Page 14 of The Wife

I was scrambling to make sure I didn’t let her down, but keeping up proved less impossible than I had feared. I’d turn around, and the platter of shrimp cocktail that was running low would suddenly be replenished. The stack of tasting plates accumulating next to the bar would be cleared. I assumed that one of the two girls I had hired to pass trays for the party had been pitching in, until I walked into the kitchen to find a man reaching into the refrigerator for a plate of deviled eggs topped with caviar.

He looked surprised to see me when he turned around. “Busted.” His grin suggested a combination of pride and guilt.

“I was about to get those. Sorry.” When you work summers in the Hamptons, you get used to apologizing for things you have no reason to be sorry for.

“For what? So far, you’re the best thing about this party.” I thought it was the beginning of yet another pass until he pulled the plastic wrap from the plate and popped an egg in his mouth, one full bite. “This food is heaven,” he said once his mouth was clear, “and these people are assholes.”

“And yet you’re here.”

“True.” The grin again. “So everyone here who’snotin the kitchen is an asshole.ExceptSusanna. Her... I love. I’ll be a good boy and won’t tell her I hate these people—well, except for the nice woman who’s working her butt off to feed all of us.”

He pulled the special deviled-egg tray from a stack of platters on the kitchen island. “I assume these go here?”

“Absolutely nothing else could possibly go there.”

We began moving the eggs over, two at a time, in silence. When we were finished, he grabbed the tray and left, giving me a little wink as he backed through the swinging kitchen door. “No one has spotted me yet. I feel like a ninja.”

When the party died down, he reappeared in the kitchen as I was packing up the leftovers for Susanna’s freezer. He even helped me carry my equipment out to the pickup truck I had parked behind Susanna’s guesthouse.

“Cool ride,” he said. I didn’t tell him that I had borrowed it from a man named Matt Miller. Or that Matt and I were kind of a thing.

When the work was done, he closed the truck door for me, and that was almost it. I had backed out of Susanna’s driveway and was halfway down the block when I saw him in my rearview mirror, walking toward one of the last cars parked on the street, lighting a cigarette. I reversed back and rolled down the passenger window. “I assumed you were one of Susanna’s weekend guests.”

“Nope. Just stayed late.”

He was in the driver’s seat and about to shut the door when I said, “I’m Angela, by the way.”

“I’m Jason. Thanks for the nice party.”

I broke down and asked Susanna for his last name two days later. She told me he was an economics professor at NYU. “He’s single, you know. I called him last year for background on a story we did about global trade, but then I happened to mention my house out here. He was looking for a rental. Anyway, he’s terrific. Want me to matchmake?”

I didn’t want to put Susanna in the position of suggesting that her college professor friend date a mom with a GED, so I made her promise not to say anything. “I was curious, is all.”

By the time Jason called me a week later, he was all I could think about. To this day, both he and Susanna swear that she never meddled.

9

When I got back from walking Spencer to school, I called out Jason’s name, but the house was silent. I sat on the living room sofa and flipped open my laptop.

If you search online for “Jason Powell wife,” you find out that her name is Angela Powell. You’ll find exactly one photograph of us together—at a fund-raiser for a mayoral candidate. Jason posts no pictures of me or Spencer on social media, and my Facebook page is under the name Angela Spencer and used only to be in touch with the other moms at the school. If you search for Angela Mullen, you’ll learn she was credited as a sought-after caterer in a few articles about summer life on the East End, but no mentions of her for the last six years.

If you dig hard, you might find some archived news articles—nothing national, only from theEast Hampton StarandNewsdayon Long Island, right around the timegooglebecame a verb—referring to a missing girl by that name. The police said there were no signs of foul play, and unnamed “sources” speculated the girl had left on her own, but her mother, Virginia Mullen, doggedly blanketed Suffolk County with flyers and swore she would never stop searching for her daughter.

But, at least with my online skills, you wouldn’t know for certain that the girl and the caterer were one and the same, or that Angela Powell used to be both of those girls, or where Angela Mullen was while she was missing, let alone why she might actually be of interest.

How long could Jason’s “scandal” make the rounds before someone started to wonder why his wife kept such a low profile?

I tried Jason’s cell once again. It was still off.Is he on the subway? Has he been arrested? Is he with someone—another woman, maybe?My imagination ran through every scenario. I wasn’t going to be able to do anything else until I heard from him.

When my phone finally rang, I swiped right to accept the call without reading the screen. “Jason?”

“It’s Colin. I’ve been trying to reach him, too. Do you know about these reports I’m seeing? Does he need a defense lawyer? I’ve got some names for him.”

In addition to being Jason’s closest friend, Colin Harris is also an attorney and the kind of person who likes to fix problems. Five years ago, when I had my medical issues, he bombarded me with recommendations for specialists who could help. He was not going to rest until my troubles were solved. That’s what Colin is like.

“He’s not answering his phone,” I said. “I mean it, Colin, if Jason’s not in jail, I might be, for killing him.”

“Did he know this complaint was coming?”

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