Eighty guests. A crystal chandelier. Her husband's big campaign party. She raised her glass for a toast, said their happy family was a lie, and threw a stack of photos into the air. Then she dropped her wedding ring into his champagne.
The chandelier in the Banks family living room had four thousand crystals. Julia knew because she'd counted them once, on a bad night, alone.
Tonight every one of them was lit.
Eighty guests in gowns and dark suits. Champagne on silver trays. Red roses everywhere, because red was the campaign color. A banner over the fireplace said RODNEY BANKS FOR STATE SENATE: FAITH. FAMILY. FUTURE.
Rodney was in the middle of the room in a black suit and a black silk shirt, short beard, perfect smile, a champagne flute in his hand, laughing with the biggest donor in the county. He looked like a man on a magazine cover. He'd been on two of them.
Julia stood by the fireplace in a deep burgundy one-shoulder gown, long hair in soft waves, a small black clutch in her hand. Twelve years married. One daughter, Zoe, nine years old, spending the night at Grandma's. That part Julia had made sure of.
In her clutch was an envelope. Inside the envelope were twenty-three photographs.
She'd been carrying it for six days.
At nine o'clock, the campaign manager tapped a glass for the toasts. Everybody turned to the fireplace, where the candidate's beautiful wife was supposed to say a few words about her beautiful family.
Julia raised her champagne.
She looked at the faces. Donors. Church friends. Rodney's mother. Her own best friend, Brandi, in a silver sequin gown near the back. A reporter from the Atlanta paper, notebook in his jacket pocket.
"I'd like to make an announcement," Julia said.
People smiled. Somebody said "Aww."
"You all know we look like a happy family," Julia said. "But all of that is a lie."
The smiles stopped.
Across the room, Rodney's face did something Julia had never seen it do in twelve years. It froze.
"Julia," he said. Low. Careful. "What are you doing?"
"What am I doing?" She set her glass down on the mantel. She opened her clutch. "I'll show you."
She took out the envelope, tore it open, and threw it.
Twenty-three photographs flew up into the light of four thousand crystals and came down like confetti. Onto the marble floor. Onto the rug. Onto the shoes of the biggest donor in the county.
Rodney in a hotel hallway with a woman's hand in his back pocket. Rodney kissing a blonde in a parked car. Rodney walking out of an apartment building at six in the morning, buttoning his shirt. Three different women. Seven different dates. All since last spring.
People bent down and picked them up. Somebody gasped. Somebody said, "Oh my God, is that..."
"These are the women you've been seeing behind my back," Julia said. Her voice carried all the way to the back of the room. "I know everything, Rodney."
Rodney walked toward her through the crowd, still holding his champagne. He was trying to smile. It wasn't working.
"Did you really have to do all this here?" he said under his breath.
"Yes," Julia said, loud enough for everyone. "Everyone should know who you really are, Rodney."
She looked down at her left hand. At her wedding band. Plain gold, nothing fancy, the one he'd slid onto her finger at the altar when she was twenty-four and believed every word he said.
She twisted it off.
Then she reached over and dropped it into his champagne glass. It sank straight to the bottom, a little gold circle under the bubbles.
"You can give this," Julia said, "to whichever girl you like more."
"Please," Rodney said. "Let's talk about it. Julia. Wait."
"I am done with you, Rodney."
She picked up her clutch and walked out through the middle of the room. Eighty people stepped back to let her through. Nobody said a word.
Behind her, Rodney stood in the center of the living room with a ring at the bottom of his glass and photographs all over the floor around his shoes.
The campaign manager was already on his phone.
Near the back, in her silver sequin gown, Brandi had bent down and picked up one of the photos. She was staring at it. Her face had gone completely gray.
It was a photo from June. Rodney, in a hotel parking garage. With his arms around a woman in a white sundress.
The woman's face was turned away from the camera. But her hair, her shoulders, the little tattoo of a star on the back of her ankle...
Brandi dropped the photo and walked very fast toward the kitchen door.
Julia didn't see that. She was already outside, standing on the front steps in the cold, breathing.
She heard the door open behind her. She thought it would be Rodney.
It wasn't.
It was the reporter from the Atlanta paper. Young guy, glasses, a photograph in one hand and his phone in the other, already recording.
"Mrs. Banks," he said. "I'm sorry. I have to ask. Is there anything else you want people to know?"
Julia looked at him for a long time.
"Yes," she said. "But not tonight."
This is a fictional story. Names, characters and events are invented. Any resemblance to real people or events is coincidental.
