chapter four

He just needed time, I told myself. He would calm down, and then we would talk, like husband and wife should. I sat alone at the back of the cafeteria with my lunch untouched in front of me, staring at the glass of water on the table. I watched the small ring of wetness it left behind and turned it slowly in my hand without drinking. A glass of water. My fingers went still.

“Cherry.” Then the memory came. The one I had pushed away for days because it did not make sense. A week ago. Here, at this very office. Cherry had come to see me. She had smiled her soft smile and said she wanted to make peace.

"I feel terrible about everything," she had said. "You and Liam, the way things are. I want to fix it. I want to step back and let the two of you be a real family." She had touched my arm. "Can we talk? Somewhere quiet. Just us women."

And a fool that I was, I wanted to believe her; I wanted peace so badly. We went to a restaurant. A nice one, soft lights, a private corner. She poured me water from a bottle on the table and talked and talked. And then the room had gone soft and wrong. The lights had stretched and blurred. My tongue had gone heavy.

The next thing I knew, I was in the back of a car, and my head was pounding like a drum, and I could not remember how I got there. I had thought it was stress. Too many late nights, too much work, a body pushed too far. I had drunk some water and gone to bed and never thought of it again.

But now I stood in the cafeteria and the whole thing turned over in my mind. The blackout. The lost hours. And then, a week later, photographs of me in a hotel with a man I had never met. I had not been with any man. Someone had put me there.

My heart slammed in my chest. It all fit. It fit too well. I grabbed my bag. I did not go back to my desk. I walked out of the building to my car and drove out with hands that would not stop shaking. "The glass tower on Fifth; it was time to confirm my suspicion.”

***

“Here for Cherry Stegman?” The receptionist gave me her door number. I rode the private elevator up with my whole body humming. The doors opened. I walked to her door, and I knocked, hard, three times. Cherry opened it in a silk robe, a coffee cup in her hand, her beautiful face fresh and rested. When she saw me, her lips curved into that small, knowing smile. "Evelyn," she said sweetly. "What a surprise."

I did not smile back. I stepped forward so she could not close the door. "That night at the restaurant," I said, and my voice did not shake at all. "I want you to tell me exactly what you put in my drink." Her smile froze, and for the first time, I saw it flicker in her face.

Cherry's fear lasted only a second. Back in high school, she had never been the type to fear anyone. She could step on anyone’s toes and still get away with it. But this, I would not let her get away with it.

Then she smiled again and let the door swing wide. "You want to talk?" She stepped back. "Come in, then. Say what you came to say."I walked into the penthouse. It was all white and glass and soft gold light. Beautiful, like her. I did not sit down.

"At the restaurant," I said. "You put something in my water. I blacked out. And a week later, there are photos of me in a hotel with a man I've never met in my life." My voice was steady, though my heart was shaking. "You did this."

"Did what?" She took a slow sip of her coffee. She looked unbothered, although a guilty look was written all over her. "You went out. You had too much to drink”. Cherry added. These things happen to lonely wives."

"I don't drink, Cherry. You know that." She set the cup down. The sweetness fell off her face like a mask, and under it was something hard and cold.

"Let me make this very simple for you," she said. "You will never have Liam. Not ever. It does not matter what you do. It does not matter whose ring you wear or whose baby you carry." She stepped closer. "Liam belongs to me. He has always belonged to me. He is mine."

Something in me straightened. Three years of swallowing everything, and suddenly I was done. "No," I said. "I am his wife. Not you. Me. My name is on the paper. My ring is on his hand." My voice rose. "You can love him all you want, but you are the other woman, Cherry. You will always be the other woman." Her eyes flashed. 

"So here is what you are going to do." I stepped toward her now. "You are going to tell Liam the truth. All of it. How you drugged me. How you set up those photos. How you set me up on his birthday." My hands were shaking, but I did not stop. "You are going to tell him what you really are."

She laughed, short and ugly. "And why would I do that?" "Because it's the truth."

"The truth." She shook her head slowly. "You poor, stupid girl. Nobody wants the truth. Liam doesn't want it. The whole city already believes you're a cheat. Why would I take that away from them?" There was nothing left to say. She was never going to help me. I had been a fool to come, a fool to hope, just like always.

"Fine," I said. "Then I'll prove it myself."I turned to leave, two steps toward the door, when her hand closed on my shoulder from behind and yanked me back. "Don't you walk away from me."

She spun me around and shoved me, both hands flat against my chest, hard. I lost my balance. My feet caught on the edge of her white rug and I went down, down onto the marble floor, my hip and my elbow hitting stone.

"Cherry…" I gasped.

"You come into my home?" She was standing over me now, her calm gone, her beautiful face twisted. "You point your finger at me? In my own house?"

I pushed myself up. "Get away from me." But she grabbed a fistful of my hair and pulled, and the pain shot white across my eyes, and something in me broke loose. I shoved her back. I clawed at her hands. We went at each other right there on the floor, two women in nice dresses tearing and pulling and screaming, her nails raking my arm, my hand striking her shoulder. A glass fell somewhere and shattered. Her coffee table skidded.

"Let go of me!" I shouted. "Let go!" She pushed me off, and I fell back against the sharp corner of the table. A hot, sudden sting cut across my forehead.

I touched it. My fingers came away red.

Blood. From beneath, I was bleeding.