by Jason Allen
“Leo, where do you think you’re going?” Sheila yelled, walking toward him from behind at such a pace that she might as well have been running, since she easily caught up to him as soon as he paused. “Leo!” she shouted, now a mere few feet from him.
“What’s wrong with you?” he shouted back at her, feeling as though she’d snared him by the ankle.
“What’s wrong with me? We have guests here, not to mention your children! You look like a mental patient running across the yard in your robe, and with that ridiculous bandage on your head! Have you gone insane, is that it? Should I have you committed?”
“I’ve been cooped up in the bedroom, dear. I just wanted to get some air.”
Gina’s son had disappeared into the woods and had been there far too long already. Sheila’s tensed brows and wide eyes held Leo in place. He kept his head turned away from her while she spoke for what felt like a lifetime. Then his stomach seemed to fill with snakes, a bitter taste like venom rising in his throat as the dog ran full-bore along the tree line with something hanging from her muzzle.
Sheila grabbed his wrist. “Did you hear a word I just said?”
He didn’t answer. He was too preoccupied by the sight of Corey leaving the woods and walking the same line the dog had run. Sheila repeated her question, and when he still didn’t respond, she stormed off. He watched her cross the lawn and reenter the house through the kitchen, then shifted his focus to Gina’s son, whose head had just turned toward him.
They shared a moment of long-distance eye contact and then Corey quickly looked away, walking faster with his head down as he passed by the pool and finally hooked left onto the porch and disappeared.
Leo brought his hands to his face, gritting his teeth just before he heard himself whimper.
Any second now the world would end.
TWENTY-FIVE
Lunch was served on two long tables in the backyard. The Sheffield children and twenty guests ate their chicken Caesar salad, poached salmon, couscous, roasted vegetables, melon slices and berries, while Mrs. Sheffield played helicopter host, hovering tableside and chatting everyone up. Corey made eye contact with Angelique as she and Tiffany took their plates around the house to the porch, and she seemed to understand by his expression that he wanted her to find him in a little while. He had seen Mr. Sheffield only briefly, just after he had returned from the woods, but otherwise hadn’t seen him leave his room all day.
When the midday meal ended, Corey worked alongside Michael and Josie. As a team, they broke everything down, transferred the uneaten food to containers and stored the leftovers in the two industrial refrigerators, folded the chairs and the table legs and stacked them all against the side of the house. During lunch Angelique had returned stealthily and whispered as she walked past him, “Meet me in the garden as soon as you finish.”
Now that he’d carried the last table with Josie, and the Sheffields and their guests appeared content to luxuriate in their food comas for a while, he had one of those rare windows of downtime when he’d be able to slip away.
He found Angelique sitting on a bench in the garden, smoking a cigarette. The dark red grooves below her eyes, he imagined, had come after she’d rubbed them raw. She offered her cigarette pack and lighter and scooched over to make space for him to sit.
“So,” she said, exhaling smoke, “how you holding up?”
“Getting kinda loopy from not sleeping,” he said, “but otherwise I’m okay. What’s the latest with Leo?”
“Nothing new, which is probably good. This bench is actually the spot where we’re supposed to meet tonight when he brings the money.”
“Did he say what time?”
“Just said to meet here after dinner, around sunset.”
“You still think I should meet him instead of you?”
“Definitely. I don’t want to be alone with him again.”
Corey let her words settle before reaching for her hand. When she responded with a light squeeze of his fingers, he asked, “How’re you holding up overall?”
She took a long drag and held it for a while before breathing it back out. “I’ll be a lot better after we leave.”
“You’re still sure you want me to come with you?”
“Yeah, and I’m glad you want to. This would be so much crazier if I had to figure it all out alone.” She breathed out another plume of smoke. “I wish you weren’t stuck working, so we could go somewhere else till he hands over the money, maybe sleep for a while. I don’t even know how you’re functioning at this point.” She laced her fingers with his while staring straight ahead. A moment later she dropped her cigarette to the dirt and rubbed it dead with her heel. “When we leave tonight, let’s stop off at the ocean for a little while, okay? Before we start driving for real, I mean—wherever we decide to go.”
Corey exhaled smoke as he answered, “Sure,” and squeezed her hand. Then he turned and saw her eyes watering over. “What’s wrong?”
“I’m not even sure anymore,” she said, laughing for a second. “All of this is just so crazy. It’s like my life ended two nights ago and now everything’s an unknown, but my old life was sort of over when my mom went into the hospital and I knew she wouldn’t be coming home. It’s just scary now not to have any idea where I’ll be tomorrow, or next week, or next month. But then there’s you... I’ve been sitting here for the last half hour thinking about what I felt when I saw you, right after you hit him and pushed him off me. I felt safe in a way I don’t think I’d ever felt before, like you were my guardian angel or something. Which is crazy because we still hardly know each other.”
She wiped her eyes and faced him.
“I know I said I wouldn’t, but can I ask now? Why were you here that night? It’s all right to tell me. I trust you, no matter what you say.”
Corey’s mouth went dry, even drier after he took a long drag from his cigarette. Should I tell her the truth? What else can I really say? The excuse he’d prepared—that he’d left his wallet here when he’d been cleaning with Gina and had just returned to retrieve it at one o’clock in the morning—was stupid. And more than that, he didn’t want to lie to her. Well, he thought, I guess this is it.
“I didn’t expect to see you when I first came here,” he said, and paused to swallow. “That’s probably where I should start, Thursday night. I don’t know, maybe I should start further back. See, I had this idea last summer after I thought about how lots of these mansions are empty most of the year. I thought maybe I could sneak in and tour a house every once in a while, you know, and slip out without anyone knowing. So I did that a few times at the end of last summer, and then a few more times this month. I wasn’t breaking in to steal anything. Not until Thursday, anyway. So I was in the house when you and Tiffany happened to show up. You two came in, and I climbed out the window just before you would’ve caught me. Shit, you must think I’m such a loser.”
She angled her head so he would look her in the eyes.
“I definitely don’t think you’re a loser. Just so you know, I’m not judging you at all for planning to rob Tiff’s parents, and I won’t, so don’t worry about that. It’s not awesome, but it’s also not the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I’m just really curious why you were still here when Tiff’s dad was in the pool with that guy, when he chased me.”
It was too hot to think. No clue how to answer. A bumblebee buzzed past and then circled around them as she touched his arm and added, “You can tell me. I hope you feel you can.”
Beads of sweat rolled down his back. His eyelids had squeezed down to slits against the sun and the brutally bright shade of blue pulsing overhead. The flower petals were baking all around him, dying of thirst and shriveling against their stems. He couldn’t tell her the whole truth, not now. What good would it do to confess that he’d sat on the roof Thursday night, and here and there had peeked through the windows, melting all over a
gain each time he caught a glimpse of her face? There was just no good way to phrase that.
She broke the stillness by cocking her head and asking, “So when you broke in here, what were you going to steal?”
“I’m not really sure. I guess it didn’t matter. I don’t know if this makes any sense, but I think I wanted to take something from them because they have so much and they still don’t pay my mom very well. I sort of talked myself into that being an excuse to break in in the first place.”
“So you’ve broken into a bunch of other houses out here, but never stole anything?”
“Yeah, I just snuck in and snuck out. Usually pranked the people before I left. You know, like putting salt in their milk, or moving a painting from one room to another. I’m not sure why I kept doing it except that it was a rush.”
He finished his confession expecting her to at least look at him sideways, maybe even to tell him not to talk to her anymore, but instead she surprised him with a tired smile.
“How many times have you done it?”
“Six or seven, maybe eight.”
“How many times was someone home?”
“Five or six. Most of the times someone was there.”
“Jeez, you’re crazy! But you must be pretty good at it if no one ever caught you.”
“I didn’t want to sound all cocky about it, but yeah, I’m really good at it.”
Both wearing grins and squinting against the sun, they stared ahead at the mouth of the garden path. He took her hand and spoke just above a whisper. “I’m really glad you want me to come with you.” She clasped her fingers more snuggly around his and leaned to the side to rest her head against his shoulder, but a moment later sat up straight as Gina came into view.
“Here you are,” she said to Corey, her hands moving to her hips. “If you want to keep this job, Missus Sheffield needs you to mop the paw prints from the porch again. Right now.”
TWENTY-SIX
An hour later, Gina walked the length of the third-floor hall and veered into a guest bathroom, locking the door behind her. She closed the toilet lid and sat, removed the baggie of pills from her pocket and held it up at eye level to re-count the remaining Klonopins she’d purchased last night at the bar, her mind still so clouded by the insanity in the woods. Leo Sheffield had let her up after telling his story and then completely fell apart into a blubbering mess, begging her not to tell anyone about Henry—the man in the blanket, the man he’d been cheating on Sheila with and may have even loved, the man who now existed in her mind only as the dead body on the property. And then at some point, while on his knees, with his arms wrapped around her legs and his face against her feet, he’d offered her money. A lot of money, just to keep quiet. She’d told him she needed sleep, said she would sleep on it, and then had left the pines feeling like a total zombie. With so much vodka and so many pills in her bloodstream, and after all she’d heard while he held her down—after what she’d seen—the drive home from Southampton had passed in a blur. She still had only the haziest recollection of stopping at the bar, drinking more and buying these pills. Then no memory at all of the second leg of the drive, or entering her house, or getting into bed. And ever since returning to this house, for the past five or six hours she’d been operating purely on auto-function, a numb automaton performing housekeeper and staff management duties, too confused to feel any fear or anger or whatever emotions she should have been feeling. What would a normal person feel in such a screwed-up situation?
Her tolerance had grown out of control without her pausing to think about it until now. She’d already swallowed three Klonopins with her morning coffee and had seven left. She needed to ration the rest—maybe take one more now, two in the late afternoon, two or three during the dinner party... She just needed to make sure to save at least one for the lakeside soiree. As they always did for each of the big holiday weekends, the Sheffields had invited her to join the party after dinner; though, as Gina saw it, the invitation to socialize with the guests she’d spent the past two days and nights serving wasn’t a generous gesture as much as an obligation. Sheila expected her not only to be there but to shine with gratitude, to be the gracious employee on display. Her part in the party would be to mingle and chat and show how thankful she was to be socializing with her betters. What a fucking treat. And meanwhile, how would Leo play his part? Would he seek her out? The thought overwhelmed her.
Leaning forward, she brought her hands to her face and whispered a prayer. “If you’re listening, if you can get me through today... I promise, after this weekend I’ll stop everything. No more pills. No more drinking, either. I’ll call Maryanne, and on Tuesday I’ll start detoxing at home, and then—I really hope—there won’t be a next time. God, please just let me get through this day. I promise, after this I’ll try to stay clean. I just need this now.”
After swallowing two more pills, Gina checked her eyes in the mirror—the whites were a bit red, the lids heavy. Not great, but not tragic. She exited the bathroom and walked the hall, trying to appear casual while concentrating on keeping her balance with each step, forcing a smile and saying hello to a few guests as she passed by. She held the banister on her way down the first flight of stairs. She then made it halfway down the second-floor hall before she had to pause in a doorway to greet Gretchen and Andy, who sat in comfortable oversize chairs, facing one another with magazines and coffees.
“Can I get either of you anything?”
Gretchen didn’t acknowledge her, but after a short silence the Sheffields’ eldest son turned the page of his Architectural Digest as he answered, “No thanks, Gina,” barely raising his eyes from the magazine when he added, “I think my mother is looking for you, though.”
“Thanks, I’ll track her down.”
Gina left the doorway wishing she could hide from Sheila for a few hours. She’d lied to herself in the bathroom; she wouldn’t make it through the day. She should just get in her car and drive off before dealing with the twenty-two place settings she still needed to complete for dinner, before the sixteen invited guests and the family and Angelique sat down to the six-course meal, which would later need to be cleared one by one, and all that wine to pour, and then a dozen or more guests expected to roll in throughout the night.
A little farther down the hall she heard Corey speaking softly to someone from behind a closed bedroom door, then recognized Angelique’s voice. Gina raised a fist, and with her knuckles poised to knock she angled her head so her ear hovered less than an inch from the wood.
She leaned even closer until her ear pressed against the door. For some reason, the quiet on the other side that followed bothered her even more than the troubling snippet of conversation she’d just overheard, Corey saying something about them taking off earlier than they’d planned—if Leo already had the money.
They’d been holding hands on the porch. She’d heard Angelique mention a boyfriend who’d taken photos. She’d convinced herself that the unnamed man from the limo had been the one who’d hurt her boss, but Thursday night, when Leo had been wounded, Corey hadn’t been home.
She tried the doorknob and found it locked. Her head tipped forward suddenly and struck the door. “Corey,” she called out, rapping her knuckles on the wood. “You finished with the porch? I need you downstairs.”
“Yeah, Ma. Just helping to rearrange some furniture in here. Be right out.”
She waited, her blood pressure rising. Then she turned her head as a door down the hall opened and a man around Leo’s age emerged, speaking loudly with a cell phone to his ear. “Tell him to set up a conference call later in the week,” he barked. “Yes, that’s correct. I’ll be in Southampton until Monday evening. The weather’s marvelous now, but I’ve heard we could see some rain sometime tomorrow, possibly even some thundershowers...I know, of all the weekends. Anyway, I’ll have my cell if he needs any more info before we’re all back in the office...Correct.
You, too. Ciao.”
Gina hadn’t realized she’d been staring at him until he pocketed his phone and raised his hand to offer a dead-fish sort of wave. “Fantastic lunch today.”
“So glad you liked it,” she said. “I’ll be sure to tell the chef.”
“Delicious,” he said, adjusting the braided belt around the waistband of his shorts. “Save me a dance at the party tonight, would you?”
The long silence and his unbroken stare said everything: apparently, she was delicious. And to make it even more awkward and gross, he had the nerve to wink on his way down the stairs. Ugh. With the white-hot heat of a thousand blowtorches, goddamn it did she hate it when her employers’ bloated old guests flirted with her. Didn’t he get that she couldn’t answer his disgusting advance honestly, that she was basically a captive here? Yep, of course he did. He knew the situation exactly. Wealthy letches like him believed themselves immune to sexual harassment standards the average person was expected to abide by. They could buy whatever they wanted, or at least pay off whomever they needed to after crossing the line. That guy had gone downstairs with a smile on his stupid face, knowing he could say almost anything to Gina in this vacationland and get away with it. She was just the help, after all.
Save you a dance, she thought. Not a chance, asshole. If you’re lucky, I might not kick you in the balls.
Gina could have snapped at the jowly old creep, but thanks to the pills, he didn’t matter... Not even worth thinking about now that an optimal amount of opiates had just dissolved in her blood and a hundred tiny suns had begun pulsing beneath her skin... Her eyelids lowered to slits and she forced them wider, staring at the vacant spot where Mr. Sheffield’s corporate crony had leered at her. How could she be expected to do this job sober? How else could she pander to these people and smile? What’s more, how could she even be here, knowing there was a corpse outside?
