The Wives

‘Yes, please,’ she said, holding out her remaining piece for him to squirt. Screw it. She was setting a good example for her daughter that food wasn’t the enemy, right? Everything in moderation. No eating disorders in this house. She had just popped a pod into the coffee machine when she heard Paul mutter, ‘Holy shit.’

‘Daddy! Language!’ Maisie said, sounding exactly like Miriam.

‘Daddy said a bad word! Daddy said “shit”!’

‘Sorry, sorry,’ he murmured, his face buried in the newspaper Miriam had set on the table. ‘Miriam, come look at this.’

‘I’ll be right there. Do you want a cup too?’

‘Now. Come here now.’

‘What is it, Daddy? What’s in the newspaper?’

‘Here, have another pancake,’ Paul said to Maisie as he handed the paper over to Miriam.

Below the fold but still on the very first page blared the headline: MADD: MOTHERS ALL-FOR DRUNK DRIVING! SENATOR’S WIFE SLAPPED WITH DUI … WITH KIDS IN THE CAR!

‘Holy shit.’

‘Mommy! You said “shit”!’

‘Daddy, now Mommy said a bad word!’

‘Shit, shit, shit!’ sang Matthew.

‘Who wants to watch a movie?’ Paul asked. ‘Benjamin, why don’t you go down to the basement and put on Boss Baby for everyone.’ Again, there was a mad scramble as they bolted toward the stairs, and then, seconds later, blessed silence.

‘This can’t be right,’ Miriam said, studying the mug shot of her old school friend. ‘Karolina would never do that.’

‘Well, it’s right here in print. Failed roadside sobriety test. Empty bottles of booze in the backseat. Refused to take a Breathalyzer. And five kids in the car, including her own.’

‘There is no way that’s possible,’ Miriam said, scanning the story. ‘Not the Karolina I know.’

‘How long has it been since you’ve spoken to her? Maybe she changed. I don’t imagine things are so easy being in the spotlight, like they both are now.’

‘She was the face of L’Oréal for ten years! The mega-model to end all supermodels. I hardly think she has issues with the spotlight.’

‘Well, being the wife of a United States senator is something else entirely. Especially one who plans to run for president. It’s a different kind of scrutiny.’

‘I guess so. I don’t know. I’m going to call her. This just can’t be right.’

‘You guys haven’t spoken in months.’ Paul sipped his coffee.

‘That doesn’t matter!’ Miriam realized she was nearly shouting and lowered her voice. ‘We’ve known each other since we were children.’

Paul held up both hands in surrender. ‘Send her my love, okay? I’ll go check on the monsters.’

Karolina’s number rang five times before going to voicemail. ‘Hi! You’ve reached Karolina. I’m not available to take your call, but leave me a message and I’ll get back to you just as soon as I can. Bye, now.’

‘Lina? It’s me, Miriam. I saw that hideous headline and I want to talk to you. I don’t believe it for a single second, and neither does one other person who’s ever met you. Call me as soon as you get this, okay? Love you, honey. Bye.’

Miriam clicked ‘end’ and stared at her screen, willing Karolina’s name to appear. But then she heard a scream coming from downstairs – a real pain scream, not an I-hate-my-siblings scream or an It’s-my-turn scream, and Miriam took a deep breath and stood up to go investigate.

It had barely even begun, and already this year was shaping up to be a loser. She grabbed a now-cold pancake off the plate on her way to the basement: 2018 could take its resolutions and shove them.

3 (#ulink_0df0e532-f47c-5bdd-8719-d4bacf849b20)

Like a Common Criminal (#ulink_0df0e532-f47c-5bdd-8719-d4bacf849b20)

KAROLINA

‘Hey, Siri! Play “Yeah” by Usher!’ Harry called from the back of the Suburban. A chorus of cheers went up from the boys when Siri chirped, ‘Okay, playing “Yeah” by Usher,’ and the bass blasted through the speakers.

Karolina smiled. Never in a million years would she have thought having a car full of twelve-year-old boys could be fun. They were loud and rowdy and even sometimes smelled bad, yes. But Harry’s friends were also sweet and quick to laugh and made an attempt at manners, at least when she was around. They were good kids from nice families, and once again she felt grateful for the move that had taken them from New York – the city of social land mines – to Bethesda, where everyone seemed a little more easygoing.

Sweet boy, Karolina thought for the thousandth time as she sneaked a look at Harry from the rearview mirror. Every day he was starting to look more and more like a teenager: broadening shoulders, dark fuzz above his lip, a smattering of pimples on his cheeks. But just as often he seemed like a little boy, as likely to spend an hour playing with Lego as texting with his friends. Harry was outgoing and confident, like his father, but he had a softer, more sensitive side too. Right around the time they moved to Bethesda, Harry started asking Graham more about his late mother: where she and Graham had met, what she liked to read, how she’d felt when she was pregnant with him. And always Graham put him off, promising to tell Harry about his mother later. Later, when he was finished with a report he needed to read. Later, that weekend, when they had more free time. Later, during their ski vacation, because his mother had loved to ski. Later, later, later. Karolina wasn’t sure if it was laziness or avoidance or genuine pain causing Graham to put off his son, but she knew Harry needed answers. It took her nearly three days while Graham was at work and Harry at school to assemble all the scattered pictures and letters and clippings she could find, but when she presented Harry with the memory box of his mom, his relief and joy made every minute worthwhile. She reassured Harry that his mom would always be his mom, and that it was okay to talk about her and remember her, and Karolina’s big, strong tween had collapsed into her arms like a kindergartener returning from his first day away from home.

‘Guess what?’ Nicholas, a lanky lacrosse player with shaggy blond hair, called from the third row. ‘My dad got us tickets to the ’Skins/Eagles game next weekend. First playoff game. Who’s in?’

The boys hooted.

‘Hey, Mom, do you think Dad will take me?’ Harry asked.

‘My dad said tickets weren’t that expensive,’ Nicholas said.

Karolina forced herself to smile, though the boys couldn’t see her in the driver’s seat. ‘I’m sure he’d love that,’ she lied, and sneaked a peek at Harry to see if he could hear it in her voice. Despite the fact that Harry was passionate about professional football in general and the Redskins specifically – and Graham, as a sitting U.S. senator, could name his seats anywhere in the stadium – father and son had never attended a game together. Every year Graham swore to Karolina and Harry that they’d sit in the owner’s box, fly to an important away game, or invite a bunch of Harry’s friends and get seats on the fifty-yard line, and every year another season went by without the Hartwell boys in attendance. Harry had been to a game exactly once, two years earlier, when Karolina took pity on him and bought tickets off StubHub. He’d been thrilled and cheered like crazy in his head-to-toe gear, but she knew he would have preferred to go with Graham: Karolina had unknowingly gotten tickets on the visitor side, and she couldn’t totally follow who had the ball, and in spite of her best intentions, she kept cheering at the wrong times.

‘Mom! Hey, Mom!’ Harry interrupted her thoughts. ‘There are cop cars behind us with their lights on.’

‘Hmmm?’ Karolina murmured, more to herself. She glanced in the rearview and saw two police cruisers with their lights ablaze, so close to the Suburban that they were nearly pushing up against the bumper. ‘My goodness, it must be important. Okay, okay, give me a second,’ she said aloud. ‘I’m moving over.’

She was grateful Harry was safely beside her, because she always got nervous when she saw an emergency vehicle in her neighborhood. Their house might be on fire, but so long as Harry was safely in her sight, she could deal with anything. She put on her blinker and eased the unwieldy truck onto the side of the road as gracefully as she could, sending a silent apology to the Crains, who lived five doors down and owned the beautiful lawn her tires were probably digging up. Only the cruisers didn’t quickly pass her on the left, as she’d expected; they too pulled to the side and came to a stop directly behind her truck.

‘Ohhh, Mrs. Hartwell, you’re busted!’ Stefan, another of Harry’s friends, yelled as all the boys laughed. Karolina did too.

‘Yes, you know me,’ Karolina said. ‘Going twenty in a residential neighborhood. Crazy!’ She watched in the rearview as the officers stood next to her license plate and appeared to type it into an iPad-like device. Good, she thought. They would see the United States government plates that were on all three of their cars, and this whole silly thing would be over.

But the two officers who approached her window weren’t laughing. ‘Ma’am? Is this your vehicle?’ asked the female officer, while the male cop stood behind her and watched.

‘Yes, of course,’ Karolina said, wondering why they’d ask her such a ridiculous question. She was driving it, wasn’t she? ‘Officer, I really don’t think I was speeding. We literally just pulled out of the driveway. See? We live right back there. I’m just taking my son’s friends—’

The female cop looked hard at Karolina and said, ‘I’ll need your license and registration, please.’

Karolina checked the woman’s face. She wasn’t kidding. Karolina carefully removed her driver’s license from her wallet and was relieved to find the car’s registration tucked neatly in the glove compartment. ‘I, um, as you may recognize the name from my license there … I am actually married to Senator Hartwell,’ Karolina said, giving her best smile. She wasn’t usually one to name-drop, but then again, she wasn’t usually being pulled over by angry-looking cops.

The male officer furrowed his eyebrows. ‘Ma’am, have you been drinking?’

Karolina was vaguely aware of the boys going quiet with this question, and her mind flashed back to an hour earlier, when she’d deliberately opened a bottle of Graham’s outrageously expensive cabernet that he’d been buying by the case lately. Harry and his friends had been polishing off pizzas, and of course she’d known she’d be driving them home shortly, so she’d had half a glass. If that. She hadn’t even wanted it, really, but it had been satisfying to open the bottle and know that it would likely go bad before Graham got home from New York. He’d asked to join him for a New Year’s dinner at a friend’s penthouse in Manhattan, but Karolina didn’t want to leave Harry behind on New Year’s Eve. She’d been upset that he’d gone without her, although she wasn’t completely surprised.