Page 8 of Rebound

By the time Libby waves bye-bye and my head is back in the game, Martha is sitting alone, gazing at one of the buff young servers as though she’s planning on eating him instead of the smoked salmon canapés on his tray. Amber, however, is nowhere to be seen. I tell Harper and Luisa I’ll see them later and walk over.

“Elijah,” Martha says, unashamedly raking her eyes over me. This woman really needs some attention tonight. “You look divine in that suit, darling. Join me? Don’t worry, I won’t bite. I know you’re a happily married man.”

Do I detect some sarcasm there, or am I being paranoid?

“You look beautiful too, Martha. Love the new hair color.”

Her hands fly to her head as light reflects off the subtle gold tones highlighted into her tresses. “How nice of you to notice,” she says, sounding genuinely pleased. I’m guessing compliments don’t often fall from Freddie’s lips, and I’m glad I could put a smile on someone’s face.

“Do you know where Amber went?” I ask, gazing around the room.

“Oh, she said she felt a migraine coming on. Didn’t she tell you she was leaving?”

I make a show of pulling my phone from my pocket and checking it, then smile as I read a message that doesn’t exist. “Ah, there it is. Must not have felt it vibrate. She said she didn’t want to spoil my fun. You know Amber, always putting others first.”

I’m not totally sure Martha is buying my act, but if she isn’t, she’s been in this world long enough to know to go along with it. We’re all acting to some extent, and Amber and I have built a public persona that has far outlasted our private one. My family knows the truth, but to the rest of the world, we seem like the perfect couple. We play our roles, attending functions together, hosting charity events, networking in the business world. We present a united front, then we go home to a wall of silence and separate bedrooms. It’s fucking exhausting.

“I might call it a night myself,” I tell Martha, who isn’t even listening. She’s watching her husband make a fool out of himself, and her, on the dance floor with a blond half his age. “Go home and check in on her.”

“Good idea.” Her reply comes a second too late, the practiced smile on her lips the tiniest bit strained. The poor woman is dying inside. I can relate. “You two take care of each other so well.”

Do we? I think as I stride toward the exit. We certainly used to, but that was so long ago now it’s like a dream sequence in a film. An emotional muscle memory of feeling safe and loved. My heart still remembers those days. The days when I still had my mom around, and my marriage was full of hope and potential and tenderness. When everything felt right with the world.

My heart needs to go fuck itself though. Remembering that shit hurts. These days, the only thing right in the world is my work, and it’s not enough. It was never enough.

If Amber left, it’s because she doesn’t want to be near me. I should let her go, give her the chance to exorcise whatever demons are battling inside her right now. Time has a habit of smoothing over our spats. In all likelihood, she’ll wake up tomorrow and act as though nothing happened. As though she wasn’t stretched tight as piano wire all evening. Sometimes I wonder if she’s a robot, the way she reboots overnight. She has more control over her feelings than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s like the discipline she learned from doing ballet for so many years became as deeply embedded in her mind as it did her body. She was forced to learn early on not to show weakness and not to expect much from the people who allegedly loved her because Amber was raised by wolves. Very rich, very successful wolves, but wolves all the same.

She never had the unconditional love and comradery that my brothers and I had when we were kids. Her childhood lacked the chaos of siblings and the warm glow of a mom who made her the center of the universe. My dad worked a lot, but we never doubted that he would do anything for us. Our childhood wasn’t perfect, but it was rich with love, and every single one of us boys felt cherished. Amber had none of that, and despite her active social life and packed roster of charity events, she can be an incredibly solitary person by nature.

If she’s upset about something, she won’t thank me for pushing her on it. She’s like an animal when she’s hurt—she slinks off and licks her wounds in private. Still, when it comes to my wife, knowing what I should do and actually doing it are two different things.

After pausing in the lobby and giving it approximately eight seconds of thought, I decide I’m going after her whether she wants me to or not. I must be jonesing for my next hit.

Anyway, who knows, she might have a migraine for real, and I don’t like the idea of her being out on the streets alone at night. This might be an upscale neighborhood, but there are always risks. It’s my job to look after her, even if she’d rather walk home alone than be in my company for ten minutes.

If she stopped to collect her coat from the checkroom, I reckon I won’t be far behind her. I don’t bother getting mine because it will only delay me. I have a lot of coats, but I only have one wife. I’m not totally sure why I feel compelled to track her down. Maybe protecting her is part of it, but she’s a big girl, perfectly capable of getting a cab or calling Gretchen. Even if she stays on foot, she’s unlikely to get mugged or abducted around here. So why am I really doing this? Why am I chasing her, still, after all these years? She’s made it perfectly clear she won’t be caught.

Is it so we can fight some more? So we can torture each other? So I can look into those miraculous eyes of hers and wish it was all different? Am I some kind of emotional masochist? Fuck knows—I just know I need to find her.

The reception is being held in a hotel on Fifty-Seventh Street, and heavy rain slaps the side of my face as soon as I step outside. It’s late October, and the weather is having mood swings. All day the sky was a crisp, clear blue, but now the heavens have opened. I should probably go back for my coat, but screw it. It won’t kill me.

I stop right outside the hotel. Would she have called our car? That would make sense, but for some reason, I don’t think so. I suspect she’s very much in one of her reclusive moods tonight.

I quickly check in with Gretchen anyway, and she tells me she hasn’t heard from Mrs. James. She goes on to ask if I need her to pull the car around, but I tell her not to bother. In fact, I tell her to head home for the night because I’ve just caught a flash of crimson out of the corner of my eye. I shove my phone back in my pocket and run along the sidewalk as she turns off onto Park Avenue. Or I think it’s her. I could be chasing a random lady in red and be about to get a face full of pepper spray for my troubles.

No, I think as I close the distance. It’s her. Nobody else walks quite like she does. Her long legs gracefully eat up the sidewalk, her high heels clicking against the concrete in a confident way that screams “don’t fuck with me.” Her red cashmere coat is belted tightly around her narrow waist, and even the torrential rain has done nothing to dampen her effortless elegance. Everything Amber does, she does with style—including running out on me at a party.

“Amber! Wait!” I shout, wanting to warn her—no woman appreciates a strange man ambushing her from behind.

She clutches her purse and speeds up. How the fuck does she move so fast in those goddamn shoes? And more to the point,whyis she moving so fast? She must have heard me, but she’s still accelerating. She’s almost at a run now, her legs blurring in a desperate trot that makes it obvious she’s trying to put some space between us. Where the hell is she going? And does she actually think she can outrun me?

A taxi approaches, its tires throwing up spray from the water-logged street, and she raises her hand to hail it. If she gets into that cab, she can definitely outrun me, and I’m not going to let that happen. Because now I am mightily pissed. She dumped me at a wedding we were supposed to be attending as a couple without saying goodbye, and now I’m running through the rain, shouting her name like a fool while she pretends I don’t exist. Even by Amber standards, this is big bitch behavior.

When I increase my speed, the soles of my dress shoes slip and slide on the wet sidewalk, and I reach the yellow cab as she pulls the door open. I don’t try to reason with her—I’m not feeling reasonable. I smack the partially open door closed and glare at her. “What the fuck, Amber?” I’m soaked to the skin and cold, and I have no clue what the hell is going on here. How did we go from admittedly bad but within-normal-boundaries bickering to this?

The driver of the cab winds down his window and takes in the scene before him. “Are you all right, missus? If you need to get in, get in. You will be safe with me.”

Even sitting down, I can tell this guy is a good eight inches shorter and a hundred pounds lighter than I am, but he looks at me in a way that suggests he’d take me on anyhow. He has balls. I should probably recruit him, fuck knows what for, but something.

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