Chap­ter 38: Nina

If a few months ago, some­one had told me I would be spend­ing tonight in a hotel room while Andy was at my house with anoth­er woman—the maid!—I wouldn’t 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 I’m bare­ly aware of it. I’ve got my phone out and I click on the app I have been using for the last sev­er­al months. Find my friends. I wait for it to tell me the loca­tion of Wil­helmi­na “Mil­lie” Cal­loway.

But under her name, it says: loca­tion not found. The same as it has since the after­noon.

She must’ve 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. It’s a few years old—a 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 I’ve 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 Andy’s cred­it card a for­tune, but that’s okay. I won’t be here long.

I go into the bath­room and I hold up the pho­to­graph of Andy’s smil­ing face. Then I pull out the con­tents of my pock­et.

It’s 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 husband’s 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 can’t believe I final­ly got rid of that ass­hole.

How to Get Rid of Your Sadis­tic, Evil Husband—A 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.

He’s not actu­al­ly my boss. He’s more like, my boss’s boss’s boss. There may be a few oth­er lay­ers in there of peo­ple in the chain between him—the CEO of this com­pa­ny since his father’s retirement—and me—a recep­tion­ist.

So when I’m sit­ting at my desk, out­side my actu­al boss’s office, and I admire him from afar, it’s not like I’m crush­ing on an actu­al man. It’s 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 just so good-look­ing though. All that mon­ey and also so hand­some. It would say some­thing about life just being unfair, if the guy wasn’t so 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 “the kid,” Andrew Win­ches­ter stopped at my desk and smiled at me and called me by name. He said, “Hel­lo, Nina. How are you today?”

Obvi­ous­ly, he doesn’t 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 can’t quite fig­ure out what Stew­art does, because I do all his work. But that’s fine. I don’t mind, as long as I get my pay­checks and my health insur­ance.

Cecelia and I need a place to live, and the pedi­a­tri­cian says there’s a set of shots she requires next month (for dis­eases she doesn’t even have!).

But what I mind a lit­tle more is that Stew­art didn’t warn me he was going to ask me to wait around. I’m sup­posed to be pump­ing now. My breasts are full and aching with milk, strain­ing at the clips of my flim­sy nurs­ing bra. I’m try­ing my best not to think about Cece, because if I do, the milk will almost cer­tain­ly burst through my nip­ples. And that’s just not the kind of thing you want to hap­pen when you’re 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 I’m 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 isn’t 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 there’s room for advance­ment. Even­tu­al­ly.

But right now, I just have to get through the next twen­ty min­utes with­out my breasts leak­ing.

I’m this close to run­ning off to the bath­room with my lit­tle pump­ing back­pack and my tiny lit­tle milk bot­tles when Stewart’s voice crack­les out of the inter­com.

“Nina?” he barks at me. “Could you bring in the Grady data?”

“Yes, sir, right away!”

I get on my com­put­er and load up the files he wants, then I hit print. It’s about fifty pages’ 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. “Mr. Lynch, sir?”

“Come in, Nina.”

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. They’re look­ing at me like I’ve got a giant spi­der hang­ing off my hair and I don’t even know it.

I’m 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 didn’t just leak—I 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.

“Nina!” Stew­art cries. “Get your­self cleaned up!”

“Right,” I say quick­ly. “I… I’m so sor­ry. I…”

I drop the papers on Stewart’s 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. I’m not even sure what I’m more upset about. The fact that my boss’s boss’s 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 feels so good to emp­ty all that milk. Maybe bet­ter than sex. Not that I remem­ber what sex feels like—the 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. I’ll put it in the refrig­er­a­tor until it’s time to go home. Right now, I’ve 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, I’m shocked to see some­one stand­ing there. And not just any­one. It’s Andrew Win­ches­ter. My boss’s boss’s boss. His fist is raised in the air, poised to knock on the door.

His eyes widen when he sees me.

“Uh, hi?” I say. “The men’s room is, um, over there.”

I feel stu­pid say­ing that. I mean, this is his com­pa­ny. Also, there’s a sten­cil of a woman with a dress on the door to the bath­room. He should real­ize this is the women’s room.

“Actu­al­ly,” he says, “I was look­ing for you.”

“For me?”

He nods. “I want­ed to see if you were okay.”

“I’m fine.” I try to smile, hid­ing my humil­i­a­tion from ear­li­er. “It’s just milk.”

“I know, but…” He frowns. “Stew­art was a jerk to you. That was unac­cept­able.”

“Yeah, well…” I’m tempt­ed to tell him of a hun­dred oth­er instances when Stew­art was a jerk to me. But it’s a bad idea to talk shit about my boss. “It’s fine. Any­way, I was just about to grab some lunch, so…”

“Me too.” He arch­es an eye­brow. “Care to join me?”

Of course I say yes. Even if he wasn’t my boss’s boss’s boss, I would’ve said yes. He’s gor­geous, for starters. I love his smile—the crin­kling around his eyes and the hint of a cleft in his chin. But it’s not like he’s ask­ing me out on a date. He just feels bad because of what hap­pened before in Stewart’s 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 he’s going to take me to one of the many fan­cy restau­rants in the neigh­bor­hood, so I’m shocked when he leads me over to the hot­dog cart right out­side the build­ing and joins the line.

“Best hot­dogs in the city.” He winks at me. “What do you like on yours?”

“Um… mus­tard, I guess?”

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. It’s almost comical—this hand­some man sit­ting on the steps of the brown­stone in his expen­sive suit, hold­ing a hot­dog cov­ered in mus­tard.

“Thank you for the hot­dog, Mr. Win­ches­ter,” I say.

“Andy,” he cor­rects me.

“Andy,” I repeat. I take a bite of my hot­dog. It’s pret­ty good. Best in the city? I’m not so sure about that. I mean, it’s bread and mys­tery meat.

“How old is your baby?” he asks.

My face flush­es with plea­sure the way it always does when some­body asks me about my daugh­ter. “Five months.”

“What’s her name?”

“Cecelia.”

“That’s nice.” He grins. “Like the song.”