Reputation Read online

  “Oh my God, Mrs. Strasser!” A dishwater blonde steps back, her eyes round. “I am so, so sorry!”

  It’s Laura Apatrea, a surgical nurse in Greg’s department. She wears an ill-fitting black shift and blocky, churchgoing heels; her dark blond hair seems tragically undone for such a formal event, almost like she quickly styled it in a public bathroom.

  “Did I splash you?” Laura grabs some napkins from a nearby table. “I can’t believe I—”

  “It’s all right,” I say through clenched teeth. “It’s not a big deal.”

  She looks mortified, but I swish her away unsympathetically. I don’t have time for doe-eyed Laura right now. But Lynn assesses Laura over the lip of her cocktail as the nurse scuttles away. “A little bird told me the doctors paid for some of the nurses to come.” A mischievous look crosses her features. “Maybe your husband sponsored her?”

  There is something about the way she says husband that needles me, but I’m not about to delight her with a reaction. “So,” I say briskly, “I already spoke to the judge and his wife, and I’m about to pitch the Lowrys, which means you should cover . . .”

  But then I trail off. Lynn, only half listening, has turned to put her hand on the shoulder of someone walking past. The man’s back is still to us, but there’s something familiar about him that resonates with me on unspoken, subconscious levels. “Kit.” Lynn’s voice is honey. “I’d like you to meet my husband.” She strokes the man’s arm. “Darling? This is Kit Manning-Strasser. We work together.”

  The man turns, and it feels like I’m falling down an elevator shaft. Here is that schoolboy grin. Here is that same adorable dimple in his left cheek. I blink hard, certain my mind is tricking me, but no . . . it’s him.

  Patrick the hurricane pilot/auto racer. Patrick of the no last name. A man whose scent I can still smell in my nostrils, who is driving me so wild I drifted aimlessly around a grocery store. I almost drop my drink. My legs feel boneless.

  A startled look flickers across Patrick’s face, too, but then he reaches out his hand. “Kit, is it?”

  My tongue feels fat in my mouth, but I say, somehow, “Yes.”

  Lynn beams obliviously. I remember everything she told me about this man: He’s a successful businessman, her college sweetheart. They have an eleven-year marriage and two young children. I should be mad that Patrick lied to me, but how can I be? He told me he was lying. That was the game.

  “Nice to meet you,” I add, because I have to say something. Then I grab my drink and down the rest of it fast. The world wobbles. The alcohol hits me instantly. I am certain, suddenly, that I’m going to throw up.

  “Excuse me,” I say. And then I turn . . . and run.

  6

  LYNN

  WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 2017

  When asked to name the deadliest sea creature, most would probably guess a shark, but it’s not true. The best hunter in the sea—and I am reminded of this as I pass a glass case featuring a fossilized version of one at the giving gala—is the sea horse. Their heads are shaped in such a way that they slice silently through the water, causing almost no disruption to the current. They can sneak up on their prey completely unannounced. If a creature can’t sense danger coming from behind, how will it know to flee?

  Just another reminder that sneaky always, always wins.

  I’ve been talking with Rupert Van Grieg, one of our biggest donors, for almost thirty minutes. Would rotund, pink-cheeked, already-soused Rupert enjoy my sea horse evolutionary tidbit, or does he just want me to tell him another slightly off-color joke about Catholic priests? I’m babysitting Rupert because Kit’s not at her best right now. She’s stumbling vertiginously. She’s slurring her words. Our boss, George, has cast a couple of alarmed glances her way. This isn’t the Kit Manning-Strasser we all know and adore.

  Slow and stealthy, that’s how you win. Slow and stealthy.

  Besides the martini I drank earlier in the night, I haven’t had another drop of alcohol. And because of that, I’m nailing it tonight, hack scandal be damned. I’ve locked down four major donations for the next quarter. Even the Hawsers, the couple Kit had purportedly gone to see in Philly but with whom she hadn’t closed the deal? They came tonight from all the way across the state, and I won them over, too.

  I watch as Kit almost face-plants into a table full of tiramisu. When you can’t handle the heat, you should get out of the kitchen.

  Rupert purses his lips at me, and I can tell he’s about to beg for another joke (and, let’s face it, brush his hand over my ass). Then I sense someone to my left. My husband is not sea horse–stealthy, so I turn as he approaches, reaching out to draw him in. My stomach flips at the way his tuxedo hugs his body. Patrick hasn’t aged a day since we met—which, considering all I’ve had to do to stop the hideous march of time, is a great indignity.

  But something’s off. He doesn’t take my hand. He doesn’t smile. His eyes flicker around the room. He seems checked out. Almost as fossilized as the dinosaurs.

  “You all right, honey?” I murmur, a slight note of warning in my tone.

  The corners of Patrick’s mouth turn down. “I don’t think our appetizers agreed with me.” He lightly touches his cummerbund for effect.

  I frown. “I feel fine.” I turn back to Rupert. “Patrick and I went to Or, The Whale before we came here. Split the seafood tower.”

  “Ah.” Rupert nods. “Great food at that place, but terrible service.”

  Patrick was distracted at dinner, too. He kept looking at his phone, but when I peeked at the screen, all I could see was his screensaver—a picture of our two kids, Connor and Amelia, on the beach at Hilton Head. I’d wondered if he was communicating with the babysitter about something—Patrick often worries when we go out, regularly checking in with the sitter with reminders and tips—but he shook his head and said the kids were fine.

  “I think I’m going to head out,” Patrick says apologetically. “You mind if I take the car, babe? You can take an Uber—I don’t want you driving.”

  “Why? I’m not drinking.” I put my hands on my hips. I’m suddenly aware of how my Spanx are digging into my waistline. “C’mon, darling. It’s a great party. Stay a little longer.”

  Patrick glances toward the door, his face pale. “I think you’d be better off without me.”

  Above us, a T. rex looms, its fossilized jaws open in mid-munch. I estimate the hours it took me to get ready for tonight: the hair and makeup appointments, the waxing, the skin brushing, the CBD oil I numbed my feet with so I could stand up in these shoes. The body shaper I contorted to get into, the jewelry I’d polished, the vintage Chanel clutch I’d searched for before remembering I’d put it in the safe-deposit box in the closet. I heard my mother’s voice in my head the whole time I prepared, telling me I wasn’t pretty enough, that I had to do more to hide all my imperfections, though when I looked at the end result in the mirror, I wanted to snap a selfie and send it to her—in her grave. Here, Mom, you’d finally approve.

  And all that was on top of the hours I spent memorizing important details about donors—a wife’s favorite opera, that a husband’s family is from Hungary, that a couple has six poodles, that their favorite type of vacation is to go to Old West camps and pretend to be ranchers. I made fucking flash cards to remember all of it. And here I am tonight, looking gorgeous, killing it professionally—this is an important night for me. Patrick needs to stay. He needs to hold my arm and laugh at the donors’ stupid jokes and choke down another glass of wine. He should know this by now. And usually he’s good at following the gentle requests I make of him.

  I’m not as controlling as I might sound—it’s just that Patrick needs it. A mutual friend introduced us. I was in college at UVA; Patrick had graduated from Duke a few years prior. Patrick was handsome, athletic, and ambitious, launching his first business at just twenty-three, but he was lost without his mother and in
over his head as a businessman, so he was looking for a personal assistant who would not only help him transform himself into a proper CEO but also run his life domestically. Patrick needed someone to organize his calendar, schedule his meetings, take his calls, but also shop for him, tell him what to eat at dinners, and even tell him how to socialize at events and not sound like a fratty buffoon.

  I’ve always been good at running things and behaving properly—nonstop etiquette classes and hypercritical parents will do that to you. In high school, one of my closest friends wanted to become a movie star, and before she moved to Hollywood and established a very respectable career as a character actress, I was her manager. It didn’t even feel hard. I bullied my way into getting her auditions and interviews—even setting her up with some producers in LA. All I had to do was act like I’d been in the business for years, and people believed it. I had a good little business going for a while, though I stopped it after I started college because it was taking up too much of my time.

  Anyway, after months of a strictly professional relationship, things deepened between Patrick and me, we got married, blah, blah, blah, happily ever after. And now I see myself as Patrick’s PA, life coach, and sexpot all rolled into one. Because of this, I am the envy of other mothers and wives—they are stunned by how agreeable my husband is. They’re like, “He’s compliant and handsome and wealthy and he’s a stellar father?” (That part I never had to school him on: Patrick is over the moon for those kids, sometimes to a fault.) His buddies might call him whipped, but I like to think that we whip one another. Not literally—horrors—but there are certain things I do to hold up my end of the bargain, too. I haven’t eaten bread in years, for example. I close the exercise ring on my Apple Watch every day. I go to bed with a full face of makeup and wipe it all off only after he’s fallen asleep—again, another tip from my late mother, who always said my naked face was too flat and plain.

  “Just take a Tums,” I murmur to him now.

  Desperation flashes across Patrick’s face. “Nice to see you again,” he says to Rupert, as he backs away.

  Rupert loops a fleshy arm around me. “If you leave, I might just take this one home!” He squeezes me tighter. His skin smells like Scotch and, underneath it, Bengay. I laugh along, but inside, I’m rolling my eyes. If I suggested that Rupert and I get naked, he’d probably piss his pants.

  “But seriously,” Rupert adds to Patrick, “you’ve got a real gem with this one. She can tell a joke, speaks four languages, and she was telling me earlier that she’s skilled in French cuisine! Watch out, Julia Child!”

  Patrick laughs halfheartedly. “Yep, Lynn can pretty much do it all.”

  He squeezes my arm, gives me one more kiss, and heads to the door. I glance around to see if anyone’s seen. It doesn’t seem so, but I wish Patrick weren’t walking out of the museum so damn quickly. I mean, he’s practically jogging away from me.

  I wish Patrick’s e-mails were on that hack server. I want to believe that he’s faithful—he’d better be—but after trolling so many accounts on that hack database, I don’t have much trust in humanity. Kit’s husband’s dalliance was far from the only transgression I found—totally unassuming people are having affairs, people I would have never guessed. Like my sweet, slightly naïve neighbor Charlie in Aldrich University medical research? He’s banging his research assistant. And Tomiko Clarke, who has an executive role in Aldrich Alumni Relations, is cheating on her wife with a man. I even found a dozen long, deep, emotional letters to a person named Sadie in my boss George’s drafts folder. I don’t know who Sadie is—and considering that George’s wife is with him tonight, either they’ve worked it out or she hasn’t trolled his e-mails yet.

  But Patrick would be a fool to play with fire. It’s not even worth dwelling on—I have a job to do. I have donations to bring in and money to make. I also still have the Kit Show to watch. And so I turn to her, watching as she staggers about, arms flailing, body listing. I have a good feeling that after tonight, everything is really going to change.

  7

  KIT

  THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2017

  The first thing I smell when I come to is bleach. Which is unfortunate, because I hate bleach: It always reminds me of being in the morgue all those years ago. A dry heave wells up inside me, and I press onto my arms. My eyes feel reptile-dry as I open them. There is the taste of death in my mouth. Where the hell am I?

  The world spins. I see the overhead light blaring, the tile work, a dust ball, a strand of my highlighted hair. And then I see the photograph. It’s an Ansel Adams print of Siesta Lake in Yosemite Park. The real deal Ansel Adams, not some lame print you buy in a mall art shop—Greg bought it for me as a wedding present. I even remember the card: A cool, tranquil respite for my cool, tranquil respite. Greg was such a Lord Byron back when things were fresh and new.

  Okay, then. I’m in my downstairs powder room. In my craftsman-style home tucked on Hazel Lane in Blue Hill, one-point-six miles from the museum, where the gala was held. How did that happen? Did I walk here?

  I struggle to my feet. The world lurches, and I catch the side of the sink. I’m definitely still drunk from the gala. What did I drink? All I can remember is one martini. I notice my reflection in the mirror: My gray gown is as wrinkled as elephant skin. My makeup is ghoulishly smudged around my eyes. My lipstick has long been eaten away.

  It feels like the tundra in the front hallway, and I’m quick to discover why: My huge, arch-shaped craftsman-style door stands wide open. A crisp breeze gusts in the smell of earth and mulch. Jesus. Did I really leave that open? And then I spot my car crookedly parked in the driveway. I close my eyes, desperately wanting to blot out what my brain now knows. I drove home. I can’t quite believe it: I never drive drunk.

  I twist around, peering back into the bathroom. My clutch lies facedown on the tile, a lipstick and my keys fallen out. I scoop everything up, pull out my phone, and look at the time. It’s past 1:00 A.M. Cold, clammy panic overtakes me. The last I remember checking, it had been only a little after ten. I’ve lost three hours.

  I retrace my steps: I’d gone inside the gala. Talked to Dad. Drifted over to Lynn Godfrey. And then . . . Patrick. I shut my eyes. I’ve temporarily forgotten.

  I recall dinner, sort of—talking to the Farrows, the Reeds, the Lechters—but I also remember hiccupping loudly. All eyes on me again. Someone laughing unkindly. Someone mentioning an MRI machine. Lynn Godfrey watching me, amused, from a few tables over . . . with her husband. But I couldn’t look Patrick’s way. I didn’t want to know if he was watching me—or if he wasn’t watching me.

  At some point, the Lewises tapped my arm and said they were leaving—and, oh yes, they were reconsidering their donation this year, considering all these hack scandals that were coming out. “You mean about my husband?” I’d blurted. God, had I actually said that? They’d looked at me partly pityingly. Maureen, the wife, said I should go home and get some rest.

  But everything else . . . all those other hours and minutes . . . I can’t remember. At all.

  “Aurora?” I call out into the hallway. No answer.

  “Greg?” I sound like a witch, my voice craggy and sick. As I look down, I realize I’m only wearing one shoe.

  The kitchen light is on, which is a huge red flag. Among his other lovely qualities, Greg is a stickler about energy efficiency; he has a conniption if we leave lights on when we aren’t in rooms. Did I leave this on? Did I come in the kitchen first? There’s nothing.

  And then I see it.

  Feet splay out on the travertine tile. I stop short, wondering if this is some sort of drunken delusion. These are Greg’s feet. And they are connected to Greg’s Adidas around-the-house pants. Which are connected to a T-shirt from Bar Harbor, Maine, and then . . . oh Jesus. Greg is lying facedown in a pool of . . . something.

  “Greg!” I scream, dropping to my knees.

  His b
ack rises and falls erratically, and he makes a gurgling sound. Now that I’m on the tiles, I have a clear view of what the liquid is: blood.

  “Oh Jesus. Oh fuck. Fuck.” I’m suddenly sober. I touch my husband’s cheek. It’s cold and clammy. “Greg!” I scream. “Can you hear me? Who did this?”

  I roll his face to the side so he can look at me, and I nearly puke. I have never seen someone so pale. I have never seen lips so blue. His eyes have a milky glaze. Blood seems to be pouring out of somewhere on his abdomen, but I’m afraid to roll him over to find a wound. My gaze crazily scans the kitchen floor, the island, the huge farmhouse table. I don’t see a sharp object. I don’t see anything incriminating.

  “Greg.” I hold his clammy cheeks. “Greg, please! What happened? Who did this to you?”

  There are goose bumps on my arms. My whole body is wet and sticky with blood. I wonder if I’m going into shock. “Honey, oh my God, I . . .” And then it hits me: Aurora is home, too. I clap my hand over my mouth. “Aurora,” I say to him. “Is she okay? Where is she?”

  Greg’s eyes search mine. They blink once. Is this some sort of code? I need to check on my daughter, but her bedroom is three flights up, and I’m afraid that if I leave Greg, he’ll die. Or will he die regardless? I feel like an asshole for wholeheartedly hating him tonight. I feel like an idiot because I have no first-aid or CPR skills.

  I’m in such shock that it seems to take me forever to find my phone. Blood from my fingers smears the screen, making it difficult to punch in the digits for 911.

  “Stay with me,” I tell my husband as I speak to the operator. This cannot be happening.

  The ambulance comes blessedly fast. I open the door for the EMTs and say some words, but the panic and fear and my breath muddle everything in my mind. They march in with their equipment jangling, smelling like Axe body spray and McDonald’s drive-through, which turns my stomach again, reminding me, Oh no, Kit, you aren’t sober by a long shot. And then, suddenly, they’re kneeling down next to him. One shouts stats—that Greg’s blood pressure is low, that his pulse is “thready,” that his oxygen level is “dangerous.” And in another blink, one of them is looking at me. I realize he’s asked me a question. I make him ask it again: “What sort of weapon made this wound, ma’am?”