930 A.M. — November 21, 1996 #3
Her cell phone rang, but she ignored it.
A few seconds later, it beeped to let her know she had a message.
She flipped it open and listened to her sorry-sounding husband as his voice cracked and wobbled.
Babe, I got the kids to bed. Well, Ivy might be up.
I’m not sure. But she’s in her room, anyway.
I want to see if you’re okay. I mean … I know you’re not, but I want to make sure you’re safe.
Oh, God, I love you so much. Come home so I can make you a grilled cheese and we can talk.
Or you can slap me until you don’t hate me anymore. I’ll do anything to make this right.
She snorted. Make this right.
“Not possible, jackass,” she muttered with her mouth full.
When she’d come into the house that morning and saw his face, she knew what he was about to say.
After two decades with someone, words weren’t necessary.
Entire conversations could be held with expressions and grunts and hmphs alone.
But this was still shocking enough to cause her legs to give out.
Zane caught her before she hit the travertine tile floor and helped her over to the loveseat.
She loathed herself, both for being that weak and for letting him help her.
She should have been stoic. Strong. Don’t touch me. Ever again.
That’s how she’d imagined she’d be in that moment, on the odd occasion she’d let her mind go down this road.
After all, it’s not like she hadn’t wondered if he was unfaithful.
It was practically expected with a man like him.
And that’s what people would say—all the women in salons flipping through gossip rags.
‘Of course he was cheating. He’s a rock star.
What do you think they do when they’re on the road six months at a time with women throwing their panties onto the stage every night? ’
They wouldn’t be wrong. She could’ve guessed. She could’ve come right out and asked him, even once. But she hadn’t, because she didn’t want to know. Because knowing would put her exactly where she was right now. With an awful choice to make. She was going to wind up like her mother.
‘She should leave his ass. If she has any self-worth at all. Kick him to the curb!’
It wasn’t as easy as all that. Not when children were involved. Not when she was supposed to grow old as half of one of the world’s most glamorous couples. Trudie and Sting. Goldie and Kurt. Sienna and Zane.
Her eyes filled with tears, and she swiped them off the tops of her cheeks, furious at them for daring to appear again.
Shouldn’t she have finished crying by now?
It’s what she had done all day. She cried and raged and threw things and slammed doors—all things Sienna never did.
She asked him the worst of all questions.
The one that makes you nauseous while you wait for the answer.
The fight had moved to their en suite when she had tried to get away from him, but Zane had followed her. “Are you in love with her?”
His denial was swift, loud, and he repeated it until his words looped back around and she was sure it was a yes.
“No, not at all. Not even for a second. It wasn’t an affair or anything.
It just … happened. We were both overcome with grief.
I wasn’t thinking straight. You saw me. I could barely stand up that night. ”
She snorted. “You certainly managed to rally though, didn’t you?”
He dropped his shoulders and sighed. His voice was quiet. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry won’t fix it,” she snapped, her body shaking with fury.
“No, of course it won’t. Sorry,” he said. “Shit. Sorry. But the answer is no. I don’t love her. How could I ever love anyone but you? You’re perfect. You’re the love of my life. I’ll never want another woman, I swear—”
“Oh, shut up! Just shut up! I can’t stand hearing your stupid voice! Not for one more second!” She yanked off her wedding ring, scraping skin off her finger. Then she threw it at her husband’s shocked face, flesh and all.
And there he sat on the ledge of the soaker tub with a five-carat diamond stuck in his beard.
If it were any other moment, she would find it funny.
Hilarious, even. And so would he. Because they could always laugh together.
It was one of the things that made them them.
But they’d never be them again, would they?
And that thought, along with the sight of a red gash up her finger, made her scream at him for making her hurt herself.
She watched him fish the ring out of his blond beard, hating him with every cell in her body. “And you know what else? You’re not fooling anyone with that stupid, scratchy beard! Everyone knows you have a double chin now!”
“Oh, nice,” he said sarcastically.
She raised a perfectly shaped eyebrow. “Really?”
Rubbing his hands over his face, he said, “Right, right, right. Sorry, it’s fine. It’s fair. I have been letting myself go. Be as mean as you want to be. I can take it.”
“Well, I can’t!” A sob erupted from her chest. “I can’t take it. I can’t handle this because you’ve ruined everything!” She stormed into their bedroom.
Billie, who’d been laying on her dog bed, got up when Sienna walked in, her tail wagging as she followed her across the room.
When Sienna reached the hallway, she stopped dead in her tracks.
Oh my God, had he been there when the baby was born?
Had he held her hand and wiped her forehead and cried happy tears?
Spinning on her heel, she found Zane exactly where she left him, looking shell-shocked. “Were you there?”
“What?”
“When he was born? Were. You. There?!”
He shook his head. “No. I could never do that to you.”
She burst out in the laugh of an insane person, which was exactly what she felt like.
His phone rang and Sienna pointed at it. “Is that her? Is it?!”
He glanced at it and shook his head. “It’s Dean.”
“Why?” she asked, her heart in her throat at the thought the story was already out.
“He offered to come by and help if we needed him.”
“Tell him no thank you!” Sienna yelled, turning around again. Then, she spun around again, not done yet. “In fact, tell him to go fuck himself.”
Zane’s voice was calm, and she could see he was worn out. “He’s just trying to protect us.”
“You! He’s trying to protect you!” Sienna shouted. “He doesn’t give a shit about me or the kids. And if this little bastard hadn’t turned out to be yours, he would’ve kept his mouth shut so you could continue screwing anything with two legs and a pulse!”
Out of the corner of her eye, Sienna saw Billie in the doorway.
Her ears were pinned back, her tail drooping.
Sienna closed her eyes and lifted a hand to her aching head.
She shouldn’t have called the baby a bastard.
It was uncalled for, even if it was technically correct.
The baby was innocent. His parents were both raging assholes, but that baby couldn’t help being alive.
And now she sat, the memory eating away at her as she chomped her way through a salty lukewarm fry. The phone rang again and, again, she watched until it went silent. Can you please call me back so I know you’re all right? I’m really worried.
“Like I care how you feel,” she said, snorting again.
She popped another french fry in her mouth and chewed it furiously.
Nope, she wouldn’t call him back. She would let him think she drove off a cliff.
He deserved to worry. He deserved to think the worst. He deserved to cry himself to sleep. Only he wouldn’t, would he?
9:45 P.M.
CLAUDIA CRAWFORD
The temptress. The harlot. The brazen slut. The homewrecker. The horrible friend. The gold-digger. She knew exactly what she was doing. She trapped him on purpose. It was her plan all along, the bitch.
Over the years, she’d said all these things herself, she was sure of it.
She distinctly remembered in the 8th grade when her best friend, Heather’s boyfriend, Trent, kissed Maureen R.
behind the Circle K. With tongue. She threw every label at her.
The ones she knew at the time, anyway. Claudia wasn’t exactly sophisticated back then. She still wasn’t.
But she certainly didn’t intend to become any of these things, and only some of them were true. She was the worst sort of friend, but she didn’t trap him on purpose. But then again, maybe she did. Whether she was an actual homewrecker or not remained to be seen.
She leaned her head against the white shabby chic sofa, her right arm sore from the weight of her newborn son’s head, and her eyes sore from hours in front of the TV.
It was late evening and other than the flickering from the episode of Suddenly Susan playing, the only other light came from the arc floor lamp behind her sofa.
The sound was turned down so low she could barely hear what Brooke Shields was saying.
But the plot didn’t matter. Only picking up the phone when he called.