Chapter Sixteen
Kizzy Weinstein was endlessly looking forward to the weekend away with her girlfriends, but first had to navigate the “blessed event” that was her husband’s thirty-second birthday. She strolled up Lexington Avenue and into the famous French patisserie that she had been purchasing madeleines and macarons from since she was a little girl, with the full expectation that the employees would greet her as if they had never seen her before.
“Bon après-midi,” she said, in her best high school French, with no response from the mademoiselle behind the counter.
“An extra-large mille-feuille, s’il vous pla?t, with Happy Birthday, Rome written on top.”
Kizzy had ordered that same dessert, Rome’s favorite, from that same bakery since they were married. Before that, his mother would order it for him. And for most of his life (a little over half) Kizzy had been there to delight in the thousand layers of puffed pastry and cream with the white chocolate card that read Happy Birthday, Rome perched on top.
Kizzy and Rome had dated since freshman year of high school, when he transferred to the posh private school she had attended since kindergarten. They stayed together through college, she at Brown, he, close enough for many a fun weekend together, at Tufts. They married after Rome had finished grad school, and soon purchased a two-bedroom on Seventy-Ninth and Park. It was only a few blocks in either direction from where they had each grown up. Kizzy hoped this would be the year that they replaced the guest room sofa with a crib. They were finally both set in their careers and, at thirty-two, the timing was perfect.
The woman barely acknowledged her before disappearing into the back of the bakery.
Aaah. The French, Kizzy thought as she looked down at the decadent array of pastries and cakes. She had been coming to this patisserie with its checkerboard floor and glass-topped mahogany display counter since she had to stand on her tippy-toes to see over it. As usual, the smell upon entering the shop brought her right back to those Sunday mornings with her dad, their repertoire always the same.
“Can I have a chocolate croissant today?” she would ask.
To which he would take his time contemplating his answer, as he always left the house with strict instructions of no sweets before lunch.
“OK. But don’t tell your mother,” he would say, as if it were a one-time-only event.
The memory made her smile.
A man came out from the back with a boxed cake.
“That was fast,” Kizzy commented.
“I’m a little bit confused, mademoiselle. I thought when you called, you asked for it to be delivered?”
Kizzy felt her cheeks burn. She hated when Rome’s mother took over. She would always call days in advance with things like this while Kizzy was a last-minute, stop-in-on-your-way-home type. Kizzy stood firm that both methods brought the same results. Case in point.
“Sorry. My mother-in-law strikes again.”
“Ah, the dastardly belle-mère. I have one too.”
It may have been the sweetest interaction she’d ever had at the Café Payard, until she looked down at the words scribbled on a yellow slip taped to the box.
Deliver to the Mark Hotel Suite 625 by 3:00.
Her whole body trembled as she walked the three avenues and three blocks to the Mark. Every step felt as if someone were hanging on to her ankles, pulling her back in the opposite direction. She did not give in to it, but instead, glided purposefully through the doors of the swanky European hotel and headed straight for the elevator. That feeling of stepping into a place, acting like you belong, usually brought her a wave of confidence that landed with a proud smile. Not today.
Please don’t let this be happening again, she prayed absurdly as she watched the floors go by.
Two, three, four, five, six. Ding! Life as you know it is now over.
It had been two years and countless therapy sessions since Kizzy had discovered a room service receipt from the Mark Hotel in Rome’s suit pocket. She hadn’t been snooping; it had never even occurred to her to snoop. She’d been standing in the doorway of their apartment waiting for the dry cleaner to come for a pickup when she reached into his pants pocket and pulled out a room service bill for Suite 625 at the Mark—specifically buttermilk pancakes, eggs Benedict, and two banana-berry smoothies. The walls had spun around her, and her legs had swayed from side to side as if she were at the epicenter of an earthquake. Her husband was having an affair.
When confronted, Rome admitted it and swore he would never see the woman again. He promised that he got caught up, even obsessed with the fact that he had only ever been with one woman—Kizzy—for his entire life. He assured her he had absolutely gotten it out of his system. And though, in her wildest dreams, Kizzy would never imagine she could be the woman who forgave an indiscretion such as that, she did indeed forgive her husband. But things hadn’t been the same since.
Once she knew that her marriage existed on a fault line, the stability it had given her was lost.
She knocked on the door of Suite 625, shouted, “Delivery,” in someone else’s voice, and held the cake box up in front of the peephole.
The door swung open to reveal the same robe-clad blonde that Rome had been sleeping with two years before—a woman he had known at Tufts. As she called back to him, “Close your eyes, birthday boy!” Kizzy wondered if this had been going on straight through or had recently started up again. She had detected a change in Rome lately. He seemed distant. She had even asked him about it. He cited stress at work, and she believed him. Believing was so much easier than falling back into the dark hole of doubt. She steadied her hands, determined not to make a fool of herself.
The blonde turned back around. Her face quickly contorted at the sight of her lover’s wife standing there in front of her, taking her in. “Tell Rome he has one week to move his things out of our apartment,” Kizzy managed.
She kept the mille-feuille.