The Replacement Wife (34 page)

“Give it time. It’s too soon to say.”

“Time? I’m afraid we’re running a little low on that,” Edward replied with a bitter laugh, and then at the concerned look Hugh gave him, he thought,
Jesus, I sound like the Grim Reaper
. He went on, in a forcibly upbeat voice, “But you’re right—it’s too soon to say. Hopefully, we’ll see some results in the next few weeks. We should know more with the next batch of tests.”

“In the meantime, your wife isn’t the only one in need of looking after,” Hugh said. “You’re not eating, you’re not sleeping, and frankly it shows—you look like hell. You should see someone.”

Edward paused as he was pulling his clothes from his locker. “You mean a shrink?”

Hugh ignored the disdain in his voice. “It wouldn’t hurt. You have a lot on your plate right now, and since you won’t talk to me . . .” He trailed off. “I could give you some names, if you like.” Edward shrugged in response, keeping his back turned. A moment later, a meaty hand fell on his shoulder. He turned to find Hugh eyeing him with concern. “There’s no shame in it, you know.”

Edward felt the coiled spring in his gut tighten another half turn. Shame? What would Hugh, who as far as he knew had never looked at a woman other than his wife in the forty-five years they’d been married, know about shame? “Jesus. Don’t you guys ever give it a rest?” he said as he snatched his shirt from the locker and shoved an arm into the corresponding sleeve.

Hugh eyed him with mild reproach. “You always were a tough nut to crack,” he said. “Didn’t anyone ever tell you life’s not a contest to see who can go the longest without crying uncle?”

Edward exhaled forcibly. “Look, I appreciate your concern, but I just don’t see the point. It won’t change anything.” He fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, his fingers suddenly thick and clumsy.

“It’s not always about finding a solution,” Hugh said. “Sometimes it helps just to talk.”

“Yeah, I know, but with you guys, it never ends there.”

“There’s a reason we get paid to listen.”

“I know. So tough nuts like me can go home with a few extra cracks.”

“All right, since you’re so determined to make me work for it, I’ll make an educated guess as to why you’re behaving as if you’d sooner get bit by a snake than get professional help,” Hugh pressed on regardless. “It wouldn’t have anything to do with the lovely Elise, would it?”

Several weeks prior, Edward had run into Hugh and Ruth at the opera. They had season tickets to the Metropolitan, as did Edward and Camille, except that night Edward hadn’t been with his wife—Camille hadn’t felt up to going and didn’t want her ticket to go to waste, so she’d insisted he take Elise in her place. When he’d bumped into Hugh and Ruth during intermission, he could see them struggling not to raise an eyebrow when he’d introduced them to Elise, even after he’d explained the circumstances. He could also see the wheels turning in the older man’s mind.

Edward replied gruffly, “There’s nothing going on between Elise and me, if that’s what you’re implying. If you don’t believe me, ask Camille. The whole thing was her idea, remember.”

“I’m well aware of that,” Hugh said. “But now you have a stake in it as well, it would appear.”

Edward, frowning, wrestled with the top button on his shirt. He wished now he hadn’t told Hugh about Camille’s plan. Naturally Hugh would make assumptions, having met “the lovely Elise.” Never mind Edward’s feelings toward her were entirely platonic, and she was no more infatuated with him than he was with her. Elise had made it quite clear, that first weekend, she wasn’t looking for more than friendship.

“I’m not cheating on my wife,” he stated in no uncertain terms.

“You don’t have to, to be in love with another woman. Or for her to be in love with you.”

Edward’s scowl deepened. “It’s not like that. I told you, she’s a friend, nothing more.”

“Well,
you
might feel that way, but she clearly has other ideas.”

“And you deduced this after talking to her for all of ten minutes?” Edward scoffed.

“Actually, it was Ruth,” Hugh told him. “Trust another woman to know—they can always spot it. She said Elise looked at you like you’d hung the moon. Naturally, she didn’t take it seriously. She knows the devastating effect you dark, brooding types have on women. But it got me thinking. I couldn’t help wondering if this plan of Camille’s might have worked a little too well.”

THE FINAL BELL
had rung ten minutes ago, but Elise was still cleaning up the mess her students had left when Glenn poked his head into the classroom. “What’s cooking, good looking?”

“Nothing except the usual mayhem,” she said, prying a lump of modeling clay from one of the desks. “Some of the kids got into a clay throwing match while we were doing our class project.”

“You could always threaten to put those to use, to keep the little monsters in line.” He gestured toward the aforementioned class project—childish renditions of ancient Egyptian funeral jars, in the form of lumpy clay pots—arrayed on the row of cabinets below the windows.

“Very funny.”

Glenn wandered over to pick up one of the pots. “Do they know what these were used for back in the day?”

“Not specifically,” she told him. “I didn’t want to give them nightmares.”

He nodded in approval. “Not exactly
Toy Story 3,
learning about a bunch of dead pharaohs having their vital organs plucked out and stored in jars, for their second life in the netherworld.”

“Except the heart,” she reminded him. “That, they got to keep.”

“Why was that? I forget.”

“So it could be weighed when they got to the other side, to see if they’d led a virtuous life.”

“And if it should come up short on the scale?”

“I don’t know. I suppose you’d get thrown back.”

“I see. So if you were a class-A jerk, you got to live longer?”

“Something like that.”

“Figures,” he said with a sigh. “In that case, I’d better enjoy life while I can, because I’m sure to die young.” He returned the clay pot to its shelf and ambled over to her desk, leaning against it with his legs outstretched. She felt his eyes on her as she moved about, gathering up scraps of construction paper and stray bits of clay. “Hey, you doing anything after this? I was thinking we could check out that Monet exhibit at the Frick.”

“I can’t. I’m meeting someone,” she told him. Her cheeks warmed, and she felt a flutter of anticipation.

“You have a date?” he divined.

“None of your beeswax.”

“Ah, the plot thickens.” Glenn waggled his eyebrows at her.

“It’s Edward Constantin, if you must know.”

“Oh. I see.” Glenn’s playful look gave way to a serious one.

She’d told him the whole story, on the way to his parents’ house after that first weekend in Southampton, but even after she had laid out all her reasons for doing so, he still thought it was a bad idea for her to get involved. “This isn’t a used car you’re test-driving,” he’d cautioned. “People have feelings, and feelings can get messy. Or ugly.”

“It’s not what you think,” she told him now, “so you can stop giving me that look. I’m a friend of the family, nothing more.”

She felt herself blush, even so. When Edward had phoned earlier in the day to ask if she would meet him for coffee after work, she’d felt a secret thrill at knowing it would be just the two of them. He’d said there was something he needed to talk to her about. What could it be? she wondered. Whatever it was, it clearly wasn’t something he wanted his wife to know about.

“If you say so,” Glenn said flatly.

“Why are you being this way?” she cried in annoyance. “You act as if you suspect I’m having affair!”
Oh, God. Did I just say that?
Now he would think the lady doth protest too much.

Glenn straightened and crossed the room to where she stood, putting his hands on her shoulders and looking her in the eye. “Just be careful. I see the way you light up when you talk about him. I don’t want you to get in over your head.” In his khakis and rumpled shirt, a stray lock of brown hair falling over his forehead, he didn’t look any older or wiser than his eighth-grade students, though she knew he spoke the truth. The problem was she was already in over her head.

“I appreciate your concern,” she told him, “But I promise I’m not in any danger of drowning.” She could see how it might look suspicious to Glenn, her meeting alone with Edward, but it wasn’t like that. Even if Edward had feelings for her, he’d never act on those feelings, not while his wife was still alive.

Did
he have feelings for her? Was that what he wanted to talk to her about? He’d given no indication of it so far, but then he was a man, like her father, who didn’t wear his heart on his sleeve. The mere thought made her own heart race. Though it meant they would have to be more vigilant than ever. The idea of sneaking around behind Camille’s back was abhorrent to Elise. Camille was so trusting, inviting her to take part in family activities and encouraging her to go on outings with Edward and the children, and once with just Edward, the evening he took her to the opera (an evening she would long remember). How could she ever betray that trust? Never, not for a minute, did she lose sight of the fact that her gain would be another woman’s loss. A woman whom she’d grown fond of.

“It’s not what you think,” she insisted.

Glenn held her gaze. “Okay, but remember, that’s how these things start,” he said. “You tell yourself nothing’s going to happen; then before you know it, you’re checking into a motel—the kind where they don’t ask too many questions. Isn’t that what happened with your ex-husband?”

His words stung. “There’s no comparison!” she cried hotly.

“Even what’s-his-name isn’t the heartless creature you make him out to be. Hey, I’m not defending your ex,” Glenn said, holding his hands up as if to deflect the scathing look she directed at him. “But in all fairness, it’s not like he woke up one morning and said to himself,
Today I’m going to cheat on my wife,
then went out and found someone to cheat with. It doesn’t usually happen that way.”

“And what makes you such an expert? You’re not exactly the Dr. Phil of romance,” she tossed back at him. When he ducked his head, she knew he was keeping something from her and had a pretty good guess what it might be. “Don’t tell me. You’ve met someone.” He lifted his head, and when she saw his red cheeks, she grinned. “Aha, so I’m right!”

“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”

“You sound like one of my fourth graders,” she said.

“Most of whom, I assure you, see more action than yours truly,” he said.

“Come on, give it up. Who is she? Did you meet her online?”

“No.”

“Oh, so it was one of those random meetings?”

“If I tell you, will you promise not to laugh?”

“Cross my heart, hope to die,” she vowed, drawing an invisible X over her chest.

He closed his eyes and said in a rush, as if to get it over with, “We met in the cheese section at Whole Foods.” A giggle escaped her, and mindful of her promise, she clamped a hand over her mouth. He mock glared at her. “Yeah, I know—cheesy. But it’s not like our eyes met over the Gorgonzola, and we knew instantly we were meant for each other. Nothing will come of it, I’m sure.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because we chatted for all of five minutes, and it wasn’t like I was trying to pick her up or anything. She was having trouble deciding what to get for this dinner party she was having, so I told her which cheeses would go best with which wines.” Glenn might not fit the profile, but he was a true epicurean; everything Elise knew about gourmet food and wine she’d learned from him. Their salaries didn’t allow for much in the way of fine dining, but he often cooked for her at his place on weekends—linguine
alle vongele,
beef bourguignon, curried shrimp over Basmati rice. “The fact that she didn’t say no when I offered to give her my number, in case she needed any advice later on, doesn’t mean anything, except maybe that she was too polite to reject me on the spot.”

“Don’t underestimate yourself. You’ve just had a run of bad luck, is all. Any woman would be lucky to snag you.”

Unfortunately, Glenn didn’t seem to share her high opinion of him. “Like I said, it was no big deal. I don’t know why I’m even telling you. I just thought . . . well, she seemed nice.” He groaned, as if suddenly realizing something. “Oh, God. She probably thought I was gay.”

“Why would she think that?”

“Hello. A neatly dressed man who’s suspiciously knowledgeable about entertaining?”

“Okay, but even if she thought that, it only means she’s more likely to call.”

“Why is that, oh, sage one?”

“Women adore gay men. Plus, if she thought you were gay, she wouldn’t be worried that you were coming on to her. And by the time she realizes you
are
coming on to her, she’ll be smitten.”

He shook his head, as if at the impenetrable workings of the female mind. “It’s a moot point, because she won’t call.”

“How long has it been?”

“A couple of days.”

“Give it time. She’s probably still recovering from the dinner party—all that wine and cheese you had her buy.” Impulsively, she leaned in to plant a kiss on Glenn’s cheek. He smelled pleasantly of chalk dust and the aftershave he wore. “Whatever happens, I’m proud of you.”

“For what?”

“For not giving up.”

His mouth slanted in a rueful smile. “You know us dependable types—we take a licking and keep on ticking.”

Minutes later, she was strolling along Christopher Street on her way to meet Edward. The sun was shining, and she was pleasantly aware of the hem of her dress fluttering against her knees. She was glad she’d worn this dress, the blue flowered one that tied in back; it was among her most flattering. At the thought, she felt the excitement she’d managed to keep tamped down all day flare. She might have been on her way to meet a lover. She frowned at the thought, and her step momentarily faltered. But she’d done nothing wrong, nor would she, she reminded herself. If she’d lost her heart to a married man, there was no harm in it as long as she didn’t lose her head.