he said he was staring at the fireplace.
“I ran into him in the Quarter,” Helene continued. “It wasn’t too late—maybe eleven—but I was drunk and only had a couple more blocks to walk home. He came out of one of the bars and offered to walk me the rest of the way. To be safe, he said. I could barely walk, so I said okay. He had to hold me up. It was stupid of me to drink that much, but …” The tears filled up again. Her hands fidgeted in her lap. “He walked me to the door and I said thank you, but he said he thought it would be best if he walked me upstairs and put me to bed. I didn’t think anything of it. I mean, he was Cort Belrose. He was my boss. This rich guy with the big-shot family. And I knew he was getting married the next day.” The tears fell onto her hands. Her coffee sat untouched in front of her. I knew what was coming next. I didn’t want to hear it, but I needed to—and I knew she didn’t want to say it, especially not with me sitting right in front of her. But just as I needed to hear it, she needed to say it. She continued: “I let him in my apartment. He said he was going to put me to bed. I was so drunk. It was stupid. I barely knew what I was doing, I swear. He just kept saying things like I might lose my job, and I should just let things happen and run its course.”
Anna moved her chair closer to Helene and put her arm around the girl’s shoulders.
I listened to the thumping of my heart.
I stared into my cup of coffee. I watched the steam rise.
The sounds of the other diners faded into the distance. All I heard was Helene’s voice.
“He said he was getting married and he wanted one last lay for fun. I could hardly put together what he was saying. After he left, I was sick with myself. Then he called me from Martinique—on his fucking honeymoon. He said he wanted to ‘get together’ when he got back. I told him to fuck off and never call me again or I’d tell you everything. Then I found out—” The words clutched onto her sobs and broke apart. So did she. “I’m pregnant. I don’t know what to do. When I told him, he fired me, on the spot. I went to the banquet to confront him. I don’t know why, I just wanted him to know. And I wanted you to know, too.” I wasn’t looking at her, but I knew she was looking at me. “But I was afraid—I still am. He’s got all this money and power, and what do I have? Nothing. I have nothing.” Defeated, she laid her head on Anna’s shoulder and wept. She wept so forcefully that the other diners looked at her strangely.
Anna hugged her. “That fucking asshole,” she said.
I kept staring at my coffee.
I didn’t know what to say.
What could I say?
I felt stupid. I felt guilty. I felt sorrowful. I thought of that day on our honeymoon, when I saw him on the phone. I wondered if he’d been talking to Helene.
I thought of Lady Angelique. A baby is on the way, and that’s never bad. The way they come about isn’t always good, but their arriva
l is. I hadn’t told Anna all the details of what Lady Angelique said. It was such a jarring experience that I didn’t want to relive it, even though I replayed it again and again in my mind to exhaustion.
And now it was playing out again. This time in real life.
So it wasn’t me who was pregnant, after all.
My mind raced. What kind of man had I married?
“Cat—,” Helene said. Her voice was heavy. Her face was a mess. She looked like a child in Anna’s arms. I’d never seen a woman look so scared. “I understand if you hate me. I hate myself.”
My body shattered from the inside.
I took a deep breath.
I grabbed her hand and squeezed.
“I don’t hate you,” I said.
At that moment I realized there was something far worse than admitting that you married the wrong man, and that’s knowing that you married a monster.
-17-
If you want to know what a foolish girl looks like, she’s sitting right here, in her high-ceilinged den with the useless fireplace, leaning across her plush couch, surrounded by overprized art and antiques, and feeling like the most ridiculous and lost person in the world. She’s not wearing her wedding ring, though. The diamond is on the end table, sitting next to a fifty-dollar ashtray holding a wrapped twenty-five dollar cigar.
“Why?” I asked, aloud to myself, blinking at the ceiling. There were so many phrases at the end of the question—Why had I married Cort? How could I not seen this side of him? Why hadn’t I stood up to my father when he made me feel like marrying Cort was some sort of privilege for both of us? Why hadn’t I told my father that his debts were his problem? Why hadn’t I believed strong enough that Gabe would come back one day? Why wasn’t I with Gabe now, nestled in the soft safety of his arms and feeling his lips on mine? Why hadn’t I seen that my husband wasn’t just an asshole, but an animal; a man who would take advantage of a girl like Helene?
I shuddered.
This is your husband. Your husband.
Which is why I was the most foolish girl in the world.
I’d married him.
What kind of person was I? What kind of woman marries a man like that?
My chest swelled.
A lump formed in my throat.
I pursed my lips, trying not to cry. Cort would come in soon—he always stopped home around this time—and when he got there, I wanted to be strong. I wanted to tell him exactly what I thought of him, and I didn’t want to do it through tears.
I pressed the heels of my hands against my eyes.
This was about Helene. This wasn’t about me and my mistakes.
This was about what he did to Helene.
Cry for yourself later, I thought. But right now, think of this girl. Taken advantage of. Pregnant. Abandoned. Don’t think of all the idiotic choices you’ve made over the past year. Just think about what your husband did. And think about how you’re going to tell him to fuck off.
And that’s exactly what I planned to do.
I collected my thoughts.
Sat up straight.
Took a deep breath.
I looked at the clock. It was an atrocious thing, the clock. A wedding gift from Cort’s aunt. It was expensive, so it was on display, but it was the ugliest mantle clock I’d ever seen. Actually, there wasn’t much in this room that felt like me. It was all pricey bullshit, out for show. Nothing real or honest here. Nothing that said, this is a home.
I thought of Gabe’s sunroom. I thought of the daisies outside the window and the way the light spread across the floor. The feeling of warmth.
I closed my eyes gently and took another breath. This moment wasn’t about Gabe, either.
I’d planned on being seated when he walked in, but when I heard the lock on the front door, I stood up and walked toward the kitchen, still facing the foyer. I wanted to be the first thing he saw when he came in.
He looked angry and my first thought was that he already knew I was going to confront him, but then I reminded myself that he looked angry all the time these days.
His blue eyes were rimmed with pink. He’d been drinking already.
He sauntered over, bypassed me and went for the fridge. He pulled out a bottle of water, opened it and said, “What the fuck is your problem? Why’re you looking at me like that?”
I cleared my throat. “I talked to Helene today.”
He paused, then took a deep sip of water. “So?”
“She told me.” I crossed my arms.
“She told you what, exactly?”
“That she’s pregnant.”
“Yeah, so? She’s pregnant. Big surprise. She’s fucked half the city.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Oh, you don’t? And how do you know? Is she your B-F-F now or something? You don’t know shit. I’m at the restaurant all fucking day, I know what the staff is doing. They all talk about it. I had to fire her the other night because she’s constantly missing shifts and partying all night.”
I narrowed my eyes. “She seems to think that you fired her because she’s pregnant with your baby.”
He put the water on the counter and tried to act surprised. But he couldn’t fool me. I’d known him my entire life. This was all an act. Another Cort show.
“And you believe that bullshit?”
“Actually—yes.”
“So that’s how little faith you have in me? Your fucking husband? You’re going to believe some twenty-year-old slut over your own husband?”
“Basically.”
He breathed in through his nostrils. Deep. “So she claims that we had sex?”
“If that’s what you wanna call it.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“I think you know.”
His expression dimmed. “And you believe her?”
“Yes.”
He crossed his arms. We faced each other, arms crossed, seeing who would crack first. It wouldn’t be me. Fuck that, I thought. It won’t be me.
“Let me tell you something, girl,” he said. “If I wanted to get pussy, I wouldn’t have to get it off of some drunk skank who could barely walk.”
I stayed silent. Waited.
“Yeah, she came to my office, told me she was pregnant with some bastard child,” he said. “I wanted to know what the fuck it had to do with me, and she tells me—get this—she tells me that it’s my kid. I said, I don’t know what you’re talking about, we never even had sex.” He uncrossed his arms, reached into the refrigerator again. This time he pulled out a beer, screwed off the top, and drank. “I told her to get the fuck out. I’m trying to run a business, I don’t have time for her grade-school bullshit. But she didn’t leave. She kept saying it was mine, and that I ‘took advantage’ of her.”
I thought of Helene’s face. I thought of her voice, her words. He just kept saying things like I might lose my job, and I should just let things happen and run its course. I hate myself.
“So, I fired her,” he said, shrugging. “She’s full of shit. That’s not my kid, and I never had sex with her. I sure as hell never ‘took advantage’ of her, like I’m some kind of fucking rapist.” He tilted the beer into his mouth. “But it’s nice to know that my wife thinks so much of me. That makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Nice to know you got my back. For better or worse and all that shit, right?” He put the beer down, next to the water, and took a step forward. “I know how you can make it up to me, though. A good way for you to show me you’re sorry.”
He reached out his hand to touch my breast, but I stepped back and slapped his hand away. “You’re a monster,” I said. The tears threatened to surge—out of rage, anger, humiliation, everything. “I’ve known you my whole life. How could you do this?” I tried desperately to will the tears away.
“Cat—” He sighed. “—I swear to you, Helene is lying. It’s not my baby. She’s a slut. She’s fucked half the staff at the Blue Note. I wouldn’t be surprised if she fucked Julian for Chrissak
es.”
Heat radiated from my body. My insides trembled. All this rage, and I didn’t know what to do with it—it boiled inside every inch of me, with nowhere to go, so it came in the form of tears. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t avoid it.
“Don’t cry,” Cort said, softening his voice. “You have to believe me. It’s not true. I’m still the man you married.”
The man I married. The man who told me he would treat me like a queen. The friend who would always be there. The man who told me Gabe wasn’t good enough and that Gabe would not have left if he truly loved me.
“You’ve always been that man,” I said. “That’s the problem. I just didn’t see it.” My voice quivered. “You’ve been a monster your whole life, but all I saw was that pathetic little boy who had no friends. The boy who tried so hard to convince people that he was tough. The boy who made up stories about fights and girls, even though we all knew he was lying.” I sniffled. The tears were falling now, drenching my face. “I pitied you then. I felt sorry for you. And that never changed. I always thought you were just desperate for love. That’s why I felt sorry for you, that everyone thought you were such an asshole. But now I know, everyone was right. You’re a monster.”
His face had distorted into a look I’d never seen. “You felt sorry for me? You felt sorry for me? That’s fucking hilarious, Catherine Martel. That’s really fucking hilarious. In case you haven’t noticed, you’ve always been a washed-up piece of white trash. You still are. Your father is so stuck up my family’s ass, he can’t even see straight—and why? Because he can’t make it on his own, that’s why. If we served him his papers, he’d have nowhere to go. You’ve always had nothing. And you felt sorry for me? See, that’s your fucking problem. You don’t realize just how fucking worthless you are. Girls like you are a dime a fucking dozen. And you had nerve to think that your fucking dirty little friend was worth more of your time than me? That son of a bitch whose whoring mother used to shoot up behind the Blue Note every chance she got? That’s who you chose to hook up with, that’s who you chose to fuck every chance you got? I saw you one time, you know that? Years ago. I was so drunk I could hardly see straight and I went looking for you—you were always following that dirty hustler around like a dog, but I was gonna get it that night, that night, I decided you were mine—and I saw the two of you, fucking in the backseat of his shitty-ass car, and here I am, getting into a fucking a Lexus, while you’re letting him fuck you in the backseat of a car that could barely move two blocks.” He snatched the beer from the counter and took another drink. “I should’ve known then, you can’t turn a whore into a lady.”
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