Dead to Her

by Sarah Pinborough

  She’d gone to the restroom, queasy once more, and sent various texts to various people, cries for help wrapped in laughter, but no one had answered. When they’d gotten home, she’d napped for an hour, the house finally mercifully silent and pristine, and when she came downstairs, her head calmer and less noisy, too tired for fear, she found William asleep in his study. The day had exhausted him too.

  Zelda was absent; maybe William had given her the evening off, not wanting any more histrionics in front of the staff, and so Keisha made dinner, mashing the potatoes rich with cream and butter and frying some steak and large shrimp with a token gesture of a side salad. Food to break a heart, just as he liked it.

  When it was ready, she woke him and even though they ate in relative silence, she thought perhaps he was calming down. “I’m sorry about this morning,” she said. “I know I overreacted. It was that ball of mud or whatever, something about it reminded me of Auntie Ayo. I never told you but she’s into some—”

  “Your aunt isn’t here.” William cut her off. “And it was nothing to do with her.”

  He reached into his pants pocket and pulled out the tightly bound plastic bag of pills that had been hidden away upstairs in her Tampax box, where she thought he’d never find them. He placed it carefully on the dining table between them. “I knew you were taking something. I’m not a fool.”

  She grabbed for the bag, but he was too fast, repocketing it. “It stops now.”

  “You don’t understand,” she started softly, scared and desperate. “I’ve always . . . I have some problems. I need . . . It’s not to get high . . . It’s . . .”

  “I won’t be married to a pill-popping lush,” he said. “You have to straighten up. No more day drinking unless you’re with me and then only two glasses. I’ll get you some therapy. Whatever you need. But no more pills. No more incidents like this morning.” He stared at her and it dawned on her that he meant the look to be affectionate, but all she could see was control. Irritation. A man who’d decided he was in love and was determined to stick to it. “London is gone,” he continued. “None of that exists here. I want you to be happy, Keisha. You’ve come from nothing and I’ve given you everything. Don’t let me down.”

  His sentences were guillotine blows and the bottom fell out of her world. Happy? How could she explain what it would take to make her happy? How could she explain that she needed those pills? She couldn’t control herself without them. Anything could happen. She could do anything and that terrified her.

  “Eat your food,” he said, nodding at her plate. “It will make you feel better. And let’s say no more about it.”

  Say no more about it. Out of sight, out of mind. Maybe that worked when you were the one calling the shots. The one who’d been born with so much money the world was presented as a play toy. She scooped a forkful of potato into her mouth and tried to ignore the way it clung to her dry throat. Maybe he’d give them back to her later. Maybe he’d ration them when he realized she needed them. She could cut down on the drinking, she could do that, but she couldn’t do without the pills. Another wave of nausea washed over her, leaving her unsteady.

  She was meek and humble as best she could be but he still flushed the pills down the toilet and still the sex was rough—purposefully rough, as if he was making a point rather than losing himself in the moment—and it went on and on, becoming a wearing trial for the both of them, slaves to his Viagra.

  Afterward, while he snored, exhausted and lying in his sweat-soaked sheets, she wondered again how much hate there was in this new marriage. She hated him, that was for sure. She could barely hide that now, how would she cope without chemical help? She snuck out into the gloom as had become her habit, the night her only friend, the safety of it worth her nervousness about what spirits might emerge from the shadows, and poured herself a large brandy from his cabinet, sure that he’d have checked the level on the half-full wine bottle left from dinner. The ants in her head were starting to emerge from where they’d been sleeping in their nests and soon they’d be pouring free.

  She made a call but there was no answer. No answers to any of her earlier texts either. Alone. She was entirely alone. It was a dizzying feeling, as if she were already dead and forgotten. She poured another drink and headed out to the garden, unable to breathe in the house that stank of William and cloying cut flowers and where all she could hear was the ghostly thud of the conjure ball on the stairs, Eleanor watching it fall from her place on the wall where she hung frozen in time.

  Outside, at least the air was fresh, if still, and she could walk on the grass and pretend she had the strength to run far, far away from all of this and be free. This situation could not continue. Something had to break and she was afraid it was going to be her, snapped in half by her own greed. The shell she’d built around her crazy mind was cracking. They’d all see her for who she was soon enough—cursed. A wife to be kept in the attic not out on display.

  Up in Zelda’s apartment a candle burned in the window, only darkness beyond. The flame flickered yellow and orange and white and Keisha’s heart burned as angry as that flame. This was Zelda’s doing, she knew it. The conjure ball. The silver coins. Even the old lady, this was all down to Zelda. Maybe she had seen her at the crazy rave. What had been in that drink, other than probably some MDMA? Had all this started then with a potion slipped inside her? Zelda wanted Keisha gone. She wanted her destroyed.

  She stood beneath the window, her glass in hand, swaying in the darkness as a black rage gripped her. “I know what you’re doing!” she shouted up. “I know how this works!” She laughed then, a surprise even to her, a burst of energy fused from fear and exhaustion. “You can’t curse a cursed girl though, so more fool you, Zelda!” Tears pricked the back of her eyes. “More fool you,” she repeated, more quietly.

  The window didn’t open and no one shouted at her to shut up. Instead, after a few long moments, the candle went out. No shadow of movement, no hint of a figure leaning forward to blow the fire cold, it just went out.

  As if someone had willed it.

  36.

  Despite Marcie’s determination to get her life back on track with Jason—to turn a blind eye to his lies and secrets for the sake of her own fabulous future position in the world—she was finding it hard. She was walking on eggshells around him again, but at least this time she knew it wasn’t anything to do with her, or Jacquie, or whoever was at the other end of those nighttime calls. All the computers at work had crashed spectacularly, losing all sorts of client information and files, and it was a clusterfuck, which was the closest to an actual explanation she could get out of him. A server meltdown or something. Whatever it was, it sounded serious and could slow down the audit, which in turn would slow down the buyout and the Maddoxes’ rise up the social ladder.

  The unwelcome accidental reminder of her past on Sunday, and then the invitation to the Magnolia lunch yesterday, had made her take stock. She didn’t really want her freedom. It had just been excitement that was missing, and as far as she could tell, Jason taking over the partnership and her new role in the city would give her that, even if their love had soured. His return to moodiness with this computer business wasn’t helping. It was hard to like him when he was being this way.

  At least he was barely home. He’d been at the office until late last night, and this morning he was up and gone before seven, leaving her alone in their vast bed. He hadn’t even tried to have sex with her, although she’d found she didn’t mind that so much anymore. Maybe polite separate lives was the way forward for now, even if it did feel empty. With Keisha, it had been so different.

  Keisha, Keisha, Keisha. Always somewhere in her head despite Marcie’s resolve to banish her. She waited for the coffee machine to finish its gurgles and hisses and then poured a large cup. Keisha. Marcie hadn’t answered any of her recent texts. There was a neediness in them that unnerved her. Her moods changed too fast, and although Marcie was concerned about her, she also knew Keisha was unreliable
. It was best for both of them to end it. It might level Keisha out too. Most important in Marcie’s thinking, however, was that Keisha couldn’t be trusted not to screw everything up, and after the whole coolant situation, all Marcie wanted to do was cocoon up with Jason—her flawed and secretive husband—and then emerge as a beautiful and brilliant social butterfly when the buyout was done. Keisha had been a reminder of how she herself had once been, wild, crazy, and fearless, but that girl was no more. She had no place here.

  Maybe they wouldn’t even see the Radfords so much once William retired. That would be better. That would definitely make things easier. She was feeling strong. She could live without love if she had to, for the sake of wealth and power. Marcie hated seeing the young woman so fragile, and she knew that it was partly her fault, but wasn’t this cruel-to-be-kind approach the best way to move her forward fast?

  The doorbell cut through the quiet and made her jump, the noise as oversized as the house, and tightening her robe around her waist she padded out to the hallway, irritated at being disturbed at the ungodly hour of eight thirty in the morning. No one called on anyone before at least ten unless prearranged, that was the rule of polite society. She pulled open the door ready to snootily send whoever it was away, but her breath caught in her chest.

  Keisha. Keisha was here on her doorstep. Like Marcie’s thoughts had summoned her.

  “You look like shit.” It was the truth. Keisha looked awful. What the hell was going on with her now?

  “I can’t think straight. I can’t sleep.” She had no makeup on and she twitched as she picked at the skin of her bottom lip. Marcie had seen this kind of twitching before, back when she was a kid, and sometimes down at the Mission, but never around here. Not in this perfect part of town.

  “My brain won’t work without Valium,” Keisha said. “I don’t know what to do.” She looked up, desperate. “Have you got some? Can you get me some?”

  Marcie stared at her, this beautiful, childlike, damaged woman on her doorstep, this moth that lived hidden beneath the dazzling painted-on butterfly colors. This fascinating wreck of a human being. “You’d better come in.” What else could she say? She needed this thing between them to end but she had to manage her. Keisha in this state could say anything to anyone. And the last thing she needed was the new neighbors seeing this display on her doorstep. “Like, now.”

  “Do you think someone can be cursed?” Keisha’s eyes darted around the kitchen as Marcie put a cup of coffee beside her on the breakfast table. “Properly cursed? Like black magic cursed?” Coffee was probably the last thing Keisha needed, Marcie thought as the young woman pulled her knees up under her chin and tugged at a loose strand of hair, a nervous tic. “There was a boy once,” Keisha continued, softly muttering. “And then there wasn’t. I should never have seen the boy. Maybe he was never there. The next time I saw him he was gone.”

  “Is this that ghost business again?” Marcie said. “I told you Keisha, there are no ghosts.”

  “Cursed KeKe, that’s what my auntie called me. They said I was crazy. They said he’d never been there. A ghost boy. But I couldn’t unsee him.”

  “You’re scaring me Keisha,” Marcie said, and it was true.

  “I scare me,” Keisha whispered back, holding her hand. “You can’t run from a curse. It always finds you, that’s what Auntie Ayo says. It’s found me and I don’t know what to do.” She leaned forward. “I’m wicked, Marcie. In my blood.”

  “Okay, enough of this.” Marcie took both of Keisha’s hands and hauled her to her feet. “There’s no such thing as curses, and I know what wicked is, and you’re not it. We do, though, need to get you straightened out. Come on. Upstairs. I think there’s some Xanax somewhere Jason uses when he has to fly. You can have that.”

  “Is it as good as Valium?”

  “It’ll be better than going cold turkey like this.” Keisha’s hand was corpse-cold in hers. “I don’t know what William was thinking.”

  “He hates me.”

  “No he doesn’t. He loves you.” Love might be way too strong a word for whatever William felt toward his second wife, Marcie thought as she gave Keisha a tablet to dry swallow and started the shower, but he did own her.

  “I could just tell him. About us.” Keisha looked at her, hopeful. “Pull the Band-Aid off fast or whatever. I bet he’d still give me some money just to take my scandal and disappear. It would probably be enough to have a nice life. Away from all this.”

  Marcie stared at her. “I like all this,” she said, colder. Fear would always suffocate love or lust and Marcie was filled with dread that Keisha was going to open her big junkie mouth and wreck everything just as she was on the cusp of being respected, of having some social power of her own. “I love my husband. I told you. And there’s nothing to tell. I’d deny it all.”

  “Yeah, ’cause Jason’s such a catch.”

  “He may not be perfect but he’s ambitious. And safe.”

  “Nothing’s safe, Marcie.” Keisha sounded exhausted.

  “Wealth buys safety. You need to learn that. I won’t be poor again, Keisha, not even for you, and if you’re not careful you’ll end up back in the gutter and it’ll be a lot harder to climb out a second time. Get in the shower. I’ll make you some eggs. You’ll feel better when the Xanax kicks in.”

  “Don’t you love me at all?” Keisha asked, peeling off her T-shirt. Marcie stared at her, throat already drying at the sight of that smooth bare skin. What was it she felt? Lust? Definitely. Obsession, maybe. Was it love? What was love anyway? A passing madness? Not worth wrecking her future for. And how could she explain the irrational, nauseating fear she’d felt in the garage on Sunday? Jason was hiding secrets from her, but that didn’t justify her secrets from him. That whole situation was a reminder of her old life—her secrets—that she needed to pour icy water over all her newfound childish wildness.

  “You know I care about you,” she answered from the doorway. “But we have to stop. I mean it. Especially while you’re like this. I’ll be your friend, Keisha, but from now on, that’s it.”

  “I don’t believe you,” Keisha said. “You love me. I know you do. I see the way you look at me.”

  “You sound like a cliché.”

  By the time she got downstairs Marcie’s whole body was trembling. Maybe she did love Keisha a little, but she was on the brink of a breakdown. How could Marcie explain that love wasn’t enough? Life wasn’t the movies. Love never lasted forever.

  37.

  Keisha had left without eating any food and without so much as a goodbye, letting herself out before Marcie could even get to the door, but she’d taken the packet of Xanax, which was better than nothing. But when Keisha hadn’t answered any of her texts by three in the afternoon, Marcie was worried. She’d tried calling and it had rung out, unanswered. What if she had done something stupid? Gone and got blind drunk somewhere downtown? Or even hurt herself? She wasn’t thinking straight, so strung out with withdrawal, and anything could have happened.

  What had all that crazy talk been about? Curses and boys who weren’t there? Had Keisha had a baby once? Was that it? And it had been given away or something? Maybe an abortion—that could screw some people over. But it could be anything. Who knew what was really going on inside that pretty, unhinged head?

  Still, she thought as she poured herself a large gin and tonic, her concern was turning into annoyance. How hard would it be to answer a text or call? She’d given her the Xanax, hadn’t she? She may have been hard on Keisha’s emotions, but she’d helped her.

  It wasn’t only the Englishwoman who was getting her pissed. Jason was notably absent today too. She’d called and texted him and the only answer she’d had was a solitary “busy at the office, speak when home,” but if she was honest she’d half-expected that. Jason had always been self-absorbed. Keisha wasn’t. Keisha had never shown this much control when it came to Marcie. Was she not answering to punish Marcie? That was a downside of getting involved with a w
oman—there was no hiding from the games they were capable of playing. But she just wanted to know Keisha was okay. Was that too much to ask?

  Her day had drifted away in irritation and quiet internal rants at one or another of the people in her life, so when the doorbell rang again at a quarter after three she was so sure that it was Keisha that she was very nearly spitting out an expletive while yanking the door open before she realized it wasn’t her.

  William. This time it was William and he looked pissed. Oh God, had Keisha told him? For a moment it seemed as if the vast house around her turned to ash in a breeze.

  “Jason’s not here,” she mumbled, trying to catch her breath. “He’s at the office, I think.”

  “No, he’s not. No idea where he’s been today either, but that’s not my immediate concern.”

  “Either?” She held the door open to let him inside. Where the hell was Jason if he wasn’t at work? With Jacquie? An eel slithered in her stomach. Lies and more lies. William came into the hallway but no farther. His shirt was slick against him, stained with patches of sweat, which was odd given that he’d have gone from an air-conditioned house to an air-conditioned car and then just a few steps to the door. Stress? Anger? Could those things seep through his skin? The way he was huffing and puffing, she figured so. If he wasn’t careful he’d have a heart attack right where he stood. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  “Have you seen my wife?” My wife.

  “Keisha?” She has a name, she wanted to add, but frowned instead, delicately puzzled. “No, I haven’t. I mean, she popped by this morning saying she was off to sort out the final catering or something for the party and asked if I wanted to go with her.” She was going to have to send Keisha another text when William was gone to make sure their stories matched. Lies begat lies. “But I had an awful heat headache so she went on her own.” She smiled and shrugged. “She probably lost track of time. You know how she is.” She didn’t ask him if he’d tried calling her. He was gripping his cell tightly in one fat hand. It wasn’t only Marcie’s calls Keisha hadn’t been answering.