She unlaced her fingers and blew him a kiss. “Good night, Hugh.”
His phone rang, and he watched her as he answered.
“I’m coming, darling,” he said, averting his eyes, moving away. “Just had to finish up with a client.”
She left him, his voice following her down the hall.
In her office, she gathered her things, a strange knot in the pit of her stomach. She sensed that her luck was about to run out here. She couldn’t say why. Just a feeling that things were unsustainable—that it wasn’t going to be as easy to leave Kate as he thought, that on some level he didn’t really want to, that once things reached critical mass, she’d be out of a job. Of course, it wouldn’t be a total loss. She’d make sure of that.
There was a loneliness, a hollow feeling that took hold at the end. She wished she could call Pop, that he could talk her through it. Instead her phone pinged. The message there annoyed her.
This is wrong, it said. I don’t want to do this anymore.
Just stay the course, she wrote back. It’s too late to back out now.
Funny how that worked. At the critical moment, she had to give the advice she needed herself. The student becomes the teacher. No doubt, Pop would be pleased.
Anne glanced at the phone. The little dots pulsed, then disappeared. The girl, younger, greener, would do what she was told. She always had. So far.
Anne looked at her watch, imbued with a bit of energy. If she hustled, she could just make it.
THREE
Selena
As Selena was settling into her seat next to the other woman, the train just died on the track, emitting a defeated groan. The lights went dark, then came back up. She waited.
Please, she thought.
If the train left the station now, she could still make it home to see the boys before they were asleep. She glanced at her seatmate, who was staring out the window. All she could see was the curtain of her glossy black hair, the edge of her elegant profile. Did they know each other? she wondered again.
Selena texted Graham, the cheating bastard:
Train delayed!
Ugh, he wrote back. Nanny gone. I’ll start bedtime. Boys waiting for you. Love you!
She loved how he didn’t use Geneva’s name. Hadn’t she read something about that? Distancing. Like: I never had sexual relations with that woman.
His text sounded repentant, didn’t it? It was the exclamation mark, a thing he rarely used. All editors hate the exclamation point; it’s a cheat. The dialogue should speak for itself. But, in texting, it communicated warmth, enthusiasm, brightness—something. If he’d resorted to it, he must feel like a monster. He was a monster.
Love you, she texted back reluctantly. No exclamation point.
But she did. Always had, all their years together. He made her laugh. He knew just how to rub her shoulders. He was strong; he handled the business of their lives, chopped firewood, did the landscaping. He had been, in many ways, a good husband. And she did love him. Odd. Because she also hated him with equal passion. That rumble inside. That volcanic mix of sadness, anger, love. Villages would be reduced to ash when it finally erupted.
Selena looked out the window.
Black.
All she could see was the faint reflection of the other woman’s face in the glass. There were only a few other people in the car now. Many had gotten up and left to find alternative transport, she guessed. Selena could have moved to another seat, so that they each had a section to themselves. But was that rude?
Her face.
What was it?
The other woman’s cheekbones were high and pronounced. Her dark eyes an abyss. There was a sensual shape to her mouth, something almost sweetly crooked. She was about to make polite conversation when the other woman spoke. A whisper, something Selena didn’t hear at first. When she later would look back on this first encounter, she tried to find reasons for what happened next.
Maybe it was just one of those strange, deep connections that take you by surprise like falling in love. Or was it that delay, the darkened car, the powerlessness of waiting?
Sometimes it just happened that way with women, an instant intimacy. Selena had experienced it a number of times. You just look at each other—and you know. The journey from girlhood to womanhood, the hopes and dreams they all share, how life rarely delivers, and, even if it does, how it’s never quite what you expected. There’s no glass slipper, no Prince Charming. That princess updo, it hurts after a while, your hair pulled too taut, the pins too sharp. The disappointments, the dawning of reality. And, yes, all the good things too—real love, true friendship, the birth of children. You just look into her eyes, and you know the path, the journey, all the hills and valleys, the cosmic joke of it.
The other woman spoke again.
“Did you ever do something you really regretted?”
It was almost a whisper. Maybe she was just talking to herself—which Selena did all the time. Whole conversations in the shower.
Who were you talking to? Oliver, her oldest, the curious one, wanted to know the other night.
Myself, she told him.
That’s weird.
At least she could be sure someone was listening, engaged. Often, she had excellent advice for herself in the shower, as if there was a little therapist in her head, one who had all the answers.
“Yes,” Selena said now. “Of course.”
Oh, there were so many things, stretching back as far as childhood. She regretted not inviting Marty Jasper to her fifth-grade birthday party; Marty was an odd kid, not always nice, and everyone avoided her. They weren’t friends, but Selena should have invited her to be kind. She regretted losing her virginity on a dare, then losing her best friend because of it. There were some one-night stands in college that were risky, almost dangerous. She had regrets （lots） about her ex-boyfriend Will, the one everyone thought she would marry. She should have tried harder to breastfeed; now her kids were finicky eaters because of that probably. Or maybe not. Who knew? There were other things. She could fill a book with her lists of regrets.
“I’m sleeping with my boss,” said the other woman.
“Oh,” said Selena, surprised but somehow not. “That one.”
Just last year her good friend Leona had slept with her boss—both of them married; what a mess.
“If I break up with him,” the other woman went on, “I think it could get very ugly. He wants to leave his wife for me.”
“Oh,” said Selena, leaning in. She felt a kind of salacious glee, a delightful escape from her own drama.
“His wife owns the company,” she said. “Where we both work.”
“Hmm,” said Selena, nodding. She wasn’t sure what else to say. It happened sometimes, didn’t it? You just needed to confess? It was all too much to hold in; you couldn’t tell the people closest to you for a million reasons. That’s why people spilled their guts to the bartender, the hairdresser, right?
Sometimes a stranger was the safest place in your life.
The other woman turned to look at her in the dim of the broken-down car. She lifted a hand to her mouth, her eyes going wide.
“I’m sorry!” she said. “Why did I just tell you that?”
“Obviously,” said Selena, feeling motherly and knowing, “you needed to talk.”
Selena knew how that felt. She hadn’t told a single soul about Graham. Not her mother, not her sister, not Beth. It was a stone in her gut, an acidic ache in her throat. What a relief it would be to release it. But how could she tell anyone? Her marriage—Graham and Selena—it was the fairy tale, the love-at-first-sight, happily-ever-after. It was the envy of—everyone. Now, they were just like everyone else—pitifully flawed, broken—possibly beyond repair.