CHAPTER 41

Olivia

Olivia pulled a tape measure along the floor of what was formerly Spencer’s side of their walk-in closet, measuring out space for a standing desk and wall unit. She was excited to have a designated space to do her design work. Eliza had already hired her to create a new logo for the bulletin board.

She had just put two homemade apple pies in the oven, her first-ever attempt. She and Alison had gone on a little field trip to the local cider mill the day before. Apparently apples were a local industry that neither city girl knew much about. They returned home with cider and donuts and a bushel each of apples, way too many for two women with toothless babies. Alison decided to make sauce, and Olivia, pie, to bring to Eliza’s for Thanksgiving. One thing was for sure: She knew she was thankful for her kick-ass new friends.

When Mandy and Alison had returned with the video of Spencer in the car on that awful day, Olivia watched it in silence. They all stared at her, waiting for her to implode, but she didn’t say a word. She didn’t even cry. It felt as if fear were gripping her throat as she sat back on Eliza’s couch, watching the different paths of her uncertain future roll out in front of her eyes.

How would she survive this? She would have to tell her parents, have to tell her friends. The thought of their faces when she did mortified her. She was so ashamed. Why was this embarrassment hers? She’d done nothing wrong. Spencer was the one that should be embarrassed and pitied, not her, but she knew that wasn’t the way it worked.

She’d been overcome by a feeling of loss. What would happen to her and Lily? Where would they go? Her parents would tell her to come home, and a big part of her wanted to do just that. She could move herself and Lily into her childhood bedroom and take comfort in sentimental things like the mac and cheese her mother used to make when Olivia wasn’t feeling well. This was surely a mac-and-cheese-worthy situation.

She went through it all in her head: The doormen she’d grown up with smiling at her when they opened the door but shooting each other “poor Olivia” looks behind her back. She pictured walking into the local coffee place and bumping into Heidi Siegel, pushing her baby, too. “You’re back in the city? I knew the suburbs weren’t for you! Let’s have dinner with the guys!” followed by Olivia’s dramatic explanation, followed by that pathetic look again, the one that rightfully belonged to Spencer.

The thought of going back to the city a failure made her physically ill. She hadn’t even had the chance to set up her old easel and break out her new watercolors. She could tell that at any moment the leaves would drop off the trees, and she wanted to capture how, when the morning sun hit just right, it was hard to tell where the rocks ended and their reflection began. Now she felt that way about the truth and the lies.

It was Eliza who had broken the silence.

“What are you thinking, honey? What do you want to do?” she said in her most motherly tone.

Olivia just shook her head. Mandy stood in front of her and took her face in her hands; she looked right into her eyes. “I watch you, and I wonder, what would my life have been like if I had confronted my fears at your age? You have so much ahead of you. There is plenty of time for a do-over.”

Olivia appreciated Mandy’s words. They gave her hope, and at a time like this, hope was the best thing she had to cling to.

As usual, Alison wasn’t wasting time with emotions. “Can I send the video to Andie and let her take care of it?”

“She could do that?”

“Absolutely. I’ll talk to her after she watches it and see what she thinks is best.”

Olivia nodded in agreement, and Alison took Mandy’s phone from her to proceed.

Olivia thought of the pictures on her own phone. The slideshow of sunsets captured from her deck, each one a close tie to the beauty of Lily’s smiles. Oranges and reds and yellows and pinks painting the sky, the river, and the bridge in the distance, before fading to black. She did not want her life here to fade to black. To see the sunset in Manhattan, you needed to climb on the roof or stand on the exact cross streets for the slivers of light to funnel through the buildings and grace you with their presence. A lump formed in her throat that felt too big to swallow. She held on to Alison’s arm.

“I know we all just met, but I don’t want to leave. I like it here. Maybe it sounds crazy because my life here has been a lie, but in some ways, I feel like this is where Lily and I belong. I spent so much time thinking about bringing up my family in that house, my house. I don’t want to leave it. I don’t want to give up the entire dream.”

“Then don’t!” Eliza roared. “Why do you need to be the one to leave?”

“For one thing, Spencer’s parents are the ones who bought us that big house.”

“I have no doubt that Spencer’s parents will be receiving the video very shortly. I’m pretty sure you have a window now to get nearly anything you want,” Alison stated reassuringly.

It hadn’t entered Olivia’s mind that she could stay. It was only then, only when she figured out a happy path for her and Lily’s future that the fear that was gripping her throat subsided. She took a deep breath, her body calmed, and she said with confidence, “I’m staying. I want to stay.”


It all worked just as Alison thought it would. Andie sent the video directly to Spencer’s parents and left it to them to show it to Spencer. The scene that followed was even better than they could have imagined.

After both calming down and arousing Ashley, Spencer sauntered back into the York offices feeling all right. He stopped at his assistant’s desk to ask for his messages. He had only one: “Your father wants to see you immediately.”

Her tone set up the mood, and on his way to his dad’s office, Spencer played out all of the different reasons for being summoned. Most involved missed deadlines and poor sales reports. None involved his father turning around his computer screen and presenting Spencer with video footage of the next CEO of York Cosmetics cheating on his wife and baby.

“Where did you get this?” Spencer asked.

“A private eye just sent it to me.”

Spencer was shocked and furious, but not at all remorseful. This infuriated his father even more. When his mother walked into the office, having already had the privilege of viewing the footage, she got right in his face.

“How could you let this happen?”

“Mom, I’m sorry. I can’t believe Olivia did this! I know she was having doubts, but to go behind my back and hire a private eye?”

Evie York wasn’t having it. “No woman wants to buy lipstick from a man who cheats on his pregnant wife, Spencer, not in today’s environment, that’s for sure!”

She was sick and tired of working her ass off to build a cosmetics empire just to have some horny man in her family threaten to take it down. It had almost happened with her brother, and now, it seemed, her son was cut from the same shabby cloth. This time she faulted herself; she had always known he was a liar. He had been since he was a child. She should have known better than to let him have a public position in the company.

“Besides being a liar and a cheat, you are a complete moron. Our sales force is a fleet of women, for God’s sake! I just got off the phone with our attorneys. They are going to offer Olivia whatever she wants to make this all go away.”

Spencer thought it through, picturing Olivia moving back to the city and he and Ashley screwing in every room in his house. And there could be other women, too, he realized. This whole thing really wasn’t his fault. He wasn’t cut out for monogamy. It was forced on him. He shook off the moron comment and smiled.

“That sounds like an excellent plan, Mother. We can put this behind us and go through with the announcement as scheduled.”

“Not quite, son. Your mother and I had our reservations about you before, but as our oldest, we thought it wouldn’t be right to skip over you and make your sister CEO. Now, after this, we have no choice. You have terrible judgment and no self-control.”


When the York family lawyer called Olivia that day, she referred him to Alison. She knew that matrimonial law was not Alison’s thing, but the faith she had in her outweighed her credentials. Olivia wanted the house, money for its upkeep, and fair child support. All were granted, plus a million dollars in exchange for her signing a nondisclosure agreement.

“Things could be worse,” Alison told her, laughing at the ridiculous simplicity of the transaction.

Olivia took the money and ran, or rather, she took the money and stayed put.

She boxed up Spencer’s stuff and left it in the garage for him to pick up, which was arranged through the lawyers as well. She knew she would have to deal with him eventually—he was the father of her child—but for now it was all through emails, with Alison as the intermediary. Not to say it was easy; it was actually the hardest thing she had ever been through. The healing process was arduous. The grief, combined with the fact that she was caring for an infant on her own, often left her feeling exhausted and drained.

As the sweet smell of apple pie traveled up the stairs and into her bedroom, she thought back to Amanda’s words of wisdom. She had warned her of the difference between anger and bitterness.

“Anger can be expelled, but bitterness is internalized,” she said. “That’s why it leaves a nasty taste in your mouth.”

She promised that she would not become bitter and was committed to keeping that promise. Besides, there was a lot to be said for not having to share a closet.