Nellie smothered another yawn as she padded the seven steps into the tiny galley kitchen, the linoleum cold under her bare feet. She flicked on the overhead light, noticing Sam had—again—made a mess of the honey jar after sweetening her tea. The viscous liquid oozed down the side, and a cockroach struggled in the sticky amber pool. Even after years of living in Manhattan, the sight still made her queasy. Nellie grabbed one of Sam’s dirty mugs out of the sink and trapped the roach under it. Let her deal with it, she thought. As she waited for her coffee to brew, she flipped open her laptop and began checking email—a coupon from the Gap; her mother, who’d apparently become a vegetarian, asking Nellie to make sure there would be a meat-free option at the wedding dinner; a notice that her credit-card payment was due.
Nellie poured her coffee into a mug decorated with hearts and the words World’s #1 Teacher—she and Samantha, who also taught at the Learning Ladder preschool, had a dozen nearly identical ones jammed in the cupboard—and took a grateful sip. She had ten spring parent-teacher conferences scheduled today for her Cubs, her class of three-year-olds. Without caffeine, she’d be in danger of falling asleep in the “quiet corner,” and she needed to be on her game. First up were the Porters, who’d recently fretted over the lack of Spike Jonze–style creativity being cultivated in her classroom. They’d recommended she replace the big dollhouse with a giant tepee and had followed up by sending her a link to one the Land of Nod sold for $229.
She’d miss the Porters only slightly less than the cockroaches when she moved in with Richard, Nellie decided. She looked at Samantha’s mug, felt a surge of guilt, and used a tissue to quickly scoop up the bug and flush it down the toilet.
Her cell phone rang as Nellie was turning on the shower. She wrapped herself in a towel and hurried into the bedroom to grab her purse. Her phone wasn’t there, though; Nellie was forever misplacing it. She eventually dug it out of the folds of her comforter.
“Hello?”
No answer.
Caller ID showed a blocked number. A moment later a voice-mail alert appeared on her screen. She pressed a button to listen to it but only heard a faint, rhythmic sound. Breathing.
A telemarketer, she told herself as she tossed the phone back on the bed. No big deal. She was overreacting, as she sometimes did. She was just overwhelmed. After all, in the next few weeks, she’d pack up her apartment, move in with Richard, and hold a bouquet of white roses as she walked toward her new life. Change was unnerving, and she was facing a lot of it all at once.
Still, it was the third call in as many weeks.
She glanced at the front door. The steel dead bolt was engaged.
She headed to the bathroom, then turned back and picked up her cell phone, bringing it with her. She placed it on the edge of the sink, locked the door, then slung her towel over the rod and stepped into the shower. She jumped back as the too-cold spray hit her, then adjusted the knob and rubbed her hands over her arms.
Steam filled the small space, and she let the water course over the knots in her shoulders and down her back. She was changing her last name after the wedding. Maybe she’d change her phone number, too.
She’d slipped on a linen dress and was swiping mascara over her blond eyelashes—the only time she wore much makeup or nice clothes to work was for parent-teacher conferences and graduation day—when her cell phone vibrated, the noise loud and tinny against the porcelain sink. She flinched, and her mascara wand streaked upward, leaving a black mark near her eyebrow.
She looked down to see an incoming text from Richard:
Can’t wait to see you tonight, beautiful. Counting the minutes. I love you.
As she stared at her fiancé’s words, the breath that had seemed stuck in her chest all morning loosened. I love you, too, she texted back.
She’d tell him about the phone calls tonight. Richard would pour her a glass of wine and lift her feet up onto his lap while they talked. Maybe he’d find a way to trace the hidden number. She finished getting ready, then picked up her heavy shoulder bag and stepped out in the faint spring sunshine.
CHAPTER
TWO
The shriek of Aunt Charlotte’s teakettle awakens me. Weak sunlight sneaks through the slats of the blinds, casting faint stripes across my body as I lay curled in a fetal position. How can it be morning already? Even after months of sleeping alone in a twin—not the king I once shared with Richard—I still lie only on the left side. The sheets beside me are cool. I am making room for a ghost.
Morning is the worst time because, for a brief moment, my brain is clear. The reprieve is so cruel. I huddle under the patchwork quilt, feeling as if a heavy weight is pinning me here.
Richard is probably with my pretty young replacement right now, his navy-blue eyes fixed on her as his fingertips trace the curve of her cheek. Sometimes I can almost hear him saying the sweet things he used to whisper to me.
I adore you. I’m going to make you so happy. You are my world.
My heart throbs, each steady beat almost painful. Deep breaths, I remind myself. It doesn’t work. It never works.
When I’ve watched the woman Richard left me for, I’m always struck by how soft and innocent she is. So like me when Richard and I first met and he would cup my face between his palms, as gently as if it were a delicate flower he was afraid of damaging.
Even in those early, heady months, it sometimes seemed as if it—he—were a bit scripted. But it didn’t matter. Richard was caring, charismatic, and accomplished. I fell in love with him almost immediately. And I never doubted that he loved me, too.
He is finished with me now, though. I’ve moved out of our four-bedroom colonial home with its arched doorways and rich green sweep of lawn. Three of those bedrooms remained empty throughout our marriage, but the maid still cleaned them every week. I always found an excuse to leave the house when she opened those doors.
The wailing of an ambulance twelve stories below finally prompts me to get out of bed. I shower, then blow-dry my hair, noticing my roots are visible. I pull a box of Clairol Caramel Brown from under the sink to remind myself to touch them up tonight. Gone are the days when I paid—no, when Richard paid—hundreds of dollars for a cut and color.
I open the antique cherrywood armoire that Aunt Charlotte purchased at the GreenFlea Market and refurbished herself. I used to have a walk-in closet bigger than the room in which I now stand. Racks of dresses organized by color and season. Stacks of designer jeans in various states of distressed denim. A rainbow of cashmere lining one wall.
Those items never meant much to me. I usually just wore yoga pants and a cozy sweater. Like a reverse commuter, I changed into a more stylish ensemble shortly before Richard came home.
Now, though, I am grateful that when Richard asked me to leave our Westchester house, I took a few suitcases of my finer clothes. As a sales associate at Saks on the designer-label third floor, I depend on commissions, so it is vital I project an aspirational image. I stare at the dresses lined up in the armoire with an almost military precision and select a robin’s-egg-colored Chanel. One of the signature buttons is dented, and it hangs more loosely than the last time I wore it, a lifetime ago. I don’t need a scale to inform me I’ve lost too much weight; at five feet six, I have to take in even my size 4s.
I enter the kitchen, where Aunt Charlotte is eating Greek yogurt with fresh blueberries, and kiss her, the skin on her cheek feeling as soft as talcum powder.
“Vanessa. Sleep well?”
“Yes,” I lie.