Chapter 4 #2
Faye let out a low, fierce curse under her breath, her heavy boots shifting against the floorboards.
“Insecure? You built this organization from a three-man street troupe into a regional non-profit that has a waiting list for seasonal subscriptions. You have more executive competence in your little finger than that silver-plated vulture has in her entire corporate portfolio.”
“But he doesn’t see it,” I said, looking up at the dark, empty proscenium arch.
The stage felt massive, hollow, and lonely.
“To him, my work is quiet and contained. It doesn’t show up on the evening news, and it doesn’t change the value of a real estate index fund.
When I try to talk to him about his distance, he just gives me these automated, one-word answers without ever looking up from his tablet.
He is physically sitting across from me at the island, but his mind is completely checked out, calculating wind-shear variables or leasing metrics.
I am living with a ghost, Faye. I am feeling entirely second-best in my own marriage, and I don’t know how to fight a skyline. ”
Faye remained silent for a long moment, watching the tech crew onstage adjust the rigging for a painted traveler curtain.
The heavy canvas moved slowly, blocking out the light from the backstage corridor.
When she finally spoke, her voice had lost its anger, replaced by the intense, practical clarity that made her the best stage manager in the city.
“You are fighting him from the wrong position, Paige,” Faye said, turning her body toward me in the narrow row of seats.
“Right now, you are playing defense. You are standing in that quiet, sterile penthouse, waiting for him to come home, waiting for him to step out of his world and notice the silence you are living in. And when he does come home, he brings the entire weight of his corporate baggage with him, turning your kitchen into an extension of his boardroom.”
I frowned, looking at her through the shadows. “What am I supposed to do, Faye? Force my way into a twenty-million-dollar investor meeting? I tried to speak up last night, and he cut me off to keep his financing structure from fracturing.”
“I am telling you to breach his fortress on his own turf,” Faye said, her eyes flashing with a sudden, decisive spark.
“Malcolm’s brain is not like a normal human brain, Paige.
You know how he operates. He is an architect and a developer.
When he is in the middle of a major launch phase, his mind gets trapped in this hyper-focused corporate fog.
He sees the world as a structural blueprint, a series of loads and balances that need to be resolved.
He isn’t ignoring you because he doesn’t love you; he is ignoring you because he has allowed the project to become the only reality that carries any weight on his monitor. ”
She reached out, her rough, calloused hand gripping my shoulder with a fierce, grounding pressure.
“If you stay in the penthouse, you are just a variable he thinks he has already managed. You need to disrupt the grid, Paige. You need to walk directly into his corporate headquarters, right into that glass-walled drafting studio, and force him to look at you without a computer screen or an assistant between you.”
“Faye, he is in the middle of a critical design crisis,” I muttered, looking down at my laptop.
The thought of storming his office filled me with a sudden, terrifying wave of vulnerability.
“If I show up unannounced while he is troubleshooting with Gavin, it will just prove everything he said about me being unnecessarily territorial.”
“Then do not show up with an argument,” Faye countered, her tone unyielding.
“Show up with a simple, grounded lunch. No corporate branding, no high-society reservations, no five-star catering packages. Just two sandwiches from that greasy deli down on First Avenue, the one you two used to frequent when you were broke and living in that drafty apartment in Capitol Hill. Walk past his reception desk, walk past Cynthia’s portfolios, and drop that brown paper bag right on top of his digital drafting tables. ”
I stared at her, the memory of those early days suddenly rushing through my mind like a physical warmth.
I remembered the grease-stained paper bags, the smell of pastrami and rye, and the way Malcolm used to clear off a mountain of hand-drawn vellum sketches just so we could sit shoulder-to-shoulder on a single wooden stool, laughing as we shared a bottle of cheap soda.
There had been no glass towers then, no silver-clad curators, and no multi-million-dollar investment mandates.
There had just been the two of us, building a life out of nothing but raw ambition and shared dreams.
“Disrupt his sterile environment, Paige,” Faye urged softly, her grip on my shoulder tightening.
“Force him to step away from his blueprints, even if it is only for twenty minutes. Force him to look at his wife, to see the physical reality of the woman he is starving, and make him choose you in real-time. Do not let Cynthia be the only one who shares his space when the pressure gets heavy. Go to his office, take up room in his world, and let him remember who dug the foundation with him before the skyline took his soul.”
The words settled into the quiet auditorium, carrying a heavy, undeniable truth that made my heart hammer against my ribs.
Faye was right. I had been hiding in my own sanctuary, retreating into my theater work and my solitary anger, allowing the distance between us to grow into a permanent chasm.
I had been allowing Cynthia to dictate the terms of his presence, letting her become the supportive ally while I became the resentful obligation waiting at home.
“The wardrobe adjustment is clear, Paige,” the light board operator’s voice crackled through my headset, breaking the stillness of the row. “Are we ready to reset to the top of the act?”
I reached up, my fingers trembling slightly as I pressed the button on my headset. “Hold for five minutes, Toby. I need to handle an administrative matter outside the building.”
I turned back to Faye, the lingering fear in my chest completely burned away by a sudden, fierce spark of determination. “Can you run the lighting cues for the rest of the second act without me?”
Faye’s face split into a wide, triumphant grin, her headset slipping back down over her ears with a sharp click.
“I can run the entire show backward if I have to, Paige. Get out of here, go down to First Avenue, and buy the pastrami. It’s time to show the architect of Seattle that his most important contract is still waiting to be signed. ”
I closed my laptop, slid it into my leather work bag, and stood up from the broken spring of row L.
The coil caught the fabric of my trousers this time, adding one last scratch to my day, but I didn’t care.
As I walked down the dim, carpeted aisle toward the exit doors, the ambient shadows of the theater no longer felt like a hiding place.
They felt like a launching pad. I was done playing defense in a dark penthouse, and I was done being a ghost at my own table.
I was heading into the center of the city, into the glass tower, to force my husband to look into the soul of the woman he was leaving behind.