Bobby’s face softens. “That’s… great. He must be really happy.”
“He’s trying to act like it’s no big deal, but he’s over the moon.” She sniffles. “Of course, you’d know this if you spent more time with him.”
Bobby takes a deep breath and nods slowly. “I know. And I will, from now on. Things have been better, haven’t they? We’ve been spending more quality time together. And I’ll make sure we spend even more.”
Gina scoffs. “Because you won’t be with her anymore?”
A horrifying thought: could things between them have gotten better because of Eva? But no, Eva made it clear that her affair with Bobby began last December. Gina has seen Bobby step up since the day he recited his vows to her for a second time. That had been before December. But what did it matter? The gesture hadn’t been real. Not if Bobby had started an affair with Eva shortly after getting down on one knee.
“I was never with her.” Bobby’s voice sounds both heated and controlled.
Gina studies him. Even now, he looks handsome. She remembers her surprise when Bobby first asked her out, all those years ago. She couldn’t understand why a man who had everything—looks, money, influence—would want to date someone as plain as her. She never thought of herself as ugly—she rather liked the unique shade of her auburn hair, and she’d heard from a few people that her hazel eyes were pretty—but she wasn’t gorgeous, either. And, more importantly, she didn’t belong in Bobby’s world. Gina had been friends with Nick before meeting Bobby. She knew what sort of family they came from, the kind of money they had. In her mind, she pictured private jets and glamorous tuxedo parties like the ones she saw on Gossip Girl. Gina didn’t want that sort of life. Just thinking about it made her dizzy, uncomfortable. But it didn’t take long for her to realize that, at his core, Bobby was a man with simple tastes and a kind, generous heart. She fell in love with him because they shared the same values, the same moral fabric. She married him because he was her best friend. She’d spent the past fifteen years safe in the knowledge that she made the right choice, that she picked a man who would never hurt her.
Until now.
“It’s you and me, remember?” Bobby gives her a pleading look. His eyebrows are two quotation marks. “You and me against the world.”
“Don’t you dare use those words now.” She is surprised by how angry she sounds.
“But I love you. I love you more than anything. I can’t live without you. You know that, right?”
“All I know,” Gina says, “is that you’re not sleeping in this house tonight.”
And she gets up and heads to the guest bedroom to cry in peace.
Eighteen
Alice
Friday, September 20th
When the doorbell rings, Alice is in bed scrolling through her Twitter feed.
There are currently seventy-one comments on the Vox tweet. People are enraged, rightfully so. Alice is pleased to see calls for Bobby’s resignation. Of course, some are defending Bobby, but Alice is choosing to ignore these losers—incels living in their parents’ basements, no doubt.
It’s addictive, watching the number of likes and comments and retweets tick up. Alice’s stomach does a somersault every time she sees a feminist platform share the story.
She has no idea who is at the door, but she doesn’t care. Nick is on the patio smoking a cigar. He can get it. Besides, she’s already had two Valiums. It’s late. Very late, actually, Alice realizes, eyeing the time. She should get off her phone. She moves to her dresser.
Sitting in front of her mirror, she lets her hair down and begins to brush it. For a moment, she is fifteen again, back in her yellow bedroom in their house in Urca, Rio de Janeiro. Her accident had happened one month after her dad married Camilla. Her shattered peroneus had been nothing compared to her shattered heart. Alice had dreamt of being a professional ballerina her entire life. She’d sacrificed everything—friends, parties, healthy experimentation—all in the name of ballet. The doctors declared her lucky: “You may not be able to twirl in pointe shoes, but you’ll have a normal life, with plenty of walking, running, even some dancing!” Idiots, all of them. Well-meaning idiots. Without classical ballet, Alice was nothing but a shy, mousy girl with zero social skills.
Camilla had promised her father she’d take care of Alice. And, to some extent, she had. It was Camilla, for instance, who taught Alice how to dress in a way that would flatter her naturally slender figure. They went shopping together. Camilla rang up a huge bill, but her dad hadn’t complained: he thought it meant that his two girls were getting along, that Alice was discovering a life beyond ballet. Camilla only voiced her venomous opinions when he wasn’t around.
“Much too pale, you’re like ghost. Ghost with no eyelashes.”
“Alice, what plain name. Like your mother knew you would be plain girl.”
“Your kneecaps face inward, no dress will look pretty on you unless you take cover.”
“Better that ballet quit with you now before you hurt more. You were never good enough to be professional anyway.”
And the worst of them all: “Your face has folds like little pug,” she had said, in her heavy accent. “A pug, like the dog, you know? Look at this sagging skin” She pinched Alice’s upper eyelids and issued yapping sounds. “And you’re so young! We must do something about this!” It happened when Alice had started wearing her hair down—pulling it up into a bun was too painful a reminder of the end of her ballet days. But Camilla was adamant that she needed to return to her old hairstyle. “To naturally pull skin up!” Camilla had explained.
Until then, Alice had never noticed her sagging skin, hadn’t even thought of that as something that could happen to a teenager. But she followed Camilla’s advice and pulled her hair into a
