Ladies' Night

else to add to the fire, and remembered Ben’s shirt, still draped over the windshield of his Audi.
Ben loved expensive things. But Grace, raised above her parent’s working-class bar in the nearby fishing hamlet of Cortez, could never quite get comfortable with the luxury goods that her husband had grown up with as the pampered only son of a Miami bank executive. The day she’d bought the shirt at Neiman-Marcus, for $350, she’d walked away from it twice, finally forcing herself to pull the trigger and buy the damned thing.
Grace stood in the open doorway of the garage, scowling at the Audi. If the shirt was Ben’s favorite, the Audi, a 2013 Spyder R8 convertible, was beyond his favorite. It was his obsession. He’d bought the Audi without consulting Grace, right after they signed the pilot deal with HGTV. Ben wouldn’t disclose what he’d paid for the car, saying only that he’d “worked a deal” on it, but when she checked the prices online, she’d discovered that the thing retailed for $175,000! She’d somehow managed to swallow her resentment over not being included in the decision to buy the new car, telling herself that if Ben, who handled all the family finances, thought they could afford the car, then she shouldn’t worry.
She walked around to the driver’s side, snatching the shirt off the windshield. Looking down, she noticed the keys were still in the ignition.
The next thing she knew, she was using the shirt to wipe down the bucket seat’s leather upholstery—just in case. She slid beneath the wheel and turned the key in the ignition, smiling as the powerful engine roared to life.
Ben didn’t exactly prohibit her from driving the Audi, but he didn’t encourage it either, telling her it was “a lot of car” for a woman and pointing out that her experience driving a stick shift was limited, although she’d learned to drive on her father’s beat-up manual-transmission Chevy pickup.
Maybe, Grace thought, she’d just take the Audi for a spin around the neighborhood. Wouldn’t that just fire Ben’s rockets? She hoped he was watching from one of the upstairs windows. He’d have a stroke when he saw her behind the wheel. She eased the car into reverse, carefully backing it out of the garage.
Maneuvering an expert three-point turn, she was about to head down the driveway when the kitchen door flew open.
“Grace!” Ben yelled. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Going for a drive,” she said cheerfully, raising the Corona in a jaunty salute.
“The hell you are,” he barked, walking toward her. “You’ve been drinking and you’re in no shape to be driving. Get out of my car.”
“Your car?” she raised an eyebrow.
“You know what I mean,” he said. “You’ve had your fun. This is taking things too far.”
Too far? Grace revved the Audi’s engine and slammed the car in first, screeching past Ben, who was a shouting, raving blur. Now she was at the edge of the patio, knocking over chaise lounges and the wrought-iron table with its jaunty green umbrella. The limpid turquoise surface of the pool was straight ahead. She closed her eyes, held her nose, and stomped the accelerator. The shock of the water was a final reminder. This was no nightmare. She was awake.

2
Grace had grown up living above a marina, but she was only an okay swimmer. Still, she could dog-paddle and manage a serviceable backstroke when the occasion demanded. The shock of the cold water disoriented her momentarily, but seconds later she managed to kick herself free of the Audi and power up to the surface, blinking and gasping for air.
As soon as she surfaced, the enormity of what she’d just done came crashing down. She pushed her hair from her eyes and saw Ben, standing at the side of the pool, staring down at her, wild-eyed and more agitated than she’d ever seen him. “Jesus, Grace!” he shouted. “My car! What have you done to my car?”
He wasn’t alone. A uniformed police officer stood at his side, training a large flashlight over the pool. Grace wished she could dive back down to the bottom, maybe hide in the Audi’s trunk. Just until things got a little less crazy.
“Ma’am?” The cop was young, with close-shorn hair and a look of concern that was noticeably absent from her husband’s face. “Are you all right?”
Grace coughed and brushed a strand of hair from her face, dog-paddling to stay afloat. “I’m all right,” she said cautiously, flexing her toes and examining her hands just to make sure. Not a scratch, she thought, which pleased her. After all, she was homicidal, not suicidal.
“You’re not all right,” Ben snapped. “You’re fuckin’ nuts.”
“Ma’am, could you come out of the water now?” the cop asked.
Grace looked around the backyard. “Where’s the slut?” she called.
The cop looked confused. “Who?”
“J’Aimee. The slut. I’m not coming out if she’s still here.”
“Who’s Jamie?”
Grace jutted her chin in Ben’s direction. “Ask him.” Her legs were getting a little weary from all the dog-paddling, so she floated onto her back and stared up at the sky. It was a gorgeous evening. The clouds had cleared, and the stars sprinkled in the deep blue heavens looked so close she felt she might just reach out and pluck one. It was too bad she couldn’t just float here for a long time, enjoying this view.
“Sir?” she heard the cop say.
“It’s not Jamie, it’s J’Aimee,” Ben said. “And she’s our assistant. The woman my wife assaulted earlier this evening. Grace chased her off. I don’t know where she’s gone.”
“Our assistant?” Grace said. “I thought she was my assistant. Of course, that was before I found her assisting you earlier this evening.” She turned to face the cop. “I caught them, doing it, right there in the garage. In the front seat of the Audi. So you see why I want to make sure she’s gone, can’t you?”
The cop was blushing now, which made him look even younger. He coughed and crossed his arms and looked