1. Delphine #2
We had met perhaps forty times. Benefit committees.
Regatta lunches. The awful standing-room crush of the Preservation Society’s spring auction, where she had once told me, with her hand on my forearm and her voice pitched for the six women behind us, that my dress was very brave.
We had exchanged air kisses at Christmas parties.
We had served on the same flower subcommittee for two excruciating months in a year I’ve tried to forget.
Kendall Saladino and I knew each other the way two cats know each other, which is to say completely, and only ever from across a room.
What we had never been was under the same roof.
Montana had made sure of the rest. Photographs, produced at dinner parties. Stories about the courtship, their high school romance, the way young Heath had looked at Kendall like she hung the moon.
In a thousand small ways, she had made it absolutely clear that I was a poor substitute for the woman her son should have married. And Kendall had never once had to say a word, because Montana said all of them for her, and Kendall got to stand there looking gracious about it.
But she had never been in my foyer before. She had never been past the gate. And she was looking at my husband like she had a key.
Kendall stepped forward, crossing the threshold into my home with the easy confidence of someone who had been waiting nine years to do it. She was, as always, the kind of beautiful that made other women feel apologetic about their own existence. Her smile was warm and bright and entirely for Heath.
“Hello, Heath.” Her voice was honey sweet, intimate in a way that made my skin crawl. She walked toward him, slow and deliberate, and placed one perfectly manicured hand flat against his chest. Right over his heart. “It’s been far too long. It’s so good to see you.”
Heath stood frozen. His arms hung at his sides. He didn’t step back. He didn’t remove her hand. He just stood there, and I watched his face cycle through expressions I couldn’t read and didn’t want to understand.
My stomach lurched again, harder this time.
“What a surprise,” I managed, and I was proud of how steady my voice sounded. “Both of you. Here. Together.”
“Kendall’s house is under repairs.” Montana had finished her inspection of the foyer and was now examining the small table where we kept the mail, her fingers rifling through envelopes that were none of her business.
“Water damage in the main pipes, apparently. Terrible timing, really, with the holidays approaching. I told her she simply must come stay here until everything is sorted. You have more than plenty of rooms, after all. This house was built for guests.”
“Stay here?” I looked at Heath, willing him to meet my eyes, to speak, to give me any indication of where he stood. “You want her to stay here. In our home. With us.”
“Is that a problem?” Montana’s voice had that particular edge it always got when she was daring me to challenge her.
The edge that said go ahead, make a scene, give me a reason to tell everyone what an ungrateful little climber you really are.
“I would have thought you’d welcome the company, Delphine.
This house can feel so terribly empty with just the two of you rattling around in it.
And Kendall is such delightful company.”
Kendall had finally turned away from Heath, though her hand remained on his chest for a beat longer than necessary before she let it drop.
Her smile, when she directed it at me, was the same warm and friendly expression she had given my husband.
But there was a new layer underneath it now.
Sharp and knowing and almost triumphant.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she said, her voice pitched perfectly between apologetic and presumptuous.
“Montana absolutely insisted, and I really didn’t have anywhere else to go.
All of my friends are traveling for the holidays, and hotels are just so impersonal, don’t you think?
I promise I won’t be any trouble at all. ”
I minded. God, I minded. I minded that my husband’s first love was standing in my foyer with her hand still warm from pressing against his heart.
I minded that my mother-in-law had invited her without asking permission, without even informing me.
I minded that Heath still hadn’t said a single word in my defense, hadn’t made any move to establish boundaries, hadn’t done anything but stand there looking guilty and trapped.
But I could feel Montana watching me. Waiting. Hoping I would object so she could hold my rudeness against me for years to come.
I looked at Heath again. This time, finally, he met my eyes.
I saw exhaustion there. I saw apology. I saw a plea that said please, just this once, can we not fight about this?
And beneath all of that, worst of all, what looked like resignation, like he had already accepted that this was happening and the only choice left was how much pain we would all endure.
He was leaving the decision to me. We both knew it wasn’t really a decision at all.
“Of course,” I said, and the words tasted like ash in my mouth. “Any friend of the family is welcome in our home.”
“Wonderful.” Montana was already taking Heath’s arm, already steering him away from me toward the main hall.
“I’ve missed you terribly, darling. You simply must tell me everything about the firm.
Is it true you’re considering a European expansion?
I heard the most fascinating rumor at the Ashcombes’ dinner party last month. A branch in Paris, wasn’t it?”
She was pulling him deeper into the house, her voice carrying back to the foyer, and I was left standing with Kendall Saladino in my entryway, the December wind still blowing through the open door.
“The bags are still outside,” Kendall said. Her voice was pleasant. Friendly. Her eyes were cold. “Would you mind terribly?”
I blinked at her. “I’m sorry?”
“The bags.” She gestured vaguely toward the porch, where I could now see a pile of expensive luggage gleaming in the weak winter sunlight.
“Montana’s and mine. They’re still on the porch.
She mentioned that you usually handle these sorts of things.
” She tucked a strand of perfect honey colored hair behind her ear, a small, deliberate gesture.
“Unless you’d rather I ask one of the staff? ”
We didn’t have live-in staff. We had a cleaning service that came twice a week and a landscaping crew that maintained the grounds. Montana knew that. Montana had always known that. And now Kendall knew it too, and she was standing in my foyer with that perfect smile, waiting for me to admit it.
I held her gaze for a long moment. She didn’t blink.
“Of course,” I said, for the second time in as many minutes. “I’ll take care of it.”
I walked out to the porch, the cold December air biting at my cheeks, and stared at the pile of Louis Vuitton luggage arranged on the flagstones.
Four large suitcases. Two garment bags. A smaller case that probably held jewelry or cosmetics or whatever else a woman like Kendall couldn’t live without.
Enough for a month. Maybe more.
Only a few days, I told myself, wrapping my arms around my body against the chill. She said her house was under repairs. A few days, a week at most, and then she would be gone.
But standing there in the cold, watching through the window as Montana led my husband deeper into our home with his first love trailing behind them like a blonde and beautiful shadow, I felt the truth settle into my bones.
I wasn’t sure I would last one.