Brittany lounged by the pool and lazily played with the triangle top of her white bikini. The matching bottoms were a thong style with gold chains over her hips, but the metal chain was starting to heat from the sun and she was quickly regretting her decision to wear them. The suit was admittedly more appropriate for a Vegas pool party and a little overkill for a day spent by the pool in her backyard, but these days she didn't have much else going on. Frankly, she was bored. Her days had become a blur of the same routine: send the kids to school, run to her morning yoga class, then spend the afternoon by the pool working on her tan until it was time to pick the kids up again. Rinse and repeat.
Brittany had grown up in a traditional household with a family that drilled into her brain exactly what a happy life looked like - get married to a man wealthy enough to support her, have kids, move to the suburbs, and live an easy life of dinner parties and brunches - and she had excelled in achieving it. She met her husband Peter in college, a finance major with promising ambition and the "right" family, and they were engaged as soon as they graduated. Kids soon followed. Now, in her mid-30's, her kids were in school and her only real job was maintaining the trophy wife figure Peter loved to show off. Yet another thing she excelled at. Despite having two kids, her 5'7 frame remained slender with full breasts, blonde hair, and tan skin. She looked straight out of the pages of Playboy.
Brittany knew she should be enjoying herself - she had accomplished everything expected of her and was sitting pretty in the "easy life" phase that was supposedly the key to happiness, but she was starting to suspect she had been lied to. Instead of a happy and fulfilling life, she had become a clichΓ©: the bored, rich housewife. Initially, being a wife and a mother had given Brittany a sense of purpose to her life. Lately though, she was feeling very lost. And that was before she found The Text.
After college, Peter had joined a fortune 500 company and his career took off, providing them with more stability and money, but requiring him to work increasingly late nights. Brittany frowned remembering what her mother had said when she'd complained to her about it.
"Just leave it be darling. That man provides for you and you don't need or want to know anything else about it." - lectured her mother, a woman who could have been the spokesperson for ignorance is bliss.
She'd tried to ignore the nagging feeling in her gut that something wasn't right, but one night after Peter went to bed, she was laying awake and her body started moving as though it was possessed. Suddenly, she was watching herself get out of bed, slip his phone off the bedside table, and pad silently down the hall to their bathroom. She shut the door softly and crouched on the edge of the bathtub, flipping through his text messages. She found it almost immediately.
(Melissa) I've been thinking about you all day
(Peter) Me too. Wear something sexy tomorrow
(Peter) I'll need to see you first thing
(Melissa) Yes sir ;)
Brittany cringed from the obviousness of it. The exchange she knew she would find. And of course it was with his secretary - he could have at least been a little more imaginative with his exploits. She supposed she wasn't the only clichΓ©.
After the initial wave of disgust, Brittany felt glued to the bathtub edge. As much as she hated to admit it, maybe her mother was right and she would have been better off not knowing. Now that she had this information, what did she do? Did she act on it? She put the phone down in her lap and considered. The thought of having to dismantle her family, divorce Peter, and start over was like a punch to the gut. No, she wasn't ready for that. Brittany tip toed back into the bedroom and returned the phone to its place. She climbed carefully back into bed next to Peter and stared at the dark ceiling until the sky started to lighten.
That day she had gone through the motions as though nothing had happened, feeling like a zombie in her own body. And then the next day. And the next. Luckily, or perhaps not surprisingly, Peter seemed oblivious to the change in her behavior.