Chapter 11 #2
More words. More praise. Tiny criticisms, like how she often spat her toothpaste into the sink and didn’t wash it down all the way.
Or how she mumbled in her sleep, usually about the most nonsensical things.
“She can be harsh to our staff sometimes, but she’s also very generous come Christmas and birthdays, or because something made her think of someone working in our house or office.
Lara simply expects excellence from everyone around her.
If any of our staff thinks she’s tough on them, imagine how she is on me!
If I screw something up, I hear about it for months, sometimes years.
She wants me to improve myself. In turn, I challenge her as well. ”
Sometimes, things were crossed out. Other times, there were tiny notes in the margins, usually in Chloe’s curly handwriting.
“You’re so sweet, Ms. Anderssen.” “I’m not sure Mrs. Anderssen would like the word ‘beastly’ in reference to her flirting…
” “Do you have a picture to go with this passage? I think the audience would like a visual reference. I know I do!”
“Lara!”
Papers crumpled in her hands as Lara turned, heart thumping wildly in her chest.
“Kennedy!”
There she stood, in her office doorway, suit jacket tossed over her arm. The look she gave her wife was both one of shock and horror. “What are you doing in my private drawer?”
Lara dropped what she held, but the damage was already done.
She and her wife kept few secrets between them, but one thing they acknowledged was private correspondence and spaces.
They didn’t go through each other’s mail, electronic or physical.
They didn’t intrude on meetings unless previously given permission.
And they sure as hell stayed out of each other’s locked drawers.
Lara had violated more than her wife’s trust by rooting through her locked desk drawer.
“I had to know what was going on!” Already she was on the defensive, determined to clear her besmirched name before her partner even had the chance to besmirch it. “Things had been so shady around here… you and Chloe…”
“What about me and Chloe?”
She saw the look on Kennedy’s face. She knew instantly what Lara had suspected, and it was more than betrayal coloring her cheekbones. Lara bent over the yellow stationery scattered on the floor… and cried.
They were tears of relief and fear. Relief that her paranoia was just that, and her spouse was not cheating on her.
But the fear. The fear! I fucked up badly!
Now Kennedy knew how crazy she was. Not only had she suspected something as heinous as infidelity, but she had rooted through her private stashes in search of something against her.
Had the tables been turned? Lara would have never forgiven her.
Kennedy stayed far away from her for a minute.
Lara could not see her face through her shameful tears, but she could feel her aura from so far away.
“How could you, Lara?” She wasn’t angry.
She was sad. The woman she had written so highly of in these papers was sobbing on her office floor after being caught like Chloe was.
“Lara.” That stern voice was not sexual. Rarely did Lara hear this side of her and not be the submissive end to her domination. No, this was matrimonial, sure, but for all the wrong reasons. “I am not sleeping with our maid.”
“I know!” she cried through her sobs, each one more heinous than the last. They wracked her body…
a body purging itself of the negativity, the paranoia, and her will to destroy a marriage that seemed too good to be true for so long.
And yet here she was, destroying the best thing that had ever happened to her. “I’m sorry.”
Sorry would never be enough for her unwarranted suspicions.
Of course, Kennedy had not cheated on her.
Why would she? Was she really so dumb, so foolhardy as to believe this woman who let her get away with murder would be any less than faithful to a fault?
For fuck’s sake, they were swingers! If she were happy, why would she cheat?
What sort of disgusting half-truths had Lara swallowed over the years?
Did she really have so little faith in her marriage?
I didn’t confront her about the maid because deep down, I knew it was baseless.
Like her therapist told her, she had only been concerned with dismantling her own marriage, finding every little fault as an excuse to get a divorce.
Except to what end? Did she really need Kennedy to prove her love to her every ten years?
Would she still be playing this game at eighty?
“I can’t believe you went through my things.” Kennedy came to her, swiftly, her polished leather shoes appearing beside Lara’s huddling, shaking body.
“I had to know…” It was all she could say. “I had to know what you were up to. Everyone was being so secretive, I couldn’t take it anymore!”
“You didn’t even ask me?”
“How could I have…” What? Trusted her? Lara cut off that thought before she completely embarrassed herself even further. “I wanted to see it for myself. Kennedy…” She held up the tattered papers. “What is this?”
She bent down, hands snatching the papers away and putting them back in neat order. “A manuscript.” The papers slid back into her desk drawer, where she plucked out one of the bound proofs and held it above her wife’s head. “I wrote a book. A memoir.”
“What?”
Her tears had abated. Now she saw her spouse through puffy eyes.
She saw someone disappointed with herself, her wife, and whatever this project was that she held in her hands.
“It was going to be a surprise, Bunny.” It surprised Lara to hear her nickname.
“I was going to show you this proof while we were on our honeymoon. It’s being published in a couple of months. ”
Lara couldn’t believe her ears. “A memoir?” She didn’t even know Kennedy wrote outside of legal documents and the occasional note to somebody. She had their personal assistant at work transcribe most of her letters. “Since when have you been writing a memoir?”
“Since a year ago. One of my old college buddies is a publisher in New York. He approached me, saying he wanted to do a line of memoirs from successful businesspeople. He was interested in you writing one too, or us writing one together, but I suggested I write one about you, in a way. He agreed. Now here I am, the biggest fool in the universe.”
“You’re not…”
“I must be, for not foreseeing this. If I hadn’t been wearing my blinders that said this should be a surprise… I should have told you about it the moment I finished the first draft.”
“And Chloe?”
“Chloe?” Kennedy laughed. “She was one of my first readers. All the others, including the editor, were men. I wanted another woman’s view. Who else would I have asked if not you?”
“The package…”
“…That I got by the pool that day? That was the proof! I didn’t want you to see it yet.”
“And those letters from you were really your handwritten drafts…” Holy shit. She was terrible. “And you gave her a key to your desk so she could…”
“…Put back what she finished commenting on and take out the next parts. Yes. I wanted to change the lock, anyway, and was going to after this project was finished. It won’t matter if she makes a copy of the key, because it won’t work in a few months.
” Kennedy snorted. “Apparently, I need to find a new hiding spot for my keys.”
“I’m sorry!” Lara was on the verge of tears again. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She couldn’t hold back the drops falling from her eyes. She tasted salt. Bitter. Sour. Everything was sent up from her heart for the sole purpose of making her throw up.
“Kennedy…”
She put a hand on her shoulder. Tender. Firm. “I don’t know what to say, Lara. I never in a million years expected this from you.”
And never in a million years did Lara expect to snort at a statement like that. “Are you kidding? You know better than anyone what a vindictive bitch I am. I was ready to rip out that girl’s entrails and parade them in front of you!”
“You should probably go apologize to her. At least now I know why she’s being so skittish around us. Besides…” She nicked her finger against Lara’s chin. “I know how vindictive you can be. Don’t think of it as being vindictive, though. It’s hot that you’re possessive…”
“No, it’s not. It’s messed up. Kenny, I…
” Finally, she forced herself to look at the person she married.
The person she didn’t trust. I can see the pain in her eyes.
How could she do that to her? How could she become someone who didn’t trust her partner?
Who was suspicious of everyone and everything around her?
Didn’t she know how hard Kennedy worked for them to live like this?
How compromising she was? She does it because she loves me.
Who else would ever love her like that? “I’m not used to things being so good for so long.
You’ve seen my family. They’re all some level of miserable.
I don’t know anything else. My brain was looking for a thousand reasons to break up with you. ”
Her grip on Lara tightened. “You don’t want that, right? You don’t want to break up?”
Lara looked away. “No, baby.”
“And I would never do anything to compromise those feelings.” Kennedy cupped her hands around Lara’s cheeks, forcing her to look at her again.
How can she look so cool and collected? Lara had confessed to thinking she was cheating on her!
“You must believe me, Bunny.” Thumbs pushed into her flesh, soaking up her tears.
“From the moment I met you, all other women paled in comparison. The day you married me was the day I first felt complete.”