Page 38 of The Wife

“About this woman specifically? No.”

“But you knew something. You knew there was someone.”

“I wondered a couple of times. He told me to mind my own business.”

“Sounds like a confession to me,” I said, taking a big sip from my glass.

“Not necessarily.” I let the silence fill the room, hoping—or maybe nervous—that he would say more. “To be honest, I think I was worried he’d accuse me of having selfish reasons to pry.”

“Why would that be selfish?” I asked, looking away.

“To hope that maybe there were problems between the two of you.”

I swirled the wine in my glass. The night before Jason and I got married, the three of us were drunk on Indian Wells Beach, hours after it was supposed to be closed. Jason stripped down to his boxers and jumped in the water, leaving Colin and me alone by the lifeguard stand. He had told me that he was supposed to go to Susanna’s party that night Jason and I first met. “I could’ve met you first. But I hooked up with a bartender at Nick and Toni’s and no-showed at the party. Guess you dodged a bullet and got the good one instead.” We had never talked about that moment again.

“He says it started three months ago,” I said. “Theaffair.” The word felt so old-fashioned.

Colin didn’t respond.

“You said you wondered a couple of times,” I said. “That doesn’t sound like only the last three months. That sounds like more than a couple of times, and for a while.”

As he continued to look at me in silence, it felt like confirmation of all my suspicions.

“When’s Spencer done with school?” he asked.

“Tomorrow.” I had completely forgotten to make a last-day-of-school cake, an annual tradition.

“I know I’m a shitty friend for saying this, but you’re too good for this, Angela. Get out of here. Take Spencer out east.”

“And live with my mother? Shoot me now.”

“Only for a little while. Or I can help you.”

Colin had money, but not that kind of money. I shook my head. Colin was Jason’s friend more than mine, but he had always looked out for me. I remembered all those doctors he had called after my miscarriages.

“Then throw Jason out. He can stay with me. You don’t need this shit. Let him deal with this on his own. He’s the one who fucked some batshit-crazy woman who would pull something like this as revenge.”

“He said it was because of the company. That they’re paying kickbacks in some third-world country. Something like that could put them in prison.”

“Yeah, he told me that too,” he said flatly.

“But that’s not the revenge you were talking about, was it? Is there something else?”

He didn’t say anything, and I imagined all the other reasons that my husband’s lover might hate him enough to do this.

I knew it was a mistake, but I went to the kitchen and opened another bottle of wine anyway. When I returned to the living room, I was slurring my words.

“Do you think Jason assaulted her?”

“Are you kidding? Of course not. He’s a fucking idiot to cheat on you, but no, he didn’t do what that woman’s accusing him of.”

I was replaying Susanna’s words from lunch.We good feminists take the position that we believe every single woman, every single time.I couldn’t believe it was still the same day.

“Jason told me that this woman”—I didn’t want to speak or hear her name ever again—“was supposed to help expose the company.”

“She obviously switched sides. The timing makes sense. She went to the police right after Rachel’s complaint became public. She probably assumed that Jason was going down—maybe she was even a little jealous of what she perceived as a flirtation with some intern—and so she went to the company, told them that Jason was planning to expose them, and came up with a solution to set him up.”

When I had first seen her name in Jason’s calendar, I had sort of suspected. But I had pushed my fears aside. Maybe if I had questioned him further, if I had followed him, if I had somehow stopped him from meeting with her that day. Instead, I now had to picture him driving out to her house. Being with her, only hours after kissing me and telling me I smelled good. Giving her the very evidence she needed to frame him. We had cooked lamb chops together that night.

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