by Annie Jocoby
“Lots of practice. You have to remember, I hung out with druggies and dealers for quite a few years in my early days. You have to be handy with a weapon when you’re hanging with that crowd. Now, this is your very first time trying to target shoot, so you’re just going to have to be patient with yourself.”
Then he got behind me. “Here, you have to have the right stance. Feet shoulder-width apart. Now lean forward, and close your left eye. Concentrate. Now squeeze the trigger.”
I did, and the bullets landed on the cardboard cut-out, still missing the figure entirely.
“That’s better, beautiful. Keep practicing.”
We practiced at the target range the entire day. Ryan was very handy with his gun, and, by the end of the day, I at least was shooting the figures about 50% of the time. I never did hit a bulls-eye, but Ryan was feeling more confident about my abilities by the end of the day.
The next step was getting a concealed carry permit. I first had to complete a firearms safety training course, which was a two-week expedited course that I would be attending for an hour a day. I completed that course, and made an application to the state. I received my certificate to carry, so I was able to carry my pistol with me everywhere I went. Through it all, Ryan and I went to the target range every day for two hours after he got off work, and, by the end of the two weeks, I was hitting the figures up to 75% of the time.
Ryan also got a concealed carry permit, and he also committed to packing 24 hours a day. He had already passed his safety training course, so he didn’t have to do it again.
Meanwhile, Dalilah was amazing me more and more. She was learning new words every single day. She was parroting different words that she heard, and she appeared to have some type of cognizance about what they meant. Nat came in handy, actually, as she watched Dalilah while Ryan and I were busy at the target range. Ryan appeared to be surprised by Dalilah's progress, as well, but he was quite a bit less shocked than myself. He wouldn’t ever tell me that he, himself, was a prodigy, of course.
“Dalilah is going to be a handful to raise. At least, for me. She’s going to have more knowledge than me before she’s five years old, at this rate,” I said.
“Don’t be silly, beautiful. Dalilah is extremely intelligent, of course, but so are you.”
Yes, but she’s a genius, and she gets that from you, not me.
This was also a stressful time. I was constantly looking over my shoulder, and Ryan was with me all the time, except when he was working. When he was working, I had to say that I was grateful for Nat’s company. I don’t think that she was exactly handy with a gun, but I still felt a little bit protected. Just having somebody else around the house who was an adult was helpful for me. Never mind the fact that this particular adult was in love with my husband, and probably, secretly, wanted to off me herself. But Nat and I always got along, so it was kinda fun having her around. And, Nat was right – the house did look gorgeous now that we had all of our furniture in there. It was exactly like I had pictured it would be, so both Nat and I were much more comfortable in the house.
We were like sister wives, except that she never actually got to have sex with the husband.
I was the only one who did that.
And I did that often. My sex life with Ryan was going gangbusters. We were apart for so long, and, for so long, I was not able to be intimate with him at all. But, once I broke down the barriers in the Porsche that day, we pretty much had been going at it ever since. We made up for lost time, making love for hours every evening while Dalilah slept in the next room. I had the baby monitor on at all times, of course, and there were times that I to interrupt the fun to attend to her, but it really wasn’t a problem. We couldn’t get enough of each other. We were like an addiction for each other.
I didn’t know what Nat thought about it all. She had moved into the lower level when I arrived, and she hung out there, watching television and tending to her son while Ryan and I were in our bedroom, making love for hours on end. This was an odd situation, of course, and I wondered when, or if, she would just give up and return to her life in New York with Nate and her job at Goldman Sachs.
Chapter Fifty-Three
I might have been, once again, marked for death, but life had to go on.
And go on, it did.
We had dinner with Nick and Alexis one night, meeting at a steak house for dinner, with plans to have drinks afterwards. I actually hired a sitter for that particular occasion, not expecting Nat to watch Dalilah. I didn’t really know how to explain how a child who was less than six months old was stringing together words. I figured that I should probably just tell the sitter beforehand.
“Mama and daddy go out?” Dalilah asked, watching us getting ready for our dinner.
“Yes, baby, mama and daddy are going out.” I was feeling a pang leaving her with a strange person. This would be the first time that I would be leaving her with somebody unfamiliar. I had actually found Janelle through a nanny service, so I felt comforted knowing that I wasn’t leaving Dalilah with some punk teenager who didn’t know what the hell was going on. I was that punk teenager once, but that particular gig ended when the ladies for whom I babysat came home too drunk to take me home, and I ended up being driven home by one of the random guys they picked up at the bar. Once my mom found about that, it was all she wrote. All she fucking wrote. Still, that was one of my favorite jobs – I put the kids to sleep around 9, and read Sweet Valley High books for the rest of the evening.
Talk about easy money.
But Dalilah would be much more challenging than that.
Her green eyes got big. As she grew, she resembled Ryan more and more. I really didn’t see me in her all that much, although Ryan disagreed. “She looks just like you when she crinkles up her nose. You do that all the time,” he said.
“NO,” she said. “You stay here.”
“Now, Dalilah, mama and daddy are going to see Uncle Nick and Aunt Alexis. You remember Uncle Nick, now, don’t you?”
She made a face, but sat down in her play pen and played with her Etch-A-Sketch. She was learning how to work the controls pretty well, and she was creating little houses, flowers and animals with it.
The baby-sitter, Janelle, arrived at 6:30. “Oh, what a beautiful little girl,” she said, rushing to the playpen. “How old is she again?”
“Around six months,” I said.
At that, Dalilah said, looking right at Janelle, “Mama and daddy go out. You watch me?”
Janelle got an astounded look on her face.
“Yeah, about that,” Ryan said. “Our daughter is special. Here,” he said, giving Janelle some basic books. “These will keep her occupied for awhile.”
“She reads?”
“Yes,” I said. “Just basic books, like Goodnight Moon, but, yes, she can read a little.”
“Special, indeed,” Janelle said.
We both said goodbye to little Dalilah, then got into Ryan’s Porsche. We hadn’t actually taken this car in quite a while, traveling only in the Escalade, as it was very rare that we went anywhere without Dalilah. The exception to this, of course, was the target practice. This was continuing apace, and I was now able to hit the figures most of the time. But, even then, we took the Escalade. Not really sure why, that was just how it worked out.
We got to the restaurant, and Nick and Alexis were already there. They had apparently both been drinking for awhile. Nick stood up, and hugged and kissed Ryan on the cheek, then playfully punched my shoulder. “I’m so glad you guys could make it,” he said.
“Us, too,” Ryan said. “It’s nice to get out of the house for some fun for once. You know how it is when you have a baby at home.”
“Been there, done that, not doing it again,” Nick said. “Right, Alexis?”
Alexis didn’t say anything, just sipped her Cosmo.
“So, what’s new?” Ryan asked, peering over the menu. He had his arm around me, and was absent-mindedly rubbing my neck while he spoke.
&nb
sp; “Well, you aren’t going to believe this, but…” Nick began.
“We found a guy,” Alexis said. “We’re Hamptoning with him.”
“What? You got somebody living with you two?” Ryan asked.
“Well, he doesn’t actually live with us,” Nick said. “He’s married. But he goes on a lot of business trips,” Nick said, air-quoting the words ‘business trips,’ “and he hangs out with us.”
Alexis nodded. “His name is David. You should meet him sometime.”
Ryan said nothing, just cocked a single eyebrow at Nick. “Looks like we better start drinking to catch up to you two. I have a feeling this is going to be a Daniel night.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “I’m still breast-feeding, remember? I’m not going to drink.”
“Ok, then,” Ryan said. “Bring on the scotch.” At that, he signaled the waiter and ordered himself a Dewar’s rocks and a sparkling water for me. I was off all caffeine and most sugar, as well, so I was always restricting myself to some kind of water.
“Now, tell me more about David,” Ryan said. “And when did you two start getting into that?”
“You’re jealous,” Alexis said.
And, indeed, it seemed that Ryan was jealous. I wondered if he secretly wished that he could go back to that kind of carefree lifestyle, fooling around with Nick and Alexis both. Ryan had, to my knowledge, not had any kind of intimate contact with Nick since I met him, even though I told him that I would be fine with it if he did. I did catch them kissing that one time, though, and felt strangely titillated by it all. Now, it seemed that Ryan was going to live vicariously through Nick and Alexis.
“David,” Nick began, “is a former male model who now is one of the leading architects at my firm. That’s where we met. Alexis and I had him over for dinner one night, and he was digging Alexis and me both. That’s where it all began.”
“Where have I been?” Ryan said.
“Raising a genius child, while trying to keep your wife alive,” Nick said. “Hey, I wanted to Hamptons with you guys, but apparently Iris isn’t too into that.”
I looked at Ryan quizzically. I didn’t know that was ever a topic of discussion.
“No, Iris isn’t into that. I’m not either these days. As you know, I only have eyes for my wife.”
I sipped my water and said nothing. But I wondered if Ryan wasn’t secretly wishing to have Nick stay with us, and do three-ways like in his college days.
“So, Iris, how are you doing?” Alexis asked me. “I’ve been meaning to call you. As you know, I’ve been through similar experiences.”
I knew that. She went through similar experiences with Ryan’s father, who raped her when she was young. And she knows all about drug addiction, too. But I don’t think that she had to go through losing her mind because Ryan impregnated another woman, then living with that other woman once she returned home.
I had to admit, if nothing else, my life was unique.
“I’m doing as well as could possibly be expected,” I said. “On the upside, I’ve got a truly wonderful husband and baby girl. On the downside, I have a crazy guy who wants to kill me,” I said, patting the pistol in my purse. “I guess it all balances out to neutral. Really great stuff, really bad stuff – they cancel each other out.”
“Ryan said something about that. So, your rapist wants to kill you?” Alexis inquired.
“Yeah. Or so the story goes,” I said, studying the menu. “I think I’m going to get the scallops, or maybe the seared tuna. What about you, Ryan?”
“The halibut is terrific here,” he said.
Seeing Alexis’ face, which had a rather dumb-founded expression, I explained “Ryan and I try to live as normal of a life as possible. I carry my pistol with me everywhere I go, so hopefully I can protect myself if something happens. And, really, after everything I’ve been through in this past year, very little fazes me anymore.”
“That’s a good attitude to have, I guess,” Alexis said. “And you really have to be able to roll with the punches when you’re married to Ryan. I knew that well myself.”
I nodded.
“How is Dalilah?” Nick asked.
“Dalilah is a Gallagher,” Ryan said.
“Meaning?”
“She’s a prodigy. She’s already stringing together words, reading rudimentary books, and drawing pictures on her Etch-A-Sketch and on the papers we give her.”
Alexis looked down, tears in her eyes. “Sounds like Mia,” she said.
Ryan looked sad, too, putting his hand on her hands.
I looked at Ryan. He never once mentioned that Mia was also a genius. He looked at his Scotch and said nothing.
Alexis was apparently drinking heavily, as she looked at Nick, then slapped him across the face. “You’re a fucking bastard,” she said.
“What the hell?” he asked.
“Been there, done that, not doing it again,” she mocked him.
Nick said nothing, just turned to his drink, then started talking to us while Alexis glared at him. “Anyhow, so Dalilah is a genius, huh? Sounds like her father and aunt.”
Alexis looked like she was about to haul off and hit him. Ryan and I just looked at her in mystification.
Then she stormed off without a word.
Nick rolled his eyes. “I'm remembering now why Alexis and I never really have gotten together before. She's fun in small doses, but, Christ, how did you put up with her all those years?”
“She on her meds?” Ryan asked.
“I have no idea. She's been acting strangely, really, ever since I told her that I'm going to go in for a snip and clip. She wants another baby. I don't.”
“Why are you going to get a vasectomy?” Ryan asked.
“I have my kids. Granted, Rielle hasn't been too generous in letting me see them, but they're around, and they're enough for me. The O'Hara name will continue, and that's what counts,” Nick said. “I can't go home tonight. I pretty much have to let Hurricane Alexis blow over. Do you mind if I crash with you guys tonight?”
Hmmm...maybe we can pawn him off on Nat?
Ryan looked at me skeptically. “Do you mind, beautiful?”
“Of course not. Mi casa, su casa, you know?”
We stayed at the restaurant for several hours, Ryan and Nick drinking Scotch, me drinking water. When we got home, I headed up to bed, after putting Dalilah down for the night. Ryan and Nick stayed up, talking in the living room. The baby monitor was on in Dalilah's room, but it also was on in the living room. I guess Ryan wasn't aware of this. So, I eavesdropped on their conversation.
Nick was talking. “God, you know, Ryan, I made fun of you when I met Iris. I'm starting to realize the logic in being with someone like her. Between Rielle and Alexis, I don't know who's crazier. They're hot, for sure, and well-bred, but cray-cray. I'm getting it from both sides – Rielle is constantly calling, bitching and wanting something. Then Alexis is around, bitching and wanting something. I'm fucking exhausted.”
“See, I told you Iris was special. You know, when she divorced me, I had to force her to take anything at all? Then she went out and got a job at the Whole Foods, instead of taking the money I gave her. Just goes to show how wrong my sister was.”
“What? I thought that Sarah and Iris get along?”
“They do, famously. But when I was first going to marry Iris, Sarah warned me to get a pre-nup. She thought that Iris would take me for everything. Turns out I was right – Iris wants me, not my money. And I love that about her more than anything else.”
“Yeah. Perhaps I need to get out of the incestuous barrel I've been picking from, and find somebody normal. Like Iris. Yeah, she went ape-shit for awhile, but who could blame her? That poor girl sure has gone through the mill in the past year or so.”
“And is still going through it. She puts on a brave face, but I know she's scared. I've been calling my dad every day about Andrew. Dad has his people tracking him. Andrew hasn't made a move just yet, but my dad has told me that An
drew has become extremely unhinged. He's had some kind of a psychotic break. I never tell Iris about this, though. I don't want to freak her out even more.”
“How are you holding up about it?”
“I don't show it, but I'm pretty goddamned freaked out myself. I know that I could take him, if it came to that. Andrew, before his apparent psychotic break, was cunning and ruthless. He had to be in that job. But if he's out there, acting like any other crazy person, I can outsmart him. I know crazy. I've been surrounded by crazy my entire life.”
“You can't outsmart crazy. That's the whole point. People who got nothing to lose are the most dangerous of all. And, when you're truly crazy, you don't realize that you have shit to lose. Watch your ass, there, buddy. I don't want you getting hurt.”
“He's not getting Iris. That's all I know. I would literally die for that woman.”
“I know, buddy. Wish I could find a woman that I would give my life for.”
“Let's change the subject. We've got Natalie living here. You ever think about that?”
“Nat and me? We tried that, remember?”
Good god, these people are incestuous. My head was spinning. Nick, Nat, Ryan, Alexis apparently have been on the love-go-round.
“Yeah, I know. But what can I do? She won't leave. Granted, the DNA results aren't in yet. They should be in next week. But she told me that she won't leave, even if it is proven that I'm not the father.”
“Get a restraining order, and have her arrested for trespassing. Change the locks. One thing about Natalie – she won't Alexis you. She's still a sweet girl. Misguided, but sweet. She won't go ape and stalkery if you kick her out.”
“Is it wrong that I feel badly for her? I mean, Iris has been absolutely phenomenal about Natalie being here. Believe it or not, I don't think that Iris minds her here. I don't think that Iris necessarily wants Nat to stay with us forever, but she also doesn't seem to be upset that Nat isn't leaving. But I feel sorry for Nat. She's always been like a sister to me.”
“And you've always been her great love. You gotta figure out a way to get her gone. Besides, Nat almost cost you your great love. I mean, you were in an altered state when you guys slept together. She wasn't. She took advantage of you. That should piss you off enough to get tough with her.”
