Chapter One
Sylvia
In hindsight, I should not have had that fifth mimosa at Breakfast with Santa.
Or the sixth, seventh, and eighth.
In my defense, I would like to say that they were incredibly tasty and deceptively strong. In fact, I’m pretty sure the bartenders began adding more alcohol to them as the event wore on.
And I needed it.
It was the first time Brett, my ex-husband, and fucking Kimmy, his soon-to-be-next-wife, and I were all in a room together. They were seated at a table with Whitney, our newly thirteen-year-old daughter, and Keaton, our ten-year-old son, along with another family from the country club. Back in August, when we’d made the reservations, I’d assumed it would be me sitting in the seat now occupied by Kimmy. Of course, I’d been totally unaware at the time that Brett had already hired a divorce attorney, established residency in Nevada so the whole thing could be done quickly, and purchased a love nest for himself and his little side dish.
I was only attending this breakfast because my daughter had begged me to come. She couldn’t stand Kimmy, and she was furious with her dad. I was careful not to badmouth him in front of the kids, but I probably didn’t even need to worry about it. He’d never been Father of the Year. In his mind, paying their private school tuition bills, buying them expensive birthday presents, and taking them on fancy trips made him a good dad. He never spent any real time with them, and he blamed his work schedule for missing out on their activities.
I’d practically been a single parent anyway the last few years, and when he left for good, the kids had made it clear they were staying with me. They tolerated weekend visits with their dad—when he didn’t cancel—but there was never any question where their loyalty lay. And when I’d floated the idea of moving to Cloverleigh Farms, my childhood home in northern Michigan, where they’d spent some fun summer vacations over the years, they’d both voted yes. They might have been young, but they knew I needed to get away from here in order to put the pieces of my life back together.
Every night I lay awake wondering if I was being too selfish, taking them from the only home they’d ever known, but then I’d think about having to run into Brett and Kimmy all over town, or drive by my dream house and see the For Sale sign out front, or endure the pity of people who’d pretended to be my friends yet ditched me entirely when I’d needed them most. I wanted to be around family, around people I could trust, in a place that felt like home. I needed a safe harbor.
And the kids did too.
Ever since Brett left, Whitney had been wearing more and more makeup. I wasn’t sure if she was just a normal thirteen-year-old girl experimenting or if it went deeper, but it worried me. When I tried to talk to her about it, she claimed she just really liked makeup. Brett hated it, of course, so maybe it was her way of defying him? Of saying fuck you for leaving with her loud red lips? Part of me admired her for that. Did I really need to take it away from her?
Keaton, for his part, seemed to be eating his feelings. He was hungry all the time, and even though I didn’t keep junk food in the house, he would manage to buy it somewhere. Recently he’d started hiding it—I’d found a bunch of candy bar wrappers shoved under his pillow last week. When I’d checked his desk drawers, I discovered even more. I’d asked him about it, and he’d blamed a friend. I hadn’t had the heart to call him out.
I prayed every night that Cloverleigh Farms would heal our aching hearts—or at least make me a better parent.
Tipping up the sixth mimosa, I turned around, setting the empty champagne flute on the bar. “I’ll have another, please.” What the hell, it was Saturday, right?
“Yes, Mrs. Baxter,” said the bartender.
Mrs. Baxter. What a joke.
“Sylvia! So nice to see you!” Tippy Hewitt Hamilton air-kissed my cheek and gestured to the drink the bartender handed me. “I’ll have one too.”
“Yes, Mrs. Hamilton.”
I took a sip of my drink, fortifying myself for a conversation with Tippy, the gossipy queen bee of the Ocean View Country Club set, women I’d considered friends until recently. But many of them had known Brett was cheating on me, and none of them had said a thing. Their excuse? They didn’t want to upset me.
It was bullshit.
There was politeness, and there was loyalty, and I knew the damn difference, even if they didn’t.
“So I hear you’re moving back to Michigan,” Tippy said with a toothy smile.
“Yes.”
“You poor thing. Hard enough to have to leave that big, beautiful home, but moving to Michigan at the start of winter? It’s practically inhumane!”
“Actually, Tippy, I didn’t have to move. I’m choosing to. The weather might be cold in Michigan, but the people there are a lot warmer.”
The barb went right over her head.
“And you grew up on a . . . farm, right?” She made a face that told me she equated farm with disease-ridden, backwater swamp.
I saw no point in telling her that Cloverleigh Farms was actually one of the most beautiful places on earth in any season. That people came from all over the country to stay at our inn or get married in our orchard. That our vineyard rivaled anything I’d ever visited in Napa Valley, and our wines won awards all over the world. She wouldn’t have believed me. “Yes.”
“How quaint.” She patted my arm condescendingly. “I’m sure you’ll be very happy there.”
I took another sip of my drink as we were joined by three other women, whose gossip antennae had no doubt communicated to them the opportunity to get a good scoop.
“Sylvia, darling, you look wonderful.” Hilly Briggs air-kissed my cheek. She was wearing so much perfume—an attempt to mask the fact that she smoked to stay skinny—I nearly choked.
“The decorations are the best we’ve ever had,” said Liz Dunham, whose carefully applied concealer couldn’t quite mask the needle marks where her dermatologist had recently injected something to combat her wrinkles and plump her cheeks.
Looking thin and young was a competitive sport around here.
“Who are you sitting with, dear?” asked Jane Blythe Miller. I could tell she felt sorry for me from the tone of her voice and the tilt of her head—and also that she kind of enjoyed it. “Do you have a table?”
“I’m sort of just floating,” I said, attempting to smile. “I’m not very hungry anyway.”
They all nodded, their matching haircuts swinging. They were dressed alike too, each wearing some version of a twinset or turtleneck sweater and skirt of a “proper length,” per club rules. Pearl necklaces hung around every one of their necks. I’d noticed Kimmy was wearing a pearl necklace too, and I’d wondered if Brett had purchased it for her. It was the kind of thing he liked to do, buy people’s affection.
“You’re better off,” said Jane with a sigh. “I shouldn’t have eaten that giant slice of coffee cake. It probably had a thousand calories.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Sylvia doesn’t have to worry about her weight,” said Hilly with a touch of envy. “She’s already so nice and thin these days.”
I was actually too thin, and I knew it. But the stress of the last year or so had robbed me of my appetite and caused vomiting episodes when I did manage to finish a meal. Deep down, I’d known for a long time that my passionless marriage was disintegrating. I’d just been too scared to do anything about it.
“Good thing,” said Tippy, lifting her mimosa to her lips. “After all, she’s back on the market. She needs to look her best.”
“The market?” I blinked at her. “I’m not for sale, Tippy.”
“Relax,” Tippy said, patting my arm. “It was a compliment. You’re beautiful, Sylvia. It won’t take you any time at all to find a new husband.”
“Who says she even wants a new husband?” asked Jane. “Marriage can be such a pain. Sometimes I wish Richard would leave me just so I could get a moment’s peace! You must have tons of time for yourself now, Sylvia.”
I could have answered that I hadn’t been looking for any time to myself, I had zero peace whatsoever, and I actually missed my children terribly over the weekends they spent with Brett, but I didn’t.
“Another mimosa, please.”
My former friends exchanged glances as I downed it in a few gulps. I didn’t usually drink this heavily, but it was either swallow it or throw it in their faces, and I didn’t want to make a scene—not yet, anyway.
Then Hilly glanced toward Brett’s table. “This must be so difficult for you, Syl.”
The others murmured in agreement.
“I just don’t know how you’re keeping your cool,” Liz said, the look on her face telling me she kind of wished I might lose it. “I heard about the baby.”
“Baby?” My stomach tightened. “What baby?”
“You don’t know? Well, apparently, Kimmy is pregnant,” Jane said, gleefully breaking the news. “She told everyone at the Ladies Auxiliary Lunch yesterday that she’s four months along.”
“Four months?” I did some quick math—not easy after the amount of alcohol I’d consumed—and realized he had to have knocked her up over the summer, long before he told me he was leaving. “Oh my God.”
“It did cause quite a stir,” Hilly said, “but I’m sure no one there believed those other things she said.”
I stared at her. “What other things?”
“Oh, you know, the usual insults the Other Woman lobs at the First Wife. That Brett was miserable with you for years because you’re such an ice queen. That he told her you were boring in bed. That you didn’t excite him anymore. That he couldn’t even get it up for you.”
I felt like I was melting into a hot, horrifying puddle of humiliation. I couldn’t breathe.
“God, it’s just so crass,” Tippy said before sipping her drink. “I mean, who says those things out loud at lunch?”
As if she hadn’t hung on every single word out of Kimmy’s mouth—as if all of them hadn’t!
“Crass and ridiculous,” Liz huffed. “I mean, she’s practically half his age! But her skin is just perfect. And I bet her boobs don’t sag at all.”
“Well, I haven’t seen her boobs,” I told her, suddenly tired of taking the high road and staying quiet when I wanted to scream. “But maybe if we ask her, she’ll flash us. Clearly she has no problem getting naked in front of other people’s husbands.”
Liz appeared offended. “I only meant that it must be hard for you to see him with someone like her.”
“Because I’m so old and saggy?” I tossed back the rest of my mimosa and ordered another, although the room was already spinning.
“How many of those have you had?” asked Tippy with a judgmental quirk of her brow. “Maybe you should drink some coffee instead.”
“And maybe you should have told me my husband was fucking the salesgirl at J.Crew with the perky tits,” I announced, then glared at the rest of them. “All of you.”
“Sylvia, that’s not really fair,” Tippy said, smoothing her cardigan over her stomach. “I didn’t know for sure. I’d only heard rumors about the—you know . . . divorce.” She whispered the last word, as if by saying it out loud she might manifest its monstrous presence and it would eat all of their marriages alive.
“Same.” Liz nodded. “We didn’t want to say anything because we didn’t want to cause any unnecessary drama. We were only thinking of you.”
“Yes, and I think it’s really a shame that you’re blaming us when this isn’t our fault.” Hilly pouted. “We were trying to be good friends.”
“How?” I cried. “You let me look like a fool! And you completely stopped calling or including me!”
“We didn’t know what to say, Sylvia,” Jane replied, looking uncomfortable. “It’s just so awkward.”
“And did any of you stand up for me yesterday? Did any of you come to my defense and shut down the ugly gossip she was spreading?” I looked every one of them in the eye, knowing the answer already.
“Well, we couldn’t really take sides, could we?” Hilly smoothed her hair. “After all, our husbands are all close with Brett. We’ll have to go to their wedding. We’re still going to have to socialize with them, no matter how terrible it will be to have to make conversation with that infant he’s marrying.”
“I’m sure you’ll manage. You’re all excellent at pretending to be someone’s friend.” I grabbed my fresh mimosa, spilling some over the side of the glass. Then I tipped it up and slammed it.
When the glass was empty, I set it on the marble bar with a clank and tossed my hair. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, there’s something I have to do.”
Not one of them stopped me as I made my way through the country club dining room, but they followed behind like a pack of hounds. I stumbled once, catching myself on the back of someone’s chair, but eventually made it to Brett’s table, where I grabbed a silver pitcher full of ice water.
“Ice queen, huh? I’ll give you ice queen.” Then I dumped the entire thing in his lap.
“Sylvia, what the hell?” Brett jumped up and tons of little cubes fell to the floor, but the crotch of his pants was soaked. “Have you lost your mind?”
“No, actually. I think I just found it.” My adrenaline was pumping—I felt like I could do anything at that moment. “I must have been crazy to think you’d be faithful to me, or to keep the promises you made. You’re nothing but a liar and a cheat.” God, it felt glorious to say the words right to his face! Next, I looked at Kimmy. “And you’re an idiot to think he’s going to be any different with you, but that’s your problem.”
“Enough,” Brett snapped, straightening his tie and glancing around the room. People were staring.
“Actually, I’m just getting started.” Fueled by mimosa and the fury of a woman scorned, I charged for the dance floor at the front of the room, where Santa was standing in front of a red velvet throne and speaking into a microphone. A line of children wound toward the door, eager to sit on his lap, and two teenagers dressed as elves were doing their best to keep the impatient kids under control.
“Ho, ho, ho,” Santa bellowed, brandishing an old-fashioned scroll. “Let’s see who’s on the Nice List this year—and who’s on the Naughty!”
I marched up to him and grabbed the mic from his hand. “Let me help you with that, Santa.”
The bewildered old man just blinked at me.
Turning toward the crowd, I brought it to my lips. “Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen. I’ve got something to say.”
The room hushed. Expressions ranged from curious to concerned to shocked—I was generally a quiet, dignified sort of person. Not at all the type of woman to commandeer Santa’s mic and lecture a room full of people just trying to enjoy their Bloody Marys and quiche.
“For any of you who don’t know me, I’m Sylvia Baxter—at least, I’ve been Sylvia Baxter for the last fifteen years. And Sylvia Baxter is classy. Sylvia Baxter takes the high road. Sylvia Baxter behaves.” I paused. “Sylvia Baxter is on the Nice List.”
A disapproving murmur rippled through the room.
“But there are some people in this room who are not on the Nice List. In fact, there are some people here at the top of the Naughty List.”
A child in line to see Santa burst into tears.
“Philandering husbands who cheat and lie about it—they’re on the Naughty List.” I glared at Brett and then at Kimmy. “Naive salesgirls from J.Crew who spread nasty gossip—they’re on the Naughty List.” I stared down Tippy and the rest of my former confidantes. “Disloyal social climbers who call themselves friends even as they stick knives in your back—they’re on the Naughty List.”
At that point, Brett left his table and was starting to walk toward the dance floor.
Oh, hell no. I would not let that man silence me.
But I knew I should probably wrap this up.
“The rest of you are probably on the Nice List,” I said, talking more quickly now that Brett was headed my way. “And if you want to make sure you stay there, it’s actually really easy.” I shrugged. “Don’t be an asshole. Merry Christmas, everybody. Peace out.”
Then I held out my arm and dropped the mic.
It sounded terrible. It looked ridiculous. Santa was going to switch me to the Naughty List, and people around here were going to talk shit about me for years to come.
But it felt really badass.
And that was worth it.
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