If a few months ago, someone had told me I would be spending tonight in a hotel room while Andy was atย myย house with another womanโthe maid!โI wouldnโt have believed it.
But here I am. Dressed in a terry cloth bathrobe I found in the closet, stretched out in the queen-size hotel bed. The television is on, but Iโm barely aware of it. Iโve got my phone out and I click on the app I have been using for the last several months.ย Find my friends.ย I wait for it to tell me the location of Wilhelmina โMillieโ Calloway.
But under her name, it says: location not found. The same as it has since the afternoon.
She mustโve figured out I was tracking her and disabled the app. Smart girl.
But not smart enough.
I pick up my purse from where I put it down on the nightstand. I dig around inside until I find the one paper photograph I have of Andy. Itโs a few years oldโa copy of the photographs he had professionally taken for the company website, and he gave me one of them. I stare into his deep brown eyes on the shiny piece of paper, his perfect mahogany hair, the hint of a cleft in his strong chin. Andy is the most handsome man Iโve ever known in real life. I fell half in love with him the first moment I saw him.
And then I find one other object inside my purse and drop it into the pocket of my robe.
I get up off the queen-size bed, my feet sinking into the plush carpet of the hotel room. This room is costing Andyโs credit card a fortune, but thatโs okay. I wonโt be here long.
I go into the bathroom and I hold up the photograph of Andyโs smiling face. Then I pull out the contents of my pocket.
Itโs a lighter.
I flick the starter until a yellow flame shoots out of it. I hold the flickering light to the edge of the photograph until it catches. I watch my husbandโs handsome face turn brown and disintegrate, until the sink is full of ashes.
And I smile. My first real smile in almost eight years. I canโt believe I finally got rid of that asshole.
How to Get Rid of Your Sadistic, Evil HusbandโA Guide by Nina Winchester
Step One: Get Knocked Up by a Drunken One-Night Stand, Drop Out of School, and Take a Crappy Job to Pay the Bills
My boss, Andrew Winchester, is ever so dreamy.
Heโs not actually my boss. Heโs more like, my bossโs bossโs boss. There may be a few other layers in there of people in the chain between himโthe CEO of this company since his fatherโs retirementโand meโa receptionist.
So when Iโm sitting at my desk, outside my actual bossโs office, and I admire him from afar, itโs not like Iโm crushing on anย actualย man. Itโs more like admiring a famous actor at a movie premiere or possibly even a painting at the fine arts museum. Especially since I have zero room in my life for a date, much less a boyfriend.
He is justย soย good-looking though. All that money and also so handsome. It would say something about life just being unfair, if the guy wasnโt soย nice.
Like for example, when he went in to talk to my own boss, a guy at least twenty years his senior named Stewart Lynch, who clearly resents being bossed around by a guy who he calls โthe kid,โ Andrew Winchester stopped at my desk and smiled at me and called me by name. He said, โHello, Nina. How are you today?โ
Obviously, he doesnโt know who I am. He just read my name off my desk. But still. It was nice that he made the effort. I liked hearing my ordinary four-letter name on his tongue.
Andrew and Stewart have been in his office talking for about half an hour. Stewart instructed me not to leave
while Mr. Winchester was in there, because he might need me to fetch some data from the computer. I canโt quite figure out what Stewart does, because I do all his work. But thatโs fine. I donโt mind, as long as I get my paychecks and my health insurance. Cecelia and I need a place to live, and the pediatrician says thereโs a set of shots she requires next month (for diseases she doesnโt even have!).
But what I mind a little more is that Stewart didnโt warn me he was going to ask me to wait around. Iโm supposed to be pumping now. My breasts are full and aching with milk, straining at the clips of my flimsy nursing bra. Iโm trying my best not to think about Cece, because if I do, the milk will almost certainly burst through my nipples. And thatโs just not the kind of thing you want to happen when youโre sitting at your desk.
Cece is with my neighbor Elena right now. Elena is also a single mother, so we trade babysitting duties. My hours are more regular, and she works evening shifts at a bar. So I take Teddy for her, and she takes Cece for me. We are making it work. Barely.
I miss Cece when Iโm at work. I think about her all the time. I had always fantasized that when I had a baby, I would be able to stay home for at least the first six months. Instead, I just took my two weeks of vacation and went right back to work, even though it still sort of hurt to walk. They would have allowed me twelve weeks off, but the other ten would have been unpaid. Who could afford ten weeks unpaid? Certainly not me.
Sometimes Elena resents her son for what she gave up for him. I was in graduate school when I got that positive pregnancy test, leisurely working on a Ph.D. in English as I lived in semi-poverty. It hit me when I saw those two blue lines that my eternal graduate school lifestyle would never provide for me and my unborn child. The next day, I quit. And I started pounding the pavement, looking for something to pay the bills.
This isnโt my dream job. Far from it. But the salary is decent, the benefits are great, and the hours are steady and not too long. And I was told thereโs room for advancement. Eventually.
But right now, I just have to get through the next twenty minutes without my breasts leaking.
Iโmย thisย close to running off to the bathroom with my
little pumping backpack and my tiny little milk bottles when Stewartโs voice crackles out of the intercom.
โNina?โ he barks at me. โCould you bring in the Grady data?โ
โYes, sir, right away!โ
I get on my computer and load up the files he wants, then I hit print. Itโs about fifty pagesโ worth of data, and I sit there, tapping my toes against the ground, watching the printer spit out each page. When the final page finishes printing, I yank out the sheets of paper and hurry over to his office.
I crack open the door. โMr. Lynch, sir?โ โCome in, Nina.โ
I let the door swing the rest of the way open. Right away, I notice both men are staring at me. And not in that appreciative way I used to get at bars before I got knocked up and my whole life changed. Theyโre looking at me like Iโve got a giant spider hanging off my hair and I donโt even know it. Iโm about to ask them what the hell both of them are staring at when I look down and figure it out.
I leaked.
And I didnโt just leakโI squirted milk out like the office cow. There are two huge circles around each of my nipples, and a few droplets of milk are trickling down my blouse. I want to crawl under a desk and die.
โNina!โ Stewart cries. โGet yourself cleaned up!โ โRight,โ I say quickly. โIโฆ Iโm so sorry. Iโฆโ
I drop the papers on Stewartโs desk and hurry out of the office as fast as I can. I grab my coat to hide my blouse, all
the while blinking back tears. Iโm not even sure what Iโm more upset about. The fact that my bossโs bossโs boss saw me lactating or all the milk I just wasted.
I take my pump to the bathroom, plug it in, and relieve the pressure in my breasts. Despite my embarrassment, it feelsย soย good to empty all that milk. Maybe better than sex. Not that I remember what sex feels likeโthe last time was that stupid, stupid one-night stand that got me into this situation to begin with. I fill two entire five-ounce bottles and stick them in my bag with an ice pack. Iโll put it in the refrigerator until itโs time to go home. Right now, Iโve got to get back to my desk. And leave my coat on for the rest of the afternoon, because I have recently discovered that even if it dries, milk leaves a stain.
When I crack open the door to the bathroom, Iโm shocked to see someone standing there. And not just anyone. Itโs Andrew Winchester. My bossโs bossโs boss. His fist is raised in the air, poised to knock on the door. His eyes widen when he sees me.
โUh, hi?โ I say. โThe menโs room is, um, over there.โ
I feel stupid saying that. I mean, this isย hisย company. Also, thereโs a stencil of a woman with a dress on the door to the bathroom. He should realize this is the womenโs room.
โActually,โ he says, โI was looking for you.โ โFor me?โ
He nods. โI wanted to see if you were okay.โ
โIโm fine.โ I try to smile, hiding my humiliation from earlier. โItโs just milk.โ
โI know, butโฆโ He frowns. โStewart was a jerk to you.
That was unacceptable.โ
โYeah, wellโฆโ Iโm tempted to tell him of a hundred other instances when Stewart was a jerk to me. But itโs a bad idea to talk shit about my boss. โItโs fine. Anyway, I was just about to grab some lunch, soโฆโ
โMe too.โ He arches an eyebrow. โCare to join me?โ
Of course I say yes. Even if he wasnโt my bossโs bossโs boss, I wouldโve said yes. Heโs gorgeous, for starters. I love his smileโthe crinkling around his eyes and the hint of a cleft in his chin. But itโs not like heโs asking me out on a date. He just feels bad because of what happened before in Stewartโs office. Probably someone from HR told him to do it to smooth things over.
I follow Andrew Winchester downstairs to the lobby of the building that he owns. I assume heโs going to take me to one of the many fancy restaurants in the neighborhood, so Iโm shocked when he leads me over to the hotdog cart right outside the building and joins the line.
โBest hotdogs in the city.โ He winks at me. โWhat do you like on yours?โ
โUmโฆ mustard, I guess?โ
When we get to the front of the line, he orders two hotdogs, both with mustard, and two bottles of water. He hands me a hotdog and a bottle of water, and he leads me to a brownstone down the block. He sits on the steps and I join him. Itโs almost comicalโthis handsome man sitting on the steps of the brownstone in his expensive suit, holding a hotdog covered in mustard.
โThank you for the hotdog, Mr. Winchester,โ I say. โAndy,โ he corrects me.
โAndy,โ I repeat. I take a bite of my hotdog. Itโs pretty good. Best in the city? Iโm not so sure about that. I mean, itโs bread and mystery meat.
โHow old is your baby?โ he asks.
My face flushes with pleasure the way it always does when somebody asks me about my daughter. โFive months.โ
โWhatโs her name?โ โCecelia.โ
โThatโs nice.โ He grins. โLike the song.โ
Now he has scored big points because the Simon and Garfunkel song is why I named her that, although the
spelling is different. It was my parentsโ favorite song. It wasย theirย song before that plane crash took them from me. And it made me feel close to them again to honor them that way.
We sit there for the next twenty minutes, eating our hotdogs and talking. It surprises me how down-to-earth Andy Winchester is. I love the way he smiles at me. I love the way he asks me questions about myself, like heโs really interested. Iโm not surprised heโs done so well with the companyโheโs good with people. Whatever HR told him to do with me, heโs done a good job. Iโm definitely not upset anymore about the incident in Stewartโs office.
โI better get back,โ I tell him, when my watch reads half past one. โStewart will kill me if I get back late from lunch.โ
I donโt point out the fact that Stewart works forย him.
He stands up and brushes crumbs off his hands. โI have a feeling hotdogs were not the lunch you were expecting from me.โ
โItโs fine.โ And it is. I had a great time eating hotdogs with Andy.
โLet me make it up to you.โ He looks me in the eyes. โLet me take you to dinner tonight.โ
My jaw drops. Andrew Winchester could have any woman he wants.ย Anyone. Why would he want to takeย meย out to dinner? But he asked.
And I want to go so badly, which makes it almost painful to have to turn him down. โI canโt. I donโt have anyone to babysit.โ
โMy mother is going to be in the city tomorrow afternoon anyway,โ he says. โShe loves babies. Sheโd be thrilled to watch Cecelia for you.โ
Now my mouth is hanging open. Not only did he invite me to dinner, but when I presented him with a barrier, he came up with a solution. Involving hisย mother. He really does want to go to dinner with me.
How could I say no?