If I’d known my mother in college, I imagine she’d have been a lot like Chrissy. Prim, put together, and unflappable. Not a hair or eyelash out of place. So the fact that she would entertain something as messy as cheating strikes me as antithetical.
“Wait,” I interject, “your boyfriend is cheating on you, and you don’t care?”
The girls both stare at me as though I haven’t been paying attention.
“Two former presidents of the United States and the crown prince of Saudi Arabia were at his father’s birthday party in the Seychelles last year,” Chrissy says flatly. “You don’t break up with guys like Sebastian over something as trifling as infidelity. He’s the man you marry.”
I frown at her. “You’d marry someone you know is cheating on you?”
She doesn’t answer, just looks at me, blinking. Is an expectation of monogamy so banal and old-fashioned? I thought I was fairly open-minded, but apparently my beliefs about love and romance are scandalous.
“It’s hardly even considered cheating,” Melissa scoffs, waving a dismissive hand. “Seb hooked up with a scholarship chick? Who cares. Now, if it was a wifey, that’s a whole other story. A real reason to worry.”
“A wifey?” I echo.
Chrissy gives me a condescending look. “For men like Seb and Benji and Preston, there are two kinds of women. A wifey and a Marilyn. The ones you marry, and the ones you screw.”
Can’t you screw the one you marry? Or marry the one you screw? I swallow the questions. Because what’s the point?
“Don’t worry,” Melissa says. She reaches across the table to put her hand on mine, in what she must think is a comforting gesture. “You’re definitely wifey material. Preston knows that. All you need to worry about is locking that down and getting the ring. Everything else is …” She glances at Chrissy for the word. “Extracurricular.”
That is the most depressing relationship advice I’ve ever heard. These women have their own family money and small empires—they don’t need strategic marital alliances. So why do they sell themselves into loveless arrangements?
When I marry Preston one day, it won’t be for money or family connections. Our vows won’t include a caveat that cheating is tolerated as long as the stock price is up.
“I wouldn’t want to live that way,” I tell them. “If a relationship isn’t built on love and mutual respect, what’s the point?”
Melissa regards me with a patronizing tilt to her head and a faintly pouting lip. “Oh, sweetie, everyone thinks that way at first. But eventually, we have to start being more realistic.”
Chrissy says nothing, but her cold, impassive expression strikes something inside me. It’s fleeting and undefined, but it unsettles my stomach.
All I know is, I don’t ever want to reach the point where I view infidelity as “extracurricular.”
Later, when Preston’s driving me back to Tally Hall, I broach the subject. Since Melissa and Chrissy didn’t swear me to secrecy, I don’t feel bad asking, “Did you know that Melissa and Chrissy think Seb’s cheating on Chrissy?”
He doesn’t flinch, changing gears as he takes us down the winding roads around the edge of campus. “I had a feeling.”
I fight a frown. “Is it true?”
“I haven’t asked,” he says. Then, after a few seconds, “I wouldn’t be surprised.”
Whether Preston was at that boat party or knows of the particular incident is irrelevant. He wouldn’t throw his friend under the bus if he didn’t believe it was possible. Which tells me everything I need to know.
“She isn’t even mad about it.” I shake my head in disbelief. “Either of them, actually. Cost of doing business, as far as they’re concerned.”
“I figured.” Pres pulls up to the parking lot outside my dorm. He takes off his sunglasses and looks me in the eyes. “There’ve been whispers for a few weeks. Seb and Chrissy have chosen to ignore it, best that I can tell. Honestly, it’s not unusual.”
“Cheating isn’t unusual?” To me, cheating is so insulting. It says to your partner: I don’t love you enough to be faithful, and I don’t respect you enough to let you go. It’s the worst kind of trap.
He shrugs. “For some people.”
“Let’s not be those people,” I implore him.
“We’re not.” Preston leans over the center console. He cups the side of my face and kisses me softly. When he pulls back, his pale blue eyes shine with confidence. “I’d be a complete fool to jeopardize our relationship, babe. I know wife material when I see it.”