12. Lucille #2
“No. I suppose it’s the fan edits that are your fault. The interview where you touched his arm and talked about being meant to make music together. The flowers you sent to my home suggesting I call you when I’m ready to move on.”
A flicker of annoyance, or maybe satisfaction, crosses her face before the mask smooths back into place.
“I was just being supportive. I know how hard it must be, watching your husband connect with someone on a level you can’t reach.” She sighs sympathetically. “Some bonds are just deeper than marriage, I guess.”
The audacity of it takes my breath away.
“You don’t have a bond with my husband,” I say, and my voice comes out steady despite the rage building in my chest. “You have a publicity strategy.”
Ginny’s smile turns cold.
“Excuse me?”
“You heard me. Whatever you think is between you and Hugo, it’s manufactured.
It’s marketing. It’s a college song that got leaked by someone who clearly benefited from the chaos…
” I watch her face carefully. “And a series of carefully orchestrated publicity opportunities designed to make you relevant again.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. I’ve watched you play this game for months.
The innocent act, the meaningful glances, the way you position yourself in every photo to suggest what isn’t there.
” I set down my wine glass. “You’re not in love with Hugo.
You’re in love with what he can do for your career. ”
Ginny’s mask slips entirely now, her eyes going cold.
“And what can you do for his career?” she asks.
“Because from where I’m standing, you’re just the wife who got lucky.
The business arrangement that happened to come with a famous last name.
” She leans in. “Hugo needed someone who understood his world, who could create with him, who could be his partner in every sense. Instead, he got you. A woman who sews clothes and waits at home like it’s still 1955. ”
“At least I didn’t have to manipulate my way into his life.”
“At least I was invited.”
The words land like a slap.
She’s right. God, she’s right, and she knows it. I wasn’t invited into Hugo’s life. I was arranged. Purchased. Installed like furniture in a house that was never meant to be mine.
But that doesn’t mean I’m going to let her win.
“You know what the difference is between us?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“I never pretended to be what I’m not. I married Hugo knowing exactly what the arrangement was.
I spent two years trying to build a real marriage out of a transaction, and yes, I failed.
But at least I was honest about what I wanted. ”
“And what did you want?”
“Him. Just him. Not his fame, not his connections, not what he could do for my career. Just the man.” I hold her gaze. “Can you say the same?”
For a moment, uncertainty flickers in Ginny’s eyes, or maybe recognition. Then it’s gone, replaced by that cold, calculating smile.
“You’re naive,” she says. “No one wants ‘just him.’ That’s not how this industry works. That’s not how any of this works.”
“Maybe that’s your problem.”
“My problem?” She laughs. “I don’t have a problem. I have a collaboration that’s making both our careers. I have streaming numbers that would make your head spin. I have…”
“Nothing,” I interrupt. “You have nothing. Because whatever you think you’re building with Hugo, it’s already over. He cut you off. He stepped back from everything. And all your manipulation and scheming and careful positioning got you exactly nowhere.”
Ginny’s face goes red.
“You think you’ve won?” Her voice rises, attracting glances from nearby conversations. “You think because he’s leaving flowers at your door like some pathetic stalker that you’ve actually won?”
“This isn’t about winning.”
“Of course it is. Everything is about winning.” She steps closer, her champagne sloshing in its glass.
“And let me tell you about your precious husband. He may be playing the devoted man now, but I know what he’s really like.
I knew him before you. I knew him when he was real, when he was passionate, when he wasn’t hiding behind walls and arranged marriages.
The Hugo I knew would never have ended up with someone like you. ”
“The Hugo you knew was a twenty-one-year-old who didn’t know any better.” I don’t step back. “He grew up. You didn’t.”
Her hand comes up, fast, deliberate, and shoves my shoulder.
It’s small. Deniable. Disguised as an emphatic gesture, the kind of thing that could be explained away as an accident. Most of the room is too far away to see clearly, and those who are watching might not understand what they’re looking at.
But I feel it. The deliberate pressure. The intention behind it.
And a wire inside me snaps.
I pick up my wine glass and throw the contents in her face.
The Cabernet hits her square on, splashing across her perfect makeup, streaming down her carefully styled hair, staining the front of her expensive dress. She gasps, a high, shocked sound, and stumbles backward, her hands flying up too late to protect herself.
The conversations around us stutter and stop. Phones appear in hands. The quiet click of cameras capturing the moment.
“That,” I say clearly, loudly, wanting everyone to hear, “was for every time you tried to crawl into my marriage and pass it off as art.”
Ginny stares at me, wine dripping from her chin, her eyes wide with shock and fury.
“You’re insane,” she hisses.
“No. I’m just done.” I set down the empty glass. “You don’t want Hugo. You want my leftovers. And you’re not even good at taking those.”
I turn and walk toward the exit.
The crowd parts for me, whether out of respect or shock, I can’t tell. I feel the eyes on my back, hear the murmur of voices rising behind me, sense the phones tracking my progress across the room.
But I don’t care.
I walk away with confidence.
The night breeze hits my face.
I make it around the corner before I stop, pressing my back against the rough brick of the building, trying to catch my breath. My heart is pounding. My hands are shaking. Every nerve in my body is vibrating with the aftermath of what I just did.
I threw wine in Ginny Davies’ face. In public. In front of witnesses with cameras.
The fallout will be significant. Gossip blogs. Social media. The “volatile wife” narrative that Ginny has been carefully cultivating for months, now given a perfect piece of evidence.
I should feel regret. I should be catastrophizing, running through all the ways this could damage my brand, my reputation, my divorce proceedings.
But as I stand there in the cool darkness, waiting for the panic to set in, a strange thing happens.
It doesn’t come.
What comes instead is lightness. A weight lifting off my chest that I didn’t even realize I’d been carrying. A sense of space opening up inside me, room to breathe that hasn’t been there in years.
I reach into my clutch and feel Sandra’s business card. Still there. Still real. The buyer who wants to see my lookbook, who praised my designs without knowing anything about my husband.
I think about the confrontation with my father. The words I finally said after years of swallowing them. The way he stood there with nothing to say, because there was nothing he could say. Because I was right, and he knew it.
I think about Ginny, dripping with wine, staring at me like I’d grown a second head. The shock on her face when I refused to be small, refused to be polite, refused to let her push me and walk away like I always had before.
And I understand the truth.
I didn’t do that for Hugo.
I didn’t do it against Ginny, not really.
I did it for myself.
For every time I made myself smaller to fit into someone else’s expectations. For every time I swallowed my anger and performed graciousness and pretended I wasn’t drowning. For every time I let myself be someone’s transaction, someone’s arrangement, someone’s afterthought.
For two years of being a ghost in my own life.
I start laughing.
It bubbles up from somewhere deep, unexpected and uncontrollable, and I lean against the brick wall and laugh until tears stream down my face.
Not tears of sadness, tears of release. Of recognition.
Of finally, finally understanding who I am when I’m not trying to be someone else’s version of acceptable.
I am Lucille Adler.
Someone who designs beautiful things. I build my own dreams. I throw wine at women who try to crawl into my marriage, and I tell my father exactly what he did wrong, and I don’t apologize for any of it.
I am not Hugo Kensington’s wife.
Nor am I simply Albert Adler’s transaction.
And I am not anyone’s afterthought.
I am mine.
The realization settles into my bones like coming home, and finally, at this moment, my life feels like it belongs to me.
The gossip blogs will have their story tomorrow. The social media accounts will pick apart every second of footage. The narrative will spin out of my control, the way narratives always do.
But tonight, I don’t care.
Tonight, I stood up for myself. I said the things I needed to say. I refused to be small.
And tomorrow, I’ll send Sandra my lookbook. I’ll keep building my brand. I’ll keep showing up for myself the way I’ve been waiting for everyone else to show up for me.
The flower will be at my door in the morning. Hugo will keep trying, keep reaching, keep proving that he sees me now even though he didn’t see me before.
And maybe, maybe, I’ll let him.
But not because I need him.
Because I choose him.
If I choose him at all, it will be from this place of fullness, this place of knowing who I am without him. It will be a gift, freely given, not a transaction or an obligation or a desperate grasp at a feeling that passes for safety.
I push off the wall and start walking toward my car, the night air cool against my flushed cheeks.
Behind me, the party continues without me.
Ahead of me, my life waits, uncertain and terrifying and entirely my own.
I’ve never felt more alive.