Someone Else's Husband(14)
But Kilimanjaro was next-level, and Gretchen blamed Brooks. The whole thing had been his idea. Gretchen and Richard knew a couple who had made it within spitting distance of the summit only to have the husband suddenly felled by mountain sickness. He had stopped breathing right in front of his poor wife, who apparently hated hiking and had gone along only to be a good sport.
“No” had been Gretchen’s unequivocal response when Richard had first floated the idea. She’d even snapped the newspaper she was reading for emphasis. “Absolutely not.”
Richard had not backed down. And so Gretchen had argued with him, making a point of mentioning their friend who had died and subtly reminding him that—as the wife—she would have the deciding vote. So it was in their world: happy wife, happy life. All the husbands in their circle respected that rule, even the cads. And Richard was not a cad. He was one of the good ones. No, he was a great one.
And yet, Richard had seemed out of sorts ever since he’d been promoted to co–head of investment banking at Goldman Sachs ten months before. After all his hard work, he’d finally reached the very top—the pinnacle from which there was realistically nowhere left to ascend. And, somehow, this had sucked the wind from his sails. Gretchen had gathered that maybe he needed something else to conquer, and so here was this mountain.
Richard hadn’t said that. But Gretchen was his wife. Sometimes she knew him in ways he didn’t know himself. And so her answer had been yes in the end. To love someone that deeply you had to be willing to tolerate all kinds of risk.
Gretchen checked her absurd watch again. Eight-forty a.m. She needed to get going: Oppy’s assembly. She was never late. She couldn’t be late, or Cassandra would know that something was wrong. And Gretchen was still hoping her children might never have to know about this mess. Anyway, things were going to be fine. Things were fine. All of this was nothing more than a nuisance.
A shower. That was what she needed. A shower always made everything better.
* * *
—
Afterward, standing at one of the two sinks in their vast en suite bathroom, Gretchen saw herself in the steamy mirror. She looked awful, even after washing her face and using every single face cream and potion known to man. Puffy and exhausted, if not downright ill. No one would be mistaking her for Grace Kelly today—a compliment she’d heard regularly since she was a teenager. Cassandra would definitely know there was something wrong. Her oldest child had a nose for trouble. As a little girl, Cassandra could predict bad weather for a month’s-end birthday party with meteorological precision. In fact, all her children were that way—highly attuned. Perhaps there should have been a certain comfort in this. Friends and relatives often pointed to it as a sign of their collective intelligence.
But it was also exhausting. Gretchen had occasionally longed for children who were far more oblivious. It would have allowed for a much greater margin of error.
Gretchen put some moisturizer on her hands and rubbed them together. They were bonier and bonier with each passing day. Maybe she didn’t look as bad as she thought she did? Exhaustion could blur how one saw things. Makeup would make an enormous difference, she told herself. But every time she lifted the mascara wand, her hand trembled too much to risk going anywhere near her eye. She settled instead for concealer and lipstick, startling when her phone rang.
Scotty Kaplan. When Gretchen went to answer it, the phone slipped through her fingers and crashed to the floor.
“Hello? Gretchen?” Scotty asked when she finally managed to get the phone to her ear. “Are you okay?”
“Yes, yes.” Her jaw was clenched so tight it was hard to speak. She drove a finger into the muscle, massaging it. “What’s happening? How’s Richard?”
“He’s fine. In great spirits, actually. He was cracking jokes with me.”
“But, Scotty, that’s the way he always—”
“I know, I know—believe me,” Scotty said sincerely. “But I poked around, pressed him. He’s convinced this is going to get sorted out. He’s not looking forward to weathering the storm, but he’s ready for it.”
Gretchen believed Scotty. Or rather she believed that Scotty believed. But part of Richard’s charm was his infectious optimism.
“Has he eaten? Because if he’s not eating, then—”
“He’s eating. He thinks he’ll put weight on in there. That’s one of the biggest benefits of being held at the precinct until arraignment. A lot of sandwiches, but the food’s much better than it will be—so yes, he’s eating and he’s hydrated and he even got some sleep.”
“But why did they arrest him? Was it his statements?”
“No, they didn’t seem to be anyone’s focus. I did have him recant, for what it’s worth. That might not be effective, but I got the sense from Richard that what he said was hardly a confession anyway.”
“Then what is their focus? That witness?”
“They do supposedly have someone who puts him near her apartment. But that alone wouldn’t be enough.” He paused. And there was something so awful about the silence. Finally, Scotty exhaled noisily. “Apparently they also found some kind of evidence at your apartment during the search.”
Gretchen grabbed the counter to steady herself as she looked around the bathroom like she might spot something incriminating still there, something horrifying but in plain sight.