Reputation(11)

A second text pings in, and then a third. I squint at the new images Amanda has sent, not understanding what I’m reading. More e-mails are circled, dated as recently as a few months ago. They say things like I want to bend you over on the MRI machine. I thought of you today and went into the bathroom to masturbate. You look so sexy in that short skirt. Do a dance for me, next time I see you.

These e-mails aren’t to me.

I sink against one of the cheese cases. The woman Greg is writing to signs her name Lolita. And she submits to him like a child. Thank you, she writes. I’m flattered. You’re so cute. She never has any requests of her own, but it’s clear she’s enjoying the attention.

Bile rises in my throat. I can’t believe this is happening.

Then I realize something else: Amanda wouldn’t have trolled for dirt on my husband. Someone sent this to her. Someone made her aware.

“Mom? You okay?”

Aurora’s face is full of alarm. She so closely resembles Martin with her dark hair and her green eyes and pouty mouth—it’s like looking at a ghost. Before I can hide what I’ve read, her gaze falls to my phone screen. Her brow furrows. A vein in her neck pops.

I press my phone to my chest. “I’m fine.”

But Aurora’s skin has gone pale. It’s clear she saw Greg’s name in the address line. “Mom?” she asks, her voice hoarse. “Was that in the hack?”

I turn to a display of blue cheese, grab the biggest hunk, and drop it into my cart. I hate blue cheese. It will rot in our fridge for weeks. But I need a distraction from Aurora. I can’t look at her. “It’s nothing. Don’t worry about it.”

My heart pounds as we go through the checkout line. I hold it together as I drive Aurora to school. She gives me a long, inquiring look before she gets out of the car, but I pretend to be very committed to a story about the economy on NPR. After she trudges into the school building, I speed out of the school parking lot and merge onto the highway, typing while driving.

Who knows about this? I write to Amanda with shaking hands.

Amanda’s reply bubble is meek and regretful, like it wants to blurt out what it knows and then run quickly away, don’t-shoot-the-messenger style: Everyone.



* * *





That night, I stand at the foot of the Aldrich University Natural History Museum stairs, gazing at the royal purple banner that announces the evening’s event. The night is everything I imagined when I put together the plans: It’s a beautiful, early spring sunset. Limos wait at the curb. The city twinkles magically. I pictured myself standing right here, hand in hand with Greg. I figured people would see an attractive woman in a slate-gray, low-cut silk gown that showed that, at thirty-nine, I’m still as fresh and beautiful as any undergrad, definitely too young to have a nineteen-year-old daughter. I imagined my glossy lips curving into a dazzling smile, and my husband giving me a lingering kiss at the corner of my mouth. It would be enough of a gesture to show everyone that our marriage is rock-solid, nothing to see here.

Now the only accurate prediction is the dress.

I glance once more at my reflection in my compact. Inside, I am trembling—raging, really—but I don’t have a hair out of place. I drop the compact back into my clutch, hold the hem of my gown, and start up the stairs alone . . . as though I meant to come solo all along.

“Mrs. Manning?” A guy stops me, and for a moment I think it’s him; I’ve been seeing Patrick ghosts everywhere. But this is a young kid in jeans, a black T-shirt. “Do you have a comment about the hack?” he asks. A reporter, then. He must recognize me as the president’s daughter.

“Nope,” I murmur, hurrying past.

“Have you been in touch with any of the universities that were targeted?” another voice dogs me. “Any idea who’s behind it?”

I duck my head. If I knew that, don’t you think I’d have already done something about it?

But Kit Manning-Strasser does not bark at journalists. I duck my head and push through the door, where, thankfully, the reporters aren’t welcome. My chest buzzes. At least the reporter didn’t ask about Greg’s e-mails. He’s practically the only person who hasn’t.

Inside, among a backdrop of dinosaur bones, paintings of woolly mammoths, and plaques heralding Arthur Aldrich, the nineteenth-century railroad baron, for funding paleontological digs all over the world, the party has begun. The student waitstaff looks presentable enough in their tuxedos, despite their Technicolor hair and stretched-out earlobes. I look around at the guests. People are drinking and laughing, but many look . . . off. They keep worriedly glancing at their phones—it’s obvious why. I want to tell them for the love of God to just stop.

“Kit, darling!” Judge Packard and his wife, Johanna, approach, breaking me from my spiraling memory. I straighten up—these are some of my biggest donors, and I need to focus. I give the Packards a convincing smile and, as they move forward to kiss my cheeks, I can smell that the judge has had a couple of vodkas already.

“Lovely party,” the judge says, the ice cubes in his drink clinking noisily.

“Such a fun locale!” Johanna agrees. “I haven’t been here since my kids were little. Where’s your gorgeous husband?”

I curl my toes. Way to be subtle. “Greg couldn’t make it,” I say brightly. “He’s not feeling well.”