Chapter 33
THERE’S AN UNSPOKEN RULE THAT you don’t build anything new over a place where horrifying things once happened.
Wonderland’s new owners clearly did not get the memo.
From the top of Peregrines Peak, the highest point in Seaside, Cole takes in the view of her hometown.
It’s not exactly as she remembers. Along the coastline, where clusters of bodies are moving like tiny ants on the beach, she spots two new high-rise hotels.
To her right, there are three new subdivisions with rows of rectangular houses sitting on postage stamps of grass.
And to the left is the amusement park, where the infamous Wonder Wheel is once again shining brightly, beckoning visitors to stay and play, the Wonderland way.
“So this is Seaside?” Cecily Monaco is standing beside Cole, looking in the direction of the park. “It doesn’t look how I thought it would.”
“What did you think it would look like?”
“I pictured it more . . . deserted. And sinister, somehow.” Cecily turns to her.
“I remember you telling me how run-down everything was the last time you were here. It sure doesn’t look like that now.
” In her pocket, her phone rings. “Oh, honey, I have to take this. It’s Beatty. I’ll meet you back at the car.”
That her fellow Trophy Wives star is here with her in Seaside is surreal.
Cole had stepped off the plane in Seattle earlier that afternoon and was just leaving baggage claim when she saw a man in a black suit holding up a sign with her last name on it.
Surprised at first, because she’d already booked herself a rental car, Cole assumed the show had ordered a private chauffeur service to take her to rehab.
It’s the kind of thing Phil Beatty might do to make sure she actually went.
The man took her suitcases, and she followed him up to the rideshare area, where a black Cadillac Escalade was parked in the first spot.
But after putting her suitcases in the trunk, the man walked away. That’s when the Escalade’s driver’s side window rolled down, and a perfectly made-up face looked out at her.
“Get in, loser,” Cecily Monaco said to Cole, doing a perfect Regina George impression from the movie Mean Girls. “We’re going to rehab.”
“What are you doing here?” Cole had looked around, half expecting to see a production crew filming, because that was also the exact kind of thing Phil Beatty would do to capitalize on a scandal.
“I’ve been at my house in LA all week—you know I always go there to decompress after RealityCon—and then Beatty told me you were on your way to rehab. So instead of flying back to Toronto, I decided to reroute here to Seattle to surprise you.” Cecily patted the seat beside her.
“Consider me shocked,” Cole said when she found her voice. “You’re the last person I expected to see. You haven’t returned my calls—”
“No, what’s shocking is you’d fly commercial.” Cecily gave her a look. “And Beatty said the rehab facility is in Oregon. Why not fly directly there, save yourself the drive?”
“Because I couldn’t find a first-class flight at the last minute from Toronto to Portland,” Cole said, finally sliding in beside her. “You know I won’t fly economy.”
Cecily’s laugh filled up the Escalade’s interior. When her amusement subsided, she said, “I should have called you right after Vegas.”
“Yes, I would have liked to hear from you,” Cole said. “It’s been a terrible week.”
“I’m not perfect,” Cecily said. “But I’m here now.”
“I’m not perfect, either,” Cole said. “But I’m glad to see you. You’re really okay to drive? The rehab facility is three and a half hours from here.”
“Oh, honey, please,” Cecily said. “I’m from LA. It takes me that long to get to my hair appointments.”
What she told her friend about flying first class wasn’t a total lie; Cole hadn’t flown commercial in years and had no intention of squeezing into a middle seat in economy.
But neither did she have the funds at the present time to fly private, the way Cecily always does.
The drive from Seattle to Portland passes right by Seaside.
It seemed silly to come all this way and not at least drive past her hometown, and flying into Seattle gave her an excuse to do that.
Once they got on the freeway, Cecily caught her up on all the Trophy Wives news.
Three of the six wives from last season have signed back on; one was not invited back.
There are three new wives whom Quan is considering, one of whom Cole knows vaguely from the athletic club.
Cecily demanded a huge pay bump and is still in negotiations.
And Cole?
Cole remains in Trophy Wives purgatory. She’s neither fired nor rehired, her fate on hold until she completes a thirty-day stay at the Center for Health and Healing in Oregon.
With her friend back at the car on her phone, Cole takes advantage of the alone time at Peregrines Peak and continues to look out at the town she was so eager to escape.
The last time she set foot in Seaside was before she married Jordan, and she never even told anyone she was coming.
Who was there to tell? Ray was living in Seattle with his very sick wife.
Their father, Richard, was in prison up in Walla Walla.
And Barb? Well, Barb wouldn’t have given her old friend Nicolette the time of day even if Cole had reached out.
In any case, Cole had only come to town for twenty-four hours, to quietly move her mother into hospice.
There was no one else to do it. Six weeks later, Deanna Montes died alone of acute liver failure due to years of alcohol abuse.
There was no funeral. She always said she didn’t want one, anyway.
During her brief visit to Seaside, Cole was shocked at how much the town had changed since she’d left at sixteen.
The Wonderland scandal had happened a year before, and the effects were devastating.
Half the restaurants and stores on Main Street were shuttered.
The family-owned motels along Beach Road were all closed, leaving only one very sad-looking Hilton Garden Inn, which is where she spent the night.
The town’s main beach was barren, the hot dog stands boarded up, the volleyball nets torn, the public bathrooms covered in graffiti.
And of course Wonderland—always visible from the freeway with its dancing bright lights and neon glow—was dark. Which might have been the most unsettling part of all. In all the years she’d lived in Seaside, Cole had never seen the park so . . . dead.
Cole makes her way back down the trail toward the parking area where the Escalade is waiting. The other woman is just finishing up her call. She looks over at Cole, putting a finger to her lips.
“Sure, I’ll tell her,” Cecily says into the phone. “Oh, honey, I know. But she’s on her way to rehab, Beatty. She’ll need some time.”
There’s a pause as she listens to whatever Phil Beatty is saying. Cole can’t make out his exact words, but from what she can hear, the executive producer’s tone is quite passionate.
“Yes, I’d say she’s doing okay,” Cecily says, glancing at Cole again when he finally pauses. “I’m just here to take her wherever she needs to go, and then I’ll be heading back to Toronto. . . . I have no idea, she didn’t tell me. Yes, I’ll talk her. Okay, bye.”
Cecily disconnects and twists her body to face her. “That was our lovely Beatty. He said you haven’t responded to any of his texts today, and your voicemail is full. You want the bad news or the good news first?”
Cole realizes then she never turned her phone on once she landed in Seattle, and now she isn’t sure she wants to. “Bad news,” she says.
“Apparently Reality Bitch published which rehab you’re going to. So if Seaside is as gossipy as you say, it’s possible everybody in your hometown knows you’re here right now.”
“Fuck me,” Cole says. “How the hell would Glynnis Glenn know where I went? I only told Jordan. And my assistant, Alba.”
“You mean your ex-assistant,” Cecily reminds her.
“Glynnis pays well for tips, and that girl is unemployed now. See, this is why you always have everyone around you sign an NDA. It protects you. And also, you were paying her too much. You need to listen to me when it comes to money and legal things.” She clucks.
Cole sighs. “What’s the good news?”
“Thanks to my dear friend and your neighbor Lionel Roth, Jordy’s been cleared of the embezzlement allegations.” When Cole gasps, Cecily gives her a pointed look. “Now, this just happened, and I’m sure you’d be hearing about it from Jordy yourself if you turned your phone back on.”
Cole is shocked. While Jordan has consistently denied the allegations from the start, Cole knows damn well that he did it. And he knows she knows that. Which is why they hardly ever talked about it.
“That is good news,” she finally says, because it feels like Cecily is expecting her to say something. “But what does Lionel have to do with it?”
“Plenty, apparently,” Cecily says. “You know that old dog still hits on me? Sometimes right in front of his wife. We all know I’m too old for him.”
Annika. Cole has tried her best not to think about the other woman too much, but they all float in the same social circle, which is smaller than one might think.
The tense conversation the two of them had in the kitchen the day before reverberates through her mind. Annika had left the house in tears.
“Apparently Jordy hired the forensic financial analyst that Lionel recommended, who was able to prove that the whole thing was just an accounting error. The funds Jordan was accused of stealing from the charity were accidentally rerouted to the wrong accounts, and they’ve all been found and rerouted back.
No penalties, no restitution, no harm, no foul. ”
“Accidentally,” Cole repeats, gazing out the window so her friend won’t be able to see the knowing look on her face. “Jordy told you this?”
“No, Lionel did. When he called me this morning.” Cecily pauses for a beat. “And then he asked me what I know about Annika and Jordy, and how close they’ve recently become.”
“What?” Cole’s head snaps back toward her friend. “Lionel said that?”
Cecily nods. “He even joked that maybe they’re sleeping together.” Her friend looks uncomfortable. “But you know Lionel. He thinks everyone wants to sleep with Annika. And then he asked what I was wearing.”
Cole snorts, but her mind is whirling.
“But I don’t think he was joking at all,” Cecily says as she finally starts the engine. “He said that if they were having an affair, it would ruin things for her, but make you a rich lady.”
Cole says nothing.
“Apparently if Annika cheats on Lionel, she gets nothing,” Cecily continues. “But if Jordan cheats on you, you get—”
“Ten million,” Cole says. “Per our infidelity clause. The one you told me to make sure was in the prenup before I signed it.”
And now that he’s cleared of the embezzlement charges and can access his accounts again, he’ll be able to pay me. Win-fucking-win.
“See?” she says to Cecily. “I do listen to you. Especially when it comes to money and legal things.”
If not for Cecily, Cole would have had no idea that a prenup can basically stipulate anything the couple wants.
In the event of a divorce, Cole will get ten million dollars if she can provide irrefutable proof that Jordan had a sexual relationship with someone else during their marriage.
But if she cheats on Jordan, she gets nothing.
Ironically, it was Jordan who insisted on adding in the word sexual to the clause. Cole didn’t feel that word was necessary. To her, an emotional affair was just as hurtful as a physical one.
Jordan refused to agree to it. The clause had to say “sexual.” As he’d said to Cole at the time, “You want an infidelity clause, fine. But only if we’re specific on what infidelity means to us.”
Which meant hugging another woman doesn’t count. Holding hands with another woman doesn’t count. Kissing another woman’s forehead doesn’t count. All behaviors Jordan had been photographed doing over the years that he asserted weren’t anything but platonic.
But having sexual intercourse and participating in other sexual acts? As defined by their prenup, it’s the only thing that qualifies as infidelity. Even so, she still needs irrefutable proof. Which she may or may not have.
She won’t know until she turns her phone on and checks Parker’s app.
As Cecily heads toward the main road, she suddenly wonders what the point of all this is.
Phil Beatty has made it crystal clear that there will be no new contract unless she completes rehab.
He doesn’t actually give a shit whether Cole’s an alcoholic—they all drink absurd amounts during filming, which makes for good TV.
Beatty only cares about the optics. And Cole is so, so sick of optics.
It’s exhausting pretending that her marriage is perfect, and that her life is enviable, and that she’s happy.
Other than Cecily, does she even have any real friends back in Toronto?
Her entire social circle is made up of people she’s met through Jordan and Trophy Wives, and until Cecily showed up today, not a single person has checked up on her.
As if being canceled were an infectious disease.
Her marriage and the show have defined Cole for the better part of a decade. She’s always needed other people to validate her, to tell her she’s beautiful, to tell her she matters, to see her, because she’s never been able to validate herself.
Cole might be an alcoholic, but if the show has taught her anything, it’s that her biggest addiction will always be fame.
Cecily pulls up to the stop sign, where the signs are clear. If she makes a left, she’ll be in rehab in Oregon in about forty-five minutes. If she makes a right, she’ll be in Seaside in time for happy hour.
She could sure as shit use a cocktail.
“Change of plans,” Cole tells her friend, who looks over at her in surprise. “Take a right, and follow the signs for Wonderland.”