Reputation(14)

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.