That was all the encouragement they needed. Someone must have fed the “photographers” their names, because they all began shouting, “Matthew, over here! Maisie, show us your outfit!” in such convincing ways that Miriam couldn’t help but stare. She wondered if she should pull them out of there—after all, this wasn’t the message she was dying to convey to her five-year-olds—but she couldn’t for the life of her think of a decent exit strategy. Maybe she’d get lucky and one of them would throw up. Her heart nearly stopped when Maisie, her baby girl, broke into a dance for the cheering paparazzi and the other watching parents. “Show us your moves, Maisie!” one of the women called. On cue, Maisie shook her butt in the same way she did during family dance parties, when Paul would blast “Call Me Maybe” and they would all dance like crazy in their pajamas. No. No. No. Miriam wanted to throw her coat over her daughter’s head and whisk her away from this insanity.
She didn’t wait around for the parents to stare at her daughter. She pushed her way through the parents’ entrance and found her children in the “entertainment” area with two attractive twentysomethings.
“Maisie? What a cute name!” one of them was saying. “Would you like me to do your hair and makeup?”
“Yes!” Maisie squealed, although Miriam was nearly certain she had no idea what she was agreeing to.
“She’s only five,” Miriam said to the makeup artist, who was plugging in a flat iron.
“Oh, I know. Don’t worry, we won’t do lashes or anything. Just some lipstick, blush, eye shadow, maybe a touch of tinted moisturizer. Then I think we’ll flatten her hair and maybe weave in some tinsel. What color would you like, sweetie?”
“Pink and purple, please.” Maisie looked like she would faint from excitement.
“Tinted moisturizer?” Miriam asked.
The girl looked up at her, frowning. “It’s just for fun. Dress-up. But if you don’t want me to—”
“Mommy! I want to! Don’t say no!”
“Of course not, love. It’s just . . . I think you’re beautiful exactly the way you are.”
“I want pink and purple in my hair!”
Miriam sighed. “I know. Go ahead.”
The makeup artist gave her an unmistakable look: Go away, overbearing mother.
She pulled out an old-school Caboodle filled with more Chanel and Armani cosmetics than they stocked at Bergdorf.
“I’ll be right back, sweetie.” Miriam was going to kiss Maisie on the cheek, but the stylist swooped in front of her with a hot iron.
Most of the tables had been removed to make room for an enormous professional-looking stage complete with a sound system and light show. Red velvet curtains hung in swooping drapes from the ceiling and the walls, and another red carpet—this one with gold stars, each with a child’s name—wove its way through the main room and up to the stage.
“Miriam!” A woman with wild curls whom Miriam recognized from the sex-toy party stepped in front of her. “It’s so good to see you.”
“You too!” Miriam said loudly to compensate for the fact that she couldn’t remember the woman’s name.
“How amazing is this? I mean, what I wouldn’t have given to go to something like this when I was a kid. All we ever did for birthday parties were pony rides or Chuck E. Cheese’s.”
“This is definitely not Chuck E. Cheese,” Miriam murmured, catching sight of a male dance teacher who was giving the boys dance lessons in the back room. He couldn’t have been a day older than twenty-one, and his abs were so defined that Miriam stopped in her tracks and stared.
“Not bad, huh?” whispered another mom beside her.
“Oh my God.” They all stared at the shirtless, spandex-bottomed human Gumby gyrating in front of the boys.
“Yeah, I know. I used to think a birthday party was good if they served adult beverages. Now I’ll never be happy again unless there are half-naked man-boys who can move like that.”
“Are these really Justin Timberlake’s backup dancers?” Miriam asked, certain she should already know the answer.
“One of Schuyler’s dads—not the one by the door, that one over there—is some big executive at Justin’s record label.”
“There is no way Matthew is going to agree to dance,” Miriam said with a mother’s authority. “He hates dancing. He thinks it’s a girl thing. Nothing we say can convince him otherwise.”
As though on cue, Matthew started moving his hips. Slowly at first, and then madly, in every direction. As the teacher added arm movements, so did Matthew. Within a minute, twenty boys were thrusting all over the stage.
A flash of blond hair in the back of the room caught Miriam’s eye. Looking like she was trying to disappear, was Ashley.
“Excuse me, I just have to say hi to a friend,” Miriam said. As she got closer, it became obvious Ashley was crying. “Hey, are you okay?” Miriam asked.
Ashley’s eyes were bloodshot and mascara streamed down her colorless cheeks. She was so pale that Miriam was certain she’d just received some sort of horrific medical prognosis.
“Oh, honey, come here.” Miriam took her hand and led her friend to a table that was shielded from the dancing boys and the watching parents. She pulled a chair out and Ashley collapsed into it. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, Miriam. It’s . . . too . . . awful.” Ashley hiccupped. “My kids are never going to recover from this.”
Miriam took Ashley’s hands in her own and was shocked by how cold they felt. “Tell me, sweetie.” Miriam squeezed her hands.
“I think Eric is cheating on me. No, scratch that—I know he is.”
Miriam was surprised only by how completely unsurprised she was. She cleared her throat. “Why do you think that?”
“There have been a lot of signs lately. Nothing definitive, but things have just been . . . different.”
“Every marriage has ups and downs.”
“I know, and that’s what I kept telling myself. But Eric is totally checked out in the bedroom. It’s like he’s doing it out of obligation.” Ashley offered a small, bitter laugh. “We’re the ones who do it out of obligation, not them!”
“Oh, honey. He could be tired. You said yourself he’s been working like crazy.”
“And then there’s the trainer. Eric’s always been an athlete, so it wasn’t that strange. He’s always loved team sports. Or running. Not going to the gym. But, like, now he’s there every day.”
Miriam’s mind flashed to Paul and his newfound interest in working out. Ashley kept talking, though Miriam was quiet. “Do you remember when that whole Ashley Madison hack happened?”
Miriam nodded. She’d known a mom from their preschool in New York who had discovered her husband’s account during the hack and had promptly divorced him, taking him for everything he was worth.
“Okay, boys! Let’s take it from the top!” the dancer yelled into a headset microphone. “One, two, three, four!” A too-loud rendition of “Can’t Stop the Feeling!” blasted from the speaker.
Ashley went on, “I remember reading about it. But it never even occurred to me to check Eric’s email address. What was that, like, three years ago? The baby wasn’t even born yet! I remember reading all the horror stories of women finding their husbands on it. I felt bad for them, but I was certain Eric would never do something like that.”
“And?” Miriam croaked. She was trying to focus on Ashley, she really was, but it was hard when all she wanted to do was get to a computer.
“I was reading some super-old copy of Women’s Health at the dentist’s office yesterday, and there was an article about what you should do if you find your husband on Ashley Madison. Like, everything from what therapist you could see to which STDs you should get tested for.”
“Okay . . .”
“And I don’t know what came over me. I can’t explain to you why I did it.” With this, Ashley started bawling again. “But I Googled that database where you could check someone’s email address, and sure enough. He was there—b
oth his work and personal email! Does that mean he has two accounts? Like one account for cheating on your wife isn’t enough?”
Miriam was thankful for the loud music, because Ashley’s sobs had turned into wails, and she seemed entirely unconcerned about who heard her.
“I remember when that whole thing happened, and—”
Ashley cut her off. “And Fairfield County, Connecticut, had, like, the most registered users per square mile of anywhere in the U.S., I think.”
“Some men were just curious what all the fuss was about. They’d go on to check it out but never actually contact anyone on it.”
Ashley turned her tearstained face to Miriam’s. “Well, not my husband. I left the dentist’s office without even getting my checkup and went straight home. I dug out the old credit card bills, which I never, ever look at because it makes me sick to see how much money we spend every month, and there it was, plain as day. The random numbers-and-letters combination that the article tells you to look for on your billing statement. It’s totally innocuous if you don’t know what it is, but if you type it into Google, you can see that it’s a cover for Ashley Madison billing. I counted thirty-eight months of billing. You think it was just fleeting curiosity?”
Miriam looked down at her hands.
“Miriam, what do I do?”
“Well, first I think you need to figure out what you want. What is the best possible outcome for you in this situation.”
“A divorce?” This word Ashley whispered, like “cancer.” “You think I should get a divorce?”
“No! Unless you want to. I didn’t say either way. Just that it might be good to do a little thinking about what you want before you talk to Eric about it.”
“Ohmigod, what if he wants a divorce?”
Miriam didn’t want to point out that the entire purpose of Ashley Madison was for married adults to have affairs with other married adults, working under the assumption that neither wanted to implode his or her marriage.
“You can’t know until you talk to him, sweetheart. I’m sure there’s going to be—”
“Mommy! I have to go potty!” Ashley’s son called out from the stage.
Ashley wiped the tears and makeup from under her eyes. “Am I a mess? Can I even be seen in public?”
“You’re okay. You might want to hit the ladies’ room just to touch up,” Miriam said.
Ashley offered a hand to her son and helped him down off the stage. Miriam watched and tried to swallow a near-overwhelming wave of nausea. Was it possible? Until the move to Greenwich, she had never once in all their years of marriage seriously considered the possibility that Paul might cheat. But how could she deny that Paul sounded just like Eric? The preoccupation with working out, the lack of sex, the newfound interest in hanging out with douchey guys, like Ashley’s husband . . .
Of course. Paul was cheating on her. Maybe it wasn’t Ashley Madison—she desperately hoped he wasn’t that stupid—but it was someone. It had to be.
“Mommy? Mommy!” Matthew called from the stage.
Miriam’s head snapped up, but she still couldn’t focus.
“MOMMY!”
She jumped. “What, love? I’m right here.”
“Watch me!”
Like a happy zombie, Miriam grinned through a choreographed and highly inappropriate dance show featuring her five-year-old son’s pelvis thrusts and watched her sweet, innocent daughter, who had been transformed into something straight out of Toddlers & Tiaras, practice her “fashion walk” down the red carpet. At the end of the party, Miriam even said thank you and managed to seem genuine, instead of horrified, when the children got their party favors: for Maisie, a thoroughly bedazzled, personalized tote bag stocked full of lotions that smelled of cake batter and vanilla and makeup laced with glitter; and for Matthew, a biker-style pleather jacket signed across the back by Justin Timberlake in silver fabric marker. At her twins’ last birthday party, Miriam had handed out cellophane bags full of M&M’s and had felt like Pinterest Mom of the Year because she’d tied them with personalized ribbons that read: THANK YOU FOR CELEBRATING WITH US! LOVE, M&M.
“Mommy, that was so much fun!” Maisie said as Miriam buckled her into the car seat. “I am going to wear my new makeup every day.”
“No, sweetie, it’s for dress-up. We don’t wear makeup outside of the house.”
Maisie burst into tears. “It’s not fair! It’s mine! I decide!”
“Mommy’s the boss, not you,” Matthew said from his seat.
Miriam tipped the valet and eased the car onto the road.
“Mommy! Maisie said a bad word! She called me buttface!”
“Maisie.”
“I did not, Mama! He is lying!” Maisie screeched.
With this, Matthew started to cry. “I am not!” he wept. “You never believe me!”
“So did you both have fun at the party?” Miriam asked. The twins recounted their favorite activities, and Miriam’s mind wandered. Did that really happen? Who are these people?
As Miriam drove home, she felt a mounting chill of fear. Had they made a mistake by moving to Greenwich and exposing their kids to this lifestyle? Should she have left her job? Were she and Paul drifting? Could he possibly be having an affair? When was the last time she’d made him a coffee the way he liked it, with the milk steamed instead of just dumped in cold? Or taken the time to make her specialty turkey chili that he loved even though the kids wouldn’t touch it because it was too spicy? When had she put on lingerie instead of an oversize cotton T-shirt? It was no wonder he was cheating. He’d be crazy if he weren’t.
These thoughts occupied her the entire ride home, but it took turning onto her road to confirm, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that she was right. Standing in the driveway, side by side, not seeming to notice the cold drizzle, were her husband and son. Ben was jumping up and down, waving his hands like a maniac. And there it was—a red Maserati convertible, all sleek lines and shiny new paint. The dealer’s temporary plates still on. And it was all Miriam could do not to crash her big, ugly SUV straight into her husband and his brand-new car.
18
Road Trip
Karolina
“It’s only a hundred extra per day to upgrade. It’s a no-brainer,” Emily said, her back pressed against the red car.
The three of them stood in the executive line at the National Car Rental in McCarran airport. They’d just stepped off a Virgin America flight—where Emily, unsurprisingly, had booked all three of them in first class—and had been debating whether to drive a Ford Explorer (Miriam’s vote), an Audi sedan with a nice sunroof (Karolina’s), or the BMW convertible that Emily had been hawking as if her life depended on it.
“We’re going to be driving five hours through the desert. Anything could happen. A convertible isn’t safe,” Miriam announced, sounding very momlike.
“Isn’t safe how, exactly?” Emily asked.
“Isn’t it obvious? If the car flips over, there’s no top to protect us. We’d be crushed.”
Emily rolled her eyes. “When was the last time you flipped your car?”
Miriam rolled hers right back. “I’m just saying. Nobody rents a convertible for a five-hour drive through the desert.”
Karolina held up her hand. “It’s like neither of you remembers that I’m headed to ‘rehab’! The A4 is a good compromise, and I’m paying, so no more arguing. Come on, guys, let’s get going.” They gathered their rolling suitcases and carry-on totes, but a minute before they made it to the car, a young couple tossed their lone bag into the trunk, swooped into the front seat, and roared out of the garage without a word.
“They knew we wanted that one!” Miriam cried, reaching after them.
“Sign from God that we were meant to have the convertible,” Emily said, popping the BMW’s trunk. “Not a ton of room, I admit, but we’ll make it work.”
“And get melanoma,” Miriam murmured.
“Have you heard of this amazing thing called sunscreen? It’s so
cool! You rub a little on your face and you don’t get sunburned. And guess what? I have some right here in my bag!”
Miriam glared at Emily but climbed into the backseat. “When we’re picking bugs out of our teeth and our hair is wrapped in knots and our scalps are burnt and we’ve lost our voices from screaming to be heard over the wind, I’m going to say I told you so.”
Emily gave Miriam the finger, and despite herself Karolina smiled, realizing she had never taken a road trip with friends in her life. Karolina had been modeling by age fourteen. She and Graham had traveled extensively—it was one of the things they both loved—but Graham had always balked at renting cars in foreign countries. Flying all over the world was a different kind of adventure, but still, how was it possible that in thirty-seven years she’d never taken a proper road trip?
Karolina slid behind the wheel and, once they hit I-15, set the cruise control for eighty-five. They flew down the open road in the midmorning March sun. When they passed the Vegas Strip, Emily cracked them all up with a highly detailed description of her newest business idea, which involved selling tours for men to travel to Vegas with their friends, where they’d get a group discount on vasectomies, after which they’d recover in a luxe hotel room while strippers iced their balls.
“Oh my God. It’s brilliant,” Miriam screeched from the backseat. “Not only is it an easy sell for the husbands, but you don’t have to take care of them afterward. You are definitely onto something.”
“You haven’t even heard the best part. We offer a two-for-one rate and call it the Vegasectomy. I think it’s going to be a massive hit.”
Karolina wanted to laugh with them, but she couldn’t ignore the queasy anxiety and uncertainty that seemed to plague her all day, every day. Not that it stopped her from eating like a whale for the first time in her life. Hours later, when they were all so starving that the only possible thing to eat besides gas-station snacks were giant, oozing McDonald’s sundaes that they ordered from the drive-through, Karolina inhaled hers. “I can’t believe I just ate dairy,” she moaned, clutching her stomach.