I RETURNED ABOUT twenty minutes later to an unusually quiet house. On any given day, there were often people milling about our home and property. Landscapers and repairmen; pool boys and Pilates instructors; our occasional chef, Troy; and at the very least, Juana, our full-time housekeeper, who had been with us forever, even when we lived in our old house in Belmont and she only came once a week.
But that afternoon, nobody was there, and I had over an hour to kill before Finch got home from school. The rare solitude filled me with simultaneous relief and panic. I put my bag down in the kitchen and considered making myself lunch, but I had no appetite. So I went to my office, designed as the “servants’ room” back when the house was built in the twenties. It was where I worked on my charities, answered emails, and did my online shopping.
I sat down at the built-in desk, gazing out the window onto the sun-drenched courtyard lined with boxwoods and blue hydrangeas. The view was beautiful, and it usually put me in a cheerful mood, especially this time of year. But now something about it pained me.
I lowered the roman shades and stared down at my desk, searching for a distraction. Still a paper-calendar girl, I flipped open my planner for at least the third time that day, though I already knew nothing was on my schedule this evening—almost as unusual as our empty house. I closed the leather book, then eyed a box of stationery, contemplating writing an overdue thank-you note and an even longer-overdue note of sympathy. I couldn’t muster the energy for either, so I got up and began to pace aimlessly around the house. Every room was neat, pristine, clutter-free. The hardwood floors shone. Throw pillows were fluffed and perfectly arranged. Orchids were in full bloom on three coffee tables in three different rooms. I made a mental note to thank Juana—something I didn’t do enough—for her work and attention to detail. Our home was nothing short of exquisite.
But as with the view from my office window, the beauty inside our home only unsettled me further. It suddenly felt like a farce, and as I passed through the butler’s pantry, I had the urge to grab a piece of crystal from the lit shelves and smash it against the marble countertop, the way people did in the movies when they were really upset. In real life, though, I knew the satisfaction wouldn’t approach the effort required to clean it up. Not to mention the possible risk of cutting myself. Then again, a trip to the emergency room might be a nice diversion, I thought, reaching up to touch a wine goblet.
“Don’t be stupid,” I said aloud, dropping my hand to my side. I turned and made my way down the hallway toward the master suite, which had been added to the house sometime in the nineties. I looked around, my eyes settling on a white-velvet chaise longue I’d had shipped from a Deco furniture store in Miami. It had been a splurge—too much to spend on one chair no matter what name it was given—but I’d told myself I would use it often, meditate or read there every morning. Unfortunately, that seldom seemed to happen. I was always too busy. But I walked over and sat on it now, thinking of Kirk, wondering about his character. How could he so easily gloss over what Finch had done to Lyla? Had he always been this way? I really didn’t think so, but if he hadn’t, when did he change? Why hadn’t I noticed? What else was I missing?
I thought about how often my husband traveled and how seldom we were intimate these days. I had no real reason to think that he’d ever been unfaithful, and frankly he seemed to be too into his work to bother with an affair. But I still put the fidelity odds at only about eighty–twenty, then mentally lowered that to seventy–thirty, perhaps a by-product of having a best friend who practiced divorce law.
It had been a few days since Julie and I had communicated even by text, a long stretch for us, and I had to admit that I’d been avoiding her, at least on a subconscious level. I dreaded telling her what Finch had done. It wasn’t that she was holier than thou. In some ways, though she had very high moral standards, she was actually the least judgmental person I knew. But ever since the seventh grade, she’d always given it to me straight. It had caused a few arguments over the years, as sometimes she hurt my feelings with her bluntness. But I cherished our filterless relationship and considered it the truest measure of a best friend, greater than pure affection. Who was the person you trusted enough to be your most transparent self with, in both good times and bad? For me, that person had always been Julie.
So, just as I’d called to tell her about Princeton, feeling confident that there would be no element of competitiveness or resentment in her reaction, I knew I could trust Julie with this. I found my phone in the kitchen, returned to my chair, and dialed her number.
Julie answered on a late ring, sounding breathless, as if she’d just run up a few flights of stairs—or more likely, down the hall of her small law firm.
“Hey. Can you talk?” I asked, part of me hoping she couldn’t, having sudden second thoughts about sharing everything when I was already so drained.
“Yeah,” she said. “I was just reviewing a PI report. It’s a doozy.”
“Your PI?” I asked
“Unfortunately, no. The other side,” she said with a sigh. “I’m representing the wife.”
“Do I know her?” I asked, though I knew confidentiality would prevent her from sharing anything specific.
“Doubt it. She’s younger than we are. In her mid-thirties…Anyway, she thought it was an excellent idea to make out with her also-married boyfriend in the Walmart parking lot.”
“Oh my God. Are the pictures…clear?” I asked, partly stalling, partly taking bizarre solace in the fact that my life wasn’t the only one in turmoil.
“Yep,” she said. “Great camera.”
I took a deep breath and said, “Oh no. Well, speaking of scandalous photos…I have something to tell you.”
“Uh-oh,” she said. “What’s up?”
“It’s about Finch,” I said, my stomach cramping and head pounding. “Are you sure you have time for this now? It’s sort of a long story….”
“Yeah. I have a few minutes,” she said. “Hold on. Lemme close my door.”
A few seconds later, she returned and said, “So what happened?”
I cleared my throat and told her the story, beginning with Kathie showing me the picture in the ladies’ room and ending with the conversation I’d just had with Kirk in the Windsor parking lot. She interrupted a few times, but only to ask questions, in her fact-gathering, lawyer mode. When I finished, she said, “Okay. Hang up and send me the picture.”
“Why?” I asked, thinking that I had been fairly explicit about the image already.
“I need to see it,” she said. “To fully gauge the situation. Just send it, okay?”
The request, along with her tone of voice, was bossy and borderline abrasive, but also strangely comforting. Julie had always been the take-charge alpha dog in our friendship and was unusually good in a crisis.
So I did as I was told, hanging up, then staring at the image while I waited for her to receive it. It took her a sickeningly long time to call back, and I wondered if the photo hadn’t gone through or whether she just needed that much time to process it. The phone finally rang.
“Okay. I saw it,” she said when I answered.
“And?” I asked, bracing myself.
“And it’s really bad, Nina.”
“I know.” My eyes welled up, though I wasn’t sure whether I was more embarrassed or just plain sad.
Silence waited on the other end of the line—which was unusual for the two of us, at least a silence that felt awkward. She finally cleared her throat and said, “I’m surprised that Finch would do something like this….He was always such a kind kid….”