10. Maren #2
I don’t. I press my nails into my palms until the urge passes. Crying is a luxury for later, somewhere no one can film it.
I force my feet to move. I keep walking toward the stage, where Rhodes is finishing his speech to another round of applause. He looks magnificent up there, confident and commanding and completely in his element.
He doesn’t look like someone whose wife is slowly suffocating in his shadow.
The speech ends. Rhodes descends from the stage, immediately swallowed by well-wishers. I push through the crowd toward him, bouquet clutched against my chest, needing to be near him even though being near him hasn’t helped in weeks.
“Mr. Calloway.” A reporter with a press badge materializes at Rhodes’s elbow. “Quick question about the retrospective-”
“Of course,” Rhodes says.
“The film really showcases your partnership with Rachel Vaughn. Can you talk about what she’s meant to the company?”
“Rachel’s been invaluable,” Rhodes says, and I stop a few feet away, listening. “I couldn’t have built this without her vision and dedication.”
“You two seem to have an incredible working relationship. Some would say almost telepathic.”
Rhodes laughs. “We’ve been through a lot together. You develop shorthand.”
The reporter glances at Rachel, who’s approaching from the other side. “Ms. Vaughn, how does it feel to be recognized as half of the power couple?”
Rachel smiles graciously. “I think the real power couple is Rhodes and his vision. I just help execute it.”
“Still,” the reporter presses. “The two of you have built something remarkable together. Your dedication to each other, to the company, I mean, is really evident.”
I step forward. “Hi.”
Everyone turns. The reporter blinks, clearly trying to place me.
“I’m Maren,” I say. “His wife.”
There’s a beat of silence. The reporter’s face cycles through several expressions before landing on polite surprise. “Oh! Of course. Mrs. Calloway. I’m so sorry, I didn’t-”
“It’s fine.”
“Could we get a photo? You and Mr. Calloway?”
Rhodes slides an arm around me, pulling me close. “Of course.”
The camera flashes. We smile.
“Beautiful,” the reporter says. “Thank you.”
She moves on. Rhodes’s arm stays around me for approximately four seconds before someone else claims his attention.
“Rhodes.” Julian approaches with a tablet. “The Hong Kong team is calling about the numbers.”
“Tell them I’ll call back tomorrow.”
“They said it’s urgent.”
Rhodes sighs. “Five minutes.”
He walks away. I stand alone in the crowd, bouquet in hand, watching my husband disappear into a business conversation at his own gala.
And then it happens.
Another reporter approaches Rhodes and Rachel, who are now standing together near the bar. I watch from twenty feet away as the camera turns toward them.
“Mr. Calloway, one more, can we get you and Ms. Vaughn together? For the business section?”
They position themselves. The camera flashes.
“The real marriage behind the company,” someone jokes, and I don’t see who says it, but I hear Rhodes laugh.
He laughs.
It’s an uncomfortable laugh, short and nervous and clearly meant to deflect, but he laughs. He doesn’t correct them, doesn’t mention me. He just laughs and moves on.
My chest cracks.
I cross the room faster than I should, not caring who sees me or what they think. Rhodes notices me approaching and steps away from Rachel.
“Maren-”
“Can I talk to you?”
“Right now?”
“Yes. Right now.”
He glances at Rachel, at the reporters, at the crowd. “Can it wait five minutes?”
“No.”
Something in my voice makes him pause. He nods once, sharply. “Fine.”
He leads me away from the main ballroom, through a service corridor, into a smaller hallway near the kitchens. It’s quieter here, less crowded, private.
Except it’s not. The door behind us doesn’t close all the way. There are people, staff, guests, someone with a phone, in the corridor beyond. I can see them through the gap.
Rhodes doesn’t notice.
“What’s going on?” he asks, his voice tight with impatience.
“What’s going on?” I repeat. “Are you serious?”
“Maren, I have a thousand people out there expecting me to-”
“Did you watch the film?”
He pauses. “Yes.”
“I’m not in it.”
“What?”
“The retrospective. The ten-year anniversary of your company. Your wife, who has been married to you for eleven years, who was there from the beginning, who slept on an air mattress in this hotel while you worked eighteen-hour days, isn’t in a single frame.”
“That wasn’t my decision. Rachel produced the film.”
Rachel produced the film. Of course she did. Rachel produces everything now, including the version of our life the world gets to see.
“And you didn’t think to check? You didn’t think to ask whether your wife might want to exist in the history of your company?”
“It’s a business film, Maren. It’s about the company.”
“I was part of the company, part of The Sinclair. I picked the color palette for this hotel, did the lobby flowers for the first three years before we could afford to pay someone. I was there, Rhodes. I was there.”
My voice cracks on the repetition, and I hate that it does. Eleven years, and here I am arguing for my own place in the story of a thing I helped build.
“I know you were there.”
“Then why am I invisible?”
“You’re not invisible.”
He says it the way he’d enter a fact into evidence. As if being told I’m not invisible is the same as being seen.
“Really? Because a reporter just asked Rachel if it feels good to be part of the ‘power couple.’ Because I just heard someone joke that you and Rachel are ‘the real marriage’ behind this company. And you laughed.”
His jaw tightens. “It was an awkward moment. I didn’t know how to respond.”
“You say, ‘My wife is right here.’ You say, ‘I’ve been married to Maren for eleven years.’ You say literally anything that acknowledges I exist.”
“I’m not going to make a scene at my own gala.”
“But I am? That’s what this is? Me making a scene?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“You don’t have to say it. I can see it on your face. I can hear it in your voice. I’m an inconvenience tonight, aren’t I? I’m a complication. You’d rather be out there with Rachel, accepting congratulations, looking like the power couple everyone already thinks you are-”
“That’s not fair.”
“None of this is fair!” My voice cracks. I take a breath, force it down. “None of this is fair, Rhodes. I’ve spent eleven years supporting you. I’ve spent eleven years showing up, staying quiet, being gracious. And I can’t do it anymore. I can’t keep disappearing so you can succeed.”
His hand closes hard on the back of his neck, and I can see it, the exhaustion, the barely contained impatience. He doesn’t want to be having this conversation. He wants to be back in the ballroom, basking in applause.