5. Cali
CALI
I love chicken marsala as much as the next girl. But let's be honest: It's a pain in the ass to make.
You have to pound the cutlets thin, dredge them in flour without making a mess of your entire kitchen, sear them in two batches because if you crowd the pan they steam instead of browning, then build the sauce from the fond and the mushrooms and a half-cup of marsala that I keep in the back of the pantry behind the rice vinegar I bought for a recipe I never made.
It is, in short, exactly the kind of dish that a loving, devoted, uncomplicated wife slaves over for hours to welcome her hardworking husband home on a Friday night. It's also Todd's favorite.
I haven't made it in eight months.
I haven't worn this sundress in eight months, either.
It's a Macy's sale rack acquisition, fifteen bucks plus tax, but you'd think it was La Perla lingerie based on how it used to turn Todd downright feral when I wore it.
Back in the day, he would start drooling like one of Pavlov's dogs and before you know it, we'd be horizontal on the bed, or the couch, or the kitchen floor.
At least one of our two children can trace their conception back to this dress.
But last time I wore it, Todd took one look at me, at how the fabric was a little more snug across my hips than it used to be, and he wrinkled his nose and left to go play golf. Into the closet it went.
… Until tonight.
I check the clock on the stove. 6:49 P.M. His location pin has him crawling up the West Side, which means I've got maybe half an hour before he's home.
The cutlets are resting under foil and the marsala is reducing into a dark, glossy sauce.
It smells incredible, which pisses me off, because he is the last man on this earth who deserves to put it in his stupid mouth.
But that's not the point.
The point is to lull him into a false sense of security. I want him to think everything is right in his world, so that he keeps on doing his nasty business. In the meantime, I'm going to gather all the evidence I need.
And then I'm going to skewer him with it.
I look around to make sure everything is right.
The candles are lit, the floors have been vacuumed and mopped, the counters have been Windexed and wiped down, the table set, the fridge neatly decorated with the crayon drawings Isabella did during afterschool care today.
The kids are upstairs putting the finishing touches on their homework.
It's a domestic wonderland and I'm Queen Martha freaking Stewart at the center of it.
I hear his key in the door at 7:14.
Showtime, Cali.
"Babe? Is that you?" His voice carries down the hall, confused. I hear him sniff at the marsala scent in the air. "What's all this?"
I come around the island wiping my hands on a dish towel, beaming from ear to ear.
"You're home!" I cross the kitchen and throw my arms around his neck before he can clock anything wrong in my face.
I would rather hug a literal grizzly bear, but appearances are essential right now, so I suck it up. "I missed you."
"Whoa." He pats my back, surprised, then settles his hands at my waist in a way that makes my skin try to crawl off my bones and flee the building. "Thought you weren't back 'til Sunday?"
I pull back and look up at him. "I couldn't stay," I explain in a simpering voice. "I was sitting in that hotel room at like two in the morning, and I just missed you and the kids so much. So I changed my flight."
"You bailed on the conference?"
"It just didn't seem important anymore." I let my shoulders drop, a little sheepish, a little soft. "Todd, can I tell you something? And you can't say I told you so."
He grins. He loves being told he was right about things. It's one of his four core personality traits, along with talking about his fantasy football league, ordering the most expensive thing on any menu to prove he can, and apparently, sleeping with my best friend.
"I'm sitting there pitching to these investors," I go on, "and I just kept thinking, What am I doing? Chasing this company while I'm three thousand miles from my babies? Maybe…" I take a shuddering breath. "Maybe entrepreneurship just isn't for me. Maybe I'm not cut out for it."
"Cal—"
"Family's more important," I interrupt. "Don't you agree?
There's nothing more important in the whole entire world than the partner you've exchanged vows with and the lives you've brought into this world together.
" I look up at him with huge, sincere eyes.
"That should always come first. Don't you agree? "
I worry for a moment that I'm laying it on thick. Is it too much?
But no. Todd Bradshaw has never read anything in his life, least of all a subtext.
"That's, uh… Yeah," he says gruffly. "That's really mature of you, babe. I always said you spread yourself too thin."
"You did say that." I nod like a bobblehead. "And, um. There's one more thing." I twist the dish towel in my hands. "I've been thinking about what you've been saying. About maybe seeing someone."
His eyebrows go up. "Someone? As in—"
"A therapist. You've been right that I've been—" I let it wobble, just slightly, the voice of a woman admitting a humiliating truth.
"I've been anxious. Paranoid, almost. And I think it's affecting us.
So I called a practice in the city today.
They had an opening for an intake, and the doctor recommended I come a few times a week to start.
Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturday mornings. "
It takes a second, but when Todd reaches the conclusion that I knew he'd reach, his smile is undimmable.
Because what I have just handed him, gift-wrapped with a bow, is three blocks of guaranteed time per week when his anxious, broken, finally-getting-help wife will be predictably out of the house and across town.
That's three windows, every single week, scheduled and recurring, when the coast is reliably, deliciously clear.
That's Paula time.
"That's great, babe," he says. "Therapy's good. It's good you're finally, you know, working on yourself."
I have never in my life wanted to put a chicken cutlet in a man's eye so badly.
"Thank you," I say. "Now, go change," I instruct with a playful swat at his ass with the kitchen towel. "Dinner's almost ready."
He nods and licks his lips, then starts to head toward the stairs to get out of his work clothes.
Then, to my surprise, he stops and turns around.
"You know," he announces, "this is the Cali I married."
I'm back at the stove, spooning sauce over the cutlets. My face hardens, so I don't dare turn around. "Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah." His hands clamp on my hips from behind. Then they slide forward, splaying across my stomach, and he presses his nose into the curve of my neck and inhales, like I'm one of the chicken cutlets myself. "I missed you in this dress."
For one white-hot second, the Stepford Wife mask I'm wearing cracks. I look down at his hands on me, at the wedding band I picked out, and I feel rage like I've never felt in my life.
How dare he touch me? How dare he praise me? How dare he fawn and gloat and do all this shit, while behind my back, he's been cheating with my best friend, our son's teacher?!
Every nerve in my body is shrieking at me to elbow him in the solar plexus and tell him I know, I fucking know about the hairs in my brush and the mascara hidden behind his deodorant and the lipstick on my praying mantis mug and the hospital corners on my bed, I know, I have always known, I am not crazy, you made me think I was crazy and I never was.
It's insane how possessed I feel by the anger.
But a layer below that is something I didn't expect.
Grief.
It's a smaller feeling, but it's definitely there.
There was a version of this exact moment that I used to long for. A man who came home and put his hands on me like I was the best part of his whole day. I loved that man. Matter of fact, I married that man. I built a life with him, two kids and a brownstone and a bed full of throw pillows.
But that man is gone now.
The one breathing down my neck is a stranger.
And this stranger doesn't deserve my anger. He sure as hell doesn't deserve my grief. All he deserves is exactly what I'm going to give him: revenge, served colder than the depths of hell.
So I crank up the wattage on my blank, simple-minded housewife smile and spin around to face him. "Easy there, cowboy." I turn the burner to low and slip out from under his hands, light as you please, twirling the dish towel like everything is sunshine and chicken. "Hands to self."
He follows, predictably. "C'mon. Kids are upstairs."
"And they could come down any second." I plant a hand on his chest and give it a teasing little shove. "Besides. I've got a deal for you."
His eyebrow goes up. "Oh?"
"I want to lose a few more pounds first." I drop my eyes, demure, like I'm shy about my own body in front of this man who's done nothing but belittle it. "I've been working so hard. I want to feel really good before we, you know. And then it'll be like a reward. For both of us."
I watch the gears turn. Watch him weigh his appetite against the irresistible prospect of an even thinner wife.
"Sure," he says, magnanimous as a king. "Whatever you need, babe."
"Thank you," I purr.
Don't hold your breath, sweetheart.
You're never laying a finger on me again.
"Now, I'm serious—go change. And tell the kids to come down. It's time for family dinner."
Thankfully, he doesn't try anything else.
He shuffles upstairs to put on shorts and a t-shirt and comes back down with Hayden and Isabella in tow.
We eat at the dining table and the kids keep things mostly neutral, babbling on about their days and their friends and the many things that occupy their minds and imaginations.
I try not to flinch every time Hayden talks about Ms. Sampson, and for the most part, I do a good job.
I try not to stare loathsome daggers at Todd, too, and I mostly keep that under wraps as well.
But I can't help needling just a teensy little bit.
"Oh, by the way," I say, casual as anything. "I saw Paula today. At car line."
I'm looking at the water pitcher in my hand, not directly at him. But my peripheral vision is locked onto every tiny change in his facial expression.
His fork, raised halfway to his mouth and dripping with sauce, pauses in midair. Then he shakes his head and finishes the bite.
"Oh yeah?" he says. "How's she doing?"
"Great," I say brightly. "She looked amazing, as always. Said the most embarrassing things about my weight, honestly. You know how she gets." I take a sip. "We should have her over for dinner sometime. It's been forever."
He coughs on the food in his throat and has to whack his chest a few times before it clears. "Y-yeah," he splutters. "Sure. Maybe. Although, I dunno… I'm sure she's busy."
I smile widely. "Yes, you're probably right. She's got her hands full, that's for sure." I grab the serving dish and hold it out to him. "More marsala, darling?"
He tries again that night.
The kids are down. Hayden is happy to read himself to sleep, but Isabella requires a full and ferocious negotiation of stuffed-animal placement before she relents. I handle it all myself so Todd can catch the end of the Mets game on TV.
Now that that's over, though, the house is quiet, the Mets have predictably lost, and we're in bed. I'm under the covers in my least appealing pajamas, doing my level best to broadcast unavailable.
Doesn't matter. He slides in next to me, all warm and toothpaste minty, and his hand finds my hip under the covers. Those thick fingers start a slow, proprietary creep that makes me shiver.
"I thought we agreed to wait," I remind him lightly.
"I know, I know," he murmurs. "I just… You in that dress tonight, Cal… I missed you."
Did you? It doesn't seem like you were lacking for company in bed, I sneer in my head.
I squirm away, just out of reach, and press the back of my hand to my forehead in the universal symbol of a woman about to disappoint a man. "I'm sorry. I've got this awful headache. It's been building since this afternoon—I think it's a migraine, honestly, I've got the auras and everything."
His hand freezes on the sheets between us. "You sure?"
"I wish I wasn't, but yeah." I sit up, wincing convincingly.
"You know how I get with these. I'm gonna be up half the night, tossing and turning, getting up for water, taking my pills.
I'll keep you up." I lean over and kiss his cheek, simultaneously resisting the urge to vomit on his lap.
"Let me go sleep in the guest room tonight. For your benefit. You need your rest."
What a considerate wife. How self-sacrificing. Even with a migraine, my first thought is his comfort.
It works exactly like the rest of it has worked tonight, which is to say, perfectly, because Todd Bradshaw has spent ten years being told he comes first and no longer has enough brain cells to question the premise.
"You're the best," he says, already rolling onto his back and closing his eyes. "Feel better, babe."
"I'll try," I whisper.
I pad down the hall to the guest room and close the door softly behind me.
And then I do not sleep.
Instead, I sit cross-legged on the guest bed in the dark and open my laptop. The blue glow of the screen lights up my face, and for the first time in days—maybe weeks, maybe months; hell, maybe even years—I feel something that isn't rage or grief or quiet, muzzled despair.
I feel competent.
This is what I'm good at. Taking a chaos of scattered, meaningless, deniable little fragments and building them into a structure so airtight that no jury, no lawyer, no smug man-child with an oversized watch could ever knock it down.
I open a fresh spreadsheet and start to pour out everything I already know or suspect. It's a torrent of suspicions, and the more I type, the more savage I feel.
But it's not enough. Not quite yet. The hungry cursor blinks at me, a patient predator, waiting for more.
Don't worry, I reassure it. There's a lot more coming soon.
Down the hall, my husband is sleeping the easy, dreamless sleep of a man who thinks he's already won.
I crack my knuckles and dive back in.