All eyes swiveled to Winnie. Winnie herself glanced behind her, thinking for a flash that maybe Blakelee was talking about another Winnie Smith. Blakelee’s face was bright red, and Winnie felt a flash of sympathy for her, making such a scene at her kid’s party. “Um…maybe you need a drink of water,” she suggested.
“Don’t patronize me, you homewrecking whore!” Blakelee shouted. “How dare you?”
“I…okay, you must be thinking of someone else,” she said, her voice calm and firm. “I have not slept with your husband.” Winnie had never even met Mr. Johnson (who hopefully had a normal name). But seriously. Winnie, some kind of side chick? Please. She was seeing someone, but he certainly wasn’t married or a father. They were pretty serious, so everything else aside, she wouldn’t have time to steal a husband. Nevertheless, everyone was staring at her, the joyful shrieks of the kids in the bounce house a dissonant backdrop to the anger on Blakelee’s face. “I’m not sleeping with anyone’s husband, Blakelee. Can I get you a glass of water? You look a little flushed.”
“Of course I’m flushed! How could you possibly sleep with the husband of a client? Your website says ‘family events’ but you think it’s okay to seduce the father of three?” Blakelee screeched.
“Stop,” Winnie said, her voice hard. “I haven’t slept with anyone’s husband. I would never do that.”
“You stay away from my family before I get a restraining order!” Blakelee said.
“You’re paying me to be here,” Winnie had said. “And you’re wrong. I?—”
“Does he look familiar?” Blakelee said. She shoved her phone in Winnie’s face, and the ground seemed to evaporate from under Winnie’s feet.
It was Mitchell, Winnie’s boyfriend of the past six months, the man she slept with three or four nights a week. The man she loved. In the photo, he stood on the beach, arms wrapped around Blakelee, the three kids hugging their legs.
Did Mitchell have a twin, maybe? People mistook Addie and Lark all the time. That must be it. “I…he’s not…” The words died in her mouth.
Nycholiss’s party was outside. Winnie hadn’t even been in the Johnson house. She and Blakelee had met just once in person to discuss this party, and that meeting had taken place at her sister’s bookstore. She hadn’t needed to go in this morning for setting up—everything was outside, the food table, the bounce house, the bubble station. Well, she hadn’t gone in yet. In just ten minutes or so, she’d go in for the cake, and later, during cleanup, she imagined.
Suddenly, she was very, very worried that if she did go inside and take a look around, there’d be a photo of Blakelee’s husband. Who was, it was slowly dawning, also Winnie’s boyfriend.
Then her phone buzzed, and in a daze, she slid it from her pocket. A text from Mitchell.
I think we should stop seeing each other
It’s run its course.
No shit, Mitchell.
This could not be happening.
“You didn’t Google him? You didn’t show anyone his picture? No one said, ‘Hey, that looks like Tanner Johnson?’ I call bullshit.”
Winnie didn’t know Tanner Johnson. She knew Mitchell Preston. Her legs felt wobbly, her head seemed detached from her body, Winnie turned, tried to say something to Blakelee, who then tossed her wine in Winnie’s face.
Turned out the Mitchell Preston of Hyannis, the chef Winnie had been seriously involved with, was actually Tanner Johnson of Eastham, legal name Tanner Mitchell Johnson. Preston was his mother’s last name. He’d been married to Blakelee for seven years, was the father of three adorable children with weirdly spelled names, and used a professional name for whatever reason…and so women like Winnie could be tricked into thinking he was single.
He had never mentioned a family. When she’d asked him if he’d ever been married before, he’d said, “Never got that lucky.” There was not a single photo of a wife or children at his condo in Hyannis. Not one in the kitchen where he worked as the acclaimed chef of Nuage Bleu, as expensive and pretentious as the name implied. Mitchell Preston didn’t wear a wedding ring or even have an indentation on his finger where one might have been.
Obviously, Winnie had googled the hell out of him, like any normal person would. She’d checked with the assessor’s office in Hyannis, which had listed the owner of his condo as M. Preston. She had done her due diligence. She had.
Last March, Winnie had been sitting in the bar of Nuage Blue, waiting for Lark to finish her shift in the ER and join her for dinner. Her sister was running late, so Winnie was scrolling through Pinterest, looking at cake ideas, when the chef came out, set out a sampler plate in front of her and introduced himself. He was single, he was attractive, he was employed. The unicorn of Cape Cod, in other words.
Turned out the unicorn was actually an ass.
Men. Liars. Bastards. Et cetera. It did not change the fact that until Nycholiss Johnson turned five, Winnie had been crazy in love, finally understood the fuss around sex, relationships, soulmates.
Blakelee’s rant had the effect she no doubt intended. While it had to be true that Mitchell—Tanner—was also being trolled somehow, too, twelve clients had canceled. Some had been polite—don’t think we’ll need you after all. A few had been rude. You must’ve tried VERY HARD to not know who he was. One had been kind. Tanner is an asshole, but I’m sorry, Winnie, my kids play with Blakelee’s all the time. Yesterday at Wellfleet Marketplace, Winnie had said hello to Courtney James, who ignored her. Winnie had been Courtney’s wedding planner three years before. Winnie had stood there, flushed and ashamed and angry with Tanner, with Courtney and mostly with herself. There had to have been a way for her to learn this before.
Like a lot of people in their thirties, Winnie had long ago grown weary of social media. She had an account for her business, but not a personal account, because most of her family and friends were local. If she wanted them to see a picture of the sunset, she’d text it. And she thought posting pictures of herself and Mitchell was kind of tacky. Bragging. Look at me and my boyfriend! I have a partner! Do you??? Plus, she hadn’t even been ready to share the news with her family, who had a tendency to swarm and assume and start making wedding plans and all that.
But if she had…damn it, if she had posted pictures on social media, someone would’ve instantly told her who Mitchell really was.
She’d Googled “Mitchell Preston, chef,” and read all the articles. Not one had said the words wife, married, children, kids. Never. She’d stalked Mitchell Preston’s social media sites (all food-related). Did one of those background checks to see if he’d been arrested or divorced, and no, Mitchell Preston, because he was a fake person, had not been. The M. Preston who owned his condo turned out to be Margot Preston, his mother.
She had done her best to vet him. Hadn’t she? The Mommy Mafia didn’t think so, and maybe she agreed with them. People saw what they wanted to see, after all.
