Then Came You - Jennifer Weiner [31]
I got my paycheck on Tuesday, five days after Frank had seen Gabe and I waiting together at the bus stop. That night Frank said, “I think we’ll be okay for the rest of the summer.” I told him that that would be fine, and gave my notice over the phone the next morning. “We’re sorry to lose you,” my supervisor said, and sounded like she meant it . . . and that was that. Why go looking for trouble, with a little boy and a new baby at home, and a husband who loved me?
I heard the music that told me Sesame Street was ending, and I turned away from my computer, looking at Spencer, still cross-legged on the floor, one hand lifting pretzels into his crumb-ringed mouth, his eyes wide, gazing at the screen. The couch cushions were shiny in their centers, the curtains dingy in the sunlight, the screen of the TV set streaked with fingerprints, even though I’d Windexed it the night before. Please, God, I thought. Please, let some woman pick me. Then I got up, lifted my little boy in my arms, and carried him to the kitchen, where he could play with the pots and pans while I cleaned, and dreamed.
BETTINA
When I thought of the words private investigator, a certain image came to mind—a rumpled, world-weary man in a suit and a fedora, feet on a scarred wooden desk, in an office wreathed in cigarette smoke. I pictured a name in gold leaf on a frosted-glass door, a heavy glass ashtray, a man who’d identify women—dames—exclusively by their hair color: The brunette. The redhead. The blonde.
My detective was different. I’d found her by Googling Manhattan private detectives who specialized in what they called “marital matters,” reading online reviews. It made me feel like I was taking a baby step out of my dutiful life—the tasteful, classic clothes, the art history degree, the job as a junior appraiser at Kohler’s, an auction house that was less well known (and, its loyalists boasted, even more exclusive) than Christie’s or Sotheby’s. My life had been long on ease and comfort, filled with fancy vacations, many of them spent at Caribbean resorts while my father paced the beach, barking into his cell phone and looking for the best reception.
When my appointment finally arrived, I was, perhaps, more excited than I should have been, even though the private investigator’s office was on the thirtieth floor of a featureless highrise in midtown, which put my dreams of gold leaf and pebbled glass to rest. The office had a small NO SMOKING plaque by the front door and just two last names—KLEIN and SEGAL, in sans serif capital letters—beside it. The waiting room could have belonged to any dentist or doctor or therapist, with pale-brown couches and beige carpet, a glass-and-iron coffee table stacked with magazines—Newsweek and Time, along with the week’s tabloids—and a water cooler that let out the occasional burble in the corner. I gave the receptionist my name, sat down on the couch, my legs, in sheer hose, crossed at the ankle, and pinched the pleats of my skirt between my thumb and forefinger, making sure each one was smooth.
Church lady! a guy in college had called me one night when I’d allowed my roommates to coax me out of the room and to a party in a neighboring dorm. It was true that I dressed far more conservatively than most of my classmates: after a lifetime in the kilts and knee socks of my Upper East Side all-girls’ school, I’d never felt like myself in pants. Besides, I had narrow shoulders and tended to carry my weight in my hips and thighs, so jeans gave me the appearance of a bowling pin . . . and after seeing