“Hmm,” she said, leaning against him, “I like. And I don’t just mean the necklace.”
Like a marionette’s handler, he took the string of gems from her fingertips and lowered it into the case.
“Where should we hide them?” she asked.
“Under your lingerie.
“First place a burglar will look.”
“He’ll think it’s cheap costume jewelry.”
“He? Why not she?”
“Because she would have sent him to steal it.”
He shifted his hands, spread his fingers across her bared belly, and hiked the sweatshirt up and over. She raised her arms to make it easier. After tossing the garment aside, he cupped her breasts inside his palms. She leaned against his chest and breathed in trembling sighs. The reflection of them in the mirror, framed like a color print, seemed pornographic to the casual eye, a moving picture starring a tedious actor and an indifferent actress going through the motions, yet aroused.
“Do we have insurance?” she asked.
“Everything’s been taken care of.”
She turned into his grasp. Dilated pupils obliterated the blue of his irises. Kendra wanted Joel. She wanted him every minute they were together. She wanted him when they were apart. She wanted him so much the palpable ache in her gut never went away.
The bed stretched a million miles away. A trail of discarded clothes tripped at her heels. As if she weighed no more than the branch of a weeping willow, Joel swept her into his arms and draped her across the sheets. Incandescent light sculpted his face, converting his ardent expression into a ghoulish mask. When he groped for the lamp and snuffed out the light, the fiendish guise dissolved behind a monochrome facade. She threw her arms above her head and submitted. His strong hands balanced her by the shoulder blades while his scorching lips devoured the arch of her throat. Kendra lowered her arms and clung to him, desperate for him to never let go. And tried to stop thinking about nearly two hours of time expunged from her memory.
She awoke to dreaminess. Several seconds ticked by before reality set in. Rain gutters clacked like lazy tambourines. A car drove by, cleaning water across the pavement. As a southbound el train rattled along distant elevated tracks, Kendra gently slipped out of bed, tugged on one of Joel’s athletic shirts, and tiptoed out of the bedroom. Pausing just outside the home office, she listened at the foot of the staircase. The decision wasn’t an easy one, but after thinking it over, she padded upstairs. At the top of the steps, she pushed open the door. The hinges creaked. Taking a breath of courage, she entered the gloomy attic by stealth.
Dappled streetlight penetrated the dark while fingers of wind scratched at the windowpanes. She waited for her eyes to adjust before sweeping her vision from one end of the attic to the other. The pitched roof connected two gables, allowing for a single, undivided space that stretched across the full expanse of the bungalow. Among their own personal clutter, random keepsakes left behind by previous owners covered much of the floorboards. A cedar chest. A cane chair. A rocking horse. Shoe boxes. Suitcases. Packing cartons. Kendra remembered one lazy afternoon when she hunted for riches, only to find black-and-white snapshots of nameless people, a stack of school report cards, and a young girl’s diary.
She scanned the barrenness now as she had many times before. What was it exactly? A whisper? A sob? The cold caress of fear?
“What is it?” Sleep congested Joel’s voice.
She slapped a hand to her chest. “Jesus, don’t sneak up on me like that ....”
He had wrapped the bed quilt around him like a mummy. Yawning, he said, “What are you doing up here?”
“Thought I heard a noise. Squirrels? Maybe rats? Can you hear the scratching? There.” Just like that, the eerie presence was gone. She swept her eyesight in a circle. Whatever she sensed earlier had taken flight. She looked back at Joel, hoping he felt it, too.
He shook his head, at a loss. But then he nodded toward the far wall. “It’s like the fireplace downstairs. Bricked in.”
She peered into the shadows. A thick layer of white enamel paint concealed the outline of a mantel, surrounding stonework, and bricked-in grate. Only the marble hearth remained untouched. She wondered if there had been a bedroom or den up here. Maybe a mother-in-law residence. If there had, nothing else remained. “Something about this place ....”
“The bungalow?”
“Something bad happened here.” Shivering, she hugged herself. “I can feel it. I don’t care what you say. The house is haunted.”
When she turned around, he was grinning. And hiding something. He shrugged the quilt partially away and punched his hands forward. In one fist, he was clutching a half-empty bottle of wine. In the other, two crystal goblets. He cocked his head in invitation.
They often performed this drinking rite on a whim, usually by stripping naked in the dark and toasting midnight. They had never done it in the attic before. This would be its christening. Huddling inside the quilt, they sat cross-legged and drew close for warmth. He made a ceremony of pouring the cabernet with a twist and a flip. “To my one and only. Happy birthday, darling. I love you more than I can say.”
They kissed before clinking glasses and drinking.
“Don’t you like the house?” he said.
“You wanted the bungalow.”
“We were going to fill it with babies, remember?”
Joel knew how she felt about bringing a child into this crazy world. She didn’t want to think about children. Possibly later. Much later.
“I’m just saying. If you get pregnant, it’d be okay by me.” He finished his glass. “More?”
After emptying the bottle, they stretched out, arms and legs intertwined. The quilt was big enough and cozy enough to ward off the chill.
“We can move, if that’s what you want,” he said. “Closer to your folks. I’m not married to the bungalow.”
He glided his hand over her skin. Teasing her. Titillating her. Promising her a hot meal with cold appetizers. Reminding her—torturously and cruelly—of her keen need for him. Without him, she was nothing. He defined her and made her real, and in the shaping of her, left her stranded on the outside and just out of reach.
“But I am,” she said.
“You just said ...”
“Can’t explain it. We belong here. I belong here.”
His eyes drifted away. He was thinking about something that was difficult to articulate. The weighty pause seemed ominous. But then he surprised her by saying, “I only want what you want. Resign, if it makes you happy. We don’t need the money.”
The words barely penetrated. “Quit my job?” She stroked his arm. His biceps were unyielding beneath her touch. He wasn’t as languid, as relaxed, or as distant as he appeared.
“We don’t need the money.”
“What would I do with myself?”
“Be an independent contractor. Set your own hours. Rob wouldn’t want to lose you. He’d take you on your terms.”
“What if he doesn’t go for it?”
He shrugged as if it didn’t matter one way or another. “We always wanted to rehab the bungalow. Or you can go back to school and get your MBA. Or we can start a family.” He lowered his mouth to hers and licked her lips with his tongue.
“You played a mean trick on me tonight.”
He tugged her closer. A chance moonbeam severed his clenched jaw. “I just want you to be happy.”
“I really didn’t have dinner with you tonight. I couldn’t have. I’m still hungry. Even after all that cake.” She laughed, though it sounded hollow. “Who did you really have dinner with?”
They lay supine in the calm of night. Moonlight sifted through the rain-splattered window and washed them in milky coolness. Kendra languished in the sensation of his body encapsulating hers. She sensed his strong and steady heartbeat, and for a brief moment, convinced herself she possessed him body and soul.
“We had a date,” he said. “It was your birthday.”
“I
know, but ....”
“Why would I have dinner with anyone else?”
“It’s just that ...”
“What kind of game are you playing?”
“I’m not playing any kind of ...”
He shook himself awake and lumbered to his feet like a mastiff coming in from the rain. “If you don’t want to be married to me, I can live with it. But don’t accuse me of being unfaithful. It’s you, Kendra. It’s always been you. It’ll only be you.”
She watched his back recede into the darkness. “Joel ... I didn’t mean ... don’t go away mad.”
He paused and looked over his shoulder. “I’ll lay traps tomorrow. For the rats.” His bare feet pounded downstairs.
Kendra didn’t remember going to bed. She woke up the next morning in an empty bed. Joel was gone. The clock was striking nine.
Chapter 4
HEADLIGHTS PUNCTUATED THE dark as the Porsche negotiated a left turn and squeezed into the alley. Motion sensor lights switched on. Joel pulled into the garage. The engine cut off with a dying drone and restored serenity to the night.
He made his way across the yard, briefcase hitched over a shoulder and his face canted toward the kitchen windows. He paused at the bottom of the steps before climbing, and paused once again at the screen door before entering. The stretch of the spring and the pneumatic whoosh of the door slamming home announced his arrival. Chilly autumn air blew in with him.
Kendra had been watching him the entire time, studying him to see if he would give himself away with a swipe across his brow or a smile touching his mouth. But Joel was Joel. Serious. Preoccupied. Placid and unexpressive.
Before he made his entrance into the warm kitchen, Kendra had already busied herself with preparing dinner. He appraised her from a distance. The transfer of body weight from one foot to the other gave away his impatience. He was waiting for her to favor him with a smile, a greeting, an apology, or something just as inadequate.
Three days had separated this moment from her surprise birthday party. Three days of unspoken accusations. Three days of eating meals across a divided kitchen table, her on one side and him on the other side of the moon. Three days of Kendra going to bed early and Joel staying up late. Three days of hell.
Kendra turned her attention to setting the table while keeping track of his movements with disinterested glances. Joel dumped the briefcase onto the counter and folded his suit coat over the flap. After rolling up his sleeves and loosening his tie, he approached and delivered a kiss to a tender spot below her earlobe. Kendra returned to the fridge. Forgetting why she opened the door, she scowled and eventually picked out an onion. Joel slapped her on the rump. Without waiting for a reaction, he reached around and grabbed a cold beer. Sidestepping him with the prissiness of a nun, she reached into a cabinet and brought out the cutting board. When she chose a chopping knife from the butcher block, he clapped the beer bottle onto the countertop.
Startled, she jumped. Joel stilled. The war of wills continued. They were playing a stupid game to see who would give in first.
At the start of their relationship, she presumed him to be an uncomplicated man. Joel was charming, affable, good-natured, a hail-fellow well met. Everyone was taken by him. But that was just pretense, an outward mask of what he wanted others to think of him. On the inside, he was a jigsaw puzzle of a thousand pieces. He kept those pieces closeted with only him holding the key.
She slid the knife from its assigned slot. From behind, he wrapped her inside the long reach of his arms. She screwed around, fist raised and primed for attack. He cocked a dubious eye at the shimmering blade. “Well,” he said after a while, “do you intend to use it?”
“I’m deciding.”
“Can’t live with the suspense.”
“The question is, can you live without it?”
His eyes rolled with delight. Deeming it safe, he dodged beneath the weapon and bowed to kiss her. The sloppy smooch ended, but he didn’t intend to release her until she told him what he wanted to hear.
“Rob accepted my resignation.”
He honked his approval and brushed a kiss across her mouth.
“Once the Standard Foods deal is done, I’m gone.” The more she thought about it, the more she wondered if resigning was the right thing to do. She was overworked. She was stressed out. She needed a break. She needed time to think. It was all true. But now the deed was done, she wondered if she did it to please Joel or herself. She worked hard to get that job. Worked harder to keep it. Gave everything to it, including parts of their marriage. Just another reason why the decision seemed right. For now.
He had the presence of mind to probe her face with concern. “Regrets?”
“He didn’t fight hard enough to keep me.”
“He’ll come around. And take you back on your terms. You, my sweet, are indispensable.” He grabbed the beer, upturned the bottle, and drained half the contents. She turned away from him and faced the counter. One of his hands lingered around her waist. “Besides, you want to be wanted,” he said.
She cleft the onion in half and made short work of the hemispheres. “Doesn’t everyone?”
“Not me.”
She regarded him over her shoulder. “Love, Joel. Love, appreciation, validation. Everybody needs it, even from someone they don’t particularly like.” She returned to the stove and used the spatula.
“Not me, I said.” He sprawled himself across a kitchen chair. Joel Swain, a prime example of the twenty-first century all-American male. Ambitious, unstoppable, and getting by on adrenalin and four hours of sleep a night.
“You’re no different than anyone else.” Kendra married the fish fillets to the diced onions and adjusted the heat.
“That’s where you’re wrong.”
She shot back a look. Though his eyes seemed to be staring directly at her, his thoughts were elsewhere. “I don’t need love,” he said. “But I do need sex.”
“Sex is the same thing as love.”
“Wrong again.”
“You’re full of it, Joel.”
He lifted the beer and gestured a toast. “Not yet, but getting there.”
“I didn’t say pissed. I said full of it.”
His eyes glazed over. Ever since he walked in the door, he couldn’t look her straight in the eye.
“You’re hiding something.”
She struck a nerve. “Am I?”
“You know something I don’t.”
“Do I?” He knocked back several more swallows before saying, “Rob was expecting your resignation.”
“You told him?”
“Laid the groundwork.” He sprang out of the chair. She didn’t have time to react. The spatula clattered to the floor. He took his prize and smothered her mouth with his. She recoiled, and in the same instant, smacked him. Though his cheek muscle contracted, he didn’t retaliate with a slap of his own. Instead, he grabbed her arms. The wrenching snap of her neck conveyed his true outrage.
“Jesus ... I didn’t ... you know I didn’t mean it.”
“You’ve wanted to do that for days.”
She mouthed the word No, even though she knew it to be a lie.
“Thing is, you wipe me out with a look.” His expression held fast to detachment, but his eyes smoldered.
“What’s happening between us, Joel?”
“Don’t you know? It’s the age-old fight. Of who’s on top.”
“That doesn’t make sense.” Charred fish singed the hairs of her nostrils.
“Doesn’t it?” He reached around, shut off the burner, and hoisted her bodily over his shoulder. Blood rushed to her head. Since he had a strong grip, kicking free would be impractical as well as melodramatic. Besides, she didn’t want him to let go.
“You’re a brute,” she said to his back. “And I can’t stop loving you, even if you don’t give a damn.”
“Oh, I give a damn.” He carried her into the bedroom and tossed her onto the mattress. His eyes were red with many emotions, rang
ing from rage to hurt. He tore at his tie and the buttons of his shirt. “Why won’t you believe I love you, Kendra?”
“Obsession isn’t love. Devotion. Caring what happens to the other person. Sacrificing your own personal happiness. That’s love.”
He undressed her, stripping her of pride as well as clothing, and savoring the gradual denouement that revealed the spread of her hips, the narrowness of her waist, and the curves of her breasts. Seeing herself through his eyes was like looking into a carnival mirror. Now fat, now skinny, now malformed, and now perfect. She could have stopped the charade. He wasn’t holding her captive. He wasn’t being mean. He was being gentle, so gentle that it had the power to arouse her.
He climbed into bed beside her. She became aware of the unhurried grinding of his hips against hers. The irregular rhythm that suited him fine and drove her to distraction. The nakedness that cut between them like a razor-sharp edge. And the thin thread that unwound the pain until nothing remained but numbness.
“Do you have to possess me, Joel?” she managed to get out. “Everything about me? My body? My soul? My mind?”
“Everything.”
He played her like a stringed instrument, mellow but strident. She dug her fingernails into the bulging muscles of his shoulders and helped him satisfy the ache that would make her throb for hours afterwards, when she would be unable to think of anything but Joel—Joel and his rapacity—of which she could never get enough.
The evening prowled stealthily into night. Street traffic unwound from a busy whirr to a sporadic purr. Tranquility overtook them.
Joel stirred beneath her. “I saw you at the mall.”
Entwined in his arms like a ball of yarn, she was listening to his heartbeat and the steady rhythm of his breathing. She trailed her fingers across the soft mat of his chest hair and basked in the perspiration evaporating from his skin. Depletion made her indolent. “When?”
“Today. Lunchtime. Taking the up escalator. I was on the down escalator. I called out, but you didn’t hear me. I was meeting a client, so I couldn’t stop.”
Trick of the Mind Page 4
