I’ll have. I have to be able to read her expression, to decipher any signs of guilt or sorrow or love.
It isn’t what I expect.
There’s no strong emotion in her face. Her brow furrows slightly. Her eyes are quizzical.
It’s as if she recognizes Thomas but can’t quite place him.
“He looks vaguely familiar . . .” she finally says.
She meets my gaze. She’s waiting for me to fill in the blanks.
“You had an affair with him,” I blurt. “Just a couple of months ago!”
“What?”
Her cry of surprise is so loud that her coworker turns around: “Everything okay, Lauren?”
“I’m sorry,” I sputter. “He told me, he said—”
“It’s fine,” Lauren calls back to her colleague, but her voice has an edge, like she’s angry now.
I try to gather myself; she’ll probably throw me out in a minute. “You said he looks familiar. Do you even know him at all?”
My voice cracks and I force back tears.
Instead of recoiling like I’m crazy, Lauren’s face softens. Are you okay?”
I nod and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand.
“Why in the world would you think I had an affair with that man? she says.
I can’t come up with anything to say other than the truth. “Someone told me you had . . .” I hesitate, then force myself to continue. “I met him a few weeks ago and . . . I’m worried he might be dangerous,” I whisper.
Lauren rears back. “Look, I don’t know who you are, but this is nuts. Someone told you I had an affair with him? I’m married. Happily married. Who told you that lie?”
“Maybe I got it wrong,” I say. There’s no way I can go into all of this with her. “I apologize, I didn’t mean to insult you . . . Could you just look again and see if you can remember if you’ve ever seen him before?”
Now Lauren is the one studying me. I wipe my eyes again and make myself meet her gaze.
She finally stretches out her hand. “Let me see your phone.”
As she gazes at the photo, her face clears. “I remember him now. He was a customer.”
She looks up at the ceiling and bites her lower lip. “Okay, it’s coming back to me. He walked in a few months ago. I was just putting out some items from the fall line and he was looking for some special outfits for his wife. He spent quite a lot of money.”
The chime over the door announces the arrival of a new customer. Lauren glances her way and I know my time here is limited.
“Was that all?” I ask.
Lauren raises her eyebrows. “Well, he returned everything the next day. That’s probably why I even remember him at all. He was very apologetic but said they weren’t his wife’s style.”
She looks toward the front of the shop again. “I never saw him again,” she says. “I didn’t get the feeling that he was dangerous at all. In fact, he seemed really sweet. But I barely spent any time with him. And I certainly didn’t have an affair with him.”
“Thank you,” I say. “I’m so sorry I bothered you.”
She turns to go, then looks back at me. Honey, if you’re that scared of him, you really should go to the police.”
CHAPTER
FIFTY-NINE
Sunday, December 23
In a psychological assessment known as the Invisible Gorilla experiment, subjects believed they were supposed to count passes between players on a basketball team. In actuality, they were being evaluated on something else entirely. What most subjects did not notice while tallying the tosses of the ball was that a man in a gorilla suit had walked onto the court. Focusing so strongly on one component blinded the subjects to the big picture.
My hyperfocus on Thomas’s fidelity, or lack thereof, may have obscured an unexpectedly shocking aspect of my case study: that you have an agenda of your own.
You have been solely responsible for reporting what occurred during all of your encounters with my husband—from the museum, to Ted’s Diner, to the most recent rendezvous at Deco Bar. Your interactions with Thomas could not be witnessed because of the danger that he would notice my presence.
But you have proven to be an accomplished liar.
In fact, you snuck into my survey in a move that appeared entrepreneurial but was actually duplicitous.
All of your revelations are reviewed again, this time through a new lens: You lied to your parents about the circumstances of Becky’s accident. You sleep with men you barely know. You claim that a respected