Chapter 25 Jasmine
Jasmine
Sunday evening, reunion weekend
After hours in the car, talking, laughing and crying, Jasmine drops Beck off at the Stamford train station, hugs her hard and cries some more as Beck’s tall form walks off, cat carrier in one hand, suitcase in the other.
She doesn’t care if someone from Greenwich sees her sobbing as she sits there, digging through the glove box for napkins since she and Beck used up all the tissues on the drive down. She blows her nose, and almost on autopilot, checks her phone. She’s had it on Do Not Disturb the entire drive.
No fewer than twenty-three messages from Carmen and Michele and some of the other Garden Club Mafia, gloating about the tour of homes, asking her where she was, telling her she really missed out, fake-hoping she was okay.
Her social media spills over with pictures of Greenwich Moms and Liam Dockery.
Jasmine thinks for a second about posting one of herself and Ché, which would make a lot of the Greenwich Dads wet themselves.
Nah. This isn’t a competition. She almost laughs at that—it’s always been a competition. She just isn’t playing anymore.
She ignores the texts, starts the car and heads for Lydia’s lacrosse game.
Oscar is there with the two other girls, face glued to his phone.
Jasmine bursts into a run, arms outstretched.
Lyra yells, “Mommy!” and runs into her arms, and Jasmine is crying a little.
She kisses her little one and hugs Lucy.
“Mom, you’ve only been gone, like, three days,” Lucy says. But she hugs her back, and Jasmine kisses both of them repeatedly.
“I missed you so much!” she says. There was Lydia on the field. “Hi, Lyddie!” she calls, getting a double take as a response. Later, she imagines Lydia will ask her not to acknowledge her in public. Teenagers. Jasmine smooches Lyra’s fat little cheek. God, the girls are so beautiful.
“At last, she returns,” comes a voice. Carmen, whose daughter also plays lacrosse. “We have so much to discuss.”
“Another time, Carmen,” Jasmine says. “I just want to be with my family right now.”
Carmen draws back, her mouth tightening. “Of course,” she says, already taking out her phone to gossip-text. “Soon, I hope.” Jasmine knows she’s just committed social suicide, and she doesn’t care.
“How was your weekend?” Oscar asks finally, his voice tight.
“It was very . . . moving,” she says, and her eyes fill up with tears. “Let’s have dinner after Lyra’s asleep. We need to talk.”
“I’m very busy, Jasmine. Especially since you took off for the entire weekend.”
Yes, the first time she’s ever left him alone with the girls. “It’s very, very important,” she says. “It can’t wait.”
“Stay home, Daddy,” Lyra says. “Please?” Lucy reaches out and puts her hand on her little sister’s head, and it occurs to Jasmine that Lucy knows a lot more than Jasmine gives her credit for.
“Fine,” he says. “But I’m heading for the office now that you’re here, and I’ll probably have to go back after our very, very important talk.” He uses air quotes.
What a dick.
She’s made excuses for him a thousand times—stressful field, so much responsibility, a man’s man, such a good provider. But he isn’t kind. Not anymore.
After the game, she takes all three girls home in her car and makes them dinner, asks about their weekend.
“Ellen doesn’t work here anymore,” Lyra announces, holding up her broccoli to the light to examine it.
“That’s okay,” Jasmine says. “We don’t really need her. But we can write her a nice card, and I bet we can have her over for visits.”
“Mom, did you talk to Dad about Vail yet?” asks Lydia.
“No, honey, I didn’t.” Lydia heaves a great sigh of irritation. “Did you have a nice weekend?”
“Not really.”
“Great assist to Sophia, by the way. You looked really strong out there.”
Lydia looks a little surprised. Maybe it was the normalcy of the compliment.
Jasmine has always gone overboard, never wanting her girls to feel invisible and worthless the way she did.
You’re the most beautiful girl in the world.
You’re so talented! Well, sure, she’s pretty, but you are beautiful.
Don’t worry, I’ll talk to your teacher about raising that to an A. You deserve it.
There will be time for self-examination later. “Lucy, what did you do while I was away, sweetheart?”
Lucy glances at Lydia, who rolls her eyes. “Not much. I made a new character for Dungeons & Dragons. Read a little.”
“What are you reading?” she asks.
“Um, Witches Steeped in Gold.”
“What’s it about?”
Another puzzled look. “Do you really want to know?”
“I do.”
Lucy takes a sip of water. “It’s about two witches who are enemies. One’s in jail, and one’s a princess, and they have to become allies for the greater good.”
“That sounds really cool,” Jasmine says. “Maybe I can read it when you’re done.”
“Sure,” Lucy says. Jasmine can tell her interest has pleased her middle daughter, and when she drops a hand on Lucy’s shoulder as she sets down her plate, Lucy doesn’t shrug it off.
“Daddy didn’t use enough bubble bath,” Lyra informs her. “And he only read one story at bedtime. It was very short.”
“Well. I’ll use lots of bubble bath and read extra to make up for it.”
“Good!” Lyra says. She licks her broccoli, makes a face and puts it back on her plate.
Maybe it’s because Jasmine visited her past self in Stafford and has remembered the person she once wanted to be, but clarity is settling over her.
She never wanted to be a Greenwich Mom. She wanted to be creative and successful and safe.
Instead, she’s become trapped in the opulent prison of excess, ducking and dodging the things that actually matter.
For God’s sake, her husband is cheating on her, and she’s trying to Botox and Pilates her way back into his heart.
Fuck that, as Cash would say.
When the older girls are in their rooms doing homework (or watching TikTok), and after she has used a lot of bubble bath and read Lyra seven stories and tucked her in and started a load of laundry because Ellen no longer works here, Jasmine finally hears the garage door opening.
Out of habit, she brushes her hair and refreshes her lipstick before she remembers she’s not going to do that anymore.
In the kitchen, Oscar stands at the island, pouring himself a bourbon. Pappy Van Winkle. No budgeting for Oscar. One bottle costs at least $1,200.
“Hi,” she says.
“What’s so important, Jasmine?” He turns to face her, his expression irritable. “I’m swamped.”
He’s always swamped. “I know, and thank you.”
He swallows a gulp of his drink and sits down on one of the six stools that line their marble island. “So get to the subject at hand,” he says.
“Oscar . . .” What does she want to say? What does she want, period? “I know you’re in trouble financially. We’re in trouble.”
“Don’t get hysterical. It’s under control.”
She’s not even close to hysterical. In fact, she’s surprised she doesn’t feel more. “And I know you’re cheating on me with Alyssa.”
His eyebrows rise, but he says nothing.
“So we could do two things, Oscar,” she says. “We could downsize. Sell the house, move somewhere that’s not so expensive, start over on a more modest scale. Be a normal family without all . . . this.” She gestures to his bottle of Pappy, to the kitchen, his ostrich-skin briefcase.
He looks at her like she’s grown a second head. “Downsize? Are you insane? We can’t downsize and move. I have an office in the city.”
“I’m aware. But, Oscar, you’ve been more successful than most humans on the planet. You can back off a little, can’t you?”
“I’m not going to stop now, Jasmine.”
She flinches at the way he sneers her name. “Why not? We have the girls, and we really loved each other once. We can get marriage counseling. I can even go back to work.”
He scoffs. “Really? And what are you qualified to do?”
It’s a fair point. Mother of three with four years of work experience means little in the real world.
“Work at a grocery store. Become a firefighter. I don’t know yet.
I can probably find a job with a bank or a financial services company.
Maybe I can start a small business. I went to Princeton. I’m not dumb.”
He says nothing.
“Listen, honey,” she says, even as an image of Alyssa Cottington flashes in her brain.
“Our life here is untenable. Lydia is becoming an entitled little snot, Lucy doesn’t have enough friends and Lyra spends too much time without me because I’m too busy being a Greenwich Mom to actually be a mother.
You’re pretending business is fine, but the rumors are already out there.
Is this the life you dreamed of when we first got married?
We can do better. We can be a happier family. For the girls, Oscar. And for us, too.”
“What happened on this little weekend of yours?” he asks.
She takes a deep breath. “I reunited with my high school friends. One of them is dying, and it reminded me about what’s important in life.”
“How cliché.”
“Don’t be such a shit, Oscar.” She has never sworn in front of him before. “We can try again, or we can get a divorce.”
“Oh, so you think you’ll fleece me in a divorce? Good luck with that.”
Clearly, she’s been better at hiding money than he knows. She may have been stupid, but she isn’t dumb. “I don’t intend to fleece you.”
He looks at her, his eyes cold. “It’s too late for us,” he says. “I’ve moved on. Alyssa’s pregnant.”
Of course she is. She sighs. “Okay. Divorce it is.” The poor girls.
Then again, this life isn’t doing them any favors.
She’ll have to take the chance that she can do better.
It wasn’t just her old friends she’d revisited this weekend.
She’d revisited herself, too, and the hope and determination she once had.
Since the day they met, Jasmine has done everything Oscar ever asked for in exchange for this life, and this life means nothing to him.
She means nothing to him. In this world, older men trade in their wives for younger models all the time, father more children, repeat the pattern and end up alone in a nursing home, wondering why no one ever visits. His future will be his own punishment.
She almost feels sorry for him. “I’ll talk to a lawyer tomorrow,” she says.
“That’s it?” he asks. “No hysterics? No throwing a glass of wine in my face?”
When has she ever been anything but perfectly behaved? “It’s tempting, but I’ll pass.”
“If you think you’re going to get a fortune, think again. Business is bad, you’re right about that. The house is mortgaged. You won’t be able to maintain your lifestyle.”
Her lifestyle is meaningless. Materialistic, fraught and fake.
She’s already had half of her jewelry appraised.
There’s a painting Oscar gave her for their tenth anniversary that’s worth a fair bit.
She can even sell her clothes if she has to.
She and the girls won’t be broke. And also .
. . “I found and documented your offshore accounts, which I’ll be showing my attorney.
Half of that will be a nice nest egg, at least.”
His face reddens. “Fuck you, Jasmine.”
Lovely. “I just ask that you stay involved with the girls. They still love you. Don’t drop them for your new wife and child.”
“If you think you’re going to bleed me on child support—”
“Just make sure you see them. That’s more important than having this zip code. They can downscale, too. It’s grotesque, the way we live.”
“Grotesque? You never complained before. You enjoyed being grotesque.”
“You’re right.”
He looks irritated not to get a rise out of her, and she goes in for the kill.
“Thank you, Oscar. You made me feel safe and loved, at least for a while. I wish you the best.”
Because the smart one—the woman who once thought of herself as poor white trash—is also incredibly classy.
As she goes up the stairs, she feels cleaner. Free. And, for the first time in a long time, hopeful about her future.