Chapter 6
Adrian
From the backseat of the car I watched the new Laurent Atelier through the window, waiting for the perfect moment to enter. The last thing Vivienne needed was another surprise visit, especially after the way our last conversation ended. I told my driver to circle the block, then sat and watched.
Vivienne was inside, hunched over a worktable, red pencil clenched between her teeth.
Her hair was loose, falling in strands over her face.
Every few minutes she’d toss the pencil aside, stand, pace to the window, then back to the mannequin that wore the beginnings of her latest experiment.
I could tell she was alone from the tension in her shoulders; when she was with someone, the energy was different—looser, brighter, charged like the air before a storm.
I’d seen her like this before, early in our marriage, when she was still trying to build a brand and I was still sleeping in the guest room after too many all-nighters.
Sometimes I’d come home to find her sprawled on the floor, surrounded by fabric scraps, legs crossed and a tape measure draped around her neck like a trophy.
She’d barely look up, except to demand coffee or tell me to stop blocking the light.
Back then, I loved that about her—the way she became almost elemental when she was working.
I didn’t realize how much I missed it until now.
She worked with a precision I never noticed in our day-to-day life.
When she reached for a new sheet of pattern paper, her hands shook a little, but she recovered.
Her movements were sharper, more impatient, as if she was fighting the urge to throw the whole project away.
At one point, she laughed, loud and sudden, and I realized there was another woman with her—a friend, I assumed, because she wore jeans and a faded band t-shirt and looked like she belonged anywhere but here.
The two of them conferred over the muslin, draping it, pinning, unpinning.
Vivienne rolled her eyes at something the friend said and then doubled over, laughing so hard she had to steady herself against the table.
The friend went to the coffeemaker and poured them each a mug, then raised it in salute.
They clinked cups, drank, and went back to work.
I watched them until my driver grew bored and started a podcast, the tinny voices vibrating through the partition. The more I watched, the more I realized I hadn’t seen Vivienne look like this—so alive, so animated—in years. Maybe not since the girls were little. Maybe not even then.
It made me want to smash the glass between us.
I went back the next morning, hoping to catch her before she got busy.
But the studio was already alive: bolts of fabric scattered everywhere, sunlight streaming through the dust. Vivienne stood at the center, barefoot, marking a line on the mannequin with blue chalk.
She wore old sweatpants and a cropped sweatshirt, her hair tied up in a loose bun that somehow looked better than anything she wore at the galas.
“Nice place,” I said from the door, trying to sound casual.
She turned, startled. For a second, her face was open, vulnerable, as if she’d forgotten I existed. Then she composed herself.
“Adrian,” she said, flat.
“Can I come in?”
She hesitated, then nodded. I walked in, taking in the mess—the kind of mess that meant something was actually happening. The friend from yesterday was gone, but there were two empty coffee cups and the smell of burnt toast lingering in the air.
“I just wanted to see how you were doing,” I said.
“I’m fine.” She went back to the mannequin, eyes fixed on the line she was drawing. “You don’t have to check up on me.”
“Not checking up. Just… interested.”
She gave a little snort, not quite a laugh. “Since when?”
I let the jab land, then shrugged. “I always was. You just didn’t notice.”
She finally looked at me, really looked, and I saw the exhaustion in her face. “That’s rich,” she said. “You used to say you liked it when I got lost in my work. Because then you could get lost in yours.”
I searched for a comeback, but found none. She was right.
She took a step back, studied the mannequin, and then asked, “What do you want, Adrian? Really.”
“I want you to come home,” I said.
She shook her head, slow. “That’s not home for me right now.”
I tried to read her, to find some trace of the woman who used to melt when I said her name, but all I saw was someone trying not to be hurt again.
I put my hands in my pockets, fidgeted with my keys. “Do you need anything? Money, supplies—”
“I have what I need,” she said, then turned away.
I left without another word.
That Direct Action always worked for me in business, but when it came to Vivienne, I was stuck. I called a few friends, the ones who prided themselves on knowing the anatomy of a marriage better than any therapist.
They convened at the bar on the third floor of the club, where every wall was lined with bottles and no one ever asked about your real problems. The air smelled like whiskey and ambition.
“Bring flowers,” said Mark. “She likes lilies. Or was it orchids?”
I shook my head. “She’s not speaking to me. Flowers will just end up in the trash.”
“Go bigger, then. Jewelry. Women love jewelry,” said Jonathan, who’d been married three times and still wore his first wedding ring as a sort of punchline.
“She has more jewelry than the Crown Jewels,” I said, and signaled the bartender for another round.
“What about a vacation?” said Mark, leaning in. “Sweep her off her feet. Rome, Paris. Get her out of her head.”
“She won’t even let me into her studio. How am I supposed to get her on a plane?”
They all looked at me, then at each other. For the first time, no one had an answer.
At the end of the table, the only guy I really respected—Will, married twenty years, never cheated, never so much as sent a flirty DM—sipped his drink and watched me.
“Have you tried listening?” he said, so quietly it almost got drowned out by the bar noise.
I frowned. “Listening to what?”
“To her. You always talk about what you want. What about what she wants?”
I opened my mouth, then closed it. My brain ran the last dozen conversations I’d had with Vivienne, but I couldn’t remember a single instance where I asked her what she wanted.
“She won’t say,” I tried.
Will just shrugged. “Sometimes you have to pay attention to what people aren’t saying.”
The others laughed, rolled their eyes, went back to their drinks. But I kept turning the words over in my head: pay attention to what she isn’t saying.
I walked home, past the empty boutiques and shuttered restaurants, and tried to remember the last time I’d really listened to Vivienne. Not just heard her voice, but actually listened.
I couldn’t remember.
I buzzed up to the apartment, opened the door, and found the space cold and hollow, as if the air had been sucked out when she left. Her perfume still lingered in the bedroom, but the closets were empty, the drawers stripped.
I poured myself a drink, sat on the edge of the bed, and stared out at the city.
If someone had asked me what Vivienne wanted before she married me, I could have recited it like a script. After all these years, I realized I had no idea.
I thought about calling her, but I didn’t. Instead, I sat in the dark, trying to listen to the silence she left behind.