For one suspended second, I simply stood in the silence of my bedroom, listening to Eleanor Harrington try to beat my front door off its hinges.
Boom. Boom. Boom.
My apartment, usually a sanctuary of clean lines and pale stone and soft cashmere and floor-to-ceiling views of Manhattan, suddenly felt like a glass box in the middle of a storm. “Marissa!” Eleanor shrieked from the hallway. “I know you’re in there!”
I grabbed my robe from the chair beside the bed and tied it around me with trembling hands. Not because I was afraid of Eleanor, exactly. I had feared that woman for years, but in the quiet, exhausting way one fears humiliation and judgment and constant emotional warfare. I had feared her comments at dinner, her cold glances, her little smiles whenever Anthony chose her side, her particular talent for making me feel like an intruder in my own marriage. But this was different. This was rage without manners, and Eleanor Harrington without manners was something I had never seen before.
The pounding came again. “Open the door, you vindictive little social climber!”
I moved into the entry hall and stopped several feet from the door. The security screen beside it showed the camera feed from outside, and there she was. Eleanor stood in the hallway wearing a cream Chanel coat, oversized sunglasses pushed up into her perfectly styled silver-blonde hair, enough diamonds on her for a museum exhibit. Her lipstick was immaculate. Her face was twisted with fury. And beside her stood Anthony.
Of course. My ex-husband looked as though he had dressed in a hurry, his navy cashmere sweater wrinkled, his hair uncombed, his jaw tight. But what stunned me most was not his anger. It was the panic underneath it. He kept glancing down the hall toward the elevator, as if terrified someone might see them there.
“Tell her to open it,” Eleanor snapped at him.
Anthony leaned toward the door. “Marissa,” he said, his voice lower than his mother’s but no less venomous. “Open the door. We need to talk.”
I pressed the intercom button. “No, we don’t.”
Both of them froze. Eleanor lunged toward the camera like a vulture spotting fresh meat. “How dare you speak to me through a machine?”
“How dare you come to my home before seven in the morning and assault my door?” I replied.
Anthony’s face darkened. “Don’t be dramatic.”
That almost made me laugh. For five years, dramatic had been Eleanor pretending to faint because I served a wine she considered too young. Dramatic had been Anthony refusing to speak to me for three days because I declined to pay for his cousin’s destination wedding in Capri. Dramatic had been Eleanor announcing to an entire Christmas dinner table that I had new-money manners because I’d asked her not to call my late father a useful little accountant. No. This was not drama. This was consequence.
“I’m calling building security,” I said.
Eleanor’s mouth fell open. “You wouldn’t dare.”
I smiled, even though she couldn’t see it clearly through the camera. “I already have.” That was not entirely true yet. It became true five seconds later when I picked up my phone and called the concierge desk. “Ms. Vale?” came the sleepy but professional voice of Marcus, the morning doorman. “Marcus, Eleanor and Anthony Harrington are outside my apartment. They were not invited. Please send security up immediately.” There was the briefest pause. “Yes, ma’am. Right away.”
Anthony must have heard enough through the door, because his expression shifted. “Marissa,” he said, suddenly softer. “Don’t do this.” There it was. The switch. The one he had used throughout our marriage like a hidden blade. Anger first. Then reason. Then guilt. Then tenderness. Then punishment. “I’m not doing anything,” I said. “You came here.” “My mother is humiliated. Do you understand that?” I stared at him through the grainy monitor. “Yes. I understand humiliation very well.” His eyes flickered. Eleanor scoffed. “Oh, don’t start with your victim performance.”
I opened the door. Not all the way. Just enough for the chain lock to catch. The hallway air rushed in cold against my face, and Eleanor looked me up and down, taking in my robe and bare feet and sleep-tousled hair with open disgust. “Finally,” she spat. Anthony stepped forward immediately. I did not move. The chain held. “You have five seconds to step away from my door before security arrives,” I said.
Eleanor’s laugh was sharp and ugly. “Your door? Your apartment? Your money?” She leaned closer, perfume flooding the narrow space between us. “You really do think divorce makes you untouchable.” “It makes me unmarried,” I said. “Which means you’re no longer my problem.” Anthony’s nostrils flared. “My mother was at Bergdorf yesterday when your card declined.” “I know. You called screaming about it.” “She was with Lydia Fairchild,” Eleanor hissed, as though Lydia Fairchild were a head of state. “Do you have any idea what that woman will do with a story like that?” I tilted my head. “Probably tell everyone. She seems efficient.” Eleanor’s face went crimson. Anthony slammed his palm against the doorframe. “Enough. Reinstate the card.”