So here I sit at my desk, building the mother of all spreadsheets. Now that we’ve been open for four years, our customer records are a treasure trove of data. I’ve decided that I need to know more about our clients before I can decide what our expansion should look like. I’ve made a density map of their locations. But then I realized I needed to know more about our best clients. Since a quarter of our active clients provide three-quarters of our revenue, those are the people I need to understand.
Unfortunately, understanding them has proven to be a tedious process. I’ve spent the last few hours opening up client files and tagging them with various attributes. We have people who use Fetch for their business needs (for document delivery, office supplies, client entertainment.) Then we have what I’m calling the Busy Moms (diapers, organic food) and the Swinging Singles (wine selection and delivery, catering and gift-giving.) Someone has to think about these things, and tonight that someone is me.
I started at the front of the alphabet and now I’m up to the E’s. I smile when I click on Eriksson, but then I realize that it’s not Matt’s account. It’s Kara’s. That’s not a huge surprise now that I think about it. He’d told me once that he learned of Fetch from his ex, who’d grown to depend on us when the twins were younger.
Checking out her charges feels a little weird, but I have a job to do tonight, and it won’t take long.
I quickly scroll back through her lengthy list of requests and see that she belongs in the Busy Moms category. Lots of diaper deliveries in her early days. She also gets a tag for Concierge Services because she has Fetch make a lunch reservation for her every Friday, under the name of Dr. Daniel Bryant. The reservations happen exactly once a week, rain or shine. The choice of restaurants varies a great deal, but the consistency is admirable. She’s been lunching with Dr. Daniel Bryant every Friday for…I keep scrolling. For two years.
Well. Kara obviously found what she was looking for—a Steady Eddie. Matt said she hated his travel. Hated the Hockey Wife lifestyle. She wanted a dentist to lunch with like clockwork. And she got one.
I close that account after tagging it and move on. The next one in alphabetical order is Matt’s. I don’t need any time looking at the list of charges, because I’ve seen them all before. Tagging him is tricky, though. He doesn’t fit any of my tidy categories. I scroll back through the long list, wondering where to put him. The charges start eighteen months ago, but I don’t let myself pull up any of our old text messages because I’ll be here all night rereading them and missing him.
Eighteen months ago, when he was separated. I already knew the date, because he and I were leading parallel lives and didn’t know it. Our spouses asked for divorces only a couple of weeks apart.
That’s when the hair stands up on the back of my neck, and goose bumps climb my arms. Matt’s marriage was over a year and a half ago. His wife has been lunching with Dentist Dan every Friday for two years.
With a pounding heart, I open up her account again. It’s right there. Two years ago last month, she made her first Fetch reservation request—a lunch date at Sassafras. Table for two. Under the name Dr. Daniel Bryant.
There must be some mistake I’m making. Maybe that Daniel isn’t her boyfriend. Maybe it’s her dad.
But who dines at fancy restaurants with her dad every week?
I Google Daniel Bryant, pediatric dentist, and he pops up immediately. His website shows a picture of him wearing scrubs with teddy bears on them. I check the hours.
His office doesn’t open until three p.m. on Fridays. Plenty of time for lunch and a quickie.
Holy shit.
Twenty
Always On My Mind
Hailey
“Oh my God! She was cheating on him! Really?”
Jenny’s shriek of outrage makes me wince. We’re in my room. She was sprawled on my bed before I dropped my Kara bomb. Now she’s sitting upright, eyes wide and mouth gaping open.
Jenny doesn’t come over often, but she’s here this evening to do my hair and makeup. I’m got to be at the hotel in an hour, and normally I wouldn’t make such a big fuss about my appearance, but I’m getting an award tonight. It’s a big deal. And I want to look like a big deal.
We haven’t quite made it to the getting-ready part, though. The discovery I made earlier this week has been weighing on my mind, and I finally caved and told Jenny about it, since I can’t very well tell Matt. But even though I’d just laid out the facts and Jenny came to the same conclusion as I had, I can’t help but play devil’s advocate.
“Not necessarily,” I answer. “Maybe she was meeting this guy for a weekly friend lunch.”
Jenny arches one eyebrow. “But aren’t they together now, the ex and the dentist?”
I nod.
“Um, then they’re not friends now and they sure as booger-sugar weren’t friends back then.” She flops back against my pillows and crosses her arms over her chest.
“They might’ve been,” I say weakly.
“Bullshit. Even if they weren’t hooking up, they were still having an affair—an emotional affair. I mean, come on, Hailey. A married woman doesn’t meet the same man for lunch for six months if she doesn’t have feelings for him.”
I agree, but I hate the idea that Kara was actually doing that to Matt. For some dumb reason, I want to give her the benefit of the doubt, even when she can’t give me the same courtesy. From the second we met, Kara assumed I was a one-night stand or a casual hookup. Even after months of me dating Matt, the woman continues to turn her nose up at me whenever she sees me. So, yeah, Kara is a bitch. But if she was seeing some dentist behind Matt’s back during their marriage, that’s beyond bitch. That’s cruel.
“Are you going to tell him?”
Jenny voices the question that’s been hounding me for days. I’d spoken to Matt a few times this week but didn’t once mention that I think his ex-wife was a Cheating McCheaterson. There’s no good way to bring that up. Yeah, I miss you too, can’t wait to strip you naked. By the way your ex cheated on you, good game tonight!
“I don’t know,” I admit. “A part of me is, like, hell yes, he deserves to know. But another part wonders if I’ll just be needlessly hurting him. They’re already divorced, so obviously the marriage wasn’t working. What will knowing do, besides hurt him?”
Jenny flashes an evil grin. “It’ll make him hate the bitch.”
“Exactly. But she’s the mother of his kids,” I say softly. “Is it right of me to create a rift between them?”
Her jaw drops. “You’re not rifting them. She did!”
“Yeah…” Then something occurs to me. “Maybe he knows, Jenny. It’s embarrassing, right? Maybe he knows, and he didn’t tell me. It’s sort of private.”
Jenny flops onto the bed. “I dunno. You say he blames himself for their breakup. Would he do that if he knew?”