grudges. If there were going to be an undoing of our marriage, that would be it.
“Yeah,” Gene continued. “He was all dressed up. In a tux. Left in a cab ten minutes ago.”
Where would my husband be going in a tux? Without me? My heart filled with the lonely realization that he was slipping away from me, like sand between my fingers. I could stop this. I could find him and take him into my arms. Tell him I love him. We could end this nonsense. The painful memories of the past began to seep into my mind, but I shooed them away. Reconciliation. It’s what my therapist had been pushing for all along. One of us needed to make the first step, she’d said. One of us needed to grab the other by the collar and say, ‘Look at us! We’re dying! We can fix this! We love each other!’ I’d been thinking about making that first step for months, but each time I tried to take one forward, we took two steps back, sometimes three. Not this time. I nodded to myself and held my hand out to the driver. “Wait a sec, please!” I yelled, before whipping my head back to Gene. “Did he say where he was going?”
“Yes, some big event at the Olympic Hotel.” He looked nervous, as if he worried he’d just divulged a marriage-shattering secret. “I, um, assumed you were joining him.”
“Thanks, Gene,” I said, ducking back into the cab. I turned to the driver. “Can you take me to the Olympic Hotel?”
I clasped my hands together nervously as the cab approached the old building. I marveled at its ornate facade and intricate columns. Valets buzzed like bees, plucking keys and flying incoming cars off to inconspicuous parking garages. A couple arrived in a shiny black Mercedes-Benz a few feet ahead. The woman’s sequined dress sparkled as she took her date’s hand, shimmying her svelte body out of the car in five-inch heels. I glanced down at my own shoes, a pair of worn gray ballet flats with a black scuff on the right toe that I hadn’t bothered to buff out. I tried in vain to smooth the wrinkles from my shirt. When a tube of lipstick didn’t turn up in my purse, I ran a nervous hand through my wind-whipped hair. I regretted sitting on the outside deck of the ferry on the return trip to Seattle; the salty breeze had pulverized my hair into a mangled mess. I gathered my straggly locks into a tight bunch and tucked it into the rubber band I pulled from my wrist. I handed the driver a ten-dollar bill and stepped out of the cab.
I approached a doorman clad in a black trench coat. “Is there an event happening here tonight?” I asked, peering through the gold-trimmed glass doors ahead, trying to make out the scene.
He eyed me suspiciously. “Yes. It’s invitation only.” He turned toward a young woman, no more than twenty-five, a few feet away. She clutched a clipboard. The PR type. “Talk to Lisa,” he said to me. “You have to be on the list.”
“Hi,” I said to her. “I’m Claire Aldridge.”
She scanned the clipboard and then looked back at me with a satisfied smirk. “Sorry,” she said. “I can’t seem to find your name.”
I shook my head. “No, no,” I said. “I’m not here for the event. My husband’s inside.”
She looked doubtful, as if considering the possibility that I was making up a creative story to get access. “If you’re not on the list, you’re not on the list.”
“Listen,” I said, “my husband is—” Just then I spotted Ethan. The scene was a bit blurred through the glass doors, but he looked handsome; that much was clear. Tuxedos were made for Ethan. He held a champagne flute to his lips, then nodded and waved at someone across the room. The man knew how to work a crowd. I recalled the way he’d weaved through the tables at our wedding reception with such ease and grace, while I’d plodded along behind him awkwardly, dreading the nonstop stream of well-wishes and mandatory hugging. Social anxiety, my therapist said. Lots of people have it. Not Ethan. Inside, the room sparkled, from the enormous crystal chandelier overhead to the glint of the jewels draped around women’s necks.
I pointed to Ethan. I didn’t feel like Mrs. Ethan Kensington. Instead I was thirteen again, lanky, wearing cutoff jeans and a Hypercolor T-shirt, nose pressed against the