For the birthday banquet of an old Delgado family friend, she'd worn a white gown, and the sight nearly gave the man a stroke.
The first time Nigel ever blew up at her was eight months into the marriage.
The Delgados were in talks with another family, and the other side had brought their daughter along, clearly angling for a match.
Eve hinted that Nigel could use the opportunity. He turned it down flat.
But once Constance found out, she made his life hell for three straight days.
Was he sorry he'd married her, she demanded. Had he set his eye on someone else.
"That was my parents' idea! And I already said no, so what are you still throwing a fit about?"
Nigel couldn't believe it.
"If you didn't have your own ideas, why even sit down with them? Let her father handle the talks instead."
Constance cried until her makeup ran, sobbing herself sick, gutted right through.
"You regret it. You think I'm beneath those high-society girls!"
"Enough!"
Nigel finally hit his limit and hurled a glass to the floor.
It was their first head-on fight.
After that, fighting became part of daily life.
Constance grew more and more touchy, convinced Nigel looked down on where she came from.
When he took her to banquets, she said nothing the whole night, then came home complaining she'd been treated like a piece of furniture.
When he left her behind, she accused him of being ashamed of her.
"I don't know how she turned into this," Nigel said over drinks with a friend. "She wasn't like this before. She used to be so kind, so gentle."
His friend gave him a long look. "Maybe she always was like this. You just never saw it."
Glenda's voice memo paused there. Then another one came through.
"Alma!! Here's the main event!! Constance got caught in bed with Nigel's chauffeur!!"
I nearly dropped my phone.
What?
"Last month!! Constance said she was going for a spa day, and the paparazzi snapped her checking into a hotel with Nigel's chauffeur!!"
"That driver had been with Nigel for five years!! The photos were crystal clear, the two of them all over each other right in the lobby!!"
"Nigel was out of town closing a deal, and his phone blew up. He didn't even believe it, said the paparazzi were making it up. So he flew back overnight and walked in on Constance and the driver in his own garage…"
"Hahaha he lost it!! He went to swing at the driver right then and there, and Constance dropped to her knees, hugging his leg and crying that she'd only done it because she was so lonely!"
"Nigel was never home, she was rattling around that huge house with nobody to talk to, she said she just needed someone to hold her! God, she actually said that out loud?"
"Now Nigel wants the divorce and Constance won't budge, says she wants half the family fortune. His mother got so worked up she landed in the hospital, and his father's threatening to cut him off entirely…"
"Bottom line, Nigel is a joke now."
I set the phone down and leaned back in my seat.
Beyond the window, London's sky was a dull gray. In a few more hours, I'd touch down in Westport.
Three years.
I'd changed, they'd all changed, and nothing was the way it used to be.
Still, this particular joke, I was happy to hear.
The day I landed in Westport, Glenda came to get me.
She stood at the arrivals gate holding up a big sign that read, "Welcome home, Ms. Henson."
I walked over smiling, and she threw her arms around me and burst into tears.
"You've gotten thinner, Alma."
"And you've gotten fatter."
"Can you not?"
She wiped her eyes and smacked me.
I climbed into the car and watched the city streak past the window, a whole lifetime away from where I'd left it.
Three years gone, and a lot of it had changed. But some things hadn't.
