The Wives

SIX

The next morning I’m woken by the sound of the door opening. In my haste to climb into bed, I’d forgotten to hang the Do Not Disturb sign. I hear a tentative “Housekeeping...” and I call out a muffled “Later!” I wait until the door closes again before I roll over in bed and see that I have seven text messages and five missed calls from Seth. If I were to call this much when I didn’t hear from him, I’d look needy and insecure. I turn my phone off without reading the texts and jump out of bed to pack the few things I brought with me. I want to be home. It was a mistake coming here. I am craving the familiarity of my condo, the cold Coke that waits in the fridge. I plan on climbing under the covers and staying there until I have to go back to work. I want to call my mother or Anna and tell them what happened, but then I’d have to tell them the whole truth, and I’m not ready for that. I’m on my way down to the lobby when I think of Hannah and have the sudden urge to see her again. She’s the only one who knows what this is like, the torture of sharing your spouse. I send her a text as I march toward the parking garage, the straps of my duffel digging into my arm. I’d been so distracted last night I don’t remember where I parked my car. I walk up and down the rows of cars, switching my bag back and forth on my arm when it becomes too heavy. When I finally find it and unlock the door, I see a bouquet of lavender roses propped on the front seat, a card propped against the steering wheel. I move them to the passenger side without opening the card and climb in, gunning the engine. I didn’t want his flowers or his Hallmark apologies. I wanted him: his attention, his time, his favor. I am almost to the freeway, having momentarily forgotten about the text I sent to Hannah, when my phone chimes to tell me I have a text. I’d asked her if she was free to grab a late breakfast before I headed out of town. Her response causes my heart to beat wildly.

I’d love to! Meet you at Orson’s in ten? Here’s the address.

I type the address into my phone and make a U-turn. I barely glanced at myself in the mirror before I left this morning. As I wait for a light to change, I pull down the car’s visor and, flipping open the mirror, I study my face. I look pale and washed out, and my eyes are puffy from last night’s crying. I dig in my bag for a lipstick and quickly mop it across my lips.

Orson’s is a hole-in-the-wall breakfast spot with a block-letter sign above the door. There is a golf-ball-size hole in the O with a series of spiderweb cracks around it. I walk inside, the smell of eggs and coffee thick in the air, and look around for an empty table.

The place is packed, filled with the type of people I can’t imagine Hannah and her fine cheekbones being friends with. Mohawks, pink hair, tattoos—one woman has seven piercings in her face alone.

I find a table by a window where I can see the door and toss my purse into the empty seat across from me. Too often I’d been in coffee shops where desperate people try to pilfer your chairs. Hannah walks in ten minutes later, wearing a red dress and glossy black flats. Her hair is pinned back, but wisps of it fall around her face like she was caught in a strong wind.

She looks frazzled as she slides into her seat and pushes the strands behind her ears. “Sorry I’m late. I’d just gotten out of the shower when I got your text.” She pulls off her sunglasses and sets them on the table while she presses her fingers to the bridge of her nose.

“Headache?” I ask.

She nods. “Caffeine headache. I’ve been trying to cut back, but I think I’ll have one today.”

“I’ll go grab us coffees if you tell me what you want,” I say, standing up. I have the sudden urge to protect her. She nods, looking around.

“Yeah, I suppose we can’t risk losing our table.”

She tells me her order and I walk up to the register and get in line. It’s then that I start sweating. Like, what the hell am I doing? Is this to get back at Seth? No, I tell myself as I reach the front of the line. I’m searching for my own form of community. I need to understand myself, and the only way to do that is to get to know the other woman who has made similar choices. Besides, it isn’t like I could find a polygamy group online, like one of those MOPS meetings mothers attend.

I place our order and carry the number on a stand back to the table. Hannah is chewing on her nails and staring at a coffee stain on the table.

I glance at her arm, to the place where I saw the bruise yesterday. It’s gone from purple to a dim blue.

She sees me looking and covers it with her hand, perfectly manicured fingers wrapping around her arm.

“An accident,” she says.

“Looks like finger marks.” My comment is offhanded, but she looks startled, like I’ve just slapped her. I study her eyes. They’re so perfectly blue they look painted, her lashes flicked up with expertly applied mascara. It’s all too perfect, I think. When things are that perfect, something is wrong.

While we wait, she chats about another renovation she wants to do on the house, but her husband is dragging his feet. I gravitate between liking and hating her as I smile and nod. How ungrateful to live in such a beautiful place and to never be satisfied with it. Wasn’t Seth exhausted by her demands? I imagine he’ll tell me about it soon, ask what I think about the renovation she wants. Seth always confers with me about these things, almost like he’s asking permission. I’d tell him to give her what she wants, of course. It would make me look good. Hannah suddenly changes the subject and asks questions about my condo and how I’ve decorated it. Her interest flatters and confuses me. I’m grateful when our food and drinks arrive. I stare down at my plate, at the omelet that is healthier than one I would have ordered had I been by myself, and have the desperate urge to tell her something personal. “I found out last night that my husband is cheating on me.”

Hannah drops her fork. It clatters onto her plate and then does a flip landing on the floor. We both stare at it.

“What?” she says. Her response is so delayed it’s almost funny.

I shrug. “I’m not sure how to process it. We had a fight last night and I stormed off.”

Hannah shakes her head and bends to pick up her fork. Instead of asking for a new one, she pulls an antibacterial wipe from her handbag and polishes it clean.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “My God, here I am blabbing about... I’m really sorry.”

She sets down her fork and stares at me. “Seriously, that’s terrible. I’d be an absolute mess. How are you even holding up?”

“I don’t know,” I say honestly. “I love him.” She nods, like this is answer enough.

She studies me over her plate of egg whites. She’s barely touched her food. I want to tell her to eat, that she has a baby to grow.

“I’m pregnant,” she says.

I feign surprise. I don’t have to try very hard because I’m genuinely shocked that she told me, a complete stranger.

My eyes travel to her belly, flat and firm.

“I’m not very far along,” she admits. “I haven’t told anyone.”

“Your...husband?” I ask. Though I want to say, “Our husband?”

“Yes,” she sighs, “he knows.”

“And...is he...happy?” I already know the answer, of course—Seth was over the fucking moon—but I want to hear about it from Hannah’s mouth. What does my husband’s excitement look like to her?

“He’s happy.”

“You’re saying something without saying it.” I wipe my mouth and stare at her pointedly. My mother can’t stand this side of me; she says I’m too forward, but Hannah doesn’t seem bothered by my statement. She wipes her mouth with a paper napkin and sighs.

“Yes, I suppose I am.” She looks at me with new appreciation. “I like how direct you are.” I bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from smiling.

“So what’s the deal? You have to talk to someone about it, right?” I’m trying to play it cool, but my toes are curled up in my shoes and my leg is bouncing sporadically underneath the table. I feel like a druggie. I need more, I need to hear it all, to understand.

She looks at me through spiky black lashes and presses her lips together.

“He hides my birth control pills.”

I press the back of my hand to my mouth as I choke on the sip of coffee I’ve just taken. She has to be joking. Seth, hiding birth control pills? Seth is the type of guy who gets what he wants without tricks. Or maybe that’s just with me.

“How do you know he hides them?” I ask, setting my coffee cup down. Hannah shifts in her seat, her eyes darting around like she’s waiting for Seth to appear out of the walls.

“He’s joked about it and of course my pills go missing.”

“It’s like when women poke holes in condoms to trap men with pregnancies,” I say, shaking my head. “But why would he want to trap you with a pregnancy?”

Hannah’s mouth pulls into a tight line and she looks away. My breath catches in my throat as my eyes travel to the bruises on her arm.

“You wanted to leave...”

She looks at me but doesn’t say anything. I can almost see the truth in her eyes, pressed behind her rapid blinking. My mind is spinning out of control. It’s inconceivable to me, Seth hurting a woman, Seth hiding birth control pills. I want to ask if she loves him but my tongue is glued to the roof of my mouth.

“Hannah, you can tell me...”

A woman with dreadlocks and a baby strapped to her chest in one of those hippie sling things walks past our table. Hannah watches her with rapt interest, and I wonder if she’s imagining herself with a baby. I’d done it a thousand times before, imagining the weight of a tiny human in my arms—wondering what it would feel like to know you made something so small and perfect. I stare at her beautiful face. Hannah is not who she seems: the perfect house, the perfect face, the perfect outfit...and then those bruises. I wanted to know her, understand her, but every second spent with her makes me more confused. A few hours ago I was furious at Seth, and now, as I sit across from my husband’s other wife, my anger transfers to her. I feel absolutely bipolar in my emotions—one minute distrusting one, the next the other. Why would she have agreed to all of this if not to have a child with him? That’s why...that’s why he added a wife. Because I couldn’t give him a child.

“Did he make that bruise on your arm?” I lean in, studying her face for signs of a lie before she’s even answered me.

“It’s complicated,” she says. “He didn’t mean it. We were fighting and I walked away. He grabbed my arm. I bruise easily...” she offers weakly.

“That’s not okay.”

Hannah looks put off, like she’d rather be anywhere else but here. She glances longingly toward the door; I lay a hand on her arm and stare her right in the eye.

“Has he hit you before?” My question is loaded. I’m not just asking Hannah Ovark if her husband hits her, I’m asking if my husband hits her.

“No! I mean, he doesn’t hit me. Look, you have it all wrong.”

I’m about to ask her exactly how I have it all wrong when someone bumps into our table. I lean out of the way, but it’s too late, a cup tilts toward me, emptying its contents over my clothes. The girl who’d been holding the cup widens her eyes, her mouth dropping open.

“Shit,” she says, jumping back. “I’m so sorry. It’s iced, thank God it’s iced.”

I grab my purse, moving it out of the way as a puddle of brown crawls across the table. Hannah is shoving napkins at me, pulling them one by one from the holder. I look at her helplessly as I dab at my pants. “I have to go,” I say.

“I know.” She nods like she understands. “Thanks for the breakfast,” she says. “It was nice to talk to someone. I don’t get to do that very often.”

I smile weakly at her and think of the woman with the dreadlocks and the baby. She’s lying. There’s something off about Hannah Ovark and I’m going to find out what it is.