by Aviva Gat
“I’ll check on her to see if she’s OK.” She shot Brandon a look. “You should cool down in the meantime.” She followed Rhonda to the bathroom and waited by the sinks until a toilet flushed and Rhonda opened the stall door.
“I’m sorry about Brandon,” she said as Rhonda washed her hands.
“No, it’s cool,” she responded intuitively even as her mind was telling her it was definitely not cool. “I can understand him.”
“You know that me and Hunter are over and that there is nothing going on between us,” Madeline said while placing her hand on Rhonda’s shoulder. “He is a good man.”
“I know,” she responded while drying her hands. That seemed to be enough for Rhonda. She had no evidence of the otherwise, she had not seen the pictures from the blackmail, nor had she ever had any clues of Hunter’s infidelity.
Madeline ached to get back to the table, afraid of what was being said in her absence. But as the women approached, the sight was strange and unexpected. Both men were leaning back, looking relaxed, smiling and sipping their aperitifs.
“Did we miss anything?” Madeline asked, wary of the answer. She sat back down in her seat.
“No, all’s good,” Brandon responded and even gave her hand a little squeeze. The couples finished their drinks over discussions of their children and everyone seemed to be in a good mood once again. The atmosphere pricked Madeline, who was unsure what this complete turnaround meant.
When the check came, Brandon insisted on paying and the couples walked out together to their cars. With hugs and kisses on the cheek, they said goodbye and parted.
“Did you enjoy the evening?” Madeline asked Brandon as they got in the car.
“I did.” He rubbed her knee as he pulled the car out of the parking lot.
“What did you and Hunter talk about when Rhonda and I were in the bathroom?”
Brandon took his eyes from the road for a moment to give Madeline a grin. “He told me everything.”
Chapter 42
When Madeline followed Rhonda to the bathroom, Brandon felt victorious. That was exactly what he wanted, a few minutes alone with Hunter. “All right,” he said. “I’m surprised at you. You know I could have ratted you out when this whole thing started.”
“But you wouldn’t do that,” Hunter responded, taking a sip of his drink. “That would have incriminated you as well.”
The truth was that Brandon had had an inkling about his wife’s infidelity for what felt like a very long time. Well, it was more than just an inkling, he felt that he had all the evidence, he just wanted a confession. It had started years ago when Madeline was in New York on a business trip. She didn’t often take business trips—the consulting firm she worked at had offices in every major city, there was rarely a need to send someone to a new location—so this in and of itself was unusual and led Brandon to be on high alert for anything else that veered from the norm.
The couple had been texting throughout her first day in New York. She told him about her jog in Central Park (everything was in bloom!), the lunch she had with the CEO of the firm’s potential client. She even told him she was going to see Othello in Central Park with an old friend (Brandon had assumed this old friend was female). But the texting stopped somewhere around the end of the workday and didn’t commence again until the following morning. It was a Saturday morning and Brandon was alone with the kids. He got them up and dressed and took them to the zoo just like he had promised Madeline he would do. He took pictures in front of the giraffes, the zebras and kangaroos. He videoed Noah scratching his armpits and going ooh ooh ahh ahh in front of the gorillas. All the pictures, he sent to Madeline. She responded curtly, cute! Fun! Miss you! But the text messages had given him a funny feeling. They were shorter than what he was used to and too many exclamation points. Madeline was not an exclamation point over-user. He asked her what she was doing that Saturday in New York and she said she was getting a manicure and pedicure and just relaxing on her own for the weekend.
Brandon thought it must be the stress getting to Madeline. He had sensed that things had been difficult lately even though she would never let on. Being a mother and an ambitious career woman, not even mentioning her candidacy for the senate, would be tough on anyone. So Brandon did what good husbands do when their wives are juggling too much: he called her hotel and asked if he could schedule Madeline a massage in her room for the next morning.
“Would you like it to be a couple’s massage?” the receptionist asked when scheduling the spa treatment.
“Oh, no, I’m not there with my wife,” Brandon responded. The receptionist on the other side of the country went silent. “Hello? Everything all set?”
“Of course, sir,” the receptionist responded. “We will have a masseuse in the room Sunday morning at 9:00 a.m.” Brandon hung up the phone feeling proud of himself for doing something so nice and thoughtful for his wife. Surely she would appreciate it and it would help her relax before her busy day on Monday. Brandon didn’t think twice about the awkward silence he received from the hotel receptionist.
Madeline was pleasantly surprised by the massage. It was so thoughtful that it made her feel extremely guilty about her transgression that weekend. She promised herself she would never ever betray Brandon again and that she would work harder to appreciate all the wonderful things about him. Her texting after that improved, making Brandon feel even better that his gesture did the trick and got Madeline back to her normal self. He was eager to see her when she returned. Have a good flight! Wine awaits when you return, he texted before her plane took off and she responded with a heart.
Her flight was delayed and Brandon was home with the bottle of wine he had brought from his family’s vineyard. The boys were asleep and he had the wine aerating for Madeline’s arrival when the house phone rang. They rarely got calls to the house, so Brandon answered unsure of who it could be.
“Mr. Thomas?”
“This is he.”
“I’m happy to hear you had a good flight,” the voice on the other side said. “This is Amanda from The Langham. It appears you left your jacket in the room during your stay this weekend. If you could provide an address, we will ship it to you.”
This time Brandon was silent. “Mr. Thomas? A black leather Levi jacket? Do you recall?”
Brandon didn’t have a black leather Levi jacket. He wore a blazer or peacoat, something that wouldn’t look out of place in an office. “Oh, right,” he responded and provided the address to his office so he could receive the coat without Madeline knowing. He thanked Amanda for the hotel’s excellent service and continued waiting with the aerated wine until Madeline arrived. When she did, she was extra affectionate and the couple took the wine to their bedroom where they had—what Brandon believed was—passionate, explosive sex. He all but forgot about the jacket until it arrived on his desk a few days later.
At first he thought it was a gift. Had Madeline bought him a jacket in New York? But it wasn’t new. It wasn’t even in the kind of shape that could be considered vintage. The elbows were worn, there was a tear in the inside lining. There must have been a mistake—maybe the jacket belonged to the guest who previously stayed in Madeline’s room? Or a guest from a different room altogether? Brandon searched the pockets and pulled out a small card. Smith and Sons Landscaping. There was no name on the card so Brandon Googled the business. It had a basic, amateur website, boasting about the company’s services. He learned the company was based in Harlem and owned by Bill Smith—an elderly man who started the business mowing lawns when he was a teen. He also learned that Bill Smith had retired due to backpain caused by years of work as a landscaper and that the business was being run by Hunter Williams. The website had a picture of Hunter, a strong, smiling African American man standing in front of a perfectly trimmed rose bush. Brandon couldn’t see what connection these people could have to Madeline, so he brushed any untoward thoughts aside and dropped the jacket off at a goodwill. At least he thought he had brushed his doub
ts aside. He did however keep the Smith and Sons Landscaping card in his desk. Something nagged at him when he least expected it. When he came home late and Madeline had to rush out for an emergency meeting or when her campaign events dragged on longer than expected.
Maybe he was paranoid, he told himself, Madeline was a good wife and a good mother. She was a good partner and all that should be enough for him. She hadn’t traveled back to New York for a while after that. She had won her senate race and quit her consulting job. The only place she ever flew to was Washington DC and back. But then a few years later she was going back to New York for a speaking engagement. Brandon remembered his old doubts from her previous trip and felt he had the tools to do something. It didn’t matter that his tools were designed more for destruction than building, he felt he had to use them. He used his years of programming and cyber security experience to spy on Madeline when she was away. It wasn’t difficult to hack into the Langham’s closed circuit security system, which had cameras showing the main entrance, the lobby, the elevator bay on every floor and a loading station out back. He couldn’t access film from Madeline’s previous trip to New York, but he could access real time footage during all of Madeline’s future trips. He told himself he was doing it to prove his paranoia was unfounded, it was just a way for him to exercise his programming abilities which he didn’t get to use much as CyTech’s CEO once the company became big.
Whenever he knew Madeline would be coming and going from the hotel, he would watch her. Usually she was alone, but sometimes she was with Jane. Then, one time he saw Madeline arrive at the Langham wearing her beautiful red suit that made her look fearsome and sexy. He watched her approach and greet the doorman and then another figure caught his eye. The figure was hard to miss, dark skin, broad shoulders; Brandon had a feeling he had seen that man before. He still had the Smith and Sons Landscaping card in his desk and dug through his drawer, pushing away pens, paperclips and other slips of paper until he found it. He navigated to the company’s website and saw that the company was now owned by Hunter Williams, who was pictured on the homepage wearing a short sleeved blue plaid shirt. Was it the same shirt Brandon saw on the man in front of the Langham? Was he being really paranoid now? He snapped an image from the Langham’s security footage of Madeline and the man walking into the Langham and thought about what he should do.
He continued watching the security footage. He saw his wife and Hunter sitting at the hotel bar. Later he watched his wife go to the elevator bay alone and Hunter leave the hotel. There was no interaction between the two, but something inside him still itched. Was this all a big coincidence?
Brandon anonymously sent the image to the email on Smith and Sons Landscaping’s website with the subject: I’m on to you. It was probably the most aggressive thing that Brandon had ever done. He wasn’t sure what he expected to happen next, so he waited. Using his hacking abilities, he knew his email was opened and the attachment downloaded several times, but he never received a response. Maybe Hunter thought it was spam, maybe the image meant nothing to him. Brandon didn’t know and he didn’t follow up. He didn’t think he would ever see the image again until it showed up on his kitchen table with the note requesting $1 million otherwise news of Madeline’s infidelity would be released.
When he saw it, Brandon acted surprised—he was surprised, here his own image, which he thought was maybe nothing, was being used as proof that his wife cheated. He knew the image had to have come from Hunter—no one else but he had it—but Brandon decided to keep his mouth shut. He wanted to see what Madeline would do. Would she confess her infidelity? Or did she think that Brandon was just another dumb person she could play around with? He’d show her. He’d push her to confess or watch her being punished publicly as her career was ruined.
Brandon was ready the next time Madeline went to New York. He watched her at the Langham. Saw her and Hunter go up the elevator together and exit on Madeline’s floor. He snapped a picture of them embracing in front of Madeline’s door. This was what made him really angry. So angry that he wanted to watch Madeline squirm, so he had the picture sent to the house and pretended it was part of the blackmail.
He wasn’t sure what to do next as Madeline had still kept her cool. He started to feel defeated by her, like maybe he was as dumb as she treated him to be. He felt betrayed, lonely, like a failure. Why couldn’t he break her? After all these years, why didn’t he know her well enough to get under her skin? And then Madeline asked him to have dinner with Hunter and Rhonda.
Chapter 43
“So where do we go from here?” Hunter asked Brandon as the two sat alone waiting for their wives in the bathroom.
“After everything, why hasn’t Madeline just told me the truth?” Brandon asked this rhetorically, not expecting that his wife’s ex-boyfriend from years ago might have an answer.
“You aren’t playing on her level,” Hunter said. “She feels safe with you, you aren’t going to challenge her.”
“I challenge her,” Brandon defended himself. “Of course I challenge her, all the time.” He wasn’t sure he was really convinced himself. He remembered a time when he felt more in control. When he dictated their relationship. That time was real. What had changed?
“So what would she do if the tables were turned?”
“Put me in a corner. Force me to do what she wants. Make me think that what she wants is for the greater good.”
“So that’s what you need to do,” Hunter responded and Brandon suddenly felt inspired by this man he was sure he was supposed to hate. The men were smiling, drinking their aperitifs when their wives arrived and that was when something switched inside Brandon. He grabbed his wife’s hand and gave it a squeeze. He could beat her. He could control her. After all, he had done it once before.
The rest of the evening, he acted very lovingly. A hand on her knee, a fleeting grin, it would keep Madeline on her toes instead of letting her think she had everything all figured out. In the car, when she asked what he and Hunter had spoken about in her absence, he responded, “He told me everything.” It may not have been exactly true, but figuratively, it was.
“And what’s everything?” Madeline asked with a sarcastic tone as though she didn’t believe it.
“Madeline, let’s stop playing this game,” he said. “I’m done with it.” Madeline didn’t respond. She knew that she couldn’t win with anything she could say. Silence was her best option. When the couple arrived at home, Brandon hung up his keys and walked into the office—the room that neither of them spent time in unless they were looking for something they had long ago stuffed away for storage. When he came back out, he placed a card on the kitchen table in front of Madeline. The red and white business card was faded but instantly recognizable with its cursive lettering: Smith and Sons Landscaping. “Hunter left this in your hotel room seven years ago,” Brandon confronted her. “It was in his jacket, which the hotel thought was mine and shipped here. I’ve known all along. I’m the one who took the photos of you with him at Langham. You think a bunch of kids from Harlem could have hacked into the hotel’s security system to get the photos?”
Madeline looked at her husband. “Why didn’t you say something?”
“Because I know you and I knew you would never admit it.” Brandon paused. “Look, here we are, and you still won’t admit it. I love you and that’s why I’ve stayed all this time. We’re good partners. But I can’t stay with you lying to me anymore. I’m leaving.” Without waiting for a response, Brandon left the kitchen and went up the stairs to their master bedroom. He was ready to pack a bag, stay in a hotel for a night or two and see what would happen.
Downstairs, Madeline stayed in the kitchen, the echoes of Brandon’s words still hanging in the air. She felt caught, cornered, in a way she had never felt before. It tickled her, made her itch all over, made her squirm in her skin; a new sensation for her. The thought of Brandon leaving terrified her. On the surface level, this could greatly ruin her reelection campaign—nobody
could win an election in the midst of a divorce. On the second level, she relied on Brandon. For support, partnership. At her core, she felt a primal connection to him. Like if he would leave, so would her source of energy. She couldn’t lose that energy, it would end her.
She could hear his footsteps upstairs, the floorboards creaking in a familiar way that she realized she would miss. Should she go to him? Beg for forgiveness? Implore him to stay? Her core wanted to, but the shell she had built around her stopped her from moving. She waited.
Brandon came back downstairs wearing jeans and a t-shirt. A Stanford duffel bag was swung over his shoulder. He sighed when he saw her in the kitchen. With a nod, he went to the door, grabbing his keys from the hook.
“Wait!” Madeline said, shocking herself. “Wait a minute.” She was ready to tell him everything. Anything to get him to stay.
“No,” he said. “I’m done waiting. Let’s figure this out like adults.” He opened the front door and left, leaving Madeline in the dim light of the foyer. She listened as the car door clicked open and swung shut, the engine roared to life and the wheels rolled away. In the silence, she stood still.
Slowly, she went upstairs to the bedroom, navigating her house in the dark. Once in the master bedroom, which now seemed too big and empty, she turned on a light. Her eyes were drawn to the bed, where an envelope sat, neatly placed upon her pillow. Her core beckoned her to dive for it, to find out its contents, but her shell held her back. She should first brush her teeth, wash her face. Read it after a few moments of processing the evening’s events. She followed her shell’s advice and walked to her closet to change her clothes, but then her core took over and she found herself reaching for the envelope.
Her fingers ripped it open. Inside was a picture that Madeline had never seen before. It was a picture of her from years ago. She was standing on the grass outside Uris Hall, the business school at Columbia. The spot was instantly recognizable by the curl sculpture that marked the school’s entrance. Next to her were a few other members of her college Republican club: there was Avery, who she had kept in touch with until she moved to California. Ryan, who had surprised everyone by becoming a democrat a few years after graduation, and Michelle, who Madeline hadn’t seen since college. The students were standing together, laughing, each with a smile on their face. Madeline could see she was speaking in the picture, and everyone’s eyes were on her. She had her bookbag slung over one shoulder and her arms were up in gesticulation—a habit she had gotten better at controlling over the years. (It was quite distracting to anyone watching her, her image consultants had said.) It was obvious the students didn’t know they were being pictured. Madeline tried to remember the moment captured, but she couldn’t exactly place it. There were so many similar memories she had on campus, standing around with her friends, debating politics, complaining about roommates or classes, making weekend plans. She wished she could go back and hear what she was saying when this picture was taken, surely it must have been interesting to have warranted being photographed. When the nostalgia of seeing herself at Columbia passed, the confusion set in. What was the meaning of this picture? Who took it? Why had Brandon left it on her pillow?