Page 62 of Such a Good Wife

“Angie, you got a sec to talk to this lady? She’s asking about Joe Brooks.” The door slams, violently, in my face, and I hear “Fuck that guy” from inside the dressing room. Cinnamon shrugs.

“Thank you for talking to me,” I say.

“Get him,” she says, looking right into my eyes, then turns on her heel and leaves.

***

26

VALERIE ELLISON SEEMS LIKE a completely normal woman online. She’s accepted Dylan Bisset’s friend request, and as I sit back at the library again the next day, she doesn’t resemble the maniac extortionist I’ve come to know. In one image, she’s posed in a new-looking yoga outfit with an enormous Starbucks cup in hand, and in another she’s with girlfriends at a picnic table at a camping site, holding up red plastic cups in a cheers. She’s giving close-up duck lips in her car and has captioned it feelin’ cute. She looks like she’d fit right in with Gillian and the neighborhood ladies.

It’s not until I scroll all the way down to a year and a half ago that I see photos of her and Luke together. It makes my stomach drop a little at the sight of them looking up to the camera, at whoever is taking the photo, heads touching at a restaurant. He’s kissing her on the cheek on the deck of a cruise ship in another. Their wedding photos are from six years ago. I flip through them, forcing myself to look. She was stunning on a beach in Mexico. A barefoot bride next to her striking groom in beachy burlap trousers and a white button-down. In one photo, he is knee-deep in the sea and he lifts her up like a dancer, her legs bent behind her, reaching down to kiss him. They look...in love.

I wonder what happened. Anything, I guess. My own wedding photos look not too different than these, and look what I’ve done to destroy my marriage. Maybe this greedy, psychopathic side I have seen in her started to show. Maybe one of them cheated. Then I see, around two years back, her activity stops and there are hundreds of posts from friends, people sending “thoughts and prayers” for sweet Lily.

They had a daughter.

A flurry of clicks produces images of a happy child in a wheelchair. When I go all the way back to photos of Lily’s birth, Valerie posts a sad announcement explaining the degenerative disease the child was diagnosed with. I wonder if their child’s passing was what fractured their marriage. I swallow down the lump in my throat. Why didn’t he tell me he had a daughter? We told one another so much. I guess it would mean explaining his ex-wife, but I still feel lied to, which is ridiculous because he had no obligation to tell me anything, truth be told.

Her page is a great disappointment because it tells me nothing I can use to my advantage. She looks like someone I would be friends with. Except that she wants several thousand dollars from me in a few days, and I have no idea how I can get that kind of money without Collin finding out it’s missing.

I click to minimize Valerie’s profile and search cubic zirconia rings, three carat, quad princess cut engagement rings. There are pages of them. I stop when I see one that looks closest to my own. My eight-thousand-dollar ring looks almost identical to the fake version worth only ninety-nine bucks. If I pawn my own ring and buy this one, I can’t imagine Collin ever noticing. They look so similar, and he’s a guy. Why would he even look closely at it? There is nothing else I can sell that wouldn’t be missed. It still won’t be enough, but as long as I’m paying something, why would she stop the cash flow? I need more time.

There are a few available at a jewelry store in the mall. I pay the ninety-nine dollars in cash and slip the fake diamond on my finger. It’s lighter and shinier than my own ring, but no one else would notice that. I can’t afford sentimentality right now. This is survival, and I will not get emotional when I hand over the ring that’s been on my hand for over fifteen years to the apathetic pawnshop cashier.

A few days later, I find myself in the same motel room. This time it looks like she’s stayed the night. The sheets are rumpled up at the end of the bed, and there are two wineglasses, one on each nightstand with a slip of red liquid dotting the bottom of each. Who was she with? I don’t see men’s things or an overnight bag.

“It’s all I could get,” I say, handing her the six thousand and feeling a bit of déjà vu from the last time I was here, feeling scolded like an impish child.

“Fuck. Are you kidding me?”

“The whole reason you’re getting money at all is so my family doesn’t find out about my relationship with Luke. You think that I can just take fifty thousand out of my bank account and my husband won’t ask questions? If he finds out, I guess you lose your position and wouldn’t get any money, so maybe be a little patient.”

She stares at me, lips parted, taken off guard.

“Whoa. The housewife is feisty today,” she says, amused.

I almost start the words, I’m not a... but before I can decide whether to bother, her phone vibrates across the table, and she grabs for it so quickly that I don’t see the incoming number before she flips it upside down. What does she want to hide from me?

“Check your phone, and I’ll send more instructions soon,” she says, opening the door and unmistakably pushing me out with her eyes. I step outside the threshold. I want to ask her about knowing Joe, call her out, gauge her reaction, but I don’t. Not yet. She closes the door and I hear the click of the lock behind me.

At home, Ben’s just home from swim class, and he and Collin are in the garage changing the oil in Collin’s car. Ben can name different parts of the engine like he can crayon colors and likes to boss Collin around as he works, and Collin is a great sport about it. Ben sits in an old office chair we store in the garage and pushes off his heels, flying himself back and forth across the concrete floor between suggestions.

“You should have gotten synthetic. It’s better for the engine,” Ben says, peering at the container of Pennzoil Collin holds. I twist my new ring as I walk in the open garage door.

“Hey, fellas.”

“Mom! Dad waited more than three thousand miles to change the oil and I know that because it’s not the right color. He waited too long.”

“Well, I’m glad he has you supervising, then.”

“Yeah. I put a reminder on my calendar so I can remind him next time.”

“Good thinking, bud,” I say, and kiss Collin on the cheek as I pass him and go through into the house with the bag of groceries I stopped for.

“Rachel home?” I ask.

“Out with friends,” he says, concentrating on curling the remains of a paper bag from the recycling bin into a funnel so he can pour the oil through it. “You goin’ to Gillian’s pretend book club tonight?”

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