The dress is emerald green and I bought it with my own card, which shouldn’t feel like a rebellion in a house where I have access to everything, but the last 4 years of clothes have come from the joint account, which is Grant’s money, so it’s what I eat, sleep, wear, and drive, and none of it would survive a divorce.
So buying a $60 dress at Anthropologie with a debit card attached to an account that has $11,000 in it felt like planting a flag on a country I used to own, maybe, or at least renting a room there for an afternoon.
I zip it in front of the bathroom mirror and turn, look at myself, and damn it, I look good.
Not good for Grant, not good for the public, just good for me, and I can’t remember the last time I got dressed with that distinction in mind.
The doorbell rings at 7:58.
The Marchettis are early.
Camille comes through the door first.
She’s wearing black, her hair is down, straight and dark past her shoulders, and when she hugs me, I catch her perfume, it’s warm, layered, and probably costs more than most people’s car payments.
Her body against mine is lean and confident, and I become conscious of my own hips and my own $60 dress, not like I was 10 seconds ago.
“Margaux, you— you look gorgeous.” She pulls back and holds me at arm’s length, looks at me and she means it.
That’s Camille, she means the compliments, the eye contact, and her hand stays on my arm 2 beats longer than necessary, but I like her, I actually like her, and that’s the part that makes this whole thing complicated in ways I haven’t figured out yet.
“You look incredible,” I say, and I mean it too because Camille Marchetti doesn’t just walk into a room, she kinda reorganizes it, and I should probably resent her for that, but weirdly enough I don’t.
Tate comes in behind her, carrying 2 bottles of wine.
He kisses my cheek and squeezes my shoulder, his handshake with Grant is the real greeting, the grab-and-pull that men do when they’ve been close since they were 22 and drunk at Wharton.
“Margaux, every time I walk into this house, I— I forget how big it is.” “It’s not THAT big,” Grant says, and he’s lying, but the lie is social currency, so Tate laughs, Camille rolls her eyes, and we move to the dining room because this is what we do, the 4 of us, every few weeks, we sit down and perform.
The caterer left everything in warming trays with handwritten reheating instructions.
I follow them while Grant opens wine and checks his phone in the hall.
Eight chairs at the table, we use 4.
The house is enormous, but we cluster together at one end and pretend the space doesn’t say anything about us.
“So,” Camille says, pouring herself a generous glass of the Barolo Tate brought, “are we gonna talk about the Watson deal or are we pretending Grant isn’t the reason their CFO quit?” “I didn’t— I didn’t make anyone quit,” Grant says, and his mouth does something weirdly close to a smile, closer than anything I’ve seen aimed at me in months.
“You restructured their entire debt portfolio in 8 days.
The man had a heart attack.” “He had acid reflux.” “Same thing in finance.” Tate shakes his head and laughs.
“She reads the Journal now, I— I created a monster.” “I’ve always read the Journal,” Camille says.
“You just weren’t paying attention.” “I pay attention to everything you do.” “Liar.” “Always.” This is what the Marchettis do.
They volley, fast and sharp, and their marriage runs on it, and I’m sitting across the table from my husband, who hasn’t played a single round with me since we stopped being interesting to each other, which was years ago, and neither of us has named the date.
“Grant.” Camille leans forward, her fingers land on his forearm, light and quick, 2 seconds on his sleeve and then gone.
“Tell— tell the Monaco story.” “There’s nothing to tell about Monaco.” “There is everything to tell about Monaco.
You fell off a boat.” “I stepped off a tender.” “Into the Mediterranean.” “It was a low tide situation.” Tate is laughing hard enough that his shoulders shake, Grant’s face cracks open and there he is, the version of my husband I married, the one with the loose jaw and the real laugh, the full one that comes from his chest, he’s giving it to Tate and Camille at our dinner table while I sit here with my wine and the memory of a man in Port Chester who gives me that same openness every Tuesday and Thursday for free.
“Remember the Wharton thing?” Tate says, wiping his eyes.
“The case study?” “Don’t.” “Grant had to present hungover with his shirt buttoned wrong, and Professor Adler stared at him for 30 seconds.
Grant just stood there and said—” Tate drops his voice and straightens his spine.
“‘The market corrects for human error, Dr.
Adler.
That’s the thesis.'” Camille covers her mouth, Grant looks down at his plate and he’s smiling, actually smiling, pink from the wine and from being seen, from being known by people who remember him from before, I watch it happen and I think: he saves his real self for everyone in this room except me, and what guts me is that I used to be the person he saved it for, and I don’t know when that stopped, or if it was his fault or mine or just the slow rot that happens when two people stop looking at each other over a dinner table.
“I’ll, uh— I’ll start clearing,” I say, because someone always has to, and it’s always me.
“Let me help.” Camille stands and picks up plates, follows me to the kitchen, and I let her because refusing her would take energy I don’t have after 2 hours of watching my husband be a human being for an audience that doesn’t include me.
In the kitchen, loading the dishwasher, Camille says, “You’re quiet tonight.” “I’m always quiet at these things.” “No, you’re— you’re not.” She hands me a glass.
“You’re usually the funniest person at the table, but tonight you’re somewhere else.” “Just tired.
You know…
long week.” “Grant working too much?” “When isn’t he?” She nods and doesn’t push, though I think I might love her for that, for knowing when to stop, which is a skill my husband never developed, and Jonah hasn’t needed to yet.
I hang Grant’s blazer on the hook by the back door because he draped it over his chair, and I pick it up, and I’m smoothing the collar when I feel it between my fingers.
A strand of hair, long, dark, caught in the fabric.
Camille has straight black hair past her shoulders.
She hugged him in the foyer the last time they were over, her hair was down and loose, and it could have caught on anything.
A hundred women at Grant’s office have dark hair, the caterer has dark hair, and his dry cleaner probably has dark hair.
People shed, fabrics catch, and a strand of hair on a married man’s blazer means nothing unless you’re already looking for something, but I’m not looking because I have no right to, when I spent Thursday afternoon in another man’s bed and the hypocrisy of inspecting my husband’s collar while my lover’s sheets are still in the laundry would be funny if I could figure out how to laugh at it.
I pull the strand free, drop it in the trash, close the lid, and go back to the dining room where Grant is laughing at Tate, whereas Camille is pouring more wine, but nobody is watching me, and it has been like that for me for a long time.