It was the first time Kenzie had heard the term professional girlfriend.
“Like I said, it’s a negotiation.” Izzy leaned forward. “You have to ask for what you’re worth.”
“How the hell do I do that?”
“There’s an art to it.” Her roommate paused for a moment, thinking it through. “You have to ask … without actually asking. You make it so that they offer.”
It was a lot to ponder.
“In any case, it’s too late for you with Sean.” Izzy leaned back again. “But keep it in mind for next time. You have more power than you think. Just don’t you dare fall for him.”
As they continued to live together, Izzy taught Kenzie a lot about being a “professional girlfriend.” They weren’t prostitutes, she insisted. They had to genuinely like the men, and the relationships were always exclusive; Izzy never dated more than one man at a time. While they were together, she only had eyes for him, and she doted on him the way a good girlfriend would. In the bedroom, she went above and beyond to please her man, but she expected the same in return. It wasn’t all about him.
But her boyfriends had to be able to afford her. She was high-maintenance, and required cash to get her nails done every week, her eyelashes done every other week, her hair done every month, and custom spray tans on an as-needed basis. She loved to travel, but first class or business class only. She expected gifts, and she preferred the ones that came in little blue boxes with white bows. In return, her boyfriend would receive a devoted girlfriend and travel companion who would lavish attention on him, and who would always ensure they had a good time.
But Izzy didn’t want to stay in the girlfriend category forever. She wanted the ring, she wanted the wedding, she wanted the house, she wanted the name. She wanted financial security.
“I avoid trust-fund babies like the plague,” she once told Kenzie. “First, they’re terrible in bed. Second, if they were born with money, then they’ve always had a safety net, so they’ve never worked for anything a day in their lives. Plus, they always want kids.” She shuddered. “A self-made, divorced, rich man is the holy grail. They work hard, they’ve likely done the kid thing already, and now they want to have fun and spoil someone. That’s where I come in.”
Then Izzy met Mike. Mike wasn’t divorced. Mike wasn’t rich. Mike was only three years older, and they’d met at the gym. It had just ended with Rick, and she was feeling restless, so she agreed to a coffee date because Mike was “cute.” Coffee turned to drinks, which turned into dinner, which turned into Izzy not coming home until late the following day.
“Well, I’m fucked,” she said, plopping down on the sofa.
“Literally or figuratively?” Kenzie asked.
“Both. He works in IT and drives a six-year-old Toyota Camry. A Camry, Kenz. And this morning, he took me to IHOP for breakfast. IHOP. And you know what?”
“What?”
“The sex was incredible, and the pancakes were good. What is happening to me?”
Kenzie had to laugh. It was hard to picture Izzy in a chain restaurant holding a giant laminated menu. “So then … fun for a night, right?”
“Right.” Her roommate spoke a little too decisively, and Kenzie didn’t know if Izzy was trying to convince her, or herself. “But, oh god, he made me laugh. I forgot how good it is to be with someone who makes me laugh. For the last twenty-four hours, it felt like I could be myself around him. It didn’t matter if my makeup stayed perfect or my hair got limp from the drizzle. I even offered to pay for breakfast since he got dinner and drinks last night. When’s the last time I did that?”
“Are you going to see him again?”
“I don’t know.” Izzy seemed genuinely confused. “I wish he wasn’t so … adorable.”
Six months later, she was still seeing Mike, and after a brief affair with a restaurant owner named Erik, Kenzie had moved on to Paul. Married, forties, three kids under the age of twelve. He was a managing partner at a downtown Boise law firm, and he kept an apartment near his office since the hours were so long. His family lived in the suburbs, and he mainly saw them on weekends—if he wasn’t with Kenzie.
Paul asked her once if his bank account was the reason she was attracted to him. “Would you still be into me if I was, say, a janitor?”
She turned the question back on him. “Would you still be into me if I was forty, and overweight, with three kids?”
Without meaning to, she had described his wife, and he drew back, stung. “Point taken,” he said.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“No problem. What should we do for dinner?”
She dated Paul for four months toward the end of her senior year, and spent most nights at the Boise apartment. Izzy was spending most of her time at Mike’s; he had a small house of his own with a cute little backyard. Neither of the girls wanted to admit that their close friendship was growing apart, now that Izzy had retired from the world of professional dating, whether she meant to or not. Which would have been perfectly fine—what did Kenzie care?—but Izzy was becoming judgmental about Kenzie’s lifestyle. Which used to be her lifestyle.
“How do you still do it?” Izzy asked her one night.
They were both squeezed into their tiny bathroom a few weeks before graduation, jostling for position in front of the mirror. Kenzie had borrowed one of Izzy’s skintight dresses and was getting ready for a night of dinner and dancing with Paul. Izzy was wearing jeans and a sweater. In the mirror, they looked like they had switched places from where they started.
“Paul’s married,” Izzy said, as if Kenzie didn’t damn well know. “He has kids. A wife. They’re a family. Don’t you feel bad about that at all?”
“Nope,” Kenzie said. How many more times could they have this discussion? “Not even a little bit.”
Izzy turned to her. “It’s wrong, Kenz.”
“Since when do you care?” she shot back. “You do you, remember?”
“Yeah, well, I was wrong,” Izzy said. “People can change. Don’t you want to fall in love?”
It was the first time Kenzie had ever heard her roommate say the word love, and she was taken aback. She didn’t think Izzy was built that way. Love always seemed to be at the bottom of her list of priorities, and Kenzie found herself getting pissed off. Not everybody gets to be in love.
She turned back to the mirror. “I’m not a homewrecker, Izzy. He is. The thing people forget is that it’s his home to wreck. If things were good at home, he wouldn’t have given me the time of day.”
“Do you know how Mike and I met?”
“The gym, you said.”
“We actually met before that. He came up to me at a bookstore, started chatting me up about the memoir I was holding. Apparently, we had a whole conversation about it, but I seriously didn’t remember it until he reminded me on our first coffee date. And then a couple of months later, on Valentine’s Day—we were still casual at that point—he gave me the book.” She smiled at the memory. “He tracked down a signed copy at a specialty bookstore. And all I could think was, this book costs less than twenty bucks and is probably the single most thoughtful gift anyone’s ever given me.”
Izzy squeezed out of the bathroom, and was back a moment later with a hardcover of Wild by Cheryl Strayed. She showed Kenzie the inscription, which read, When you’re finished sowing your wild oats, I’ll be here.—Mike
“You should read this book,” Izzy said. “It’s about a woman who does drugs, cheats on her husband, goes on this crazy long hike, all these things to get away from feeling the pain of her mother’s death. It really resonated with me. Made me think long and hard about why I do the things I do, and I realized I was sick of myself. I’m giving Mike a chance, Kenz.”
“I’ve read it.” Kenzie turned back to the mirror. “And I’m happy for you. But I like Paul. And I can date rich guys just as easily as poor guys.” She was aware that she sounded exactly like her grand-mère.
“Nobody’s saying you ca
n’t date an older rich guy,” Izzy said. “I’d rather be rich than poor. But I’d rather be happy than rich. Find one who’s single, Kenz.”
“His wife isn’t my problem. I don’t even think about her. As far as I’m concerned, she doesn’t exist.” Kenzie shrugged. “Besides, they all cheat. And one day, when you’re old and fat and married to Mike with a couple of kids and a mortgage payment, he’ll get bored and cheat on you, too. All you’re doing by jumping into this relationship is making yourself vulnerable. You were the one who schooled me on how to do this, remember? But whatever. You do you.”
Kenzie might as well have slapped her. She could see it in Izzy’s face, the way her cheeks drooped, the way she broke eye contact. Still, she was gorgeous, even dressed casually. She could have had any man she wanted, any lifestyle she wanted. What a waste.
Kenzie’s relationship with Paul lasted another three weeks after that conversation. It ended the night his wife came banging on their door at midnight the night before graduation. Mrs. Paul—because Kenzie had no idea what her name was—was drunk and looking for her husband. When Kenzie opened the door, the woman tried to bust into the apartment.
“You fucking whore where’s my fucking husband you fucking slut where’s Paul?” she’d screamed, the words coming out near incoherent and all in one breath. Her makeup was smudged, her eyes bloodshot, and her perfectly manicured fingernails were like claws swiping at Kenzie’s face.
Kenzie tried to close the door, but the woman had wedged herself between the door and the jamb.
“I don’t know any Paul. I just live here!” she said desperately, attempting to pass herself off as someone who wasn’t sleeping with the woman’s husband.
Paul’s wife was at least six inches shorter than Kenzie, but she was enraged and fueled by alcohol. She pushed her face against the door like she was Jack Nicholson in The Shining. Kenzie had no doubt the woman would try to kill her, or at the very least kick the shit out of her in a drunken rage.
“Izzy, help me!” she shouted over her shoulder.
“You tell your roommate to leave my husband alone!” the woman screamed at Kenzie. Her face was a deep shade of purple, her hair damp and sticking to her cheeks in matted clumps. She rammed her body against the door again. “She’s a cunt and you’re a cunt and I hate girls like you, you fucking whores!”
“Izzy!” Kenzie shrieked again. She was barely strong enough to hold the door shut, and she needed her roommate to help her push back. “Izzy, get out here, now!” To the woman, she said, “Stop pushing, I’m not going to let you in!”
The door to Izzy’s bedroom opened and Izzy came out, her hair in a bun, wearing glasses, dressed in a baggy sweatshirt and sweatpants. Without makeup and heels, she looked like a teenager, especially with her eyes so wide and frightened. Paul’s wife, still pushing, saw her peering behind Kenzie in the living room, and her face suddenly sagged. She believed it was Izzy who was seeing Paul. Whatever information she had, it wasn’t a photo. Or a name.
“Oh hell, what are you, nineteen?” The older woman’s voice caught in her throat, and she started sobbing. “You’re a child oh god I can’t believe he did this I can’t believe—”
“Tell her to get out of here!” Izzy said to Kenzie, which was the worst thing her roommate could have said, because the woman’s sobbing turned back into rage. “We’re going to call the police, you crazy bitch!”
“I’m a crazy bitch?” the woman howled. “You call the police! You call them and I’ll tell them what you did! You should be arrested for being a dick-sucking whore!” Her face was mottled, and she was so mad she was spitting. Her vodka-scented saliva sprayed Kenzie’s face, and she rammed against the door again, this time almost making it inside.
“You think I don’t want to suck my husband’s dick?” she screamed into the apartment. “I’d suck it, but he’s never home! I hate you! Rot in hell, you bitch! If I see you on the street, I’m going to throw acid in your face, you slut!”
Thoroughly freaked out, Izzy ran back into her bedroom, and Kenzie heard her door slam shut and the lock turn.
Kenzie gave the door one last shove, and the woman was flung into the hallway. One of the neighbors had called the superintendent, and Gary was coming out of the elevator in his pajamas and bathrobe, a baseball bat in one hand, his cell phone in the other. When he saw it was a woman, and a petite one at that, he lowered the bat.
“I’m going to call the police if you don’t stop screaming, ma’am,” Gary said to her. He was balding, but what was left of his hair was sticking up in tufts. “Please go. I don’t want to make any trouble for you.”
The woman looked at him, and then at Kenzie.
“He’s my husband.” Her lips quivered. “We’ve been together for eighteen years. We have children.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. It was all she could think of to say.
“McKenzie, go inside and close the door,” Gary said.
She closed the door and locked it, pressing her ear to the painted wood. She could hear Paul’s wife wailing in the hallway as Gary escorted her to the elevator. Kenzie’s entire body was shaking. She had never before witnessed anger like that. Delirious, out-of-control, enough-to-kill-someone anger.
She and Izzy stopped speaking after that. Their friendship ended that night. Kenzie never forgave Izzy for not helping her, and Izzy never forgave Kenzie for asking her to. They managed to avoid each other for another couple of weeks, until one day Kenzie came home and Izzy’s stuff was gone. No goodbye, no note, just a check on the counter for her half of what remained of their lease. Later, she discovered Izzy had unfriended her on Facebook and unfollowed her on Instagram.
In the age of social media, that said it all.
When it ended with Paul not long after—badly, of course, because how else could it have ended?—Kenzie was desperate for a change of scenery. Going back home was not an option. She applied to grad school in Seattle and was accepted, and J.R. offered his spare room to crash in for a few nights while she looked for an apartment.
Her phone is vibrating in her pocket, forcing her back to the present. It’s a text. From Derek. Finally. Kenzie reads it quickly, then reads it again, feeling a dull pain in the pit of her stomach. It didn’t hurt with Paul, or Erik, or Sean, but it does with Derek. Like it hurt with J.R.
Which serves her right. This was never supposed to happen.
It’s really over this time, Derek’s text says. I’m sorry. Please don’t contact me anymore.
Chapter 18
From somewhere behind her, a twig snaps. Someone is following her.
Kenzie whips around, certain she’s going to come face-to-face with a bulky, dark-clad stranger with crazy eyes and large hands. But nobody’s there. The closest person is another woman, across the street and half a block down, waiting for the bus. But she can sense it, the presence of someone lurking in corners her eyes can’t find fast enough to expose. The body reacts to danger before the mind does, and it feels like someone’s breathing down the back of her neck, moving her hair aside to whisper in her ear. Only it’s nobody she knows, and nothing she wants to hear.
Five more blocks to go. Kenzie pulls out her phone, needing to hear a comforting voice as she makes her way home. It rings twice before J.R. answers.
“Hey,” he says. “You okay?” He’s concerned. She rarely calls. Usually she texts.
“I’m on my way home from work.” Kenzie pauses at the intersection, where the light turns red as she reaches the corner. “I think I’m being followed.”
“Did you see someone?”
“No, I sense it.”
There’s a small sigh on the other end. “M.K., listen to me. You’re fine. Walk fast, and stay where it’s lit. I’ll stay on the phone with you till you get home.”
“Do you want to come over tonight?” The Walk sign lights up and she starts crossing the street. “We could do takeout, maybe watch a movie—”
“Where’s your roomie?”
“Av
oiding me,” she says. “But also working.”
There’s a pause, and it goes a second too long, which means his answer is no. “I can’t tonight,” J.R. says. “I’m … actually seeing someone.”
Kenzie is so surprised she nearly stops in the middle of the street. “Seeing someone?” she repeats. “What do you mean, ‘seeing someone’?”
It’s the strangest thing to hear him say those words. J.R. is almost always “seeing someone” in the literal sense—her mother had branded him a ladies’ man, and was thoroughly disapproving of him—but to label it as “seeing someone,” as in a relationship, is another thing entirely.
“Yeah. I should have told you when we last hung out, but I know you don’t always like hearing about other people.” There’s an awkward note in J.R.’s voice that she’s also not used to hearing. “I’m hoping it might turn into something, so … you know.”
He’s hoping? “Really.” Kenzie forces herself to speak normally. “Um, since when? Who is she? What’s her name? How’d you meet?”
“Do you really want to know—”
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Her voice rises an octave as the full weight of what he just told her finally hits her. “Since when are you seeing someone? You don’t do relationships, J.R., remember?”
“M.K.—”
“You know what, forget it. I’m almost home. I’ll let you go.”
“Wait,” he says, and she waits. “I agree my timing could be better, but listen to me. You’re anxious because Derek’s been distant, and it’s making you hypersensitive to everything else. When he calls, everything will feel back to normal. Trust me. And then we can talk more about … my stuff.”
He always did love to explain to her how she was feeling, and why.
“Derek’s not going to call,” she says. “He sent me a text as I was leaving work. It’s over.”
“He’s said that before, though.”
Little Secrets Page 18
