CHAPTER 1
MY NAME IS ELINOR GILBERT. And I am the Invisible Woman.
No, not the kind that can make a deck of cards look like it’s shuffling itself.
The other kind.
Two years at the same dry cleaner, and he still asks my name when I drop something off.
Five years at the same drugstore, and I doubt the pharmacist could pick me out of a lineup.
My kind of invisible isn’t fantasy or science fiction. It’s real. It happens slowly, over time. And you won’t even know it’s happening.
Then one day you’re in line at Whole Foods, feelinggood about yourself and your healthy life choices—a cart full of plant-based ground meat, oat milk, fat-free yogurt, and organic broccoli (and deftly hidden under all that, a chocolate fudge cake that serves four)—when some guy scoots in front of you. So you say, very nicely, “Excuse me. I think I was next.”
And the jerk says, “Oh, sorry, lady. I didn’t evenseeyou.”
Saywhat?
That’s when you start to notice how things have changed.
Those annoying wolf whistles from construction workers that you found so demeaning at the time? Gone.
Those makeup ladies in Bloomingdale’s who tried to spritz you with the latest Eau de Something New and Fabulous? History.
Sure, those nice-looking guys on the bus are still there. And they still try to catch your eye. But now, it’s to offer you their seat.
Somehow, when I wasn’t looking, I seem to have passed my sell-by date. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Well, except for that chocolate fudge cake.
CHAPTER 2
THE GRIDDLER IS TECHNICALLY a coffee shop. But the staff lets you sit for hours, even if you’re not working on a screenplay.
Another plus: They make a great Cobb salad. Huge homemade croutons, chunks of free-range roast chicken, and a giant crispy X of bacon across the top.
My waiter today, Desmond, takes my order as if he’s doing me a favor. My guess is, he’s an actor wannabe, hoping to be noticed by all the screenwriter wannabes nearby. He’s sized me up and decided I can do nothing to further his career.
But a simple snub won’t spoil this glorious Sunday in early October.
As I nurse my last glass of summer rosé, something Eleanor Roosevelt once said pops into my head:No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.That Eleanor. What a trouper. She had a mother-in-law who hated her and a skirt-chasing husband who humiliated her with a gaggle of willing women and one in particular: Missy LeHand. His tall, beautiful, verypublicprivate secretary who, according to rumor, made FDR’s Warm Springs summer cottage quite a bit warmer.
But Eleanor was not one for pity parties. I raise my glass and silently toast her and her dignity as Desmond shows up with my salad and a bowl of blue cheese dressing on the side.
I look around. Except for the usual handful of scruffy writers typing away on laptops, I have the place pretty much to myself. So it surprises me to see an older man swivel from the cash register, bypass all the empty tables, and head in my direction with a cup of coffee. I don’t have my distance glasses on, but he seems to be smiling. At me? The Invisible Woman? Maybe he didn’t get the memo.
But as he gets closer, I see it’s not a smile at all. It’s a smirk.
I’d know that smirk anywhere.
It’s Alan Metcalf. Somebody I used to work with. Somebody from my days at the FBI. Somebody who—
Well, rather than use some really ugly expletives here, I’ll just say this: He’s the guy who threw me under the bus.
“Elinor dear,” he says, drawing it out in that slowSouthern drawl he affects to sound sexy. (Now it’s my turn to smirk. I know he grew up in New Jersey.) I’m delighted to see that the years have not been kind to him. What he’s lost in hair, he’s more than made up for in belly fat. But Metcalf is still pretty much as I remember him: a small man who has convinced himself that arrogance makes him look taller.
“It’s been a while,” he says.
