10. Maren
— ? —
Maren
The Sinclair looks like it’s wearing someone else’s jewelry.
I know that sounds insane. I designed these arrangements, picked every stem, approved every vessel, obsessed over every sight line for three weeks.
But standing in the lobby now, watching the gala unfold around me, I barely recognize my own work.
The flowers are stunning, objectively, professionally stunning, but they feel like they belong to someone else’s story.
Maybe because they do.
“Mrs. Calloway.” A server materializes with a champagne flute. “Can I get you anything else?”
I take the glass just to have something to do with my hands. “I’m good, thanks.”
He moves on. I stay planted near the entrance like a houseplant someone forgot to water, watching the crowd flow around me in a river of black tie and expensive perfume.
The Sinclair’s grand ballroom has been transformed into something out of a design magazine, all soft lighting and architectural drama and my arrangements punctuating every corner like expensive punctuation marks.
Nobody’s looking at me.
That’s fine. I’m not here to be looked at. I’m here because my husband’s company is celebrating ten years, and I did the flowers, and also I’m his wife. Allegedly. According to legal documents, anyway.
The bouquet in my hands feels heavier than it should.
Ranunculus, sweet peas, rosemary from our garden.
Year eleven. I made it this morning in the back room of Bellamy Blooms while Nina pretended not to notice I was crying into the greenery.
She didn’t ask. I didn’t explain. Some traditions you keep even when you’re not sure why anymore.
“Is that for the display?” someone asks, and I turn to find a woman I vaguely recognize, some marketing executive whose name I should remember.
“No. It’s personal.”
“Oh.” Her eyes flicker to the bouquet, then back to my face. Something shifts in her expression. “Well. It’s lovely.”
She walks away before I can respond.
I should find Rhodes. He’s somewhere in this crowd, probably surrounded by people who matter more than I do, accepting congratulations for building something that used to feel like ours. I should walk over there and stand next to him and smile like I mean it.
I should do a lot of things.
Instead, I drift toward the bar and order a water because I need to stay sharp. The bartender is new, doesn’t recognize me, and that’s fine. That’s actually kind of perfect.
“Maren.”
I turn. Julian is approaching with his wife, and he looks genuinely pleased to see me. His smile is the first warm thing I’ve encountered all night.
“Julian. Hi.” I accept his hug, careful not to crush the bouquet between us. “You look good.”
“You did incredible work,” he says, gesturing at the arrangements visible from where we’re standing. “Rhodes must be thrilled.”
“I’m sure he’s noticed,” I say, and my voice comes out flatter than I intended.
Julian’s wife, Ellen? Helen? tilts her head. “The retrospective film is about to start. Have you seen it yet?”
“Not yet.”
“Rachel really outdid herself,” she says. “It’s beautiful. Very emotional.”
Rachel’s name drops into the quiet between us. I keep my expression pleasant. “I’m sure it is.”
Julian is watching me too carefully. He knows something’s wrong. He’s been at this company long enough to read the temperature of any room, and right now the temperature around me is below freezing.
“We should find our seats,” Ellen-or-Helen says. “The film starts in ten minutes.”
They move toward the ballroom. I stay where I am.
The film. Right. The anniversary retrospective that Rachel produced, that she’s been working on for months, that I’m sure showcases exactly how instrumental she’s been to everything Rhodes has built. I wonder if I’m in it at all. I wonder if the hotel photo made the editing cut.
Stop it.
I force myself to move. The ballroom is filling up now, guests settling into seats arranged facing a large screen at the front of the room.
The stage is flanked by two of my largest arrangements, towering installations of white flowers and greenery that took me two days to construct.
They look beautiful. They look like they belong here.
I find Rhodes near the front, surrounded by people.
He’s in a perfectly tailored tuxedo, looking like something out of a magazine spread, and for a moment I just watch him.
My husband. Eleven years of my husband. He’s laughing at something someone said, and the laugh looks real, and I hate that I can’t tell anymore whether his laughs are real or performed.
Then I notice who he’s standing next to.
Rachel Vaughn looks devastating in a deep green gown that probably cost more than my first car. Her hair is swept up, exposing the kind of neck that belongs on a perfume advertisement, and she’s leaning toward Rhodes with the easy intimacy of someone who spends fourteen hours a day at his side.
They’re not touching. They’re not doing anything wrong. But they look like they belong together in a way that makes my chest ache.
I approach anyway because I’m his wife and I’m not going to hide in corners at my own husband’s gala.
“Rhodes.”
He turns, and his face changes when he sees me. Relief, or guilt. I can’t tell anymore.
“Maren. There you are.” He reaches for me, his hand landing on my lower back in that proprietary way he has. “You remember David Kessler? He was just telling me about the Singapore project.”
“Of course.” I smile at David, who I’ve met at least six times. “Nice to see you again.”
“The flowers are spectacular,” David says. “Rhodes told me your shop did everything?”
“Bellamy Blooms. Yes.”
“Impressive work. You must be proud.”
“I am.”
Rachel is watching me. Her expression is polite, professional, giving nothing away. “The arrangements really are stunning, Maren. You outdid yourself.”
“Thank you.” The words taste like metal.
A photographer approaches. “Mr. Calloway, Ms. Vaughn, can we get a quick photo for the press materials?”
Rhodes hesitates, glancing at me. “Actually-”
“Just a quick one,” the photographer insists. “For the retrospective coverage.”
Rachel is already positioning herself at Rhodes’s side, and he’s already turning toward the camera, and I’m already stepping back to get out of the frame. It happens so naturally. Like we’ve rehearsed it.
The camera flashes. Once, twice, three times.
“Perfect,” the photographer says. “Thank you.”
Rhodes turns back to me, but someone else has already claimed his attention, another executive, another congratulation, another demand on his time. His hand leaves my back. The spot where it rested goes cold.
I drift.
The film starts fifteen minutes later. I find a seat near the back where I can watch without being watched, and I settle in with my water glass and my untouched bouquet and my carefully arranged face.
The retrospective opens with footage of The Sinclair’s construction, grainy clips of a younger Rhodes walking through concrete shells and pointing at blueprints.
It knocks the wind out of me. I remember those days - bringing him sandwiches and coffee because he forgot to eat, sleeping on an air mattress in a half-finished hotel room because he couldn’t leave and I couldn’t stand to be without him.
The film doesn’t mention any of that.
Instead, it traces the rise of the company through deal after deal. Rhodes appears frequently, looking progressively more polished as the years advance. Julian appears. Various executives appear.
Rachel appears.
A lot.
She’s in the meetings, in every deal, touring properties and reviewing contracts and standing at Rhodes’s side during press conferences. The film positions her as his partner in every meaningful sense, the brilliant strategist who helped build an empire.
I count the minutes. I count the frames.
I don’t appear once.
Not once. Eleven years of marriage, eleven years of showing up, eleven years of making this man’s home and keeping his secrets and believing in his dreams when they were still just blueprints, and I’m not in a single frame of his company’s official history.
The film ends to thunderous applause. People stand. Someone whistles.
I stay seated, clutching my bouquet, feeling like I’ve been erased from my own life.
The lights come up. The crowd begins mingling again. Rhodes makes his way to the stage to give his speech, and I should move closer, I should be supporting my husband, I should be visible.
I stand. I walk toward the front of the room.
And that’s when I hear it.
“honestly thought she was his wife for the first year,” someone is saying, just a few feet away. “The way they’re together.”
“They basically are married,” someone else responds. “To the job, at least.”
“Did you see the hotel photo? I mean, everyone saw the hotel photo.”
“She didn’t exactly deny it.”
“Would you? Look at her, look at him. It makes sense.”
“What about the actual wife?”
A pause. “I think she does flowers or something?”
I stop walking.
My feet just stop, right there in the middle of the ballroom, and I stand frozen while the conversation continues behind me.
“She seemed sweet. Kind of quiet.”
“Can you blame her? Following that act?”
“I heard she threw a fit during the campaign shoot. Had to be talked down.”
“Jealousy’s a bad look on anyone.”
They don’t know I’m listening, don’t know I’m the “actual wife” they’re discussing like a footnote. They know nothing about me at all.
But they know Rachel. They know the hotel photo. They know enough to have an opinion.
For a second I can’t breathe. This is my marriage they’re talking about like a bad reality show.
Eleven years, turned into a punchline told over champagne by people who don’t even know my name.
I want to sit down on the floor of the ballroom I decorated and sob until somebody finally notices me.
I want to grab the nearest stranger and say I’m his wife, I was here first, I was here when he had nothing.