Chapter 18
Before
My relationship with Oliver read like scripted scenes stolen from an old movie.
Holidays spent at Ava’s soirees, drinking and dancing until the early morning hours.
Winter afternoons walking the streets of New York City, snow flurrying around.
When Tippi’s Takes Presents released, he committed to attending every event, sat in the front row taking pictures and video clips, beaming with pride.
Oliver had a way of making even the most mundane feel like magic, rendering the plainness of life extraordinary.
On the first day of warm, springlike weather, he beckoned me outside, away from the searing brightness of my laptop screen and my stale bedsheets.
We met outside his office in Midtown, ordered takeout from a nearby food truck, and settled in for a picnic in the park.
“I received an interesting email today.”
“Oh yeah?” Oliver leaned against the wooden back of the park bench, stretching out his long legs.
“I was invited to Cannes again.”
“Really?” He seemed impressed. “The film festival, right?”
“Yes. I’ve been once before, right after the blog took off,” I said. “I’m guessing the popularity of the book has raised my profile.”
Two birds zipped through the clear blue sky, landing on the cement lip of a nearby fountain, the burbling water a melody.
“When are we going?” He smiled mischievously.
“That’s the thing,” I said. “It’s in May, which means we’d have to fly out right after my birthday, and the wedding is only a couple weeks after we get back.”
“You can’t decide whether to dive into work or wedding planning?”
“I floated the idea to Ava. She said I’d be crazy to leave the country so close to the ceremony. There’s no telling how much stuff she has lined up for me to do.”
“I’ll support you whatever you decide,” he said. “Although we’ll have plenty of time to focus on your career after the move.”
In addition to planning our wedding ceremony, Oliver and I were relocating to the West Coast. I had managed my blog successfully from New York City for years, but there was no denying that California provided more consistent work opportunities.
More premieres, better industry access. Oliver longed for a career change, too, a position that wouldn’t require so much travel.
Once in California, he would join the Tippi’s Takes payroll and be responsible for booking appearances and interviews.
With his magnetic personality running my campaigns, I had a sneaking suspicion I’d be busier than ever.
Oliver was right. I’d made my blog and my reviews and the book my identity for as long as I could remember. Prioritizing myself was a new concept. And I was endlessly amazed at the amount of effort he put into our relationship, turning a midday lunch into a Central Park picnic.
There was a time in my life when I would have viewed such antics with skepticism and disdain.
Perhaps, I realized, it was only because I’d never been on the receiving end of such grandiose efforts.
My entire life—from my isolated childhood until now—had been ruled by practicality.
For the first time, I was doing something besides merely surviving.
I was living, with the most spectacular of partners by my side.
“What are you thinking about in that head of yours?” Oliver asked.
“Everything and nothing.”
My gaze trailed upward, studying the brushstroke clouds painted across the sky. A warm breeze swept between us, tingling the back of my neck. When I closed my eyes, I could hear a joyful instrument playing in the distance and giggling children nearby. It sounded like possibility.
“Hopefully good thoughts about me?” He pulled me closer.
“Always.” I reached into my bag and pulled out a wrapped box. “I have a surprise for you.”
Oliver shifted apprehensively. “What’s the occasion?”
“I have this beautiful reminder of our engagement,” I said, admiring the sparkling sapphires on my finger. “It’s only fair you wear something, too.”
“Isn’t that what the wedding band is for?”
“Stop stalling and open it,” I said, barely able to contain my excitement any longer. Normally, Oliver was the one with surprises, and I valued the chance to spoil him for a change.
Oliver tugged on the vibrant ribbon and slipped off the box’s lid. He beamed when he saw what was inside. “Tippi, this is too much.”
“The salesman at the store said it was an ideal starter piece.”
Oliver reached inside and plucked out a Rolex watch, the gold glinting in the sunlight. He held it against his wrist, as if he was still uncertain it belonged to him.
“It’s engraved on the back, so don’t even think about returning it.”
He flipped it over to see the personalization. His name and our engagement date.
“You didn’t have to do this,” he said, still staring at the watch in amazement.
“I wanted to.”
My lips pressed against his. Public displays of affection once made me cringe with discomfort, but now I welcomed the intimacy, craved the sensation of his chest anchored to mine.
A week later, I was grabbing my morning latte from the coffee shop closest to my apartment.
As I waited at the pickup counter, I had the definite feeling of being watched, not an unusual occurrence in the city, but this time it felt different, similar to the strange sensation you experience in a parking lot at night, an instinctual warning.
Across the café, a woman sat at a circular corner table, staring at me.
The longer I looked at her, the more familiar she appeared.
Recognition soon clicked. She’d been at the Italian restaurant on the night of our engagement party.
I remembered her striking auburn hair, the sentiment of seeing a past version of myself through her.
She strode toward me, coffee in hand. “Tippi Rathbone?”
At this point, I was curious. Maybe this was more than a coincidental run-in. Maybe she was a follower on social media, or we’d met before at one of Ava’s parties.
“We need to talk about Oliver,” she said. Something in the way his name plunked from her mouth felt alarming.
“I’m sorry, have we met?” My throat suddenly felt like it was constricting shut.
“It’s important,” she said, her eyes cutting across the crowded entryway, taking notice of everyone within earshot.
“I’m late for a meeting,” I lied, exaggerating my urgency. “I have to go—”
“Does he still have that blue convertible? The Alpine?”
The specificity of the detail startled me. Oliver’s car was rare and his most prized possession. I took a step forward, tightening my grip on the warm drink in my hand.
“Who are you?”
“You need to be careful,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s doing it to you now.”
My instincts told me to turn away from this woman, but something in her expression, in the intensity of her stare, forced me to stay. “Doing what to me?”
“Making you fall in love with him. Proclaiming you’re the most important person in the world. In his world. I bet you’re starting to wonder how you made it this far in life without someone. Failing to imagine what a future would be without him.”
On the surface, her rant felt personal, an invasion of my own emotional space. But I couldn’t deny that every statement this stranger rattled off rang true.
“He made me feel that way at first,” she said, her expression somehow appearing even more vulnerable. “And it ruined my life.”
“Oliver is my fiancé,” I said, taking a step back. “He wouldn’t do anything to hurt me.”
My mind raced, trying to recall who this woman was. How she fit into my world before the first time I remembered seeing her at the restaurant. I reexamined everything Oliver had told me about his life before me.
The realization came as swift and steady as a hammer being dropped. “You’re Danielle.”
She balked. “He told you about me?”
More accurately, he’d told me everything she’d done.
They’d met at a charity event for the American Diabetes Association; Danielle had been living with type 1 diabetes since she was a child.
They married young. She worked as an artist while he accepted an entry-level position in sales.
About a year into their marriage, she started acting erratically.
She’d leave and not return for days at a time, flake on commissioned art projects.
One night, he returned home after work to find their apartment trashed, the furniture ruined with globs of paint, and manic drawings on the walls.
Danielle was outside on their thirteenth-story balcony, staring at the concrete streets below in a trancelike haze. He pleaded with her for over an hour to come inside so he could take her to an emergency room.
Oliver remained vague about the specific diagnosis she received, but she was prescribed a slew of different medications, some of which interacted with her insulin injections, and it became an ongoing struggle trying to find the right pharmaceutical fix.
Still, he stayed with her, out of love and duty.
He endured more violent outbursts, increasingly paranoid ideation.
Finally, after she refused her most recent treatment plan, he was left with no choice but to file for divorce.
He’d said it was the hardest decision he ever had to make.
I charged past her and exited the coffee shop. When she followed me onto the sidewalk, I spun around. “Stay away from me!”
“Tippi, please. I’m trying to help you before it’s too late—”
“If I see you again, I’ll contact the police and take out a restraining order. You’re familiar with those, aren’t you?”
After their divorce was finalized, her behavior grew more disturbing.
She’d show up at his new apartment in Brooklyn, or outside his office in Midtown.
Sometimes she’d confront him; other times she’d watch in silence, plotting her next move.
She’d pledged to ruin his life. Oliver dealt with her deranged stalking for months before finally taking out a restraining order; it was the only thing that made her stop following him.
He’d just started to recover from the whole traumatic ordeal when he met me.
“Whatever he told you, it’s a lie. He’s only doing it to cover himself—”
“He told me everything,” I said, firmly.
Searching her face, I expected to see anger, even insult. Instead, there was crisp panic. She was afraid she couldn’t get the words out fast enough.
“Did he tell you the Alpine initially belonged to me?” she continued. “He tricked me into signing it over to him when I was hopped up on the cocktail of antipsychotics that he gave me. Or that he took almost everything from me in the divorce?”
His account was different. Danielle’s manic spending put them in financial trouble.
She drained their joint savings account and blew bonuses he’d spent months trying to earn.
When he finally found the strength to walk away, all he had left was the Alpine and the clothes on his back—a fair bargain, he said, to finally have her out of his life.
“What you’re doing isn’t going to work,” I said, my tone resolute. “You’re a sick woman, Danielle.”
“I’m trying to warn you.”
I surged forward. “Oliver deserves to be happy.”
“Tippi! Please, listen—”
But I was already running away from her, stumbling into passing pedestrians as steaming liquid sloshed out of the top of my drink.
Danielle had frightened me. I couldn’t explain why, exactly.
She wasn’t physically intimidating. We were in a public space, surrounded by people who had started to stare as a result of Danielle’s volume, the intensity of her tone, and my abrupt departure.
My heart pounded in my chest, my hands shook. It was an unsettling confrontation with the mentally ill ex-wife, a full-on bunny boiler striking during the light of day.
When I returned to the apartment, Oliver noticed my agitation immediately.
“What’s wrong?”
“I met Danielle,” I blurted out, slinging my purse onto the sofa. “She was waiting for me at the coffee shop.”
“What did she do?” He hurried over, sitting beside me on the couch. “Did she hurt you?”
“No. She tried to warn me about you.” A disgusted laugh bubbled over. “You never told me she was still bothering you.”
“We haven’t talked in years. Months before you and I even met.” He paused, staring at the ground as he thought. “Unless she’s been following me.”
“I recognized her from our engagement party,” I admitted. “I didn’t know it was her at the time.”
He stood and started pacing. “I bet the engagement is what set her off. I’ll reach out to her old psychiatrist. Tell him she’s started up again.”
“Don’t do that,” I said, conflicted by my own hesitancy.
Seeing Danielle twice couldn’t have been a coincidence, especially given her history and the way she’d approached me, asking about Oliver.
Her intentions were to unnerve me. Still, I hoped she was merely an inconvenience that would go away. “She didn’t threaten me or anything.”
“She has no business talking to you.” He stood in front of me, cell phone ready. “Her reaching out to you at all is a threat.”
I stood, placing my hands on his chest. “We’ll be gone in a few months, remember? She can’t follow us all the way to California.”
“I wonder if she heard we’re leaving town. Maybe that’s why she acted out.”
As he spoke, I realized I had no place in the conversation.
He was debating with himself, sorting through options.
Oliver rarely rattled, but I couldn’t blame him.
I didn’t even know Danielle, and our interaction had left me shaken.
Their history weighed on him. He was no doubt thinking back to everything they’d gone through together, everything she’d put him through.
“We’re fine,” I said, cupping the back of his neck with my hands. “She doesn’t scare me. I’m not going anywhere.”
Our eyes connected then. I could see his anxiety shedding, just as I felt my own heartbeat settle.
“I love you,” he said. “I promise you’ll never have to worry about her again.”
“I know I won’t,” I said, resting my forehead against his.
I had no idea then how wrong I was.