After
Gretchen
“Thank you, Sam,” she said. “If you can stay in the neighborhood, I’ll text when I’m done.”
“I’ll be right here, Mrs. Falk, if you need anything.” And the way he said it—she was so grateful for the kindness of people like Sam, standing by them.
Gretchen took a few steadying breaths as she walked around the corner to Ludlow Coffee Supply. She didn’t want Sam to see where she was headed; what if he had dropped Richard in the exact same spot to meet Frankie? What if Sam had seen them together? Could Frankie have been in their car?
No, Richard wouldn’t do that, she assured herself. But then he’d already done things that she would have sworn he was not capable of, hadn’t he?
* * *
Richard was still sound asleep. He’d gotten home very late the night before.
In those early days of his being a managing director, that was hardly unusual.
Even when he wasn’t traveling—which was at least every other week, for several days at a stretch—Richard worked around the clock.
Gretchen had expected this latest promotion to finally mean less work.
Even Richard confessed he was surprised at the sustained intensity of his job, but that was the nature of investment banking.
It was a pie-eating contest where the prize was always more pie.
And so Gretchen had gotten up that Saturday and left Richard in bed.
The children weren’t yet awake, either, but they’d be so anxious to see him once they were.
The least she could do was to run interference, buy Richard a little more rest. Then they would have the whole rest of the weekend to enjoy as a family.
When Gretchen got down to the kitchen to make breakfast, Richard’s suit jacket was crumpled in a pile beneath a chair, his briefcase and wallet on the side table.
She opened Richard’s briefcase to put his wallet inside, tucking it into the large pocket.
Her husband did best with everything in one place.
The truth was she liked this role—keeping Richard in order.
It gave her life a kind of purpose that went beyond raising the children.
More enjoyable and less obligatory. Richard needed her and she needed him—that was love.
She searched his suit jacket pockets for his keys.
Best to have those in his briefcase, too.
He left without them all the time. The briefcase (Burberry, purchased by Gretchen, of course), on the other hand, Richard never forgot.
Like an appendage, or maybe a security blanket, especially in the early days, when Gretchen sensed he’d felt outclassed and in over his head.
The first pocket of his suit jacket was empty.
No keys in the second, either. But there was a slip of paper.
Gretchen fished it out, spotting Richard’s keys on the floor in the foyer.
As she retrieved them, she noticed the open bottle of wine on the counter.
Red. From across the room, she could see the half-full glass, and—was that a stain under the glass on the marble?
The wine was one from their collection. To call it a special-occasion bottle would have been an understatement. And not only had Richard opened it; he hadn’t even bothered to recork the bottle.
The dropped jacket, the keys in the entryway, the wine—had Richard been drunk when he got home? Gretchen had noticed he was completely naked when she woke up, which was unlike him. He also didn’t usually get drunk.
The slip of paper felt very heavy in her hand as she held it up to the light.
It was a receipt from the Crosby Street Hotel for $565.
43. Gretchen had only heard of the very chic, newly opened boutique hotel because Hilary had sent her a New York Times article about how the hotel represented a move away from old-guard luxury establishments like the Plaza in favor of “downtown cool.” I’ll take luxury over cool any day! Hilary had quipped.
The receipt was dated the day before. When Richard had supposedly been in Chicago. And yet, there was the receipt in Gretchen’s hand. His credit card number. His signature. Proof, unequivocal—but of what?
It was only proof of a lie, of a hotel, she told herself. There was an explanation. There had to be.
And so a decision had to be made.
Gretchen crumpled the receipt into a tiny ball as she walked toward the powder room off the kitchen, the one with the vibrant gold wallpaper covered in huge green palm leaves.
She stood in the little bathroom, hand clenched into a fist, staring at her reflection in the gold-framed mirror. Tired. Old. That was how she looked.
She dropped the ball into the toilet and flushed, watching as it swirled away down into the New York City sewers.
Gretchen didn’t say a word to Richard, not about the mess or the receipt.
Made it all the way through the weekend just fine.
But then came Monday. He went off to work, and she stayed in bed the whole day, crying—after she’d seen the girls off to school.
Had let Becks watch cartoons all day. At one point, he came into her room and asked why she was crying.
He sounded scared. Gretchen felt a tug of guilt but lost her patience when he refused to go back to the family room.
“Becks, get out!” she’d thundered. And he must have run out then, because when she opened her eyes only a second later, he had vanished.
It was self-indulgent, yes. But everyone was entitled to fall apart once in a while.
Except she didn’t bounce back like she’d expected.
After two days, she was still upset enough that she considered confronting Richard.
She wasn’t sure she’d be able to get over it, otherwise.
But then Becks had suddenly stopped talking for the first time, and she was frantic.
There was no more time for Gretchen to worry about herself or her marriage.
Her children came before her feelings. They always would.
* * *
Ludlow Coffee Supply was filled with rough-hewn wood and the rich smell of coffee beans.
To one side were old-fashioned roasting machines, beans tumbling in a quietly rattling waterfall off a small belt.
Thankfully, the shop was empty at that hour, apart from a young male barista with a nose ring and a single tattoo of several birds running down the inside of his forearm.
He smiled at Gretchen with unexpected warmth.
“How are you today?” he called out as Gretchen hovered near the door. Patient and kind—he was probably new to the city, maybe from the Midwest.
“I’m good, thank you,” she answered. But she still could not get herself to move.
She was suddenly struck by the full absurdity of this endeavor.
Becks had already told her he had seen Richard and Frankie at that coffee shop together.
So what exactly was she there to figure out?
Did she think Becks had invented his story?
No, she did not. But maybe if she unearthed enough supplementary facts, the whole thing could be contextualized.
The barista tilted his head to the side. “Can I…How about the special of the day? It’s a matcha macchiato. I made it up, but I am not biased when I say it’s spectacular.”
She took tentative steps toward the counter. “Oh, no—but thank you. I wanted to ask if you’d seen someone in here.”
“Do you have, like, a picture or something, maybe?”
“I do,” Gretchen said. “It’s my husband and his, um, friend. She’s maybe not just a friend, you know.” She met his gentle brown eyes. “That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”
“I get it,” the young man said, frowning sympathetically. “Always better to have the facts.”
“Is it?” Gretchen asked quite genuinely.
“Definitely.” He sounded so sure—the providence of youth.
Gretchen put her phone on the weathered wood counter and slid it toward the young man.
She’d found a group shot with Richard and Frankie next to each other in Richard’s folder of trip photos on the computer.
Gretchen had emailed the photo to herself and then cropped out everyone else.
She’d been proud of her editing skills, but blown up like that, Frankie and Richard did seem unnecessarily close to each other.
Only a couple of the many group shots had included Richard and Frankie standing side by side.
If they’d spent every second of the trip together, wouldn’t there have been more pictures of them next to each other?
Unless that was precisely why there were not more.
Because Richard had been conscious of hiding it.
This was the terrible truth about most evidence. It could prove anything you wanted.
The barista studied the image without touching her phone.
“Well, I know Frankie. She’s in here all the time with Thalia. I’ve never seen that guy, though.” He shrugged. “I’m here a lot, but not always.”
“Thank you,” Gretchen said.
The answer she wanted—he hadn’t seen them together. But instead of relief she felt only dread. Because this entire interaction simply drove home the truth. This was pathetic. She was pathetic.
“Thalia owns Las Nacionales around the corner on First Avenue, near East Second. She would know if Frankie and him…Maybe you should try asking her.”
—
It was just past four, Las Nacionales empty apart from a handful of employees setting up for dinner service when Gretchen stepped inside.
It was an inviting restaurant, cozy but also chic, with exposed wood beams, brick walls, and a sophisticated Cuban farm-to-table menu that was certainly adventurous.
Stalling, she’d taken a moment outside to peruse it in the window.
She could not for the life of her imagine Richard ever eating there.
“We don’t open until five p.m.”