The Secret Lives of Married Women by Elissa Wald

a bit much. He’s only a kid, for Christ’s sake.”
    Bryce broke into a sudden grin.
    “Leda, listen to you!”
    “What?”
    “You’re jealous!”
    “Oh, come on.”
    “Christ on a sidecar. I never thought I’d see the day. Marcus, would you get this? Leda’s jealous!”
    “Bryce, shut up, you’re so ridiculous.”
    A couple of hours later, unable to think of anything else, I typed the only question I could bring myself to ask— How do you like Chicago? —into a text message to Stas.
    A moment later came the vibration of his reply and I clutched at the phone with both hands, as if the device itself were what I couldn’t afford to lose.
    I like it very much, he had written back. It is a marvelous city.
    Then a moment later, he added: You sent me here, in a way.
    I knew what he meant: that I’d signed the firm he was there to service. But I couldn’t help reading another meaning into his words: that I’d sent him away by rejecting his love. What was there to hold him in New York? A room in Inwood; slave wages for work that was never done; a woman who wouldn’t take him seriously. He was rootless, he could go anywhere.
    The next night, the night I knew he was with Lara’s friend, I couldn’t eat dinner. I couldn’t eat at all, in fact, or do anything besides picture Stas in her bed. I saw him going home with her and never wanting to leave. I imagined him calling Bryce, saying he’d be staying in Chicago, thanks for everything, good luck and goodbye. It would be my fault for failing to value him, for not recognizing his worth while he was mine for the taking.
    Before it was even fully dark, I climbed into my loft bed and wrapped both arms around my pillow. I was holding my phone and trying to decide whether to call Stas. I had never called him for reasons unrelated to work, never called him in the evening at all. He would be with her right now, in some loud, crowded place; even if he could hear his phone ring, he’d be surrounded by other people. There would be no way to have a real conversation. And anyway, what would I say?
    Could this really be happening, could this be me? Smoldering, suffering, over Stas? I felt tears sliding out of my eyes, staining the pillow. I was still in my work clothes, a fitted blouse and houndstooth skirt suit. I was thirty-four and pathetic.
    Finally, at half past midnight, I dialed his number in a kind of frenzy. It was eleven-thirty in Chicago, late enough for his sleeping arrangements to have been decided. Surely if he was with her, he just wouldn’t answer. I lay back against the bank of pillows with the phone held tight to my ear and one hand shielding my eyes.
    “Leda?”
    His voice came through clearly, with no din in the background. That didn’t mean he was alone, of course. He could be at her house already. Or she might be in his room.
    “Stas—” I felt my voice catch.
    “Yes, Leda?”
    “Stas, where are you?”
    “I am in my hotel room. Why do you ask? Is the client having a problem?”
    “Are you alone right now?”
    “Yes, of course.” Then, again: “Why do you ask?”
    I exhaled as quietly as I could. “I just—I didn’t want to interrupt you if you were with someone.”
    “Who would I be with here?”
    I said, a little shakily, “Bryce mentioned some woman you were going out with tonight.”
    “Oh yes,” he said. “Antonia. I met her earlier.”
    I didn’t want to ask, but I couldn’t stop myself. “What was she like?”
    “She was nice,” Stas said. “She bought me a shirt.”
    “A shirt?”
    “We were walking on the street and she saw it in the window of a store. She asked whether I owned any silk shirts, and I said no. Then she said that every young man should have at least one. So she bought it for me.”
    “That was generous of her,” I said uncertainly. “What...what color is it?”
    “It is an unusual color,” he said. “In the store it looked silver but when we were again on the street it was more like blue. I must say