The message reads:
Mebel, where have you been? You’ve missed our monthly luncheon. The theme was “citrus,” just awful. Look at these photos. We all had to wear citrus-themed outfits, and that shameless Natalia wore a see-through yellow top with lemon-printed bra underneath. Just look at that! You can see the bra! If you’d been there, she would never have dared to wear something like that. How are you?Where are you? I saw Henk at the club yesterday, but when I asked him where you were, he said you were away. Are you traveling?
Heart pounding, Mebel types out a reply. It takes her a long while to do it, as she keeps deleting and rewriting her message. She’s dying to know if her friends have heard by now about Henk leaving her, and the problem is, they would never come out and ask her straight up about it. They’d hint and beat around the bush and ask questions skirting it, like Meimei has just done.
She finally settles on:
Oh my goodness, I can’t believe she wore that thing! I would’ve loved to see that in person. I’ve been really busy traveling and can’t wait to catch up soon!
She adds a few laughing emojis to really hammer home that she’s totally fine, then she turns the phone off and places it face down on the table.
Then, finally, what little strength Mebel has leaks out of her, and she slumps down onto the single bed. It creaks, and the mattress sags so much that Mebel almost falls backward. She cries out as her feet leave the floor. There is a moment of struggle as Mebel kicks and flails like an upturned turtle, then she finally manages to heave herself back up. The tears that had threatened to fall ever since Alain Moreau said the word “Cowley” are unleashed. Covering her face with her hands, Mebel begins to cry. She has never felt so far away from home, so alone, and so frightened. What is this awful damp space? She’d comforted herself on the Eurostar by looking on Google Mapsand telling herself that Cowley seems to be part of Oxfordshire, which she’d mistakenly thought meant that it’s as good as being in Oxford, and how bad can Oxford be, given that it’s where the most prestigious university in the world is? But here she is now in Cowley, and it is most definitely not as good as being in Oxford. It’s like saying that Bintan is as good as being in Singapore, or Staten Island is as good as being in Manhattan, or—or—oh, what’s the point of it all?
For a while, the only sounds in the room are Mebel’s sniffles. They don’t last long. They never do. Mebel doesn’t have the kind of attention span that a good, prolonged crying session requires. After a few minutes, her tears dry up, and though she tries her best to will more to come, she starts to feel silly, so she dabs at her face and pushes herself off the bed. What she needs to do right now, she thinks, is to come up with a plan of attack. Right. Taking a deep breath, Mebel makes a mental list.
1.Make the best of my situation.
She looks around her. What she needs is an attitude adjustment. Yes. She needs to look on the bright side of things.
Downside:The room is small and miserable.
Upside:The room does not have rats or mold.
Downside:The bed feels like it’s older than she is.
Upside:The bed does not have a random naked man in it.
Hmm, maybe that upside isn’t really much of an upside. Well, no use moping about. One of the skills that Mebel hashoned as a trophy wife is maintaining an upbeat attitude during the worst situations. Like that one time Henk was fined for being “tax efficient,” i.e., evading taxes. They’d been in Santorini when his accountant called with the bad news, and Henk had been so grumpy it almost ruined their entire trip, but Mebel managed to cheer him up by surprising him with a new yacht.
Mebel tilts her head to one side, deep in thought. Unfortunately, this does not seem like a situation that would be helped by the purchase of a shiny yacht. Maybe she should consider staying in a hotel instead, as Sammy had suggested. But is that making the best of the situation or is that running away? It feels a lot like running away, and Mebel is not the type to run away from a problem, more the type that would run straight into it. Just like how she’s decided to tackle Henk leaving her by grabbing life by the neck and squeezing until it admits that it’s made a mistake.
With that thought in mind, she grabs hold of the nearest LV suitcase, and in a burst of strength that her knees will no doubt regret later, she flings it onto the bed. Opening it, Mebel releases a sigh of relief. This is the bag that contains her clothes. Well, thank goodness she won’t have to ask Agatha for clean underwear, after all. She removes a few choice outfits, closes the suitcase, and opens the other one, which contains her makeup. That means the suitcases containing her handbags and her shoes are now gone. Once again, Mebel fights the tears back. She’s going to make it through this ordeal. Even so, her brain can’t help filing through all the handbags she has now lost. The Gucci Jackie 1961 shoulder bag in cuir leather that she’d bought in Seoul. The Garden Party 49 voyage bag that she’d bought inSingapore. The Fendi baguette chain bag Henk had bought her as a souvenir from New York.
Okay, stop this right now, she tells herself.It’s neither productive nor helpful. And don’t even start thinking about the shoes. Oh, the shoes!
Mebel forces herself to unpack as much as she can and put the clothes into the small wooden cupboard, then she undresses, shivering as the cold, damp English air touches her bare skin. Wrapping herself in a robe, she creeps out of her room and into the—oh my—shared bathroom, where she takes a long scalding shower. As she lathers her hair, Mebel closes her eyes and tells herself her new mantra:Everything will be better in the morning. Every bad, no-good, awful day has its bright side, which is that things can only look up from here.
Chapter 6
The thing about trophy wivesis they are often misjudged. They are often dismissed as airheaded gold diggers, but the truth is so much more complex than that. Mebel would never be caught digging for anything, for one thing. For another, as a trophy wife, Mebel has had to get very good at many things. She could write a whole guidebook on how to be a good trophy wife.
1.A good trophy wife knows that while her husband is the head of the family, the wife is the rock on which he stands. Mebel has always strived hard to be Henk’s rock. She is always there for Henk to lean on—or trip over—and hasn’t he always said he appreciates her consistency? Her dependability?
2.A good trophy wife must be able to fit into any environment she is thrown into. Mebel has lost count of thenumber of uncomfortable, boring events she’s had to attend because of Henk. The private banks that they bank with, for example, are always holding what they call “financial forecasts,” which take place over multicourse dinners at fancy hotels. There, Mebel has to make small talk with stuffy businessmen, and in order to not embarrass Henk, she’s had to brush up on her knowledge of world politics and economics. Because she prides herself as a first-class trophy wife, she would never allow herself to be one of the many wives there who are so obviously bored, their attention riveted to their phones as their husbands prattle on about emerging markets.
3.Last but not least, a good trophy wife mustn’t ever forget that she is, first and foremost, a trophy. This means she must have qualities that would make her husband want to show her off. Mebel has a facial at La Prairie once every two weeks, salmon sperm injections once a month, and every six months, she flies to Seoul to get Botox, Ultherapy, and Pico laser done. She is such a good customer that her aesthetician gave her a tote bag that reads: “The most expensive thing I’m wearing today is my face.” She does Pilates three times a week, Bikram yoga once a week, and goes on a three-mile run twice a week. She keeps her wardrobe religiously updated so she will never embarrass Henk by wearing last season’s Prada.
Which is why, when Mebel turns up at the first class of the day, everyone stops and stares at her. She pauses at the door, apolite smile frozen on her face, and looks around at the surprisingly large kitchen that Agatha has ushered her into.
Given the humbleness of the building (and Cowley in general), Mebel hadn’t been expecting much, but the kitchen where the classes are to take place is actually an impressive space. A space that is currently filled with a dozen very confused-looking cooks.
The one wearing the tallest chef’s hat finally says, “Er, mornin’.”
“Good morning,” Mebel says with a pleasant smile. “Is this the CULS 110 class, Culinary Fundamentals?”
“Er, yes. Yes, it is. Sorry, are you a teacher here?” he says.
“Oh! No, of course not. I am student. My name is Mebel.”
