Chương 2
Tonight rain hammered the roof hard enough to drown sections of the orchestra.
Claire had arrived knowing exactly what she intended to do.
That was the part Ethan would never understand.
He would tell himself she had lost control.
He would need to believe that.
The truth was that Claire had spent fourteen hours controlling herself before she dropped the bracelet.
At eight thirty that morning she had been at her desk in a Midtown architecture studio, arguing with a supplier over custom limestone samples for a library restoration in Brooklyn.
At eight forty-two, Vanessa Hale had called her.
Claire knew Vanessa professionally, if not well. Vanessa was outside counsel on two of Bell Meridian Hotels’ development projects. She was polished without being warm, carried legal pads instead of tablets, and had once spent most of a dinner explaining to Ethan why a financing term he liked was impossible.
Claire had respected her.
That now seemed almost funny.
The call began badly.
“Claire?”
“Yes.”
A pause.
“It’s Vanessa.”
“I know. Your name came up.”
Another pause.
Claire had been marking a drawing with a red pencil. She put it down.
Vanessa said, “Are you somewhere private?”
Claire looked across the open studio. Eleven people were working within thirty feet of her.
“No.”
“Can you be?”
That was when Claire’s stomach tightened.
Not because she suspected an affair.
Not yet.
She had thought Ethan had been injured.
She carried her phone into the stairwell.
“What happened?”
Vanessa was breathing carefully.
“I need to ask you something, and I need you not to assume I’m calling to hurt you.”
Claire leaned against the concrete wall.
“People usually don’t say that before good news.”
“I know.”
“Is Ethan okay?”
“Yes.”
Claire closed her eyes briefly.
“Then ask.”
Vanessa did.
“When did you and Ethan decide to end your engagement?”
For several seconds Claire listened to the fluorescent light buzzing above her.
“We didn’t.”
Vanessa said nothing.
Claire looked down at her left hand.
The bracelet was hidden beneath the cuff of her blazer.
“We’re having dinner with his mother tonight,” Claire said. “I’m wearing maternity clothes in her hotel gala. We spent Sunday choosing a crib. What exactly are you asking me?”
Vanessa made a small sound.
Not surprise.
Recognition.
Claire heard it.
“When did he tell you we ended it?”
“Claire—”
“When?”
“December.”
It was April.
Claire sat down on the concrete stair.
Vanessa began speaking too quickly.
“He said the two of you had been living separately emotionally for months. He said you were staying in the apartment because of the pregnancy. He said there were questions about timing, and that you had agreed not to discuss them publicly until after—”
“Questions about timing?”
Vanessa stopped.
Claire could hear traffic faintly through the stairwell wall.
“What questions?”
“I shouldn’t have said that.”
“You already did.”
Another silence.
Then Vanessa said, “He told me he wasn’t certain the baby was his.”
Claire stared at the metal railing.
A person came through the door below, saw her sitting there, muttered an apology, and left again.
Claire said, “He knows.”
“I’m not trying to—”
“He knows.”
Vanessa’s voice dropped. “I believed him.”
Claire pressed her fingers into her forehead.
“How long?”
“Claire.”
“How long have you been sleeping with him?”
Vanessa inhaled.
“Since November.”
Claire laughed then too.
It had been a strange, small laugh.
November.
In November Ethan had painted one wall of the nursery himself because Claire had complained that hiring someone to paint a single wall was absurd. He had gotten gray-blue paint in his hair and spent twenty minutes in the shower trying to remove it.
In November he had gone with her to the obstetrician and cried when they heard the heartbeat.
In November, apparently, he had also begun sleeping with Vanessa.
Claire had asked the next question because she already knew there would be another answer she did not want.
“Why are you calling me today?”
Vanessa did not respond immediately.
“My mother is coming tonight.”
Claire waited.
“She thinks Ethan is announcing our engagement.”
The stairwell seemed to tilt.
Claire put her palm against the floor.
“You’re engaged.”
“Yes.”
“To Ethan.”
“Yes.”
“How long?”
“Six weeks.”
Claire looked at the bracelet on her wrist.
She had never understood before how an object could become disgusting while remaining physically identical.
Vanessa said her name.
Claire stood.
Her knees felt weak, but they worked.
“Is he with you?”
“No.”
“Does he know you called?”
“No.”
“Why did you?”
Vanessa took so long to answer that Claire almost ended the call.
Finally she said, “Because he told me you wouldn’t be at the gala.”
Claire looked toward the stairwell door.
“I’m on Margaret’s seating chart.”
“I know.”
“He saw the dress hanging in our bedroom.”
“I know.”
“What did he think would happen?”
Vanessa gave a dry, miserable little laugh.
“I’ve been asking myself that for about three hours.”
It was the first honest thing either of them had said that felt human enough for Claire to trust.
“What do you want me to do?” Claire asked.
“I don’t know.”
“That’s not true.”
“I don’t know what I’m entitled to want.”
Claire almost admired that answer.
Almost.
She said, “Did you know I was pregnant when you started sleeping with him?”
“Yes.”
The admiration disappeared.
Vanessa continued before Claire could answer.
“He told me you were already finished. He said the pregnancy happened during a brief attempt to reconcile. He said you were both miserable and trying to manage appearances for Margaret.”
“And that made it fine?”
“No.”
“Did it make it easier?”
Another pause.
“Yes.”
Claire picked up her clutch from her desk at five fifty that evening and left the office without telling anyone what had happened.
Her boss, Martin, looked over a set of drawings and asked, “You still going to that thing tonight?”
Claire said, “Apparently.”
May you like
He studied her for a moment.
Martin was fifty-eight and had survived two divorces, a heart attack, and the renovation of a courthouse while it remained open.
