by E. G. Scott
I close my eyes and let the structure take shape. I see the pine beams and the cathedral ceilings. I see the fireplace and smell the wood. I feel the granite against my fingertips. I see the walls and smell the fresh coats of paint. This is going to be a beautiful home. Not the one that Rebecca and I envisioned when we started discussing our dream home all those years ago, but a grander, more sophisticated place. The commission from the Southampton sale is making all of this possible. For this is now going to be a different home, for different people. Change of plans. New beginnings. And my wife is none the wiser.
“Javier, I’ve got an open house in a bit. You guys okay for the rest of the afternoon?”
“Yes, is good. You happy with this?”
“Looking great, my man. Keep up the good work. I’ll be back in the morning in time for the delivery.”
“What’s coming in?”
“Pine beams.”
“Okay, boss.”
I head for the gym so I can take a shower and get ready for the open house. As I open my locker, the odor sets off my still-delicate stomach, and I just manage to keep myself from throwing up again. A weekend’s worth of work clothes gets ripe pretty quickly, it seems. Fuck. I’ll need to run home one day this week and sneak in a load of laundry when Rebecca’s at work. I can’t let her figure out what I’ve been up to.
twenty-three
REBECCA
PAUL IS BACK from his trip but texted me that he needed to go straight to work from the airport. This was a relief, as it’s the first Monday in twenty years that I don’t have a job to go to. I haven’t been able to come clean, because there’s a sense of safety and balance in having my own arsenal of secrets. I open my phone and click on the photos of his journal pages for the umpteenth time in the last seventy-two hours.
The tracks get deeper the more I try to conceal them. I keep having the nightmare—I’m walking in a snowstorm barefoot, trying to catch up with my parents, and someone is following me. I am constantly turning around to cover my tracks, but the more I push the snow over my footprints, the deeper they get. The faster I walk, the farther away my parents get. And whatever is following me gets closer.
I’m surprised to see that he’s written about his parents. He hasn’t spoken about them except for casual mentions in a very long time. When we used to talk. I see his car pulling into the driveway. It is five thirty P.M. and earlier than either of us has been home together in a long time. I close out my phone and head to the kitchen, where my staging of a postwork routine of the past awaits.
Chet Baker is streaming from the Bose dock. On the counter, a Stephen King doorstop lies open next to half a glass of merlot with my lipstick imprint on the rim. I pull an Oxy from the Altoids box in my purse and pop it into my mouth. I check my recently applied makeup and blown-out hair in the reflection of the sliding doors while I smooth my favorite Alexander Wang work dress, but not too much, so it looks worn from the day.
When he walks into the house, my heart responds separately from my brain. He looks rugged and tired, and handsome as ever. I don’t know if it is the drugs, my nerves, or the reflex of hardwired excitement in seeing him, but the palpitation is strong. Once upon a time, this was my favorite part of the day. The days when we’d run home, so eager to see each other. The memory of that feeling now is jarring and so out of place.
A familiar look in his eyes registers as he passes over the threshold with a smile. I’ve mistaken this look before but now I know better. It is infatuation. It is consumption. It is insatiability. I know it well from our beginnings and retroactively from when he was fucking Sheila. The look stings me deeply, but there is some triumph knowing that I’m not three paces behind this time.
Paul is such a good actor, the emotion in his face is nearly convincing. I feel a peculiar nostalgia for when I didn’t know better. It was a nicer place to live. Duff runs to him, frantic in his excitement. I rally my own enthusiasm. This is easier than I expected because part of me feels happy to see him. I chalk it up to having barely left the house for almost three days and being lonely for human contact.
“Hi, beauty. I am so glad to be home. I missed you.” He’s holding his computer bag and a bouquet of flowers. The tulips make me question every bunch he’s ever brought me. How many of those were flower-shaped apologies because he wasn’t man enough to actually make them with words?
He’s wearing a suit I’ve never seen and is noticeably without a tan. I stop myself from pointing out either of these facts. I move toward him because just standing there feels like a tell. He hands me the flowers and I force a smile. “They’re lovely.” I want to grind them into the carpet.
“Hi.” I let him pull me in close. “How was the trip?” I can’t tell if his squeezing me is to conceal his own body tensing at my question. He slides his hand down my back and leaves it to rest there as he guides me to the couch. I try not to think about where else his hands have been recently. He sits next to me, smiles, and rubs his eyes.
“Hard day?” I lay my hand on his suit leg. “You look nice. Did you dress up for the flight attendants?” I pepper every word with playfulness.
“I had a suit hanging at the office, just in case. Wes received a text after we landed. Someone wants to preempt a major property that Wes hooked last week.” He’s not looking at me because he’s making eyes at Duff, whose head has landed firmly on his other leg. An easy way to avoid looking at me while he’s lying. He puts one hand on Duff’s head and starts scratching him behind the ears, and his other on my thigh, where he also lightly scratches as though he can’t move one without the other.
“What’s the property?” It occurs to me that he may be driving this conversation in a direction opposite from his trip.
“A beach view in South Sag, on Crestview. Forty-four million asking. The buyer went straight to fifty without even seeing it himself. The owner is an old high school friend of Wes’s.” His eyes return to mine. If he’s lying, he’s doing so beautifully.
“Wow. That is a big fish. You don’t seem very excited.”
Paul not only got a job and dug himself out of his midlife crisis; he got one he was good at. With a commission level like that, I am totally dumbfounded. How much does he need? A shade of wifely worry for him blossoms. Paul owing someone large hadn’t occurred to me. Surprising, for the daughter of someone who was perpetually in debt to someone and constantly hiding from those someones out of fear. It dawns on me that maybe the missing money is unrelated to the new bitch in his life. But I suppose they aren’t mutually exclusive lies.
The tracks get deeper the more I try to conceal them.
“The commission is massive, but the house will take at least a year or two to close on. The guy who owned it is a trust-fund kid turned drug dealer who used the inherited house as a storage spot for moving mass amounts of drugs through. He was literally hiding the shit in the walls. Pharmaceuticals mostly. He didn’t even need the money, was just doing it because he watched too many Breaking Bad episodes, I bet. The DEA ripped the place apart. Walls, floor, you name it. Until he is tried and his assets aren’t frozen, that house isn’t getting cleaned, inspected, or sold.”
I try not to get too distracted by the idea of what pills lay in those walls and how much was seized. Wasted. I don’t press him on the “cleaning” either. I’d rather not know.
“It was all over the Post last month.” He says this as though he’s speaking to a functional human being who is on dry enough land in her own life to take an interest in the misdeeds of others. Every fiber of me is alive with endorphins. I move closer to him and lean against his chest. Like a puzzle piece sliding into its rightful spot.
His hand feels good on my leg and then on my face and around the back of my neck. Goose bumps spread from head to toe. The Oxy has fully blossomed and I’m melting into his hands and the couch. I want him to put his other hand on me. Slide it up my body and around the front of
my neck. Would I even fight him if he squeezed? I feel multiple selves inhabiting me. I try to fuse the disparate emotions into one coherent being.
“Who is the bidder?”
“No idea. They sent a lawyer. The guy was shady as fuck too. It was bizarre; he barely spoke. Took a lot of pictures on his phone and left without telling us. Then he texted us an hour later with the offer. The house hasn’t even been listed yet and Wes still hasn’t gotten a straight answer about who pointed the buyer in our direction.”
“Huh.” I’m losing the verbal muscles to keep having this conversation. Duff moves his head from Paul’s leg to the small piece of couch between us. We both put our hands on his head and ears, our fingers grazing each other’s as we do. Paul’s quiet.
“Did you hear anything else from the detectives?” I’m careful with my words, not quite sure if we are even safe to talk about them, but I know their visit and new presence in our lives is one of the herd of elephants taking up space in our beige living room.
“I’m handling it. Don’t worry. They won’t be a problem. Just keep doing everything you normally do. Go to work, go to spin class, walk the dog. If we don’t do anything out of the ordinary, there’s no reason for them to keep on us.” His tone is clipped, and luckily he’s too distracted to take notice when I tense up at the mention of work. I’ll need to keep a semblance of routine and normalcy, not just for the cops but for him as well.
As an afterthought he adds, “Take it easy with the pain meds, Madoo. I need you sharp right now.”
I try not to show my hurt. He rarely acknowledges my pill use, but when he does it reminds me that maybe I’m not as successful at hiding my secrets as I think I am. I fight not to point out that neither is he.
“Anything else happen today?” The words float out of my mouth separate from the rest of me, who is watching us sitting on our couch, with our dog and our lies resting comfortably between us. He looks at me strangely and I straighten. Fuck, I need to act normal.
“You okay, Madoo? How was your day? Work good?”
“Aw, I’m fine. Work was the same old. I’m just tired.” I pick up the unintentional thread. “Actually, I think I’m coming down with something. I may stay home from work if I feel this way tomorrow.”
“Oh, babe. You should have said so. Get into bed. I’ll whip something up for you. Tomato soup and grilled cheese?” His routine sweetness puts me on alert, which is silly since he’s taken care of me the same wonderful way when I’ve been sick hundreds of times before. He’s just being himself. Or he’s been acting this whole time. I feel so twisted in my doubt.
“I’m really okay. Actually, I’d love to get some delivery, curl up on the couch, and watch a movie.”
“Sounds perfect.” I see a microhesitation pass through him. “Though, I need a shower. It has been a long day and I’m ripe.”
I study his face and see that he’s got a tiny bit of shaving cream and a fresh nick just south of his earlobe. His hair is damp and he smells like the body wash he uses at his gym. His suit looks fresh off the hanger. I move to the kitchen so that I can watch him from afar. I see you, Paul.
I return and hand him a glass of wine to justify my move from the couch, which he takes appreciatively.
“Go take a shower and relax. I’ll order some food. It’s your turn to pick something to watch.”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem, I don’t know, a little off? I know the last couple of days have been stressful. But we’ll get through it. We always do.” I see how carefully he’s saying this, hoping against hope that I don’t want to have a big conversation right now.
“I’m fine. I’m exhausted too; work was a slog today.” How easily we both lie. I hear the confident words coming out of my mouth so convincingly that I almost believe them myself. He smiles and nods and runs his hands through his hair. He reaches into his inside jacket pocket for his phone and looks at it. His brow furrows and something dark crosses his face. He recovers when he sees me watching him.
“Everything okay?”
“Yeah. Totally. Just Wes.” He’s distracted as he looks back down at the screen and swipes. In a flash his back is to me as he heads toward the bedroom.
As soon as he gets into the shower, I look through his bag for clues about his weekend away. Everything looks standard, down to the bathing suit and sunblock. Everything except for the red bandanna, which I quickly untie to confirm what I already suspected. The gun that Paul claimed he’d gotten rid of is heavy in my hand. I wonder why Paul needs to bring a handgun on a weekend trip, especially one that involved airport security. I put the gun back in his luggage and head to the bedroom, hoping I still have time to get into his phone.
His phone isn’t in his suit jacket hanging on the back of the door. And it is not in any of the other usual places. I feel anxious about time. I get on hands and knees to see if it has fallen under the bed, when it occurs to me that he’s taken it into the bathroom with him.
The bathroom door is open a crack and I hear him singing behind the curtain. I push the door open farther and through the steam can see it sitting on the counter. Before I can grab it he peeks out from behind the curtain and sees me in the mirror watching from the doorway. He grins. “Naughty girl.”
Be playful. He doesn’t know anything. I fuck him with my eyes for a few seconds and flash him before I pivot and beeline for the living room. I pull the MacBook from his laptop bag and open it quickly. In the search history, the last opened page is an article from the San Francisco Chronicle about a scuba-diving accident in Jamaica. I copy the link, email it to myself from Paul’s account, and then delete the email from his sent and trash folders. I scan his emails but don’t see anything out of the ordinary. I click on his IP address and jot the info I need into my phone.
“Madoo?” My heart is in my throat as I power down his computer and shove it back into his bag. “Can you please come here for a minute? I need to talk to you.” He’s out of the shower. I hear the tone in his voice and know it well. It is the sound of him wanting me naked and facedown. It has been a long time since I’ve heard this particular voice, and I’m surprised. I dread what he might do to me but am too scared to refuse. I unzip my dress on the walk to our room.
His phone is on his bedside table in my sightline. As his warm hands grip my hips tightly, he controls the rhythm. I look at him over my shoulder so he doesn’t think I’m distracted, but his eyes are closed. He is too consumed in his own imagination to even notice that I’m barely there as well. I can’t look away from the screen of his phone exploding with text messages, too far out of range to see who they are from or what they say, but close enough that I can see them flooding in one after another.
* * *
I WAKE, feeling like my head is full of seawater and sand. I kept falling asleep during the movie from the pills. I overdid it, and I can’t slip up like this again. I was so amped up from his phone blowing up with texts, I crushed a hydrocodone into powder and snorted it while Paul paid the delivery guy. I can’t remember what the movie was, just that it was a really old one that he remembered watching with his dad when he was alive. He is clearly thinking about his parents lately.
“You really must be feeling sick, honey. You can barely keep your eyes open and you’re all clammy. You barely ate,” he’d whispered to me as he carried me to bed. My arms were around his neck. His lifting and cradling me almost made me forget everything. Now awake, I remember immediately and feel sick. But I have important things to accomplish.
Duff and Paul are snoring beside me. I’ve already kicked off the sheets and blankets because of the collective human and canine body heat, so I’m able to roll out of bed without disrupting the tide of sheets and pillows too much. I move across the carpet soundlessly and slide his phone from his bedside into my hand. In the living room I lean against the mantel, the lone lion bookend cold against my shoulder. I put my own phone on the mantel
and dig into his first.
I’m a little surprised and relieved that he hasn’t changed his password. He must be confident of my ignorance. I look at his most recent text and it is indeed from Wes, but it is from this morning. I quickly scroll through all of his texts, unsure of what I’ll be able to access retroactively once the app is in place. I’ll be able to read his texts, emails, location, and search history from the safety of my own phone for just two hundred dollars a month. Nothing current stands out as suspicious and I have a momentary pang of doubt. Maybe I’m letting my imagination get the best of me. But the empty bank account and Paul’s increasing laundry list of lies have piled up too much to ignore his secret-keeping.
I enter “MindsEye” into the app store and it comes up immediately. I download and activate it with the log-in I created earlier. The eye icon appears on his main screen. I quickly go into the settings and click on “Hide Icon.” When I get back to his home screen the eye has disappeared.
I spook at the sight of my uplit face in the mirror. The screen in my hand is casting a severely ghostly pallor. I wait as my phone leeches all the secrets from his. This is no longer accidental and out of my control.
The eye icon on my phone shows a check mark, and barely a breath after, the phones vibrate in unison. I go directly into Paul’s text messages to suss out who was texting him during our rare instance of lovemaking earlier but find nothing except for texts from myself and Wes and no one else in the past three hours. He must have deleted them. I feel discouraged.
Just as I’m about to give up, an alert message indicating that Paul has a new email crops up. The name in the preview box is Dana. I search my brain for a “Dana” who either of us knows. I open the message on my phone, leaving his untouched. I don’t know which is more overpowering, the ire or the validation of my suspicions.
Paul,
It’s late, but I’ve been thinking about you a lot. So wonderful to see you again. I’m so glad we’ve reconnected. I’ve thought of you often.
