Page 7 of Happy Wife

Are you alive?

The most recent message was sent five minutes ago.

12:42p.m.

I’m coming over.

Naturally.

Este lives next door, and we quickly adopted an open-door policy between our houses. It’s not unusual for her to let herself in through the side kitchen door to borrow something, even if I’m not home. She knows the alarm code.

Looking again at my phone, I see there are no messages waiting from Will, so I fire off a text to him:

12:48p.m.

Sorry I fell asleep last night. Where’d you go?

I hurry to the bathroom knowing Este won’t stand on ceremony if I’m still naked when she walks in. As I hear the French doors by the kitchen creak open, I splash cold water on my face, and hastily pull on workout clothes.

“Morning!” Este trills as she strolls in, making herself comfortable on the edge of the tub while I attempt to revive my blowout from yesterday.

“Was Will downstairs?”

She shakes her head. “Just the cleaning crew.”

“Right. He’s probably at the office.” I call him twice, but each time, it goes straight to voicemail. “Hey, Will, it’s me. Where are you? Call me when you get this.”

Este’s tastefully Botoxed brow attempts a frown. “Working? The Sunday after his birthday?”

I give her a “be serious” look. “He’s a trial attorney. He’d work twenty-four hours a day if he could. It was a miracle I got him to take his birthday off. I bet he’s heads down, making up for lost time somewhere.”

I don’t expect Este to get it. Beau retired at the ripe old age of thirty-four after making a boatload of money out in California in a tech acquisition. Sometimes, I get the feeling the second he sold his company she forgot about the long hours that he undoubtedly had to pour into his job to get to the acquisition stage.

And good for her, by the way. Who among us wouldn’t takeselective amnesia in exchange for endless amounts of cash? It’s not time that heals the wounds. It’s money.

I open the shared iCal that I had insisted Will make for big cases so that I would understand when he was completely absent even when he was sitting in the same room. He’s never posted anything in it, so I’m not surprised to see it empty.

“Hey, you know who else I didn’t see downstairs? That world-class kiss-ass Autumn.”

“Last night was fun, right? She did a good job.” I walk down the stairs with Este trailing behind. “And she went straight from our place to Jacksonville to set up for another job this weekend. I don’t think she sleeps.”

I can’t help myself. Part of me will always root for a hardworking underdog.

“It was a good party.” Este shrugs.

“Was it? I mean, I thought it was. Maybe the icy hearts of the country club shrews are thawing a bit?”

“Oh, please, there’re, like, ten more parties before you can even expect to get an invite to ‘Carol’s Carols Extravaganza’ this Christmas.” The tone in her voice makes it clear being included in Carol Parker’s holiday tradition would still be one of the lower rungs of the social ladder. “Youthrew a great party. Don’t give that credit to Autumn. Ask yourself: What did she do besides arrange the flowers? It’s your gorgeous house, Marcus’s amazing food, and your fabulous friends.”

Will’s fabulous friends.

Even though I think it, I don’t correct her. “Why do we hate Autumn? Do we have to hate her?”

Este’s face pinches like she smells something sour. “Autumn has been mainlining the Kool-Aid of this place for too long.”

She follows me into the kitchen, where I grab a protein bar before we head for the door. “Said the woman who moved here a few years ago,” I say. “Do you not like living here?”

“I like tax breaks. I like boat rides and sunsets on the lake and summer all year. But people like Autumn act like this place is fucking Paris or something. It’s Florida, not the goddamn center of the universe.”