Chapter 1 #2
And face the fact that Mitchell—i.e., Tanner Johnson—hadn’t reached out. Mitchell, the first man who’d ever said he loved her, outside of Dad and Grandpop. The only man Winnie had ever loved.
“I love trivia night!” said Grandpop, who was on Harlow’s team. “But we should stay and help Addie and Nicole clean up. You lovely girls are such wonderful hostesses! I ate thirteen of those little water chestnuts wrapped in bacon. My favorite!”
“Please don’t stay,” Nicole said bluntly. “I’d rather clean up on my own.”
“We’ll give the girls their baths and tuck-ins, how’s that?” Mom suggested.
And so off they went…Grandpop, Harlow and Grady, Lark and Dante, Robbie and Rosie…and Winnie, the other Smith kid.
Harlow was a pillar of the town, the oldest, the smart one who got full scholarships for college and law school.
She now ran Open Book, a bustling indie bookstore, with Grandpop.
Addison, one of the stunningly beautiful identical twins, had “married well” and was now one of those irritating mommy influencers, showing off her beautiful daughters, beautiful home and beautiful wife.
Lark, the other stunningly beautiful twin, was a doctor who had recently married a Boston firefighter.
She was the kindest soul in the universe and everyone’s favorite (Winnie’s, too).
Robbie was the baby of the family, spoiled since Mom first pushed him into the world.
He was The Boy, carrier of the Smith family surname, named after Grandpop and now marrying Rosie, Harlow’s best friend from college.
And then there was Winnie. The other one.
The one whose name people couldn’t remember (Robbie made a sport out of it), the not-beautiful, not-brilliant sister who, until she became the aforementioned home-wrecking whore, had pretty much blended into the background.
“Oh, you’re one of the Smiths? The bookstore sister?
The one with the big house on Lieutenant Island?
The doctor? No? I guess I didn’t know there were four girls. ”
But in the past few years, she’d busted her ass as an event planner.
It was a great job for someone who liked to be in the background, who put in countless hours to create the best event for a small budget, who would make something beautiful and fun and touching and also set up thirty tables and serve drinks if the bartender didn’t show.
It wasn’t like it had been her particular calling, but she’d done some seasonal work for an established event planner for a few years, was organized and hard-working.
Jobs were hard to find, and when her boss moved to France, Winnie did her best to fill the niche.
Now that career was over. Robbie and Rosie’s wedding would stave off the bills for a little while, but she’d either have to rebound or find something else to do.
All because she’d fallen in love with a rat bastard, lying, cheating asshole chef.
Last week, Nycholiss (as in Nicholas) Johnson turned five, an event Winnie had organized—dinosaur bounce house, dinosaur cake, dinosaur party favors, dinosaur games.
Fifty guests, most of them adults, with a dozen or so kids under the age of ten—friends, classmates, cousins, as well as younger sisters Bruklynne (as in New York) and Kaedeigh (as in Katie).
Blakelee, the mother of the birthday boy and lover of misspelled names, had tapped her glass, and the guests fell silent, expecting a toast about how wonderful Nycholiss was.
“I have something to say,” she began, her voice hard.
“Yes, it’s my son’s birthday, and happy birthday, Nycholiss.
But I think everyone here should know that Winnie Smith, my party planner, has been sleeping with my husband.
Don’t even think about denying it, Winnie, and shame on you for being the kind of woman who’s willing to break up a family. You’re disgusting.”
All eyes swiveled to Winnie. Winnie herself glanced behind her, thinking for a flash that maybe Blakelee was talking about another Winnie Smith.
Blakelee’s face was bright red, and Winnie felt a flash of sympathy for her, making such a scene at her kid’s party.
“Um…maybe you need a drink of water,” she suggested.
“Don’t patronize me, you homewrecking whore!” Blakelee shouted. “How dare you?”
“I…okay, you must be thinking of someone else,” she said, her voice calm and firm.
“I have not slept with your husband.” Winnie had never even met Mr. Johnson (who hopefully had a normal name).
But seriously. Winnie, some kind of side chick?
Please. She was seeing someone, but he certainly wasn’t married or a father.
They were pretty serious, so everything else aside, she wouldn’t have time to steal a husband.
Nevertheless, everyone was staring at her, the joyful shrieks of the kids in the bounce house a dissonant backdrop to the anger on Blakelee’s face.
“I’m not sleeping with anyone’s husband, Blakelee.
Can I get you a glass of water? You look a little flushed. ”
“Of course I’m flushed! How could you possibly sleep with the husband of a client? Your website says ‘family events’ but you think it’s okay to seduce the father of three?” Blakelee screeched.
“Stop,” Winnie said, her voice hard. “I haven’t slept with anyone’s husband. I would never do that.”
“You stay away from my family before I get a restraining order!” Blakelee said.
“You’re paying me to be here,” Winnie had said. “And you’re wrong. I—”
“Does he look familiar?” Blakelee said. She shoved her phone in Winnie’s face, and the ground seemed to evaporate from under Winnie’s feet.
It was Mitchell, Winnie’s boyfriend of the past six months, the man she slept with three or four nights a week. The man she loved. In the photo, he stood on the beach, arms wrapped around Blakelee, the three kids hugging their legs.
Did Mitchell have a twin, maybe? People mistook Addie and Lark all the time. That must be it. “I…he’s not…” The words died in her mouth.
Nycholiss’s party was outside. Winnie hadn’t even been in the Johnson house.
She and Blakelee had met just once in person to discuss this party, and that meeting had taken place at her sister’s bookstore.
She hadn’t needed to go in this morning for setting up—everything was outside, the food table, the bounce house, the bubble station.
Well, she hadn’t gone in yet. In just ten minutes or so, she’d go in for the cake, and later, during cleanup, she imagined.
Suddenly, she was very, very worried that if she did go inside and take a look around, there’d be a photo of Blakelee’s husband. Who was, it was slowly dawning, also Winnie’s boyfriend.
Then her phone buzzed, and in a daze, she slid it from her pocket. A text from Mitchell.
I think we should stop seeing each other
It’s run its course.
No shit, Mitchell.
This could not be happening.
“You didn’t Google him? You didn’t show anyone his picture? No one said, ‘Hey, that looks like Tanner Johnson?’ I call bullshit.”
Winnie didn’t know Tanner Johnson. She knew Mitchell Preston. Her legs felt wobbly, her head seemed detached from her body, Winnie turned, tried to say something to Blakelee, who then tossed her wine in Winnie’s face.
Turned out the Mitchell Preston of Hyannis, the chef Winnie had been seriously involved with, was actually Tanner Johnson of Eastham, legal name Tanner Mitchell Johnson.
Preston was his mother’s last name. He’d been married to Blakelee for seven years, was the father of three adorable children with weirdly spelled names, and used a professional name for whatever reason…
and so women like Winnie could be tricked into thinking he was single.
He had never mentioned a family. When she’d asked him if he’d ever been married before, he’d said, “Never got that lucky.” There was not a single photo of a wife or children at his condo in Hyannis.
Not one in the kitchen where he worked as the acclaimed chef of Nuage Bleu, as expensive and pretentious as the name implied.
Mitchell Preston didn’t wear a wedding ring or even have an indentation on his finger where one might have been.
Obviously, Winnie had googled the hell out of him, like any normal person would. She’d checked with the assessor’s office in Hyannis, which had listed the owner of his condo as M. Preston. She had done her due diligence. She had.
Last March, Winnie had been sitting in the bar of Nuage Blue, waiting for Lark to finish her shift in the ER and join her for dinner.
Her sister was running late, so Winnie was scrolling through Pinterest, looking at cake ideas, when the chef came out, set out a sampler plate in front of her and introduced himself.
He was single, he was attractive, he was employed.
The unicorn of Cape Cod, in other words.
Turned out the unicorn was actually an ass.
Men. Liars. Bastards. Et cetera. It did not change the fact that until Nycholiss Johnson turned five, Winnie had been crazy in love, finally understood the fuss around sex, relationships, soulmates.
Blakelee’s rant had the effect she no doubt intended.
While it had to be true that Mitchell—Tanner—was also being trolled somehow, too, twelve clients had canceled.
Some had been polite—don’t think we’ll need you after all.
A few had been rude. You must’ve tried VERY HARD to not know who he was.
One had been kind. Tanner is an asshole, but I’m sorry, Winnie, my kids play with Blakelee’s all the time.
Yesterday at Wellfleet Marketplace, Winnie had said hello to Courtney James, who ignored her.
Winnie had been Courtney’s wedding planner three years before.
Winnie had stood there, flushed and ashamed and angry with Tanner, with Courtney and mostly with herself.
There had to have been a way for her to learn this before.