The Starter Wife

by Nina Laurin

  Okay, then. I’ll just do it step by step, figuring it out as I go. I click on my inbox, realize it’s the wrong one—still open on my form rejection. I just didn’t connect…

  With an impatient sigh, I click the red cross, and the writerly inbox disappears. I’m looking at my personal email now.

  A message from Byron sits at the top, dated back three weeks. Below it, one from my sister, from three months ago. I’d promised myself I’d reply. I really did. But then I dreaded it, put it off, then forgot, and then gave up altogether because it would just be even more awkward after all this time. Below that, a couple of generic messages from those discount sites for Columbus that I keep track of, as if we really needed 48 percent off a meal at a restaurant chain or a knockoff Apple Watch for $199. Byron hates those sites, despises the very idea.

  Frustrated, I scroll through the emails. They’re going back six months now, seven, ten. Back to the top—nothing. I check the other folders. Nothing. Nothing in Trash or Spam.

  It’s gone like it was never there.

  A little laugh bubbles out of me. Clearly, I’m going crazy. Ha ha. Imagining emails that never were.

  My thoughts churn. I should have taken a screenshot, I should have saved the image—should have, should have, should have. How do I retrieve a lost email? Google has plenty of answers but they all apply only to emails that ostensibly existed.

  Remembering that I have a phone, I run to get it from the charger in the bedroom. No new notifications. I write a quick text to Byron, who should be on his lunch hour by now: Bon appetit! Love, xoxoxoxo and a couple of emojis. It’s cheesy but right now all I want is to hear from him, even if it’s just a two-word text.

  It’s better than asking, Hey, by the way, are you absolutely sure your first wife is dead?

  CHAPTER THREE

  Are you absolutely sure your first wife is dead?

  Once you’ve been inside our house, the question doesn’t sound as crazy.

  Here’s what I know about Colleen Westcott.

  Her favorite color was lilac—because the entire first floor is painted pale lilac with gray accents. Why change it? Byron would say if I asked him. It’s tasteful and makes the rooms look airier. As if the rooms, with their twelve-foot ceilings and lingering echoes in the corners, needed to feel any bigger.

  She liked to cook—hence, the state-of-the-art equipped kitchen and a full set of Le Creuset cookware stashed away in its cream-colored cabinets. When I saw how much these things cost, on a trip to Williams Sonoma, I choked on my iced coffee. She was definitely the cook because I’ve yet to see Byron use the kitchen to make anything more complex than cereal or, on the odd occasion, pasta with canned sauce. The Le Creuset dishes gather sticky dust on their once-shiny enameled lids.

  She was the coffee enthusiast too, because her books on coffee—heavy, glossy photo volumes—are stacked on a shelf in the dining room, right next to her cookbook collection. If the cookbooks are to be believed, she was fond of Mediterranean cuisine with an occasional foray into the Middle East. All the books are inscribed with her name on the flyleaf in silver, needle-thin Sharpie. She wrote in cursive. She must have had an elegant hand because…

  …because the worst part. The paintings.

  Colleen was a painter, an accomplished one as far as painters in the twenty-first century go. She taught at the same liberal arts college where Byron still teaches, something no one fails to remind me every time I go to a function with my husband. Did you know Colleen used to teach in the Fine Arts Department? Students loved her. And what do you do?

  Claire is a writer, Byron would say, stepping in pointedly.

  Really, now? Makes sense—our Byron always goes for the artsy types, doesn’t he?

  But back to the paintings.

  Colleen’s famous paintings—landscapes, faces, strange blurred figures, all big giant things in smeared colors—are everywhere. Yes, I guess I am an “artsy type” but I’m a writer, raised on printed words, and for the life of me, I just don’t understand the appeal. I’m not going to say, “A three-year-old could have painted that mess”—oh no, since my husband is a lecturer at a liberal arts college, I know better than that—but when it’s not even a beautiful mess, what’s the point?

  Perhaps I’m just bitter. Perhaps in another context, I would have stood in front of one of those paintings in a trendy gallery in Cleveland or Columbus, tilted my head, and tried to see a deeper meaning. Noted how the colors seemed to flow together while at the same time were perfect in their integrity. Noticed the rich texture and thickness of the glossy paint.

  But when I see them on the walls of my house, all I can see is Colleen.

  Her paints, her easel, her kit of pricey, soft brushes made of real fur or hair or I don’t know what—all has been moved to the storage room in the basement, reverently and with reluctance. The room she used as a studio is now my office.

  But it’s the paintings themselves. They’re all over the house. Over the staircase, her sketches (études—I read in an art book once they’re called études) hang behind glass, in tasteful, skinny frames of dark mahogany. Banal things in reddish-brown chalk that remind me of rust or dried blood. Some buckets piled up in the grass, next to a barely sketched-out shed. The faceless silhouette of a woman, naked and unselfconscious, her doughy thighs and rounded belly on proud display (not Colleen herself—she was wiry, thin not from workouts but thanks to a fast metabolism). A sketch of Byron’s profile in the middle of an expanse of pristine untouched paper. I’ve inspected that sketch many times, noting all the little discrepancies between the drawing and real-life Byron yet never able to quite pinpoint why it looked so different from the face I see every day.

  In the dining room: a quaint beach, almost monochrome in sienna and ochre. Someplace on Lake Erie? The hastily smeared copse of trees, the shabby little boat moored to a root, it doesn’t look like something from the Caribbean—not that Colleen and Byron were the type to go sunning in an all-inclusive resort with the kinds of people Colleen would have probably found as bland and boring as my university classmates found me. They went to Peru for their honeymoon, which Byron reluctantly admitted to me when I pressed him about the origins of a mask that hung in the hallway upstairs. But as far as I know, Colleen didn’t paint Peru. Found the subject matter too predictable, maybe.

  And then the living room. That giant sprawling canvas of the house itself. The house sits in the middle of a murky sfumato like an island lost at sea. The whole thing is in tones of burgundy, raw and rusty, and it makes the house appear sinister. Maybe she painted it that way to make a nice flashy contrast with the lilac walls and cream-colored couch. But Colleen was above painting decorative things. Colleen made true art, whatever that means.

  All that without counting the other paintings, smaller ones, scattered throughout the hallways and in the kitchen and upstairs and in Byron’s office. So far, in the two years we’ve been married, I have only succeeded in getting rid of the one in the bedroom. I was going to find something else to put up in its place but abandoned the idea—whatever I chose, it would inevitably fall short by comparison.

  The paintings are worth something, which is unusual, I suppose, in an era when hardly anyone bothers to spend money on unique art—let alone serious money. I looked it up furtively, erasing my search history afterward; that hideous bedroom one could keep our bills paid for months. But my attempts to suggest we sell even one have hit a wall.

  It all frustrates me to no end, and then I get angry at Byron, and then I feel guilty and down on myself for being angry, for being resentful and petty. What else is it but pettiness, to feel jealous of a dead woman?

  When I met Byron, that undercurrent of tragedy drew me like a magnet; when I learned the truth, I was only more enthralled. Anyone else may have been apprehensive and chosen to fall back and keep her options open: surely a reasonably pretty girl in her early twenties can do better than a guy almost twice her age, with a dead wife you just know he will never truly get
over. But instead, it made me love him even more.

  Boys my age knew nothing of true loss and pain and grief—they smacked gum and swiped their phone screens, scrolling through profile after profile on the latest dating app, always in search of the next bigger, flashier thing. For them, everything and everyone was replaceable, and replaceable things have no value. Or maybe it was the writer in me who became drawn to so much raw feeling concentrated in one person. I still can’t be sure.

  Maybe if she’d had the courtesy to divorce him or to run off with some long-haired hipster from one of her college workshops, he’d at least be able to let go. But Colleen had to go and die. And who can blame Byron for going off the rails a little when his first wife committed suicide?

  CHAPTER FOUR

  When Byron told me, I did the only thing anyone of my generation would do: I looked it up online. I found an obituary. Colleen, as it turned out, painted under her maiden name—truth be told, I don’t know whether she ever legally changed it to Westcott.

  Colleen May, esteemed artist, passed away on April 11, 2010. She leaves behind grieving colleagues and friends as well as her husband, Byron Westcott.

  There was no mention that she killed herself. But there was a photo of Byron and Colleen together, made grainy by the newsprint. Not a posed wedding photo like you’d expect—they didn’t have posed wedding photos. In it, they were standing, him with his arm around her shoulders. Behind her, I could make out, even despite the bad quality of the image, the unmistakable wild streaks of paint on canvas. This was her gallery show. I didn’t know which one.

  I’ve reread this obituary more than a few times since, peering into the photo, trying to suss out any details lost between the lines, in the sparse words. To glimpse something of the life they had, the connection between them. As a result, I could recite it from memory by now.

  But today, my fingertips are drumming on the touch pad of my laptop as if of their own free will, my nerves on edge. That simple text is no longer enough, and I know better than to casually bring up Colleen’s death with my husband.

  The ringing of my phone makes my head snap up. Disoriented, I race around the house in circles before remembering I left it on the kitchen counter, next to the emptied cup of coffee.

  Luckily, I don’t miss the call. When I see Byron’s photo on the screen, my heart jumps. He never calls me during his lunch break anymore.

  “Hey, babe.”

  I wince just a tiny bit. I can’t ever picture him referring to Colleen, offhandedly, as “babe.” Although of course they must have had the same silly little names all couples have for each other. Even though the thought poisons me, slowly, one cell at a time, hollowing out my bones like radium.

  “Hi.” I ask him how his day is going. The answer is the same as the one he gives me every day when he comes home.

  Today, though, something is different.

  “You know what? I was thinking. It’s horrible outside. So do you want to come and meet me after I’m done? We can go catch a movie and then get dinner at some greasy spoon.”

  In my head, I’m making up excuses. But my mouth says, “Okay. Sure.”

  “It’s been a while.”

  “Yeah.” I’m not sure what he’s referring to. A lot of things have been a while. A week since he last said bye to me before leaving for work. Two weeks, three days since we had sex. About a month since we did anything together outside the house.

  “How’s the book going?”

  “It’s going,” I lie. “I wrote some pages.”

  “Good. Then we both earned it.”

  Did we? Really?

  “I love you,” he says out of nowhere. I’m so startled I let a couple of seconds tick by before I say it back.

  He gives a soft chuckle. “I’ll see you at six.”

  * * *

  I know it’s just a movie and dinner but at least it gives me something to think about instead of obsessing over some email I may or may not have imagined.

  I abandon my laptop and go upstairs where I pick out a dress, then layer on some more makeup to be sure to cover the subtle but creeping dark circles under my eyes. The circles appeared sometime last spring after a particularly nasty bout of insomnia. I got a prescription to treat the insomnia itself but the circles never quite faded. Instead, they’ve been getting just a little bit darker, a little bit hollower, every single morning.

  It’s one of those changes that creeps up on you until you wake up one morning, at thirty or thirty-five, and realize that a little bit of your beauty got away from you. But I see it. Is this when it starts? Twenty-seven? I read that your cells start dying faster than they renew at twenty-five. Is that all there is then—is it downhill from here?

  It’s laughable, the fact that my husband teaches droves of artsy nineteen-year-olds every day, and yet the person I feel most threatened by is his dead first wife.

  Sort-of-dead first wife, who sends me emails from the other side.

  My sharp, hollow laugh echoes through the bathroom, and I snap back to reality. And the reality is I smeared half a tube of high-end concealer under my eyes, like two giant half-moons. Reverse raccoon. I bought that tube during one of my rampages at the mall. It’s soft as whipped cream, like rubbing pure silk into your skin, and it costs a fortune. I wipe off the excess with a cotton pad and stamp down the rest with a little makeup sponge.

  Hours later, I’m finally made-up, my hair straightened, in my car, and driving to the college. The place where my husband works couldn’t be any more different from the college I went to—not just the exorbitant tuition but the place itself. When you hear “elite university,” the image that pops into your head is Gothic spires and mossy stone walls, arched windows, and, of course, ivy. Lots of ivy everywhere. At least that’s what pops into my head.

  The people who founded this institution had a starkly different idea. There are lots of geometric shapes, lots of tinted glass that gleams on sunny days like remnants of an alien spaceship. On a day like today, the buildings meld with the gray sky. In lieu of cozy winding paths, the entire territory is shot through with arrow-straight lanes, contemporary sculptures scattered on fluorescent-green buzz-cut lawns.

  When Byron’s colleagues were within earshot, I always expressed polite admiration of the things but Byron saw right through it and never stopped poking fun at me. Oh look, he’d taunt in my ear as we walked past one or another concrete masterpiece, it’s that wonderfully expressive cubist take on Venus de Milo.

  I could never conceal my loathing of contemporary sculpture. It’s as if whoever conceived of all this was outright rejecting all things traditional, casting them aside with palpable disdain.

  Rain has been dripping steadily all afternoon but a group of students still holds court on benches that surround yet another hideous lump of metal that passes for art. They follow me with curious looks as I hurry by. And I get it—I stick out, and not in a good way. With my dress and blond hair, I’m normal, hopelessly conventional, and to them, I must be the human equivalent of an impressionist landscape painting. Passé, pastel, and ultimately boring.

  Truth is I knew lots of people just like them at Ohio State. They, too, kept anyone who didn’t fit their definition of cool at arm’s length, considering them a natural inferior. After a while, I observed that the ones who take the most pains to set themselves apart, with strange haircuts and bits of metal in their faces, are the most creatively bankrupt; they were always the ones in the workshops who fed off the others’ ideas, soaking up the imagination nature hadn’t given them.

  I ignore their looks. At least I have to give Byron credit: I just don’t see him striking up an affair with one of them, some girl with green hair and tattoos on her neck.

  The Language Arts Department is tucked away in the back of the campus. It’s the least interesting building, as if the architects were running out of ideas and saved all the good ones for the departments that matter: fine arts and visual arts. The way I see it, the Language Arts Department is
better off this way. The plain façade has trees surrounding it, maples that are turning red and yellow and orange, leaves shivering with raindrops. It feels warm and familiar somehow.

  The door is heavy, and I struggle with my umbrella. A spray of cold drops dots my skirt. A girl rushes past me in a huff, all but shoving me out of her way. The door clatters closed behind her, leaving me in the warm, dry silence of the department. Fittingly, it feels like a library. Not an interesting, old library with moldings and arched doorways, but still.

  I check my phone—six fifteen, no new texts or emails. The department is quiet at this hour so I go straight to my husband’s office. I pass through a short labyrinth of halls to find myself in front of his door.

  It’s shut. I knock and then jiggle the handle to no result. Confused, I raise my hand to knock again but reconsider.

  Instead, I take two more turns through the maze and find the Student Services desk, where a bored student is perched behind Plexiglas, ready to help with any pressing language arts matters. Today is a different one from last time, no longer the girl with the dreads and painful-looking barbell through the bridge of her nose. This one has mousy hair in a weird bobbed style, and a lip ring she keeps playing with. She’s reading a book. Not on her phone or another device—a real, big, old-looking book. I can’t tell what it is because the cover is lovingly wrapped in brown paper to preserve it.

  “Excuse me.” I almost feel bad to pull her out of it, back into boring reality. “Is Dr. Westcott here?”

  “He’s only in until six,” she says on autopilot. I notice that her bangs are too short and look uneven, like she cut them herself. “Office hours are over but you can make an appointment.”

  Appointment. Add that to the ever-growing list of indignities I’ve suffered on my husband’s account. Does anybody here even know he’s married? “I’m supposed to meet him after work. I’m his wife,” I say, pettily emphasizing the last sentence. “Claire. Westcott.”