Seventh Anniversary, He Arranged My Affair for Me

The next morning, a new tenant moved in next door to Springhill Florals. A sheet of white paper was taped over the door: "Southside Pro Bono Legal Aid Center." A young man hopped down from the moving truck. White shirt, black slacks, a backpack over one shoulder. A worker asked where to put the law books, and he took the box himself. "By the window. And don't call me boss. My name's Blake James." Blake James. He glanced back and gave me a nod. Polite, controlled, careful not to intrude. If I hadn't seen the messages on Jackson's phone, I'd probably have thought he was just a good-looking neighbor. At noon, he came into my shop to buy white balloon flowers. I asked, "For someone?" He said, "For someone who helped me a long time ago." I bent over the wrapping, and his eyes landed on the old scar on my wrist. I held the flowers out to him. Then he asked, "You're allergic to yam, aren't you?" My hands went still. "How would you know that?" Blake dropped his gaze quickly. "The lady next door told me. She said the owner of Springhill can't touch yam." But on this old street, no one calls me the owner. They all call me Vivi. I smiled. "Is that so?" That afternoon, Kay came by carrying a thermal container. "Vivi, Mr. Fox asked me to bring you some soup." I lifted the lid. Yam chicken soup. Seven years ago, I took one accidental sip of yam soup and my throat swelled until I couldn't speak. Jackson carried me on his back to the ER, and afterward he set the word "yam" as a red alert on his phone. Now he'd forgotten. Or rather, he no longer cared. I pushed the container back at her. The smile on Kay's face thinned. She leaned in, her voice dropping to almost a whisper. "Mr. Fox needs someone who can share his load, not someone clinging to the past." "So what is it you can share? Clients, business dinners, or delivering a pot of soup you know full well will send me into an allergic reaction?" Her face went white. The door pushed open just then, and Jackson walked in. He saw the red rims of Kay's eyes and his brow drew tight. "What's going on?" Kay lowered her head. "It's nothing, Mr. Fox. I probably said the wrong thing." Jackson looked at me. "Vivi, Kay meant well." I smiled. "Wasn't she here to deliver your soup? How did I become the one bullying her?" Kay said at once, "Never mind, Mr. Fox. It's only natural that Vivi doesn't like me." Jackson sighed. "Vivi, you never used to back people into a corner." I looked at him. "You never used to forget I'm allergic to yam." He froze, opened his mouth, and said nothing back. Jackson had brought a document with him. "The company's preparing for a funding round. We need you to sign a licensing confirmation." I opened to the first page: Confirmation of Rights to Springhill Floral Arts' Traditional Preservation Craft. The agreement was written beautifully, but four words jumped off the page: permanent and exclusive. I stared at that clause. "This is the manuscript my mother left me." Jackson said gently, "Vivi, we're husband and wife. Why draw such sharp lines?" "When the company grows, it's for this family too." "Isn't the company all yours? Since when do you need my signature?" He watched me for a few seconds. "You've gotten very hard to talk to lately." After he slammed the door and left, the glass door next door swung open. Blake stood in the doorway and gave the agreement on the table a single glance. "Don't sign something like that." I asked, "Does Mr. James like meddling in his neighbors' affairs?" He was quiet for two seconds. "This is a legal aid center." "And how do you charge for advice?" "The first sentence is free." "And the second?" He looked at me. "The second is that your husband has no right to take what your mother left you." As the glass door closed, I saw a black sedan parked across the street. The window was half down, and someone inside was holding up a camera. Jackson's game had already begun.

Over the next week, Blake kept turning up in my life. He'd happen by just as I was hauling in flower stock, hand me an umbrella on a rainy day, and when I went to the cemetery to visit my mother, he'd be on the same bus. But every single time, someone was there to catch it on camera. Jackson started canceling on me too. The reason was always work, yet somewhere in the corner of every photo there'd be a trace of Kay. He was waiting for me to make a scene, to crack under the loneliness, so Blake could slip in through the gap. But I wasn't the twenty-three-year-old Ann anymore. Friday night, Jackson came to the flower shop. He brought a white gown. "The Deerfield Business Council gala is tomorrow night. You're coming with me." Kay stood behind him, smiling. "Vivi, go on, try it on. Mr. Fox picked it out just for you." I asked Jackson, "Kay's going too?" His brow creased. "She's handling the project presentation." "And what am I handling?" "You're my wife. You show up, that's enough." I smiled. Show up. Right. Only if I showed up could he prove he'd made it and still hadn't forgotten where he came from. I picked up the gown. Something flickered in Jackson's eyes. Surprise. He'd probably expected me to refuse, to get jealous, to demand why Kay was the one talking projects with him. "Vivi, are you keeping something from me lately?" I looked up. "What is it you want me to be keeping?" After they left, Blake came. His gaze landed on the gown. "The council gala tomorrow night?" "You know about that too?" "The pro bono legal project got an invitation." He paused. "Jackson arranged it." I looked at him. "Blake, what is it you actually want?" He didn't answer. He just took out a business card. "If something happens tomorrow night, call this number." I glanced at it. "A lawyer?" "My professor." "Why are you helping me?" Blake looked at me. "Because no one should get to treat you like this." It sounded true. It also sounded too much like a trap. I pushed the card back at him. "Don't make it all sound so nice. I've been fooled by nice words for seven years already." Blake was quiet for a moment, then wrote the number on one of the shop's notepad slips. "You don't have to believe me. But the number's real." That night, when I got home, Jackson was sitting in the living room, waiting. The unsigned licensing confirmation was still on the table. He tossed a few photos down in front of me. Blake holding an umbrella over me. Blake carrying flowers. Blake talking to me. The angles were suggestive, but not one of them proved a thing. Jackson stood up. "Is this because I'm busy right now, because I don't have time for you, so you're looking somewhere else for a little comfort?" I asked, "You think I need comforting?" He came closer, his voice dropping low. "Of course you do." "Ann, what do you have these past years besides the flower shop?" "No child, no work experience, no one who can actually stand behind you." "Every scrap of dignity you have right now, you have because I allow it." I looked at him. Seven years of marriage, and this was what it came down to. Jackson picked up the license. "Sign it." "I'm not signing." He stared at me. "Ann, don't push me." Before the gala the next evening, Blake sent a text. "Don't drink anything tonight that leaves your hand." I looked at that line and didn't reply. Because I couldn't tell whether he was warning me, or leading me down a road he'd already laid out.

The Deerfield Business Council gala was held at the Skyline Hotel. Jackson Fox was one of this year's newly appointed council members. He needed to land the Deer Mountain Estate contract, keep his financing steady, and above all, keep playing the devoted husband. When we walked in, he held my hand and fixed my shawl for me in front of the cameras, tender as a model husband. Kay Hughes stayed a step behind us, taking the drinks meant for Jackson, passing out business cards, fielding the clients' questions. Someone joked, "Mr. Fox and Director Hughes really are a power couple in business." Kay's face went red. "Don't say things like that. Vivi's right here." Jackson didn't deny it. He only murmured to me, "They're teasing." A waiter came by with drinks. Kay picked one up herself and handed it to me. "Vivi, fruit wine. Very low proof." I took it. The glass was cold against my fingers. I gave it a sniff but didn't drink. The moment a client pulled Jackson away, I tipped the wine into a nearby planter and swapped it for a glass of plain water. Half an hour later, Blake texted. "Come up to the third-floor terrace." The wind was strong on the third-floor terrace. Blake stood there in a black suit, cold and sharp. When he saw me, the first thing he said was, "You shouldn't have come." I asked, "Didn't you tell me to?" He pressed his lips together. "I wanted to know whether you drank that wine." "And if I had?" "I'd have gotten you out." I looked at him. "Out to where? The third-floor lounge?" Blake went quiet. In that moment, I knew for certain. The trap Jackson had set was in the third-floor lounge. I asked, "How much did Jackson pay you?" "Ann." "Don't use my name." I kept looking at him. "Getting close to me, was it for the money, or for something else?" Something like pain flickered in his eyes, but he didn't explain. He said, "Whatever you see tonight, don't sign anything." "One of you tells me to sign, the other tells me not to. Quite the show." With that, I turned to go, and my legs suddenly gave out under me. I hadn't touched that wine. But before the gala started, Jackson had handed me a glass of warm water. Blake's face changed. He reached out and caught me. "Ann!" I grabbed the railing. "Don't touch me." He stopped. But the next second, the terrace door was pushed open. Two men dressed as waiters instantly raised their phones. Blake pulled off his jacket and draped it over my shoulders. "I'll take you to the lounge." "So you're finally following the script." He didn't argue. There was a camera at the end of the hallway. I knew it was recording. Recording a young man with his arm around a thinly dressed married woman, walking into a hotel lounge late at night. The instant the lounge door closed, Blake let go of me, opened the window, and started searching the room. The hidden camera in the vase, the man's cufflink wedged in the sofa cushions, the earring on the nightstand, the man's shirt by the bathroom door. He photographed each one. I leaned back in the chair and watched him coldly. "You're very practiced at this." His hands paused. "I studied law. Gathering evidence is a required course." Footsteps came from outside soon enough. Jackson arrived faster than I'd expected. The door swung open. Behind him came Kay, the council members, the hotel manager, and two local livestreamers holding up their phones. Jackson saw me sitting in the lounge, wrapped in Blake's jacket. His eyes rimmed red at once. "Vivi, how could you do this?" Half an hour later, the big screen in the gala hall lit up. Jackson stood on the stage, his voice breaking as he spoke about our seven years. "I always believed that if I just worked hard enough, I could hold this family together." "But today, I finally learned that some things can't be held onto." The screen began playing the photos. Blake handing me an umbrella, carrying flowers, going with me to the cemetery, and helping me into the lounge. One by one they went up on the screen. Every one of them looked suggestive, and every one was incomplete. But public opinion has never needed the whole picture. Jackson took out an agreement. "Vivi, just sign it, and I won't pursue this any further." "The place in Southside, the flower shop, I'll leave them all to you." I sat below the stage and watched him trade my house and my flower shop for his own respectability. Kay held the pen out to me. "Vivi, just sign. If you drag this out, you're the only one who ends up looking bad." Jackson turned to Blake. "Mr. James, why don't you say something too." Every camera in the room swung to Blake. He picked up the microphone, looked at me, his eyes heavy. Then he said, "Mr. Fox is right." Satisfaction flashed in Jackson's eyes. Blake went on, "Tonight, I was the one who brought Mrs. Fox into the lounge." Jackson stepped down from the stage, leaned in, and said in a voice only I could hear, "Vivi, I gave you your chance." The next second, Blake's voice rang out again. "And I did it on Mr. Fox's instructions." Blake walked to the projection stand and set a voice recorder down on it. He looked at Jackson. "Mr. Fox, I've finished the first step you asked me to do." "Now, shall we play the instructions you gave me for the next step?"