Chapter 28
‘Happiness in marriage is entirely a matter of chance.’
Our marriage didn’t head into more drama, heartbreak, or even surprise. There was just a gradual shift, like a light dimming in a room.
Chase was gone most of the time, working, or golfing. The rest of the time we were out in the social whirl of the Bay Area.
In the early weeks, I tried to keep up. I thought maybe if I leaned in far enough, I’d find the rhythm and a way to belong.
I said yes to everything. Thursday through Sunday blurred into a loop of partying.
I tried the white lines of cocaine that were always around to fuel the crowd.
It lit me up, made me louder, faster and funnier.
I’d never heard myself speak that much. People laughed at my stories and for a while, I sparkled.
Then came Monday.
The crash was physical. It’d hit me like a sledgehammer. I’d lie in bed, blinds drawn, sweating and dealing with a brain crushing headache. I hated who I became after the party stopped so I quit. Chase didn’t ask why. Or maybe he noticed and chose not to.
Then there were the Fuller family obligations: charity dinners, silent auctions, luncheons with Bunny and her coterie at the club.
I learned how to glide through a room without letting anything real show.
I flew home to England a few times that first year. Every time I stepped off the plane, I felt myself slip back into a version of me that still made sense to everyone – the lucky girl who’d married into San Francisco society. I was a dazzling export success. A fairy tale made real.
‘Life’s wonderful,’ I’d say.
I described it all like a success story, because that was the narrative everyone expected. It was way easier than explaining the truth.
Dom and Tania came on their honeymoon. Mum and Dad followed that summer for two weeks, marvelling at supermarkets the size of aircraft hangars and the endless sunshine. Alice came too, later, with her new husband Dylan.
Chase was impeccable when there was an audience.
He was charismatic, attentive and witty.
The perfect husband. His backup was Bunny who orchestrated everything with terrifying efficiency.
There was the use of their house in Monterey, guest passes at the club, tickets to baseball games, and dinners booked weeks ahead.
Everyone left glowing, believing in the dream.
All except for Alice…
The third night of her and Dylan’s visit, the guys had gone to bed, leaving the two of us sitting outside on the patio, a bottle of Californian sauvignon between us.
The air was still warm even though the sun had gone.
Fairy lights twinkled in the trees, and the pool lights were on, offering a shimmering expanse of water at our feet.
For a while she gave me the low-down on the latest London gossip. Then there was a lull. The kind that only happens with someone who knows you too well.
Alice tipped her glass, watching the wine slide across the inside like a tidal pool. ‘So,’ she said. ‘Are you really happy?’
It should have been the easiest question in the world.
I opened my mouth.
For a second, a tiny, terrifying second, the truth rose up to the brim. My loneliness. The way Chase could switch from charismatic to cutting in the space of a breath. And then the sense of living inside someone else’s life and the constant effort of keeping everything smooth.
I could have told her then and she would have listened. Instead I smiled. ‘Of course I am,’ I said. ‘It’s just… you know. The time difference makes it hard sometimes. You and I don’t get to talk properly. I miss that.’
She tilted her head. She had that look, the one she’d had since we were teenagers, when she knew I was skirting around something. ‘You can tell me anything,’ she said.
‘I know.’
Another beat passed. I could hear the low buzz of the cicadas in the jasmine getting louder in my ears. It felt like they were egging me on to speak the truth.
I lifted my glass and took a sip.
‘It’s just the adjustment,’ I said. ‘New country. A whole new life of being Mrs Fuller. But it’s completely fine. I’m completely fine.’
Alice kept looking at me. ‘Fine?’
The word hung out there in the evening air.
I looked up at the waning moon. Who are you, Mrs Fuller?
I asked myself. I needed time to figure it out.
‘I’m settling into this,’ I said, waving my hand out at our setting.
‘You’ve got to admit it is mighty fine. And me?
’ I held up my glass and forced a smile that was bordering on a mad woman’s grin.
‘I am more than fine. I am happily married into a wonderful family.’
Alice’s quizzical expression softened, dissolving into a grin. We clinked glasses. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘If you’re happy, I’m happy. Look at us. We actually did it.’
‘Did what?’
‘Found them. Our Darcys. God,’ she went on, smiling into her wine, ‘Remember how seriously we took that list?’
I forced myself to laugh along with her, our unison was easy and familiar, slipping us back for a moment into that rainy bedroom where everything had still been ahead of us – where love was inevitable and heartbreak was theoretical.
She’d let it go. But as we sat there, shoulder to shoulder, I felt the truth pressing against my ribs like something alive.
I didn’t tell her. Not because I thought she’d judge me. But because saying it out loud, to her, of all people, would have made it real. And once it was real, I might have had to do something about it.
My solace came in the shape of a dog. A hound from the pound with golden eyes and a lopsided tail. I named him Rocky, and from the moment we left the shelter, he was mine.
He slept curled at the foot of the bed when Chase didn’t come home. Followed me from room to room like he was keeping an eye on something fragile. Once, when Chase came back after an all-night bender, Rocky growled. And that was it. He had my loyalty for life.
Something about his quiet, uncomplicated devotion pulled me out of my fug. I started getting up earlier. Walking farther. The air felt different with him beside me. There was whiff of a promise that somehow I could make my own way here.
A few weeks later, I applied for a job. It wasn’t about money. It was about escape.
The Fuller family fortune was wrapped tighter than Fort Knox, every dollar weighted with meaning and dynastic politics.
Nothing came without strings. Everything – the houses, furniture, even our cars – was owned by the family trust. Chase’s salary wasn’t his.
It was governed by a board chaired by Bunny and Chase Sr. I was given a small monthly allowance to ‘run the household’ and required to itemise every dime.
I did, with growing resentment, stacking brown paper grocery bags full of receipts in the garage like I was hoarding proof of my validity in the family.
The allowance shrank over time because Chase’s coke habit was increasing.
Tuesday became the new Friday. It soon became the most expensive line item in our lives.
I became a budget Bunny, trawling discount malls for marked-down designer clothes, stitching together the Fuller image like a patchwork quilt I didn’t believe in.
Getting a job with no work experience outside of a construction business was hard. So I signed up with a temp agency.
My first job was a receptionist gig at an insurance firm. I couldn’t type properly, but I could smile, answer phones and make coffee with a flourish. The best part? I met real people. Normal Americans. No club ties or trust funds.
During lunch breaks I read the San Francisco Chronicle classifieds, circling jobs I had no business applying for but sent my résumé anyway.
Then I found it.
‘Information Systems Assistant – Independent Film Studio, Marin.’
It sounded mysterious, romantic, even. A film studio. I applied on a whim. They called me in for an interview.
I wore a navy suit I’d found on a half-price rack in Fashion Valley and practiced saying ‘systems assistant’ like it was something I’d always been. I wasn’t technical but they liked my accent. I could run a project list and I knew how to listen. That was enough.
I got the job.
Rivertide Studios became my refuge. The people there didn’t care which fork I used or whether I’d RSVPd to the Spring Fête at the club. They didn’t know Bunny, and I didn’t offer her name. At Rivertide, I was just Florence. Not Mrs Fuller, not Bunny-in-training.
I never talked about the life I returned to on weekends – the galas and dinners. I kept it separate. Untouched. I wanted to be judged on who I was, not who I’d married.
It was the first time since I landed in California that I could breathe.