Recipe for a Perfect Wife (ARC)
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summer business. He’s a student in the city but lives at home
with his parents over the break. I’ll give you his number. Good
prices, hard worker.”
“The outside work feels like a full‑ time job.” Alice set the
bin down and brushed her hands on her jeans. “So, yes, I’d love
that number.”
“I’ll get it for you right now. Do you have time for a coffee?”
She thought about Georgia and James and the attorneys whom
she had to face in only a couple of hours. “I wish I could, but I have an appointment. Maybe tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow it is.”
Alice scowled at her lawn. “It would be a lot easier if I liked
doing this stuff.”
Sally nodded. “You might surprise yourself. I have to say the
gardening has grown on me over the years.”
The garbage truck turned onto their street, the screech of
brakes interrupting them. Sally waved to the man who jumped
off the back of the truck, and he waved back. “Morning, Ms.
Claussen,” he said, taking one earbud out, tucking it swiftly
under the brim of his ball cap. He had a trim beard and a dimple
when he smiled, which made him look younger than he
likely was.
“Hello, Joel. How are the girls?”
“Doing great. Eva learned to tie her shoes, and Maddie won
her soccer game yesterday.”
“Good for them!” Sally clapped her hands together with
delight, as though they were her own grandchildren. “Joel, this
is Alice Hale. She and her husband moved in recently.”
“Nice to meet you, Alice,” Joel said. “Welcome to the
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neighborhood.” He swiftly emptied the trash cans, then held
one in each hand. “Want me to run these back up for you,
ladies?”
“Thanks, I can do it,” Alice replied, then, after Joel swung
himself back onto the truck and waved goodbye, added, “He
seems like a nice guy.”
“Oh, he is,” Sally said, fiddling with the ends of her scarf.
“Handsome, too. I always enjoy trash day.”
Alice laughed, liking Sally more and more.
The drive to the Scarsdale train station took fewer than five
minutes, a quick hop across the Bronx River. Alice was getting
better at driving; the suburbs offered a tranquil experience for
those nervous behind the wheel, thanks to wide streets and an
overall languid pace. As Alice pulled into a parking spot near
the station, she marveled again at how quaint Scarsdale was.
Tidy brick and stone storefronts, with colorful awnings and
flags flying from antique‑ looking light posts. Perfectly placed
trees and manicured green spaces. Outdoor café patios dotted
with a smattering of white umbrellas to shield patrons from the
beaming sun. It made her envious, how perfectly pulled to‑
gether this town was— so unlike her current life.
The train ride went too quickly for Alice, and an hour later
she stood in front of the Wittington Group’s building on
Broadway in her suit and highest heels, trying to muster the nerve
to walk through the door. With a deep breath that did little to
quell the acid rolling in her stomach from a too‑ large coffee and from the truth she’d been hiding for months, she squared her
shoulders and marched into the building.
“Oh, hey, Alice,” Sloan McKenzie, the receptionist, said
when Alice pushed through the heavy glass doors of the Wit‑
tington Group’s offices. She beamed a sugary smile Alice knew
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from experience wasn’t genuine. “I’ll let Georgia know you’re
here.”
Sloan busied herself calling Georgia, and Alice waited by the
desk, marveling at how straight Sloan’s hair was, nary a wave or
stray strand in sight. Alice remembered her regular blowouts and
frequent wax appointments with a whiff of longing,
self‑
consciously tugging at her hair’s ends, which had flipped up with
the humidity. It had been only a few months since she’d graced
this office daily, but already Alice felt out of step and uncom‑
fortable in her business attire.
“She’ll be a few minutes. You can take a seat if you want,”
Sloan said.
“I’m fine standing. Thanks.” Her shoes pinched her toes and
a nasty blister was brewing on her left heel and she really needed
a washroom. The coffee had worked its way to her bladder, and
her stomach was bloated inside the unforgiving waistband of her
skirt, whose zipper was now one deep breath away from splitting.
Sitting would only make everything worse.
“Up to you.” Sloan shrugged, back to typing whatever she
had been working on when Alice arrived. Probably something
on social media, or maybe a note to her colleagues: Guess who’s standing in front of me right now?? Alice Hale!!!! She looks like shit, FYI!!
Alice texted Bronwyn— who was on a business trip to Chi cago
for a couple of days— so she appeared as busy as Sloan was, but
she didn’t get a chance to finish it before Georgia ap peared.
“Thanks for coming in.” Georgia said, her tone laced with
disapproval. It had been nearly five months since they’d last seen
each other and the mutual animosity remained palpable. “Please
hold my calls.”
Sloan said she would, then gave Alice a sympathetic smile,
but again, it seemed fabricated.
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Alice tried to keep up, limping with her blistered heel, but
trailed Georgia— whose heels were as high, if not higher. Soon
they were at the large meeting room not far from Alice’s old
office. There were two dark‑ suited people already inside, a man
and a woman— the attorneys, Alice presumed— and a small plate
of dried‑ out‑ looking pastries.
Georgia didn’t bother introducing the others in the room, so
Alice decided to name them Tweedledee (woman) and Twee‑
dledum (man) in her mind. “Before we start I’d like to remind
you that I expect discretion here. Please try to keep what we
discuss in this room between us. I hope you can manage that . . .
this time.” She glared at Alice, who withered as she took her seat, setting her phone facedown on the table.
The female attorney, Tweedledee, spoke first. “So, as I be‑
lieve Georgia has already mentioned, Mr. Dorian has named
you in the suit, Mrs. Hale, and he claims— ”
“Alice is fine,” she said, interrupting.
The woman nodded, continued. “He claims he was having a
private conversation, in a hotel room paid for by the firm he em‑
ployed. The same one that signed a nondisclosure agreement.”
Alice cleared her throat, tried to calm her pounding heart.
“I’ve been out of the game for a few mont
hs, but does a drunken
chat with your publicist really count as a privileged conversation?”
The attorneys ignored the question, and Georgia muttered some‑
thing under her breath. Alice knew the contract terms as well as
everyone else in the room.
“On the note of alcohol,” Tweedledum said, flipping through
a few pages in the folder in front of him, “James Dorian says he
asked for water— repeatedly— and that Mrs. Hale, Alice, kept
giving him vodka instead, saying it would relax him for his
speech.”
“That’s bullshit!” Alice lurched forward, slapped her palms
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against the shiny mahogany table, which looked like a surf‑
board. She had spent many hours huddled around that table,
and despite the unpleasantness of the current meeting, a wave
of nostalgia moved through her.
“Alice, calm down.” Georgia sighed and looked at the male
attorney as though to say, See what I’ve had to deal with?
“Mr. Dorian claims you put words into his mouth. He had
mentioned his student, uh— ” The man paused to find the
name. “Robert Jantzen, was hired to help him with the book as
a fact‑ checker and in a minor research capacity, and you miscon‑
strued his role. He mentioned you had been drinking to excess,
as well.”
“Again, complete bullshit.” Alice’s head whipped between
the attorneys and Georgia. “Georgia, you know what James is
like. He’s a drunk. And I tried to keep him as sober as I could.”
She pressed her fingers to her closed eyes, counted to three as
she inhaled as deeply as her skirt allowed, which wasn’t enough
to quell her light‑ headedness. Alice was frustrated by how meek
her voice sounded when she continued. “Besides, you told me
to ‘take care of him’ and do whatever was necessary to make
him happy.”
Tweedledee looked up from her papers, frowning. “What
did you mean by that, Georgia?”
Georgia waved a hand. “Nothing. Alice tends to be overly
dramatic during crisis situations.”
The male attorney spoke before Alice could defend herself.
“Alice?” He faced her. “Care to elaborate on that last part?”
“Let’s just say James Dorian likes his booze, and I was told
to make sure we always had vodka and bourbon— his favorites—
on hand.”
“Told by whom?”
“By Georgia,” Alice said. “But it was a balancing act, be‑
cause James got handsy if he drank too much, you know?”
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Tweedledum raised an eyebrow, glanced at Tweedledee, who
leaned forward, her gaze piercing Alice.
“ ‘Handsy’?” The attorney narrowed her eyes.
Alice looked at her, confused another woman didn’t under‑
stand what she was saying. “You know, a bit touchy‑ feely. The
drunker he got, the higher the probability his hands would end
up on your knee, or somewhere else.”
“Alice, did James Dorian make any unwanted advances with out
your explicit consent?”
Alice barked out a laugh. “Is that a real question?” James
Dorian’s hands‑ on ways were no secret at the firm, or more gen‑
erally within New York’s publishing world.
“If there was some sort of sexual misconduct, well, that
could change things,” Tweedledum said to his colleague, who
nodded as she took a few notes. Alice felt the shift in the room,
Georgia’s sudden fidgeting with the top of her water bottle.
Twisting it repeatedly as she stared at Alice, her expression dif‑
ficult to read.
“I assure you, nothing sinister happened,” Georgia said. “I
would never put an employee in that sort of situation. James
Dorian is a pompous ass who likes his liquor, but sexual mis‑
conduct? Never.”
Alice stared at her former boss. “Georgia, come on. You and
I both know that’s not true.”
There was a long moment of silence, and then the woman
attorney said, “Have we missed something here?”
Georgia sighed, finally uncapping her water bottle and
taking a sip through the straw that popped up. She was a pro,
and Alice knew Georgia was trying to work out her spin before
she spoke.
“Georgia?” the woman asked.
Alice watched her former employer sip at the straw, waiting
for her to respond, which was when she saw it: the uncharac‑
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teristic alarm in Georgia’s expression— subtle, likely undetected
by those who didn’t know her as well. In a flush of satisfaction,
the never‑ rattled Georgia Wittington unsteady, Alice acknowl‑
edged how powerless she had become these past few months . . .
and how badly she wanted to change that.
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14
q
Be a good listener. Let him tell you his troubles; yours will seem
trivial in comparison.
— Edward Podolsky, Sex Today in Wedded Life (1947)
Alice
JANuAry 9, 2018
I t happened earlier in the year, at an event where one of the Wittington Group’s best clients, the mega‑ bestselling author
James Dorian, was up for yet another award. And Alice had been
tasked, like always, with making sure James showed up and made
it to the stage when his name was called.
The Wittington Group had booked a pre‑ party room for
James at the hotel where the literary awards were being held, so he could relax before the event but also so they could be sure he
wouldn’t be late. James arrived already drunk, and with a pointed
interest in Alice’s smooth, taut legs under her skirt. James Dorian had been married for twenty‑ five years, but that was beside the
point. He loved the power he presumed came with his status,
which occasionally meant a valuable, career‑ boosting endorsement
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for an up‑ and‑ coming writer and at other times meant his hands
landed in inappropriate places.
“Do not leave his side,” Georgia had barked out as she left
the office for her blowout. “Whatever he wants, you give it to
him.” She was fairly certain Georgia didn’t literally mean any-
thing, but then again Alice wouldn’t have put it past Georgia.
She was ruthless when it came to business.
While Alice didn’t care much for Dorian or his ego or his
sloppy hands, she did care about the promotion Georgia had
been dangling in recent months. Director
of publicity. The title meant James Dorian would no longer be her problem— he would
be relegated to a lowlier publicity manager— and Alice would get
a decent salary hike, both things she coveted. But tonight she
would do the job asked of her and babysit Dorian until she de‑
livered him to the awards ceremony.
“Why don’t you join me?” James said, patting a spot beside
him on the hotel room sofa. “Get yourself a drink.” Alice poured
water into the crystal glass, sat beside him. His breath was boozy
and bourbon spiced as he leaned toward her, resting one hand
on her bare knee. This she was used to, sadly, and she didn’t let
it bother her.
“We have to be downstairs in five minutes, James,” Alice
said, taking a sip of her water. “Perhaps we should make that the
last one for now?” She glanced at the glass in his other hand,
which was tipped at a precarious angle, the dark amber liquid
threateningly close to the edge.
“Now, now, Alice,” he slurred. “I know Georgia wants you
to make sure I’m happy.” He drained the glass, smacked his
thin lips. “And I’m not done yet.” He held out his glass, and she
begrudgingly filled it once more.
Alice handed him the glass, and he took it, patting the sofa
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palm on her thigh, tucked a lazy finger under her skirt’s edge.
“This is nice, isn’t it?” he murmured.
“Can I get you anything else before we go?” Alice asked, her
voice strong, her words purposeful. Dorian’s fingers continued
making lazy circles on her upper thigh. “James?”
“Georgia should watch out for you.” He pulled his hand
away to waggle a finger, cocking his bushy eyebrows tinged with
wiry gray hairs. “You’re twice the publicist she is, and I suspect
you’re going to knock her right off her fucking pedestal.” He
made a sweeping motion, and his drink spilled on Alice’s lap.
She jumped up, the pooling liquid draining off her skirt.
“Shit.” She opened a bottle of sparkling water and used a
linen napkin to dab at the spot. Dorian seemed unaware of what
he’d done; he kept talking and swinging his glass around.
“You’re a good writer too. Show plenty of promise. Maybe I