Page 21 of Mean Moms

“Tim and I are great!” she said, and both she and Sofia burst out laughing. “Except for that I’m pretty sure he hates me, and I have no idea what to do about it.”

“I know the feeling,” said Sofia. “I’ll say it again—being divorced is fine.

You are strong, you can do it if you must. The boys would be okay.

But also, if you love Tim at all, give it a chance.

I must tell you, from experience, the grass is not always greener.

But love is important.” Frost felt this deeply in her bones.

She hadn’t had an evening like this in forever—drunken, dancing, crying.

It felt invigorating. It felt fantastic.

Frost gave Sofia a quick hug. “Thank you for paying for everything! Sorry I forgot my card again. Next time’s on me,” Sofia said as Frost jumped out of the car, raced up her steps, into her foyer, and all the way up to her bedroom, looking for Tim.

She’d speak to him right now. This very instant.

Tell him that if nothing changed, it would be over between them.

She didn’t know what she was going to do about Art, but that could come later.

She opened the bedroom door, expecting to find Tim asleep, but instead she saw him sitting up on the bed, his head in his hands. The bedside lamp was on, its soft glow illuminating the room.

“What are you doing awake? What’s going on?” said Frost, instantly completely sober. “Is it one of the boys?” Her voice cracked on “boys.”

Tim shook his head. He reached over to the nightstand for his glasses, placing them on his face and pushing them up his nose. It was a motion that, when they first were dating, Frost had found irresistibly sexy.

“Frost… I”—Tim paused, taking a deep breath—“I’m so sorry for how I’ve been acting recently.

I’ve been under such stress about this project, which is going nowhere.

I’ve been terrible to you. I love you, Frost. This family is everything to me.

I’ll make this right.” He took her hand, and her heart seized.

This is what she’d been wanting him to say for months, for nearly a year, but now it felt like it might be too late. Was it too late?

She sat down next to him on the bed. Tim leaned into her, touching the same place on Frost’s neck that Ryan had been caressing just hours ago. Frost felt nauseated, the guilt and vodka rising into her mouth, nearly choking her.

“Oh, Tim,” she said, stroking Tim’s hair, still as thick as it was fifteen years ago, but now with gray creeping up the sides. He pulled her closer to him. She was, against her will, turned on.

“What were you doing out so late?” he said. She didn’t answer. She didn’t know what to say.

“Never mind, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to stop being so controlling. If you want to be with me, you can. If you don’t, I understand.” And then he was crying, even harder than Frost had been crying in the car with Sofia.

He lay down on the bed, facing away from her, and she rubbed his back for what felt like hours, until he took her hand and slipped it over his penis, warm and hard. Then they had sex, Frost enjoying the comfort of her husband’s shape and weight.

Afterward, Tim fell asleep, but Frost, feeling wired, couldn’t. She wanted to tell him about the guy with the hat, to see if the private detective had turned anything up, but she let him rest instead.

By then, the sun was just coming up. Frost crept into the bathroom with her phone and shut and locked the door.

She stared at herself in the mirror—her hair was knotted and frizzy, her makeup smudged under her eyes—then sat down on the toilet.

She signed into her Gmail using the account she’d created for the purposes of communicating with Art.

I can’t do this , she wrote. Something has changed. I’ll explain later. But it’s over between us. I’m so sorry.

She felt a flood of freedom; a huge weight off her shoulders. She sent a text to her live-in nanny, Flora, who was sleeping downstairs in her room on the basement level.

Can you get the boys to school today? I was out late and need to sleep. Thanks.

Frost quietly changed into her white Eberjey pajama set, throwing her clothes in a pile next to the bed. Tim was passed out on top of the covers, but Frost snuggled underneath next to him, collapsing into an intense, dreamless sleep.

She woke up hours later. Tim was gone, only his body’s impression on the duvet remaining. She checked her phone to see that it was already 10:30 a.m. She pulled up her Gmail and saw Art had responded to her email. She opened it.

Okay, fine by me.

Okay? Fine by me? That was it? A year of sex and betrayal and sneaking around and all she got was: Okay? Men were such shits. She saw she had four unread text messages. One was from Flora, from 8:15 a.m.

King and Alfred are at school. Drop-off was fine, though some moms were acting a little strange. Alfred sounds like he’s getting a cough. I’m downstairs if you need me.

The other three messages were from Belle.

The first one read:

Have you checked the Atherton WhatsApp?????

Confused, Frost opened the second:

What were you doing out so late??

And then:

Frost, call me. Whenever you get this.

Frost wasn’t active in the Atherton WhatsApp group, which mostly consisted of moms discussing after-school activities and teachers’ gifts with a heavy dose of passive-aggressive sniping.

She navigated to the Atherton Lower School Moms channel.

There were hundreds of unread messages, but Frost started at the top.

Whatever Belle was referring to was recent.

Dre Finlay

Ladies, this isn’t the correct forum to be discussing this! As administrator, I’m going to have to ask you all to please refrain from bringing it up again. What people do in their private lives is up to them. I won’t have this channel devolve into Deuxmoi!

Gabby Mahler

You mean Deux Moms.

Frost scanned down the chain to a few hours earlier, where she saw someone had posted a link to a Page Six piece in the NY Post .

Katrina Lowry

Uhhh, has everyone seen this?

Hattie McConBelle

Wow, looks like I’m missing out by dutifully putting my kids to bed and having dinner with my husband…

Dinah Grotton

Eeeeekkkkk.

Frost clicked on the story in the Post , which had gone up at 7:00 a.m. It was tiny, no more than a photo with a large caption.

The headline was UP WAY PAST BEDTIME , and underneath was a snapshot of Frost, her face partially obscured, dirty dancing with Ryan and Paul Newman on a banquette at ZZ’s, just hours earlier.

She could see Sofia’s bare shoulder in the snapshot, but her face wasn’t visible.

A feverish feeling came over Frost as she read on.

ZZ’s, the exclusive members club from Major Food Group, is Manhattan’s go-to spot for celebrities, influencers, and professional athletes.

And as of last night, add one more category: New York’s Hottest Mom.

Pictured here is Frost Trevor, former It Girl and parent at downtown’s most prestigious private school, Atherton Academy, seen dancing and reveling until all hours with a mom friend and some boy friends. Cool kids… meet the Cool Moms.

She read it over and over, in disbelief. She’d never been more humiliated in her life. Who would have sent this to the Post ? Why would the Post even publish it?

She called Belle, the phone ringing twice before Belle picked up, sounding like she was in the middle of a workout.

“What the hell?” said Belle, in what Frost thought was an accusatory manner. “It’s all anyone is talking about! Drop-off was insane.”

“I don’t really understand what the big deal is,” said Frost, masking her panic.

She’d had a few similar moments during her time in the spotlight, when negative items were written about her.

She’d found then that the best way to move forward was to own it.

But that was before she had a family. Before she had anyone other than herself to worry about.

“Sofia and I went out and had some fun, so sue us,” said Frost.

“Yeah, it seems like you two have become total best friends,” said Belle.

“I was at Miles’s hockey practice when I got your text, but if you’d told me beforehand, I could have arranged childcare.

Everyone was gossiping this morning about you partying with young guys.

” Frost could hear Belle’s hurt over the phone.

On top of everything else, she had to deal with Belle’s insecurity? Please.

“Aren’t women allowed to let loose? Or does our ability to interact with the rest of the world disappear when we give birth?” said Frost, feeding Belle the lines she knew she’d parrot to the other moms.

“Well, you make good points,” said Belle. “And who cares about those judgmental bitches,” she said, now fully on Frost’s side. “They all hate me already anyway. Next time I’m definitely coming!” Belle giggled, and Frost lay back down on the bed, exhausted.

I can’t do this. Something has changed. I’ll explain later. But it’s over between us. I’m so sorry.

Ok, fine by me.

Art Chary was sipping a dry martini, sitting at a high top at the back of Le French Diner, a tiny restaurant on Orchard Street on the Lower East Side.

He felt safe, with no fear that anyone from his Atherton life might somehow walk into this place at 5:00 p.m. on a weekday.

He generally preferred going to hotels with his paramours, or, in the case of Frost, her apartment, but Tilly had insisted on meeting “out.” He’d said fine, wanting to keep this new thing going, both to fight boredom and the melancholia that was lately cloaking him like one of his cashmere hoodies.

I can’t do this. Something has changed. He reread Frost’s message from the previous week, feeling the gin burn his throat as he finished his drink.

He wondered what had changed. He’d never ask.

Okay, fine by me , he’d replied. He’d known it was a bit of a heartless response, but what was he going to say?

“No, please”? “I love you”? Impossible. A slightly sour feeling came over Art, and he tried to shake it off, knowing Tilly’s arrival would help.

Did he love Frost? Yes. Did she love him? He didn’t think so, though they’d never discussed such things. For her, it had been a great adventure, a way to regain the excitement of her fizzy youth, a distraction from her failing marriage. For Art, well, it had been more than that.

He thought back to the first time he’d met Frost, at an Atherton pre-K curriculum night.

They were in the cozy classroom, with its little helper wheel and ABCs everywhere.

Frost had been standing alone, inspecting a picture drawn by one of her boys, just a scribble, really, but admiring it in awe, as you would a painting at the Met.

He’d noticed her expression first, the adoration for her child visible in the crinkle of her eye, and then he’d seen that hair, those wild auburn waves he’d wanted to bury his face in.

He’d introduced himself and she’d been polite, explaining that she and her husband, Tim, who’d been off that day at a film shoot, had twins, King and Alfred.

He’d reciprocated with info about Gertrude.

They’d chatted briefly about how they’d come to find Atherton, and how happy they all were to have landed at the best school in New York.

A completely standard parental interaction, though the whole time he’d been thinking, Who is this gorgeous, charming person?

Why aren’t I married to her ? Morgan had soon spotted them, striding over to interrupt, to befriend Frost by force, as Art had known she would.

“Hi there.” It was Tilly, sitting down at the table, her face tilted toward him expectantly. Tilly was sweet, she was gorgeous, and she was amazing in bed, as Art had recently discovered, doing all the things women now seemed to think were standard but, in the old days, would have blown Art’s mind.

“How are you?” he asked, thinking only of how much he’d rather be sitting across from Frost. As soon as Frost had broken things off, Art had reached out to Tilly—he’d known she’d be interested. Tilly was lovely but she was a child.

“I’m good, I’m good,” she said. “But I want to see you more.”

“I know, but it’s only been a week,” said Art. “And as you know, this is just… fun.” He smiled at her with what he considered to be his most persuasive, sexy smile.

Tilly frowned. Art was semi-worried she wasn’t hearing what he was saying.

He’d had affairs before, many, but was always careful to choose women who had their own stuff going on: divorces, bad marriages, no one looking to leave a life.

That wouldn’t have worked for Art. He was tethered to Morgan forever, in health and in sickness, since their first bloodstained meeting.

“I just don’t want to feel used, Art,” said Tilly, squeezing his hand uncomfortably. He slipped his fingers out of hers.

“We’re using each other!” he said lightly, trying to laugh it off.

What would Morgan do to Tilly if she ever found out?

he wondered uneasily. Perhaps that was the one upside to breaking things off with Frost. He’d known he shouldn’t have started anything with her in the first place—taking advantage of her high at that party, the exhilaration he’d felt touching her as he’d always fantasized of doing.

But the temptation had been too much. Art was ashamed of his own weakness.

He wasn’t a bad man. Just a man who was stuck.

“Would you like a martini?” he asked Tilly kindly. She shook her head. “You know I don’t drink, silly,” she said. Art had forgotten; these young people nowadays, sober, depressed, wanting to live forever but hating their lives. Poor Tilly. “But I’ll have a mocktail if they have one!”

Art went up to the bar, glancing out the large front window as he did.

He saw the flash of a woman in a hooded jacket as she spun around, hurrying to the other side of the street.

Had she been looking inside the restaurant?

Art knew he was probably just being paranoid.

Being in public like this made him jumpy.

Next time, he’d ask Tilly to come to the hotel room straightaway.