The rearview mirror. The backward glance. The woulda, coulda, shouldas. We reach a certain point in life and think: Is this it? Maybe we look back on paths we might have taken, loves that got away. Jackie Thomas-Kennedy’s debut novel, “The Other Wife,” mines this restlessness.
After three glasses of Riesling and a hot shower, 37-year-old Zuzu texts her college crush. It’s a simple message sent from a place of boredom and anonymity: “how much do you miss me, scale of 1-10” she asks James Cashel, or Cash, whose wife is almost as busy as Zuzu’s. A witty text exchange ensues between the former college pals. Sparks rekindle, and Thomas-Kennedy’s story takes off into a vividly rendered world, ringed with rue.
Having failed the bar exam twice, Zuzu is by default the domestic side of a would-be power couple. Her wife, Agnes, a high-powered lawyer who is captive to billable hours, often comes home late and is rarely off her phone. While Zuzu cooks, cleans, quizzes their toddler son on dinosaur facts and takes him to play groups and parks, Agnes misses dinners, forgets to pay bills and leaves the cap off the toothpaste/her coat on the floor/the twist tie off the bread. The couple hasn’t touched in 60 days. Resentment grows.
Zuzu and Agnes met at a law school information night, and their relationship grew as they studied together for the bar. Where Agnes grew up in a wealthy white neighborhood, Zuzu grew up biracial in a rural area.
“Agnes was a go-getter,” Zuzu recalls of the social cache Agnes provided, “a firecracker. The subtext often seemed to be this: You, Zuzu, are none of these things, but you get to sleep with someone who is.”
Woven amidst flashbacks to her youth, Zuzu’s current life continues. Her father dies, and she and Agnes go east for the memorial service. Along the way, we meet Zuzu’s mother, her pregnant sister, and Noel Rafferty, who went to the same high school and college as Zuzu and who has been smitten with her since they were kids. Zuzu, for her part, is dismissive to Noel to the point of cruelty.
“We knew and understood each other well,” Zuzu thinks. “We were accustomed to dwelling in spaces where nobody thought to look for Black people.”
Toward the end of their sojourn east, Agnes and Zuzu visit Agnes’ ex, Heidi. The visit does not go well. Zuzu ends up being so strangely jealous of Heidi that she leaves in the middle of the night.