Page 44 of The Wife Upstairs

“Is this the one where they replace the president with a clone?”

“It was the vice president,” I reminded him, “but yes.”

Reading the back, Eddie smiled faintly. “I bought it in an airport. No one can be judged for the books they buy in airports.”

“I remember that,” I said, and suddenly I did. We’d been going to a conference in Atlanta. Well, I’d been going to the conference. Eddie had come with me so he could go to some football game there the same weekend.

“Women and Leadership, Leaders and Womanhood,” I said. “Some workshop like that. Three days of lectures with titles like, ‘A Gentle Hand: Commanding Respect without Fear,’ and ‘Women on Top.’”

He smiled. “You hated that shit.”

“I did,” I replied, nodding. “That one was especially bad, though.”

I sat on the edge of the bed, remembering that weekend, howmiserable and bored I’d felt, overdressed in my pencil skirts, wasting my time.

I could still see the woman who led one of the group workshops, standing in front of us, her hair short and prematurely gray, a cream-colored cashmere cardigan nearly swallowing her birdlike frame.

“We keep so many things in our brains,” she’d said. “More than men do. They’re allowed to only worry about business, while we have to worry about businessandour families. Our children. I bet if I were to ask a male CEO, ‘How much milk do you have in your fridgeright this second?’ he’d have no idea. But all of you know.”

The woman had smiled, beatific, then lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “You all know, don’t you?”

A wave of chuckles and knowing nods, and I’d looked around thinking,Are all of you for fucking real?

I told Eddie that story now, and he laughed, folding his arms across his chest. “Right, but every day, when I got back to the room and asked how your day had gone, you’d said, ‘Fine.’”

I shrugged. “What was I supposed to say? I was the one who’d chosen to go. I didn’t want to admit that you were right, and it was a waste of time.”

I didn’t add that things had been strained between us then. That we’d been arguing more, even before Blanche and her renovations.

I didn’t want him to remember that.

“That weekend wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs for me, either. I ended up giving my ticket to the Falcons game to one of my clients, so I think I mostly watched ESPN in the hotel room and ate bad room service.”

He glanced around then, and I realized he was looking for a place to sit.

But of course, there wasn’t one, because this wasn’t my parlor, it was a cell.

A cell he’d made.

Thinking fast, I patted the bed next to me. “It’s surprisingly comfy,” I said, smiling a little. This was the most we’d talked, and I wanted him like this, relaxed and a little more open.

He hesitated, and for a moment, I thought he’d leave instead.

Then he sat.

The mattress dipped under his weight, making me lean toward him more, and I caught the scent of his soap, and underneath that, the clean, warm smell that was just Eddie.

That weekend in Atlanta hadn’t been all bad. Even with the tension between us, we’d taken advantage of that big hotel bed every night.

Things had always been good between us in bed.

Eddie looked over at me, his eyes very blue, and my mouth went dry.

He wasn’t looking at me like he hated me, like he wanted me gone. And there had to be a reason I was still here, after all.

Blanche was dead, while I was alive.

That had to mean something.