The lights suddenly brighten, making me squint and duck my head into his shoulder.
“Good evening, Mr Rothburg,” a female voice says. “Do you need help?” I’m shrugged up harshly, body pushed around until I’m over his shoulder and looking at the floor.
“No,” he replies.
The floor’s moving. Why is the floor moving? I watch it moving under me, wondering if it is or I am. And then I notice his ass looking at me. His is firm, too. I reach for it, my fingers grabbing in to check out the tightness.
“Stop it.”
“No. It’s a good ass. Deserves a squeeze.”
A ping sounds, making me look up and around for whatever it is. There’s nothing there, but he starts moving under me again, long strides as his shoulder digs into my stomach. Marble floor. We must be in another bar. Good. More tequila. I liked the sticky floor, though. It was real there. This seems all stylish and high end again. I don’t like it. I want my real again, dirty and normal. People are honest there. Safe.
I’m suddenly being lifted, and before I know it something soft bounces against my back. I roll into it, letting myself sink into the fluffiness. The zip of my dress gets pulled down my spine, cold air rushing over me because of it. Then the belt gets undone, and then it’s all shrugged off me. Good, he can see the underwear I bought. Pretty. Thought Rick the dick deserved the best for his funeral. Should have worn my sports bra and jeans for all that was worth.
“Fuck,” his voice says.
“Pretty, isn’t it?” I mumble rolling onto my back. My fingers run over the black lace, inching into the top of my panties. It’s nice here. Soft and relaxed. Real. Gray’s real now. He’s here and we’re getting undressed. We should make more of our friendship. Enjoy each other. If that’s what friends do. Who knows? Maybe he can give me all the real I’m after. “Why don’t you come christen this lace for me, Gray?”
He walks backwards away from me, a smile on his face. There’s nothing funny about him moving away. But he keeps going until he’s in the doorway and switching the lights off.
Spoilsport.
***
The realisation of my situation hits me at exactly the same time as I remember hearing the sermon being delivered. It was lovely. Words of my husband being in a better place now, and that while he would be missed, he would be waiting for me one day to join him.
I roll and inch my eyes open, taking in the room around me. Expensive. Dark. And not mine. I’m not sure why I thought it would be, but I had hoped, whilst lying here, that Gray might have taken me back to mine. Obviously not. I take in the sight of my dress casually flung at a chair, my shoes beside it. I suppose I should be thankful of his gallantry. He could have done anything to me in the moment last night. The thought makes me frown and pull my knees up to my chest, self-doubt chasing across my skin. Rick was fucking other women. Maybe I’m not attractive enough for Gray to have been interested in.
The sound of silence carries on, as I let everything flash around in my mind. Insecurity, worry, a little panic. They’re all there now a new day has dawned on me and the alcohol has left. What now? I squeeze my eyes tighter closed and snuggle back into the pillow, ignoring the pounding headache. I’m not ready for what now yet. I need time to process, to think. The apartment isn’t even unpacked, and all his things are still there waiting for me. I haven’t got anyone to send them to. Goodwill maybe. All of it. Or the trash. I can’t … I don’t know what to do. I’m alone and everything I was is now a wreck of memories that have nothing to do with reality.
Drink. I want a drink.
Tequila again.
That’ll work for a while longer yet. It’ll give me something to nullify the inevitable. I can get lost in it like addicts do, find solace in the never ending abyss that lies in the bottle. I rise slowly at that thought, feet gently landing on the cream carpet. They hurt, tingles cross the pads of my soles. I lift them to look at why. They’re black underneath, filthy with grime and dirt and small cuts. Oh god, what the hell did I do last night? At least I remember Gray. A little hard to forget my adulterous dead husband’s boss. Or bosses, bosses boss. Or the fact that it was him drinking with me.
Lots of drink.
My hands plant on the bed as I stare at my bare feet and remember the funeral. There wasn’t that many people. Dozen or so. I suppose that’s what happens when you’ve lived in as many places as we have, barely making friends while you were there. Hardly anyone flew here. It makes me wonder if the same would happen if I died. No real friends other than a few I could pick the phone up to, but both of them are now in Vancouver. Oh god, Gemma and Graham.
I hobble over to my bag, digging my phone out. Four missed calls and several texts. All of them with Gemma’s name attached to them. A groan falls from me as I wander to the other side of the room and peek behind a door to see if it’s a bathroom. It is, so I get about tidying myself up. Time to get out of here and back to my own apartment. Not that it is mine, but Gray was right last night. The lease is long on it, already paid for. I have time to work out what to do. Time to drink and forget.
A while later and I walk out of the bathroom and reach for my dress. It stinks of cigarettes and booze. I shrug into it regardless and slip my feet into the heels, quickly sending Gemma a text to tell her I’m alive and well. I check the time. Ten in the morning. She’s probably flying back home now with Graham. They were only in for the day and night. I sniff up a remnant of feeling despondent about that and slip the phone back into my bag. I’ll probably never see her again anyway. What was once close is now far away and unreachable, and what was once considered friendship is now nothing but a memory.
Two more minutes straightening off the bed and I head out into the unknown. The place is huge, all of it shrieking of money and glamour. Black marble floor. Complementing woodwork and fabrics, all of them as opulent as the marble under my feet. I move gingerly, as if trespassing on unknown land, and look over the paintings and sculptures around what seems to be a lounge area. They’re all as moody as him. Dark frames, dark content, dark forms made of steel or bronze maybe. Perfect. For him anyway. It’s all perfect and neatly placed and shiny. It’s completely silent, though. No sense of life or movement.
I look out of the large art deco window, eyes casting down the tower of stories below us. Traffic rumbles by down there, all the yellow cabs cluttering up the roads. I end up leaning my aching head on the cool glass, just staring as if some sense of direction will suddenly present itself. It won’t, but a few more minutes up here, taking in the view and thinking about anything but my reality, is soothing. Not my normal. Not what was perfect but is now a lie.
“Mrs Tanner?” I jump at the sound of a woman’s voice, head pushing me back away from the window. An older lady stands there in a black dress, a white apron around her waist. “Mr Rothburg has already left, but he said you were welcome to breakfast. Can I get you something? Coffee, Tea?”
“Oh, no. Thank you, though. I’ll be on my way.”
“Of course, Mrs Tanner,” she says, leading me somewhere. I follow, glancing around the rooms as we go. Every single thing is as immaculate as the lounge I was in. And it keeps going, more dark walls complementing more equally dark paintings. My arms go around me, fingers gripping in to remind me that whatever last night was it’s not my life. Neither is this elegant home.
“Did he leave a message for me at all?” I ask.
“No Mam. Would you like me to tell him anything for you?” the woman replies.
I look around the large foyer we’ve arrived in, noting the large vase of white lilies dominating the dark centre table. Is there anything I want to say to him? “I … I don’t think so. No. Thank you, though.”
“You’re welcome Mrs Tanner,” she says, pressing a button on the wall.
The elevator slides open seamlessly, no noise accompanying it. It isn’t until I walk in, press the button to descend, and the doors close that I realise a thank you might have been a good message to leave. He did lo
ok after me after all. Not that I can remember a great deal about the night. Embarrassment floods me at the thought of conversations I can neither remember nor drag from the depths of my brain. Maybe I don’t want to remember. It’s not like anything good happened yesterday. I buried my husband, and then found out he was an adulterer. And then, to build on that horrendous situation, I went off with a man I don’t know to get drunk, as if that would make matters better, and probably said a million things I shouldn’t have said.
The lobby looks familiar, as I walk out. Extremely. Mainly because it’s the same one I’ve been using since we got here. I glance around, making sure, and then look upwards, suddenly realising he lives at the top of our building. His building, I presume. Okay. Right. Stupid. I turn and head back into the elevator, pressing the button for the eighth floor, and wait for it to take me back up.
The corridor looks just as familiar as I walk into it and wander along, but it doesn’t feel familiar anymore. Everything about it is now a lie. The way Rick and I joked that night before going out. The way he was all over me, as if we were some loving couple. The way I cried at the opera, thinking of him by my side on our anniversary, grieving the night away. The only thing that’s real about it is the footsteps I’m taking now with the realisation of his affairs firmly in my mind.
I open the door and hover in the entrance way, taking in the boxes still piled up at the side of the room. Our things. Things I thought I’d be able to arrange so that this space would become our home. I would have been oblivious to his adultery then. I would have made a home, possibly made babies, and been here for him each morning and night like I’ve always been.
I feel the tears on my cheeks before I realise I’m crying. They trickle in their sense of grief, reminding me that I should be a wreck. I’m barren to it, though. My mind’s elsewhere, as I wander and touch pictures of us. Perhaps I’m trying to find sense in it all, find reasons for why he’d do this to me. By the time I’ve picked up each one and placed it back down, the only words running through my head are ones that came from Gray’s mouth yesterday.
“He was a prick. Most of us are.”
Foolish Hannah. Foolish, too trusting, and beaten down in the aftermath.
I stare aimlessly, keys still in my hand, and try to think about what’s next. There isn’t anything. Nothing. The thought makes me look at myself in the mirror, my fingers touching the diamond necklace around my neck. Anniversary present. Another lie. It breaks off my neck and falls to the floor as easily as my memories, the links of diamonds strewn out on the carpets as if they’re worthless. Just like me and the invention of life I’ve been living in. Maybe I should change myself, make a new me. He said that, too. Told me grieving was pointless. Hmm. Different hair for a start. Darker. I‘ve got some hair dye somewhere, my ode to possibly keeping things spicy for a man who didn’t deserve anything from me.
I kick off my heels and strip the dress and underwear from my skin, discarding both with little care to where they land. They’re nothing but another falsehood, their black colour showing a respect for death I no longer honour. I’ll shower again and cleanse myself of the day before thoroughly. Maybe then I can find a new direction, or thought process. Until then I’ll wallow and wade through the remnants of what’s left in my thoughts. Maybe drink again.
Chapter 10
Gray
T wenty minutes into the journey, and I and check my messages. Nothing of importance. Nothing to divert me from the guilt of last night either. I sigh and lean my head back for a few moments, eyes staring out at the countryside around me as it goes by. Rolling fields of heather and wild flowers pass by, the expanse of them diluting the reason they’re here. It’s done now, though. Four hours of memories. Some time to think and talk. There’s usually nothing else on a day like this, but today there is. Today has become filled with thoughts of yesterday and laughter, of last night and the feel of a woman. Hannah Tanner. What a fucking name. She should have not married Richard Tanner for that reason alone, let alone the fact that he was a cheating fuck.
The roads end up passing around me without me thinking about them. I don’t have to anymore. They’ve become so familiar I barely acknowledge them each time I’m driven here. The scent from the flowers still fills the car. Always does. Subtle notes reminding me of times past. Hannah didn’t smell like them. She smelt of something stronger, more potent. A half-hearted chuckle comes out of me as I remember her. Curse words and all that determination coming from her mouth. She meant them all last night. She talked of getting on with her life, of finding real and living it. Men fucking? That seemed high on her list of seeing reality. It’s something I could show her, something I could offer.
We pull out onto the open freeway, leaving the fields and heading for something more concrete instead, and I mull the thought of her around in my mind. Taking an outsider in would be rash. She’s not one of them, won’t be able to consider it rational either. I’m not even sure it is rational. It has just become my rational sometimes.
I smile at the thought, amused at the idea of fresh blood in there and his response to it. It’s not the right thing to do, though. The right thing to do would be to leave her alone so she can manage her life without her husband in it anymore. She’ll grieve, and then grieve some more, and eventually she’ll pull herself out of the squalor she’ll rest in for a while.
My smile drops from my face, a frown covering it. The thought of that squalor annoys the hell out of me for some reason. She doesn’t deserve to linger in it.
She did nothing to deserve it.
An hour later and the car pulls into the underground parking. Tom cuts the engine and looks back at me. “Anywhere else you need to be today, Sir?” No.
I shake my head, trying to stop my mind warring with itself about right and wrong before I get out. It’s been a long time since I considered something other than my normal, though, and while the singularity I’ve been in has been both calming and reassuring in ways, it’s also been desolate.
“Sir?” Tom looks at me again, his head tilted as if asking why I’m still idling in the back of this car. I know the feeling. I don’t know why either. I should be in the lab by now, researching. Instead, I’m here considering something I shouldn’t be considering at all.
Words grumble beneath my breath, words I don’t even comprehend, as I get out and slam the damn door. I’m into the elevator and getting my card out before I think anymore. I need to get a grip of reality, remember who I am and what my point on this planet is these days. The thought doesn’t seem to stop my eyes looking at the eighth floor button, though. It’s tempting. She is.
I flip my card in my hand, holding it back from going into the penthouse slot, and check the time. Eight pm. It’s not too late, and I would just be checking on her after last night. I frown again and look at myself in the mirror. I’m not checking in on her at all and I know it. I’m thinking about what it would be like to fuck her. And not only am I thinking about that, but I’m thinking about taking her somewhere I haven’t been for a long time so I can entertain myself with that thought.
Regardless of the stupidity, I’m pressing the eighth floor button before I realise I’m doing it. The cart moves quickly, both doors sliding open within a minute. I stand on the precipice and frown, partly amused at the notion that that is exactly what it is. This would be a step outside comfort zones I’ve kept harsh and delineated to rationalise the behaviour. And now I’m thinking of a woman with a particular interest in mind, one who might tempt me into being more than just a wealthy recluse that goes out occasionally. It’s still beyond me why I even went to that damn wake in the first place.
My card knocks against my hand as I hover here, my gaze directed at the fourth door on the left. That’s where she is. Without a husband. And without a clear path forward. I flick my gaze to my shoes, wondering what sort of clear path I could offer her. My life is less clear than most, and with no hope of anything lasting for her either. Whatever I show her, or get into with
her, will have a time limit that I’ll draw down when I’m done with her. No connection. No love or sense of happiness. It will only be an awakening for her, a new direction.
Or a diversion from this lie she’s been in.
I walk forwards slowly, still tapping my card on my hand in thought. Each steps becomes more laboured, as is the direction I’m playing with. Right or wrong. She’ll just be a plaything. Nothing more than that. Something to perhaps divert me as much as her. I should be honest about that. Make sure she sees nothing other than the reality of the circumstance.
Two sharp knocks before I change my mind and I wait. No one answers. Probably best. I nod at the floor and start turning back for the elevator, accepting the facts. The door creaks open the second I do, just her head and slicked back hair coming out of it sideways. She looks me over from head to toe, less than no reaction in her features, and then goes back inside leaving the door open.
I turn back slowly and ease the door wider, instantly noticing clothes discarded on the floor beneath my feet. “Are you dressed?” I call, looking around at more scattered items and clothes.
“Maybe,” comes back at me. “Or maybe not. Do you mind?” A smile tips my lips.
“Not necessarily.”
I walk further in and find her on the couch, a glass of red wine in her hand and a nearly empty bottle on the side table. Silence for a minute, as I look around, taking in the apartment. It’s cluttered with empty packaging discarded about, a few pieces of artwork and photos lying around.
“Drink?” she asks. I turn back to look at her, taking in the near sheer black dressing robe she’s wearing first, and then I notice the hair. Not wet, just darker than the blonde she was. “There’s some in the wine rack in the kitchen.”
A Distraction of Lies Page 6
