It had been a long time since Tennyson had smoked a joint.
She forgot how weird marijuana made her feel. Like her skin was slippy and she could meld herself into the couch and live there forever. It also made her want cereal. Not the fiber kind, either. The big honeycomb ones filled with sugar that her mother used to buy her as a prize at the grocery store. She hadn’t had a big bowl of that particular sin in many years.
“We should order some cereal,” Tennyson said, taking another hit and passing it to Melanie, who wore an old T-shirt of Andrew’s and a pair of workout pants. Melanie’s dress sat folded neatly over her evening handbag, which sat on the Eames chair in the corner.
Melanie took a toke, fanning the air. “I don’t think you can order cereal like you can order pizza.”
“So why is that not a thing?”
Melanie shrugged. “Are you that high?”
“I don’t think so. I mean, maybe? It’s been a while since I’ve done drugs,” Tennyson said.
Melanie sat up and looked at her, wide eyed. “Have you done other drugs? Like real drugs?”
Tennyson made a face. “I did a lot of things I don’t want to talk about.”
“Why not?”
Because she was ashamed of much of what she’d done. Not ridiculously ashamed like Melanie’s father had obviously been, but ashamed enough to not want to admit to doing lines of coke in a club bathroom, a threesome with a B-list actor and his girlfriend, or the one summer she became a dominatrix so she could pay rent. Her memory was scarred by that particular summer, which had concluded with the affair with Rolfe. Seeing those two lines on a pregnancy test for the second time in her life had been enough to bring her crashing back to reality. She’d just turned twenty-three years old and knew that she had to get her shit together if she were going to be a mom.
At first, she hadn’t been sure if she could actually raise a child. Her world was unstable. Rolfe had refused to leave his wife and had gotten heavily into the drug scene. Tennyson had not been able to afford to stay in school, even with the dominatrix stint, and had taken a job as a singing waitress at a Times Square tourist spot. She had no real prospects with her career and was days away from packing it in and moving back to Shreveport. At that point, she hadn’t known what she was going to do about the pregnancy. And then she’d received the wedding invitation.
In some ways, her horrible actions on Melanie’s wedding night had driven her into the marriage with Stephen. She’d been so ashamed of herself for having gotten drunk while she was pregnant and then doing what she’d done, that it had made saying yes to Stephen and falling into a version of a life she had never wanted attractive. She’d be doing something good—giving Stephen the chance to be a father and husband. She told herself she wouldn’t miss her old life with auditions, postshow drinks with the cast, or the search for true love. Kit now belonged to Melanie, so that chapter was closed, Rolfe had bailed, and her bank account was nonexistent.
So she said yes.
Suddenly, she had a housekeeper, a limitless credit card, and a husband who didn’t love her. And though Stephen was the kindest of men, who loved Andrew wholly and unconditionally, the man was gay and wasn’t going to love her as a husband should. But he’d showed her what it was to be respected and to enjoy a certain lifestyle. Stephen had taught her how to be an adult, make sacrifices, and enjoy the best life had to offer. She’d never had reason to do drugs again. She’d been hooked on Chanel, private jets, and her son’s drooling smile.
In the end, she’d had zero regrets about marrying Stephen Abernathy.
“I may have done a few drugs back in college,” she said, rising from the sofa. “I definitely have the munchies, though. Let’s see if I have something to snack on that isn’t diet or healthy.”
Melanie stubbed out the joint in the makeshift ashtray—an empty rinsed-out container for caviar the caterers had left—and followed her to the kitchen. “I never smoked weed before. It’s very smelly.”
Tennyson laughed. “Yeah, there’s that. You didn’t smoke in college?”
“Cigarettes, but only in secret. I didn’t want people to think I was that kind of girl,” she said, opening the jar of salsa Tennyson set on the cabinet.
“And what kind of girl is that?” Tennyson said, ripping open the tortilla chips with her teeth. Lord, her veneers had cost a small fortune. She didn’t need to break one and have to go to the dentist. She’d rather go to the gynecologist than the dentist. She didn’t have to look up her ob-gyn’s nose—just observe his bald spot.
“I don’t even know. That’s so stupid to even say something like that.” Melanie made a face.
“No, you’re just saying what you think you should say to someone like your mother. She made you super conscious of everything you did . . . and do.”
Melanie nodded her head slowly. “Maybe. I never thought about it that way.”
“You just like everyone to get along, and so you say the things to make that happen. It’s a defense mechanism.” Tennyson snagged a chip and went to town with the salsa. “Dang, this is good salsa. Awesome Annie’s.”
“I’ve had it before, and honestly, store-bought salsa from a jar would taste like heaven right now. I’ve been on a diet for the past six weeks. Ever since I saw how incredible you looked.” Melanie dug a chip into the container and made a face. “And then there’s Charlotte with her size 4 bikini. Ugh.”
“Is that the cow who tried to mount Kit at the engagement party?”
Melanie sighed. “Yeah. She works with him. It seems she’s brilliant, climbs mountains, and laughs at everything he says. He professes she’s ‘just a coworker,’ but it doesn’t feel that way. I think she’s after more than a promotion.”
“First, don’t sell yourself short, Melanie. You’re an incredibly attractive woman, even more so because you’re very unaware of it. You’re a natural beauty who doesn’t need the artifice of plastic surgery or fillers. Second, have you talked to Kit about how she makes you feel?”
“We’re in therapy.”
Tennyson ate five more chips, brushing the crumbs from her chin. “That’s good. So what does he say about your concerns?”
“Nothing. He essentially implies that I’m crazy.”
Well, that figured. She was nearly certain that was the exact thing Robert said when they were in therapy. Anytime she remarked on being concerned about the time he spent at work and that he could be tempted by the ambitious junior partners, he’d say, “You’re imagining things, Tennyson.”
But she hadn’t been. And to prove her suspicions, she set up a sting. She found his daily planner, noted when he was “advising JL,” and hired a private eye who, using the building across the street, managed to get incriminating photographic evidence. Robert was dumb enough to schedule his “mentoring sessions” at the same time several times a week. Which made it easy for Tennyson to barge past the administrative assistant who kept shouting, “He’s in a private meeting,” at her back and catch the man who said she was imagining things with his head between Julie Littman’s slender thighs.