Chapter 18 - The Queen of Queens: Patricia’s Bitter Cup of Reality
The apartment in Queens was a far cry from the estate in Greenwich.
It was small,
with thin walls that let in the sound of the neighbors’ televisions and the constant rumble of the elevated train.
Patricia Hart sat at a small,
formica-topped table,
staring at a can of condensed soup as if it were an alien object.
She was still wearing her pearls,
a habit she couldn't break,
but they looked absurd against the backdrop of the cracked linoleum floor.
Her phone,
now a basic model with a limited data plan,
chirped on the table.
It was a text from a "friend"—or rather,
the woman who had been her social secretary.
"The bridge club has voted to revoke your membership,
Patricia."
"They feel that the association with the Blackstone scandal is detrimental to the club's image."
"Please arrange for your locker to be emptied by Friday."
Patricia threw the phone across the room,
where it hit the wall and fell into a basket of laundry she didn't know how to wash.
"Detrimental!"
she screamed,
her voice cracking with rage.
"I made that club!"
"I brought in the sponsors!"
"I am Patricia Hart!"
But the only response was the muffled sound of a dog barking in the apartment next door.
She stood up,
pacing the small kitchen,
her heels clicking on the floor in a way that felt like a mockery of the halls of Blackstone.
She had spent forty years building a wall of exclusivity around herself,
only to find that the wall worked both ways.
It kept people out,
but it also kept her in.
And now that she was on the outside,
there was no one to let her back in.
She thought about calling Everett,
but she knew he was in no position to help her.
He was probably worse off than she was.
She thought about calling me.
She picked up the phone,
her fingers trembling as she scrolled through her contacts until she found "Evelyn—The Help."
She had never changed the name.
She pressed the call button,
holding the phone to her ear with a desperate,
clutching grip.
"The number you are calling has been disconnected or is no longer in service,"
the mechanical voice said.
Patricia let out a sob,
dropping the phone onto the table.
I hadn't just blocked her;
I had erased the very possibility of her reaching me.
She walked to the window,
looking out at the street below.
Children were playing on the sidewalk,
a man was selling fruit from a cart,
and the world was moving on as if she had never existed.
She realized then that her power had never been her own.
It had been a loan,
granted by the very woman she had spent a decade belittling.
And now,
the loan had been called in.
She was a woman with nothing but memories of a life that had been built on someone else’s labor.
She sat back down at the table,
the can of soup still staring at her,
and realized she didn't even have a can opener.
She put her head in her hands and wept,
not for her son,
May you like
not for her marriage,
but for the woman in the mirror who didn't know how to survive in a world where she wasn't the center of attention.
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