Chapter 12
The gallery opening was a dazzling success. A huge number of people came, art lovers,
critics, a good portion of their mailing list, many of Felicity’s friends, professors, and
other artists she’d taken classes with. The Whitfields never showed up and she didn’t
care, and Taylor had fun meeting people and chatting with them. He appeared to be very
knowledgeable about art, and acted like Felicity’s staunchest supporter and biggest fan.
The owners of the gallery were very pleased with the turnout, and they sold more than
half the paintings in the show, an excellent result for an unknown artist, and they offered
her a contract to represent her, which was a huge victory. The art critics who had come
to see the show had all made favorable comments.
She looked as though a thousandpound weight had been lifted from her shoulders.
When it became clear that the evening was a success, and people were buying her
paintings, Taylor had leaned close to her and whispered, “You see, I told you I would
bring you luck,” he said, leering at her, and brushed one of her breasts with his hand
drifting past it seemingly by accident. She hadn’t felt lucky when he was slamming into
her and bit her nipple when it was over. It still hurt at the party and would leave a mark.
“Sex before an important event is a must,” he added. What disturbed her was that what
passed between them now was always sex and not love, and it was too aggressive and
he hurt her. It was always just over the line, and made her feel diminished and
disrespected afterward, and it was only consenting because she didn’t try to stop him
when he was on a tear. When he wanted to take her, he did, without apology later. He
felt he had a right to her now, even more so once he knew she was pregnant. She was
his property, an object he could do whatever he wanted with, and she didn’t know how
to get their relationship back to what it had been when he was gentle and seductive with
her. Now she was a possession he could treat however he wanted, and gently trying to
get him back over the line wasn’t working. He didn’t care what she said. The more she
tried to object, the better he liked it. It made him feel powerful. She could see it in his
eyes when he hammered into her, he loved that he was taking what she didn’t want to
give. Her body was some kind of prize now, or a toy for him to play with. It was
dehumanizing, which he didn’t seem to understand and didn’t want to. He suddenly had
a thirst for violence and wanted to hurt her. There was no one she could talk to about it.
She didn’t feel comfortable telling her sister, and she didn’t want to upset her mother.
So it remained their secret, and he knew she wouldn’t tell anyone, it was too
embarrassing. But she was sure that it was abuse of some kind, or a power game he
needed to play with her to remind her that he owned her and the deciding voice was
always his as to when they had sex, how and where. His old tenderness had
disappeared and had been replaced by violent, aggressive sex that almost always left
her injured. She didn’t even dare ask her doctor if it was bad for the baby. She couldn’t
imagine that it was good, and a few times now she had had cramps afterward.
* * *
After the gallery show, she had to turn her attention to the wedding, to help her mother.
They worked out the seating for three hundred and forty-seven guests, more than half of
them attributed to the Whitfields. They had invited nearly every member of Phillip’s
club, all of the friends Elizabeth played bridge with, whom Felicity had never met. In
fact, she realized when reading the guest list that she knew less than a hundred of the
people on it, barely a quarter of the guests. The rest were all Whitfield invites.
Dominique had also invited very few people. She wanted to leave room for Taylor and
Felicity’s friends, and he had invited his friends from work, his colleagues, the people
he played squash with, old friends from college. There were very few people that
Felicity was close to or even knew. She had invited her favorite art professors and
many fellow artists. She didn’t want to cause some of her artist friends embarrassment
since they didn’t own a tux and couldn’t afford to rent one, so she left them off the list.
She hadn’t seen Taylor’s parents since the night they had accused her of being
pregnant by someone other than Taylor, and she had avoided them intentionally. There
were three showers for her in the two weeks before the wedding, and Taylor’s mother
had given a tea for her, which Felicity didn’t dare refuse, but they hadn’t spoken to each
other. She had used the family silver tea service and the best china. It was a boring
event and the guests gave her embroidered handkerchiefs and napkins and items she
knew she’d never use. Her own friends were more generous and more practical, and
many of her artist friends had given them pieces of their work, which meant a lot to her,
and which Taylor didn’t particularly like.
Felicity was engaged in something to do with the wedding every day now. She could
no longer avoid it, but Taylor was in a good mood, and had a ball at his bachelor party,
which was a three-day affair in Miami, and she heard a rumor that it had included
Cuban hookers and didn’t try to find out more about it. She didn’t want to know, but it
didn’t surprise her. For all his appearance of tradition and propriety, sex in all its
forms, even violent, was one of his favorite activities, almost like a sport. He liked
hookers and sex toys, although he had never used them with her, and she had told him
early on that she didn’t like them. But Taylor was a lot racier than she had first thought.
He came back from Miami delighted after whatever had gone on there.
Felicity had been to her doctor by then and had another sonogram. The fetus looked
even more distinctly like a baby now, and had been sucking its thumb, with a strong
heartbeat, and the genetic blood tests had indicated no anomalies and determined that it
was a boy. She asked Taylor to go to the appointment with her, but he was busy so she
went alone. Looking at the screen, she tried to feel some kind of bond with the baby, but
she didn’t yet. She just lay on the exam table and cried when she saw it, sad that there
was so little joy to celebrate its existence, but maybe that would come later, as her
mother said. She had told no one about it yet, not even her sister. It seemed like such an
adult subject, having a baby, being a parent, she wasn’t ready to be that much of an
adult, and was planning to tell Violet after the wedding.
She had a small smooth round bump about the size of her palm that she could feel to
the touch when she lay down. But it didn’t show when she was dressed. There was no
visible hint of a pregnancy, and it wouldn’t show in her wedding dress. Taylor had
noticed the bump when she lay naked, but he didn’t seem to have any particular
attachment to it either. As an only child, there had been no babies or children in his life.
The baby was only an abstract concept to him and not a reality, although he had fought
hard for its life and then lost interest in it once it was too late to abort it. Although the
heartbeat was strong on the sonogram, Felicity felt no sign of life yet. She wasn’t ready
for that anyway, and wasn’t eager to feel it. She was tolerating its presence for the
moment, which was the best she could do, and it hadn’t inconvenienced her so far,
although the very idea of it was still terrifying, and she ignored it as much as possible or
she’d have been scared out of her wits. She thought about the wedding instead, which
was scary enough. All the details were taken care of, and Dominique had attended to
everything, so Felicity didn’t have to. Her assistants helped her. Felicity had been too
busy with her show to pay attention to the wedding until the final days leading up to it.
* * *
Eileen had been trapped at home, a prisoner in bed, for a month by the time Felicity had
her art show. And Bill was still her willing hostage. It was becoming obvious that there
was no end in sight. She would recover, but it was going to be a long haul. Very long.
They had hired one more nurse, but they needed twenty-one shifts a week, and no one
wanted to work full-time over the summer. And someone had to cook for Eileen and her
nurses. And with no chef, Bill was either cooking or helping to move Eileen at all hours
of the day and night. She didn’t trust the nurses and only wanted him. Both his boys
were going away for the summer, one to the West Coast to a logging camp in Oregon for
a summer job, the other to a startup in London, by people who were friends of Bill’s.
With the boys away, there was even less chance that he’d find an excuse to come to the
city. Working from home seemed to be adequate for him. He hadn’t been to the city in
five weeks, nor seen Dominique in six weeks, and the life was slowly being squeezed
out of her and the relationship. It was even worse than her mother had predicted and
there was no hiding from it anymore. Bill had a furnished studio he rented in the city, as
a cover for his nights with Dominique. He hadn’t seen it in months.
They were talking about the final wedding plans when there was suddenly a long
silence on the phone and it hit her like a bolt of lightning that the relationship was over.
Bill just hadn’t had the guts to say it, and she had hoped it wasn’t. And out of the blue
she said it.
“I guess that’s it then, isn’t it?”
He didn’t answer, and she wasn’t sure if he’d hung up, and then he spoke, and he
sounded like he was crying. She wasn’t. She felt as though her soul had dried up, and
there was no blood left in her body.
“I was hoping you wouldn’t say that,” he said sadly. “I’ve been afraid of those
words for sixteen years.” But he had done nothing to change it, to feed it, or to keep it
going. She had been willing to live on crumbs for the entire time, and now there weren’t
even crumbs. The cupboards were empty. He could have come into the city once or
twice in the last six weeks if he loved her, and he hadn’t. She couldn’t hide from the
truth anymore. She had been convenient, and now she wasn’t even that. Eileen had won
in the end. She didn’t want the man, but she wanted the marriage, and he was letting her
keep it and throw it in a drawer. Eileen had done nothing to feed their marriage. Their
marriage was long dead, but they refused to bury it. Bill had buried Dominique instead,
and let her starve. “I don’t want it to end, Dominique,” he said, in acute pain.
“You don’t want it to continue either. I’ve gotten that message loud and clear,” she
said, “or you’d have come to the city at least once or twice,” and he hadn’t.
“I don’t know how to extricate myself here. She has a death grip on me, all I am is
an orderly and babysitter.” Dominique wondered if Eileen knew what she was doing,
and was keeping him from seeing her until it ended. It was possible, and if so it had
worked. Dominique hadn’t meant to push it to closure, but she couldn’t keep waiting for
him, with his weak excuses for not coming to see her. He obviously didn’t love her
enough to see her, and she had to face that now. He wasn’t fighting to keep her. He was
letting her go, so it was the only choice she had. “If you ever need me, call me,” he said
in a choked voice. He hadn’t expected her to end it, and she hadn’t expected it either,
nor planned it. It just happened. She looked up, and the relationship was dead. Now
they had to bury it, as painful as that was. He knew she wouldn’t call him, she was too
proud. But he had to say it. He couldn’t bear the thought of never hearing her voice
again. But in truth, there was nothing stopping him now from getting into his car and
driving into the city to see her and tell her he loved her. But he didn’t do it. She half
hoped he would, but then what? Another six weeks without seeing him? For how long?
Until Eileen could dance again? At what point was it enough? She thought it was now. It
had died on its own. They hadn’t killed the relationship. It had died of starvation, for
lack of food and water and sustenance.
“Take good care, Bill,” she said in a soft voice, as tears overwhelmed her. “I love
you,” she whispered, and hung up. He was crying at the other end. He couldn’t breathe
knowing she was gone. He wanted to hate Eileen for still being there. But he didn’t. He
felt nothing for her anymore. And he knew he didn’t have the guts to go after the woman
he loved, and hated himself for that. He had let her slip away, and had known it would
happen. He had let her say it, because he couldn’t. He knew she was right to do it. She
deserved so much more than he could give her, or wanted to. He didn’t know how.
* * *
Dominique felt dazed for days after that. She went through the motions of everything she
had to do for the wedding. She could barely think, and she didn’t tell anyone what she’d
done. She couldn’t. She couldn’t say the words, say that it was over. It hurt too much.
* * *
Dominique put one foot in front of the other for the last week before the wedding. She
consulted her lists and knew what she had to do. She felt like a robot with its wiring all
unsprung. Bill sent her a text the night they had ended it that said only “I love you.” She
didn’t want to respond, but she couldn’t help herself, and wrote back “Me too,” and
then she cried herself to sleep. She couldn’t imagine her life without him. But she hadn’t
seen him in more than a month, so what difference would it make to continue the
illusion? More than likely, she wouldn’t have seen him for months, by the time Eileen
recovered enough for him to go into town for the day, or spend the night with her. And
how often would she see him after that? He hadn’t even been to his office. There was
just no room for her in his life, and he was too willing to accept the limitations imposed
on him, without fighting for more time and space for them. She thought her mother was
right when she said Dominique would end up alone as the mistress of a married man.
She already was. She had to end it so something else could grow in the space that he
had left barren and failed to feed and water. But letting go of him was the most painful
thing she had ever done, and she hoped she had done the right thing. She had freed them
both.
She had lunch with her daughters midweek before the wedding, and Violet
commented afterward to Felicity. “Mom was very quiet today, wasn’t she? Is she okay?
She seemed kind of vague.”
“I think she’s just exhausted by the wedding. It’s a circus. I don’t know how she did
it. She’s amazing,” Felicity said.
“Is Bill coming?” Violet asked her.
“I don’t know. Mom has the guest list, and did all the seating. I don’t know who’s
coming.” As overwhelming as it had been at times, Felicity enjoyed the final days
before the wedding. With the gallery show successfully behind her, she could relax and
have fun at the festivities, and everything was perfectly organized by Dominique for the
wedding. Felicity had nothing to do except look pretty and enjoy it.
Felicity had a good time at the showers, one given by her sister and two by friends.
The tea given by her mother-in-law had been painfully dull, but it was short, and
Felicity left with her sister.
The rehearsal for the bridal party was at noon on Friday, and then they all went out
to lunch at their favorite Italian restaurant. It was rowdy and fun. Jamie joined them, and
Tommy and Marlene had arrived on Thursday from L.A., and were staying at a hotel
with their sons and a nanny. They were staying at The Mark, not far from Dominique’s
house, so the boys could go to Central Park.
Violet was Felicity’s only attendant, and Tommy’s two little boys were the ring
bearers. There was no flower girl. Taylor’s college roommate from Princeton was his
best man. He lived in Denver and Felicity had never met him. He seemed to be as
traditional as Taylor.
They all disbanded after lunch, and Taylor left with his old roommate to go to his
club and catch up on old times. They hadn’t seen each other in several years. Violet and
Jamie were going to do errands. Dominique went home to go over more last-minute
details and check the calligraphy, and then stopped by the Met. They were already
setting up the tents and the lighting. The sound system was being installed, and the dance
floor.
The rehearsal dinner was that night, so they would all see each other again at seven
o’clock at Phillip Whitfield’s club. The club was arranging everything with their own
suppliers so Elizabeth had nothing to do except the seating. Felicity was going to wear a
short white dress that was sexy and fun. At lunch, Marlene had said she was wearing
something short and white that night too, and Violet whispered to her that she couldn’t
and promised to lend her something else, black and low-cut, since they couldn’t wear
white if the bride was, and Felicity had told them what she was wearing.
“I thought that was only for the wedding,” Marlene whispered back.
“For the rehearsal dinner too,” Violet told her discreetly.
“Thanks for telling me.” Marlene had worn a short pink sundress to the rehearsal,
but it looked cute on her. And she wore a rhinestone-studded baseball cap to match.
Jamie was enjoying the diversity of the crowd, and was amused to discover that
Marlene was an avid sports fan and had fun sitting next to her, in spite of all of Violet’s
warnings. Marlene loved Violet’s World Series ring and thought it was the coolest thing
she’d ever seen. She was lively and fun at lunch, and she and Tommy seemed happy,
and she liked Jamie. She didn’t find Taylor interesting when she talked to him, and he
ignored her completely and made it clear that he considered her beneath him. Jamie was
casual and open and enjoyed her.
Taylor’s plan was to stay at his parents’ apartment that night after the rehearsal
dinner, and leave for the wedding with them in a car Dominique was providing. They
were trying to respect his not seeing the bride the day of the wedding. Felicity had
decided to stay at her own place in Tribeca and go to her mother’s house the next
morning, where she, Violet, and Dominique were getting their hair and nails done and
having facials. They would help Felicity dress at the appointed hour. Violet and
Dominique would go to the Met in one car, and Tommy would ride with the bride in
another. Marlene was going with her sons from the hotel to the Met. It had all been
carefully orchestrated, and Felicity was going to spend a quiet night at her apartment
before the big day. She didn’t expect the rehearsal dinner to go late, knowing the
Whitfields. It was starting at seven, and there would be speeches, but the young people
would be eager to leave the dinner and go to their favorite bars and nightspots before
the wedding. She hoped Taylor didn’t stay out too late or get too drunk after the
rehearsal dinner, but she had no control over it, and since he was staying at his parents’,
she doubted that he would want to come home too late and too loud. He’d been in a
good mood all week and had been very sweet to her. They hadn’t talked about the
pregnancy since she had decided to keep the baby. It was a sensitive subject and once it
had been resolved, they didn’t need to deal with it. Since it wasn’t obvious, it slipped
his mind most of the time. Felicity was so thin, it didn’t show at all, and with lastminute nerves, and being so busy,
she had lost a few pounds. Her wedding dress was
even a little loose on her but went with the style from the 1920s.
Her bags, packed for the honeymoon, as were Taylor’s, were standing in the front
hall. They were leaving the day after the wedding. They were going to England and
Ireland, which didn’t sound romantic, but they had rented a cottage in the Cotswolds,
were spending a week at a castle in Scotland, and were then going to visit friends in
London. Taylor had picked it. Ireland was one of his favorite places and it sounded like
fun to Felicity too, instead of churches in Italy and museums in France. It was a little
different. She was excited about all of it now. She was sure that the wedding her mother
had put together was going to be incredible, and despite their ups and downs, she loved
Taylor. He had been much nicer lately since the art show. She wondered at times if he
was jealous of her passion for her art. He didn’t love his job the way she did hers, and
it ate up a lot of her attention.
* * *
Felicity dressed carefully for the rehearsal dinner. She wore her hair down, which was
sexier than wearing it up or back as she usually did. The dress was a little shorter than
she remembered, but it was really pretty and flattering. Her long legs looked fabulous
with the short skirt and she could wear really high heels since Taylor was so tall. She
wore diamond earrings her mother had given her when she turned thirty and they
sparkled on her ears. The dress was a little lower cut than she usually wore, but it was
so well made that it looked tasteful on her, and there was nothing vulgar about her. She
took a last look in the mirror and raced out the door with a white satin Chanel jacket
that toned down the dress until she got to the club and took it off.
The first person she saw when she got to the club was her father, who was just
arriving too. His date was a knockout in a tight black dress that was shorter than
Felicity’s, and she had the figure to pull it off. She had long dark hair and looked very
exotic, with big diamond hoop earrings, a lot of makeup, and noticeably enhanced lips
in a permanent sensual pout. Andrew introduced her as Kimberly. Felicity would have
been shocked, except that he was always with women who looked like her. He had
already bragged to Dominique that she was twenty-two, and he was seventy-six. They
were all used to it. Andrew had no sense of ridiculousness about the women he dated,
and he always had fun. He had a lot of energy for a man his age, and the young women
he went out with were always impressed by how generous he was.
Felicity kissed him after she greeted Kimberly, and she saw Violet out of the corner
of her eye assessing their father’s date and rolling her eyes, and Felicity had to force
herself not to laugh.
Her father wasn’t particularly affectionate with her, but he wished her luck for the
next day, and then she went to find Violet. She had just pointed him out to Jamie, who
was impressed by his date.
“He doesn’t go for half measures, does he?” Jamie commented to Violet and
Felicity. “That’s a total look!”
“Hopefully, she’s not from an escort service. He does that too,” Violet said sternly.
“He has a lot of energy,” Felicity said. “He brought a girl to Tommy’s wedding who
looked like a hooker and she kept calling him by the wrong name.”
Jamie laughed. “He’s every older man’s dream come true, and so is his date. My
father would die for a night with a girl like that.”
“He was mortifying when we were younger,” Violet said. “The only time he ever
picked me up at school, he hit on one of my teachers. I think he went on a date with her.
She always told me how charming he was. Now he’s kind of a joke and very
predictable.” But Andrew was undeniably a very good-looking, distinguished older
man. Jamie could imagine him making a dazzling couple with Dominique in her youth,
but their personalities and styles were completely different. She was a lady to the core,
and he was a rogue, and enjoyed every minute of it. He had a martini in his hand minutes
after he arrived, and Kimberly was guzzling champagne as fast as she could drink it.
Andrew didn’t seem to mind.
Taylor found them in the crowd a little while later, and his eyes widened when he
saw his soon-to-be future wife. “Wow! You look hot!”
“Thank you.” She was pleased by the compliment, and then they circulated in the
crowd, greeting people, but with almost three hundred people there, they couldn’t get to
everyone, and Elizabeth started the dinner right on time. The Whitfields didn’t like
eating late, and they were on a schedule, and didn’t want to run over it, or there would
be a late charge they wanted to avoid. All of the young Walkers were seated together,
Felicity and Taylor, Jamie and Violet, Tommy and Marlene, a couple the girls didn’t
know. Andrew, their father, and his date were seated with Dominique, which she didn’t
appreciate, but they were all civilized and got along. Taylor’s parents were at the same
table, and Phillip looked enraptured, watching Kimberly and envying Felicity and
Violet’s father. Elizabeth and Dominique exchanged a knowing look and laughed, which
no one else noticed.
The speeches were tedious, which they usually were at wedding dinners. Old school
friends of Taylor’s roasted him, an uncle told embarrassing stories from Taylor’s teens,
his mother gave an emotional speech about what a perfect son he was and how lucky
Felicity was to marry him. The food was as banal as expected, and as predicted the
dinner ended by nine-thirty and did not run over the allotted time. Toward the end of the
speeches, Felicity noticed Taylor and a number of young men in a long line at the bar,
drinking shots, and she saw that her father was with them.
Taylor and his father-in-lawto-be were becoming fast friends. Kimberly had disappeared somewhere.
Violet and Jamie joined a big group of young people who, along with Tommy and
Marlene, were going out to hit the bars on a Friday night. Marlene was wearing the
black dress Violet had loaned her. Taylor left with them, and Felicity left with her
mother. She didn’t want a late drunken night before her wedding. She dropped her
mother off and went home to SoHo on her own.
“It wasn’t as bad as I expected,” Dominique said.
“It was very nice,” Felicity said generously.
“Your father wins the prize at every wedding for most shocking date. Nothing
embarrasses him,” she said, and Felicity laughed. They were all used to it. They hadn’t
been able to find Taylor’s parents to thank them and say goodbye, but they would do it
at the wedding. For them, it had been a grand affair, and Dominique was sure they were
pleased.
Felicity dropped Dominique at her house and went back to her apartment. It was
quiet and peaceful, which was just what she wanted. She would have to deal with over
three hundred people the next day, and she didn’t want two nights of it.
She soaked in a warm bath, turned on an old movie she liked, and was in bed before
midnight. She had a big day ahead, and she had noticed recently that she was
exceptionally tired at night, which she assumed was due to the pregnancy. She fell into a
deep sleep, and never heard the apartment door open at two in the morning, until it
slammed and she woke with a start. For a minute she was afraid it was an intruder. She
sat up to try and see in the dark, and there was a crash as someone stumbled over a
piece of furniture, and she heard someone say, “Fuck!” It was Taylor and he sounded
drunk. There was no surprise there the night before his wedding. Except he had come to
the wrong home. He was supposed to be spending the night at his parents’. And instead
he had come home to her and now she had to deal with him. She didn’t want to, but she
had no choice.