Chapter 1 #2
The dress was midnight blue. Deep, almost black as ink, floor-length, with a high bodice and bare shoulders. Very beautiful. Very expensive. Very much not me.
Dresses like that did not promise tenderness. They promised control. It was the perfect dress in which to stand beside a powerful man and look like his serene victory. Not a woman, but proof of taste. Not a wife, but a perfectly chosen shadow.
"Do you like it?" the assistant asked.
I ran my fingers over the heavy silk. The fabric was cool and fluid, like water just before it deepens beyond sight.
"Very much."
The lie came easily. I had trained for three years.
"Mr. Cole said it would be best to wear your hair up. Keep your face open. Minimal jewelry, with the emphasis on the Cartier earrings."
"Tell Mr. Cole I'll try not to spoil his vision by being present in it."
The young man blinked, not immediately sure whether I was joking. Nancy was passing with a vase and quickly lowered her eyes, but I saw the twitch at the corner of her mouth.
"I'll tell him everything has been accepted," the assistant muttered, then hurried away.
Once the door closed behind him, Nancy carefully set the vase on the table.
"It's a beautiful dress."
"Mm-hmm. It looks like severe depression with an enormous price tag."
Nancy snorted despite herself, then immediately looked frightened by the sound.
"I'm sorry."
"For what? Because I'm occasionally funny?"
She looked at me with such pity that I wanted to turn away. I hated pity. Not because I was proud. Because I had lived on its scraps for far too long.
"Mrs. Mercer, just..."
Nancy faltered.
"What?"
She tightened her fingers around the edge of her apron. In the Mercer household, no one ever spoke plainly. Candor was a luxury reserved for people with enough money to survive the consequences.
"Nothing. Just be more careful tonight."
Something shifted quietly inside me.
"Why?"
"I don't know. Honestly. It's just... everyone has been acting strange since this morning. Security keeps whispering. Mrs. Mercer came by while you were upstairs."
"My mother-in-law was here?"
"Not for long. She had an attorney with her."
The happiness inside me went alert. It was not frightened yet. It had merely raised its head.
"Which attorney?"
"The woman who always wears gray suits. They went into Mr. Mercer's office. I was bringing coffee, and I heard..."
Nancy went pale.
"No, I'm sorry. I shouldn't."
"Nancy."
My voice came out quieter than usual. Maybe that was why she looked up.
"I heard something about documents. And that the locks in the south wing need to be changed tomorrow. But maybe I misunderstood."
Locks.
The word dropped between us, ugly and heavy.
"In the south wing?" I asked.
That was where our bedroom was.
"Yes."
I nodded slowly, though there was nothing to nod about.
Maybe renovations. Maybe security. Maybe any one of a thousand explanations an ordinary wife could have gotten from her husband over breakfast, if questions in this marriage did not have to be submitted for review like petitions to a government agency.
My phone vibrated again.
This time it was Vivian.
I looked at the screen, and an unpleasant current ran down my spine. My mother-in-law had a way of calling that made the phone in my hand feel less like an object and more like a collar.
"Yes, Vivian."
"I assume you've seen the dress," she said without greeting me.
"I have."
"And?"
"It's beautiful. Like everything you choose for me without me."
The pause was tiny, but I heard it. The way you hear ice cracking beneath your feet.
"You're speaking very strangely today."
"I slept well."
"Don't be flippant, Lana. And remember: tonight is important to Adrian. People will be there who can determine whether the foundation expands. You must look calm, grateful, and dignified."
"Is grateful a facial expression, or a separate accessory?"
Nancy froze near the door, the vase still in her hands. I froze too, because I did not know who had said that in my voice.
The other end of the line went very quiet.
"Young lady," Vivian said softly, and that softness made my stomach clench. "Do not overestimate your position."
I lowered my hand to my stomach. Slowly. Beneath the fabric of my robe, my skin was warm.
"And what exactly is my position?"
"The one you were given. Don't forget where you came from."
There it was.
The family's favorite prayer.
Never forget foster care. Never forget borrowed coats.
Never forget lumpy oatmeal. Never forget the shared bedroom where someone was always crying at night.
Never forget that no one chose you until Adrian did.
Never forget to be agreeable, or they would put you back in the corner of life and turn off the light.
Those words used to make me small.
Not today.
Today, I had two lines inside me.
"I remember where I came from," I said. "I just find myself thinking more and more often about where I'll go next."
Vivian inhaled sharply.
"How dare you?"
"So far, all I've dared to do is speak."
"I would advise you not to begin the evening with foolishness."
"Haven't you already?"
I hung up first.
And immediately became afraid.
Fear did not arrive like a storm, but like cold water slipping beneath my skin.
I stared at the darkened screen and understood that I had just done something I had never done once in three years.
I had not defended myself. Had not apologized.
Had not smoothed it over. Had not followed her contempt like a beaten dog following its owner's hand.
Nancy stared at me with round eyes.
"Mrs. Mercer..."
"What?"
"Just now, you were so..."
"So what?"
Suddenly she smiled. Timidly, but genuinely.
"Alive."
I turned toward the window because, for some reason, that word struck harder than any insult.
Alive.
How little it took, apparently, for a person to almost forget how to be that.
The day passed like something thick and sticky.
I tried to eat breakfast and could not. My tea went cold.
Notifications arrived from the event organizers, the stylist, Adrian's assistant.
Adrian himself did not call. Several times, I opened his contact and closed it again.
I wanted to write, "I have news." I wanted to call and hear his voice sound like something other than business, something other than a stranger.
I wanted him to ask, all on his own, "Lana, what's wrong? I can tell something is different."
Ridiculous.
Men like Adrian sensed only what interfered with their plans.
By six, I was ready.
The dress fit perfectly. Damn Vincent Cole for being good at his job.
The midnight-blue silk wrapped my body with discipline, not tenderness, leaving my shoulders and collarbones bare.
I wore my hair low, as ordered, but pulled two soft strands loose around my face.
A small act of sabotage. A pitiful feminine revolution the size of a curl.
I put the box with the test in my clutch.
It felt as heavy as a heart.
Before leaving, I paused in the bedroom.
I looked at the wide bed, the gray coverlet, the photograph in its silver frame: Adrian and me on our wedding day.
Me in white, him in a black tuxedo, beautiful enough to make me angry.
His hand rested at my waist. I gazed up at him with such open love that I felt embarrassed for the girl in the picture.
She did not yet know that love could be used as a signature on a contract.
"Everything changes tonight," I told her.
And walked out.
The car waited by the entrance. A black Mercedes, tinted windows, a uniformed driver. Adrian had gone separately, of course. There was always something more important than traveling with his wife: a meeting, a call, a document, someone else's problem that he preferred solving to my silence.
"The pier, Mrs. Mercer?" the driver asked.
"Yes."
When the car pulled away, I took out the box and opened it on my lap. The two lines were still there. So was the note. I traced the words with one finger and suddenly pictured Adrian taking it in his hands.
He would frown first. Then look up.
"Is this a joke?"
"No."
He would not believe it immediately. Of course he would not.
We had both lived too long in a world where my child could not exist. Then maybe he would touch my stomach.
Carefully. Awkwardly. And everything in his face, in that expensive, beautiful mask New York knew better than I did, would finally crack.
I wanted to see that crack.
I wanted to work my fingers into it, pry it open, find the Adrian I used to know.
The one who had once visited my group home with gifts for the girls who were aging out, saw me standing by the window, and asked why I was not joining the others.
The one who listened to my stumbling confession that I dreamed of going to college, working, living by something other than the schedule of strangers' shifts.
The one who said, "You're not alone anymore. "
Maybe he had never existed.
Maybe I had invented him because I was so tired of belonging to no one.
The car turned toward the waterfront.
The yacht stood at the pier, white and enormous and glowing with lights, like a celebration cake for people who had long ago forgotten how to taste anything.
Guests, photographers, and security crowded around the gangway.
The wind off the Hudson was cold and damp; it slipped beneath my dress, touched my skin, and made me shiver.
"May I help you? The driver opened the door."
"Thank you."
I stepped out and immediately felt the eyes on me.
Adrian Mercer's wife had arrived. Time to take pictures.
Time to judge. Later, the society pages could write, "Lana Mercer chose an understated look.
" No one would write, "Lana Mercer carried a tiny happiness in her clutch all day and was afraid it might break. "
At the gangway, Adrian's assistant Kyle met me. Young, polished, with the smile of a man paid not to have emotions.
"Good evening, Mrs. Mercer. You look stunning."