46. The Hot Seat
Down in the home theater, two chairs are turned toward each other, interview-style. Next to one is a tripod and a ring light. Hollis sits there and points Gigi to the other chair.
“You were having an affair with Matthew?” she says.
Gigi nods. The truth will set you free, she thinks. A cliché, but one with legs. She feels nearly weightless. There are multiple ways to make this seem not nearly as bad as it was, but Gigi will tell the truth, all of it. She will give
five-star testimony.
“For how long?” Hollis asks.
“We met the October before last,” Gigi says. “So we were together for a little over a year before he died. The evening we met, I was supposed to fly to Argentina for vacation and Matthew was trying to get home to Boston. I met him in the Delta lounge. There was a hailstorm, all flights for the night were canceled.”
The October before last. Hollis would have to go back and look at her calendar. What was going on in her life the October before last? She can only guess she was layering slices of potato into a gratin dish, perfecting caramel apples, picking up her cashmere sweaters from the dry cleaner.
“How many times were you together?” Hollis asks. Her champagne and lunch are churning in her stomach; she’s light-headed, and her cheeks are burning. She’s angry enough to tackle Gigi, choke her. Has she ever in her life been this angry? Has anyone ever betrayed her this way? Of course not.
“Where did you go other than Atlanta?”
“We saw each other every few weeks. Either I flew where he was speaking—San Francisco, Baltimore—or he met me in Madrid or Rome.”
“Madrid?” Hollis says. “Rome? You had an international love affair?”
“Those were my routes back then.”
So Matthew lied to Hollis. He created fictional conferences, knowing Hollis would never check, and he must have lied to the hospital as well,
maybe claiming he was whisking Hollis off for a romantic weekend.
Mr. Wonderful.
Hollis imagines Matthew and Gigi strolling around Madrid and Rome hand in hand. They probably had their favorite spots—little hole-in-the-wall wine bars, cafés, shops where Matthew would buy Gigi a scarf or a beautiful belt. They would stop to listen to street performers. Gigi would have wowed Matthew with her fluency in the languages. But thinking about Matthew and Gigi in those foreign cities is far preferable to thinking of them in cities where Matthew and Hollis traveled together.
“Where did you stay in San Francisco?” It’s masochistic to ask, but she has to know.
“Oh,” Gigi says. She seems to think for a moment. “The Four Seasons once…”
So Matthew had the decency to take Gigi someplace other than the Fairmont. But Hollis won’t give him points for that; the Four Seasons sounds like an upgrade.
“And the St. Regis once, and then we stayed at Auberge du Soleil in Napa once.”
“You met him in San Francisco three times?” Hollis says. She’s so horrified by this, she can’t even cry. Matthew took her to Napa? The gall, she thinks. The hubris. He could have run into any number of people who knew him or Hollis.
“I didn’t find out he was married until last May,” Gigi says. “The night we met, he told me he was divorced with one daughter—”
Hollis cries out.
“And I believed him. He didn’t wear a ring. He wasn’t on social media, and Google turned up only his professional accolades, his professional
profile.”
“But then he told you?”
“Yes. We were in Greece. Santorini.”
“Greece!” Hollis says. Can this get any worse? She has to remind herself to breathe. Greece last May—yes, while Hollis was here, opening the house by herself.
“He said he wouldn’t see me much over the summer because he’d be on Nantucket with his daughter… and wife.” Gigi pauses. “I screamed, I cried, I threw things. But I was too in love with him by that point to end it.” She
looks straight at Hollis. “That is my crime.”
Yes, Hollis thinks. Matthew had a wife, a family, two homes, a dog, friends, colleagues who respected him, a community, a life. To stay with him after learning this was a crime.
She’s intrigued to hear Gigi say she was too in love with him to end it.
“Was he in love with you too?” Hollis says. “Did he tell you that?”
“He did not,” Gigi says. “I think he felt things for me but I’m not sure he felt love.” Now is the time, she thinks. “There’s something else you should know.”
Hollis holds a hand up. “Please just let me finish!” she says. She can’t believe this is her speaking. She feels possessed. “When did you reach out to
me on Hungry with Hollis?”
“Right after he told me who you were.”
“And why? Why?”
Gigi puts her palms to her cheeks like she’s in Edvard Munch’s The Scream and exhales. “I think it’s natural to want to know all you can about the wife of your lover.”
Hollis laughs bitterly. “Oh, is it?” She almost adds, I wouldn’t know, but then she thinks about the way she clicked on Mindy’s Facebook page after seeing her in Jack’s pictures. Mindy’s profile showed a quilt. And hadn’t Hollis then searched for quilting clubs in Western Mass., hoping to find other pictures of Mindy? She certainly had.
“Yes,” Gigi says. “And you’re a public figure, so it was all there.”
“Why did you engage with me?” Hollis asks. “You weren’t just watching from afar—you commented on all my posts, you said smart things, you wanted me to notice you. When you were sleeping with my husband.”
“Maybe it was a bit unhinged,” Gigi says. “I wanted you to know me, even though you would never realize who I was. I wanted you to… like me.”
“It worked!” Hollis says. “I did like you. When Matthew died, I waited to hear from you. It took you a week.”
“Yes,” Gigi says. “I wasn’t sure what to do.”
“Then you told me you were there to listen.”
“I was.”
“I confided in you. I told you things I didn’t tell another soul. I thought it was safe because I didn’t know you. You were like a… virtual therapist. I told you Matthew and I quarreled right before he left the house”—Hollis
swallows—“and you ghosted me! You made me feel like I was to blame for his accident.”
“Oh, Hollis,” Gigi says. “Can I please speak now?”
“No,” Hollis says. “Because I haven’t gotten to the best part. Do you know what the best part is, Gigi Ling?”
Gigi grips the pale suede arms of the club chair. She doesn’t have to stay.
She can order another Uber, head to the airport, fly to Boston, New York, or DC and make her way home from there. Outwardly, her life will remain much the same. She’ll cuddle with Mabel, go to Tim and Santi’s for dinner, fly her routes—she might even ask for Europe back. She can leave Hollis and
this drama behind.
Except she can’t.
Gigi understands best to mean “worst.” “The best part is that you invited me to your Five-Star Weekend on Nantucket and I accepted. And now here we are.”
“You entered my house, you ate my food, drank my wine, slept in the finest of my guest suites—if I’m being honest, I wanted you to have it; you were the one I felt I had to impress—and relaxed on my beach. I made a playlist for you! The smart-woman playlist, because I thought you’d appreciate it.” Hollis stops for a moment; she’s frightening herself. “You met my friends, women I have known for decades. Women who have stood by me, supported me. Women who love me. You took a place among them, but
you’re a liar, a cheat, a charlatan.”
“Yes,” Gigi says.
“Why?” Hollis says. “Why did you come?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? Gigi could give many answers: I came for the same reason you invited me—because we hit it off. I came because I wanted to feel closer to Matthew. I came to find out what I could about your marriage. I came because I was inexplicably drawn to the person I betrayed.
She could even say: I came because I was lonely.
Gigi did not come to Nantucket to reveal her secret—but now that it’s out, there’s something else Hollis needs to know. Something important.
