by Amy Vansant
Mark beamed. “I took a picture of her.”
The girl’s eyes grew wide. “Show us!” said Kady.
Mark pulled his phone out of his back pocket and flipped to the photo. He held it up for them.
Emily and Kady peered at his phone. The bar appeared to be traveling at eighty miles an hour; the photo was barely more than a series of colorful streaks. In the center of the picture, a dark, blurry figure walked away from the camera.
Emily looked at Mark. “That could be Big Foot.”
“I told you, I only saw her for a second and only from behind,” he said, yanking away the phone. “She had dark hair.”
“Okay,” said Emily. “Then what?”
“Joe waited a minute or two, finished his white wine, and then walked off in the same direction she went. So, there’s big problems right there.”
“What are you talking about? What big problems?” asked Emily.
Mark shook his head with disapproval.
“What kind of dude drinks white wine?”
“Oh for godssake,” said Emily. “Where did he go?”
“I followed him. He went out the back of the restaurant. There was a fire exit back there that was propped open.”
“Weird,” said Kady.
“He went to the far end of the parking lot back there, and got into the back of a black car. A Hyundai Sonata, I think.” Mark grimaced and looked at his phone. “I’m better with trucks.”
Mark flipped to the next picture.
“Then this happened,” he said, holding up the photo.
The girls looked at the phone. It was another blurry photo, though not as blurry as the first. The license plate of the car was readable.
“It’s a car,” said Emily.
“Yeah, but that’s not the important part,” said Mark.
He paused, waiting for the girls to guess. When it became clear Mark was on permanent pause, Emily gently pushed the phone aside so she could look him in the eye.
“What is the important part?”
Mark moved the phone back in front of Emily and smiled.
“It’s moving,” he revealed.
“What’s moving?”
“The car! It’s rocking.”
Emily looked at the phone and then back at Mark.
“How are we supposed to tell the car is rocking from a photo?”
“Oh,” Mark turned the phone and looked at the photo. “I probably should have taken a video.”
“I don’t understand,” said Kady. “The car was moving?”
“Rocking. I’m so sorry, Kady,” he said, leaning forward to put his hand on her thigh. “He was having sex with someone.”
Emily watched his hand rest on Kady’s leg and rolled her eyes.
Kady’s jaw fell slack. “No. You are kidding me.” Kady looked at Emily. “He’s a having sex in a car like a teenager? In the parking lot of a Mexican Restaurant?”
“Gross,” said Emily. She looked at Mark. “Are you sure?”
Mark nodded. “I can’t prove it, but unless they were wrestling or something...the car was a rockin’ so I didn’t go a knockin’.”
He glanced at Kady with puppy dog eyes.
“I am so, so sorry, Kady,” he repeated. He reached to touch her thigh again and Emily slapped his hand away. Mark looked at her and rubbed the back of his hand.
Kady shook her head, staring at the center console.
“This is unbelievable,” she said. “So who was it?”
Mark shrugged. “I don’t know. He got out and went to his car, turned it on...it was blaring Coldplay or something...and then he drove off. I can tell you he was, like, all fluffy.”
“Fluffy?”
“You know,” said Mark, motioning to his own hair. “His hair was all fluffy and messed, up, his shirt was untucked. He was all deviled.”
“Disheveled,” said Emily.
Mark nodded. “Yep, that.”
“What about the girl?” asked Emily. “Any other info on who she is?”
“She left, too.”
“Damn, we could have followed her,” said Emily.
“Shit! I didn’t even think of that!” He slapped the seat beside him and then looked up, his eyes wide.
“Hey,” he said, pointing at his phone. “I have her license plate!”
Emily shook her head. “Unfortunately that’s useless unless you have connections at the DMV.”
“What about a cop?” asked Mark. “Anyone know a cop who owes them favors?”
The girls shook their heads.
“Really?” said Mark. “When people spy in the movies someone always has a friend who knows someone who can look up a plate number.”
Emily offered Kady a withering glance. Kady looked away, trying not to laugh.
“Kady,” said Emily. “Joe headed toward home. You have to get home. You have to be there to ask him where he’s been so we can see how ridiculous his lies are.”
“But why? I know he’s cheating on me, now.”
“It’s ninety-eight percent probable, but first, a shaking car isn’t one hundred percent accurate, and second, you said you wanted irrefutable proof to make sure this breakup was as simple and straightforward as possible. We don’t have that yet.”
Kady nodded. “Okay.”
Kady turned her ignition and Emily and Mark got out of the car. Emily held her hand to her face as if she was speaking into her pinky and listening to her thumb, the international symbol for “call me” as Kady drove away.
“Why doesn’t she just leave him?” asked Mark.
Emily shrugged.
“For some reason, once you’ve loved someone, it’s just never that easy.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
The next day, Sebastian called Emily.
“I need to find an apartment,” he said.
Emily wore sweat shorts and a t-shirt. It was only eight o’clock, but she had been up for hours. To her, the answer to Sebastian’s housing problem seemed as obvious as the empty drawer in her bureau. Which didn’t exist, but she could make it. She didn’t really want to help him find an apartment; she wanted him to move in with her.
“Why don’t you just move in with me, temporarily?”
She used the word “temporarily” seven times during the next ten minutes of negotiations, which she knew was Smitten Kitten speak for “until death do us part.”
“Every night I make huge dinners and I have no one to eat them,” said Emily. “You’d be doing me a favor.”
“So every night you’re just sitting here with a Thanksgiving turkey and no one to eat it?”
“Yep. It’s a terrible waste of food. I mean, I pack it up and send it to starving kids, but the postage is killing me.”
“I imagine the packages are pretty greasy, too. By the way, I’m at your door.”
“Oh!” Emily jumped up and scanned the room. She had nothing in the living room she could use to make herself look any less slouchy.
She jogged to the front door, phone still at her ear, unlocked it and then bolted to her bedroom.
“It’s open,” she said into the phone.
She heard Sebastian enter. Duppy offered one bark and then considered his home defense program complete.
“Where did you go?” Sebastian called.
“Coming!” said Emily from the back of the house.
Emily appeared a moment later, wearing a summer dress, slightly out of breath. Sebastian had wandered into the living room and now sat on the sofa in front of the television.
“Kind of dressed up for eight o’clock, aren’t you?” he asked.
“This old thing?” asked Emily, flopping on the sofa beside him.
“Got any turkey dinner left?”
Emily shook her head. “Already shipped last night’s, but here’s another bit of trivia for you. I just read a book that said giving nightly back rubs can improve a person’s health. Who will I give backrubs to if you don’t move in?”
Emily pushed on Sebastian un
til he collapsed to his side. She kept pushing him until he rolled onto his stomach. She straddled his back. She gave him the best back rub she could muster.
Sebastian groaned. “You’re making this very difficult.”
“That’s the idea.”
“But I really need to find an apartment.”
Emily rubbed harder.
“Oh sure,” she said. “Hey, how about those Orioles?”
“I don’t really watch baseball much,” said Sebastian, his face pressed into the cushions.
Emily felt a spike of happiness. She loved football but despised baseball. Sebastian really was her perfect man.
“I don’t like baseball either,” she said. “There’s another thing we have in common.”
“Another thing we could have in common is we could both have our own places to live.”
Emily grabbed the back of his neck and began pinching the sinews on either side.
“Hey, is that a hummingbird outside?” she said.
“I’m not just going to forget I need to find an apartment. I’m on to your distraction techniques.”
Emily’s fingers slid around his neck and she pretended to choke him.
“This is the worst happy ending ever,” he croaked.
“Fine,” she said. “We’ll go look.”
Emily and Sebastian searched the weekend papers for apartment ads. They found a few places to investigate.
The first apartment promised a large bedroom and a porch. Sebastian’s truck barely slowed as they rolled by the dismal brick box situated in one of the sketchier neighborhoods. Rust stains oozed down the walls and the stairwell sported drying clothes draped over the handrails.
Emily knew what building this apartment was in the moment she’d circled the advertisement. It was perfect for her needs, because it was a nightmare for Sebastian’s. A few more pieces of prime real estate like it, and Sebastian would move into her house for sure.
“I’m afraid most apartments in your price range will look like this,” she said, punctuating her bad news with an exaggerated sigh.
Sebastian rolled his eyes, but he also didn’t ask to visit the apartment.
The next apartment was on Main Street in the town’s historical district. The idea of downtown living had Sebastian giddy, and he gushed over living in the middle of the action.
They parked and walked up a set of stairs to the second floor apartment, situated over a store that sold kids’ clothing. The building was brick and very old. The apartment was small, but doable. The rent was large, and not doable.
“Maybe I could make it work?” Sebastian mumbled, looking out the window at the busy pedestrian street below.
“It’s way out of your price range,” Emily told him. “Shame. I should have never brought you here.”
“We could maybe drop the price a little,” said the landlord, who had let them in.
Emily’s attention snapped to the man.
Shut up. She said it in her head straining to become telepathic. Shut. Up.
“Like how much?” asked Sebastian.
“Maybe a hundred dollars?”
Emily breathed a sigh of relief. That wouldn’t be enough. Sebastian pouted.
They thanked the man and headed back to the truck.
“I could maybe do it,” said Sebastian.
“There was no closet space,” Emily said.
“But it’s right here!” he wailed.
“And I think there was a leak under the sink. It looked pretty bad. Probably full of mold.”
Sebastian’s shoulders slumped.
“It’s probably haunted, too,” she said. “You don’t want to end up in a haunted apartment.”
“Oh, you’re funny. You just want me trapped in your sex dungeon.”
“Better a sex dungeon than the spirit of a murdered inn keeper molesting you at night,” she said, shrugging. “I mean, I assume. Depends on the inn keeper, I suppose.”
“It wasn’t haunted!”
“I’m pretty sure that place is on the ghost tour,” said Emily.
The last apartment sat atop a garage behind an old lady’s home. It was barely September, but Sebastian’s potential landlady had more glowing reindeer on her lawn than the entire herd population of Norway. By the time Sebastian and Emily started up the stairs to the apartment, the blinking multi-colored lights on the porch had burned starbursts upon their retinas. Emily was sure she’d have nightmares about the gyrating Santa for a week.
Unlike the landlady’s taste in holiday decorations, the apartment was perfect. It was in Sebastian’s price range. It was close to work and downtown.
Emily grew nervous.
“It seems pretty nice,” said Sebastian.
Emily grunted, searching for reasons to hate the place.
“It has everything I need, it’s in a great location...” mused Sebastian.
Emily opened the cabinet under the sink, praying for mice.
Nothing.
“Oh, you’ll love it!” said the elderly owner, lurking just inside the door.
“It’s pretty much what I need...”
The woman clapped her hands with glee. “And here’s the best part!” she said. “I’ll be right there!”
She pointed to her own home, just a few steps across the driveway, glowing like the sun, brought to you by Target.
Emily felt a pin-light of hope pierce her heavy heart.
“Go on...” she said.
“You remind me of my son,” the landlady continued. “I can bring you dinners up here when I make the crock-pot meals! I always make too much.”
Emily covered her mouth to keep from yelping with joy. Fear flashed in Sebastian’s eyes.
“No, I wouldn’t need dinner...” he stammered.
“Oh no trouble at all!” said the woman. “I can stop by any time! I’m right there!”
Emily fought the urge to high-five the woman. The old gal couldn’t have ended the interview faster if she’d confessed to being a serial killer in the process of building herself a Polish Guy skin suit. Sebastian would never live in an apartment where a crock-pot armed, house-coated woman could appear at his door at any given moment.
“Well, we’ll get back to you, thanks so much!” said Sebastian, moving toward the exit. The woman followed.
“Thank you,” Emily said, shaking the landlady’s hand as she passed. “Seriously. Thank you.”
Back in the truck, Sebastian turned to Emily, his eyes wide. They both burst into laughter.
He shook his head.
“Let’s go get lunch,” he said.
“I could make fries...”
“No, thank you. Let’s go out to lunch. I’ll buy if you promise to never make those fries again.”
“Deal.”
Sebastian drove in silence for several minutes. He turned to Emily.
“Those apartments were awful. You did this on purpose.”
Emily looked away from Sebastian and grinned to herself.
“Did what?” she said, as innocently as possible.
Chapter Twenty-Four
After apartment hunting, Sebastian and Emily spent the rest of the day together, a wonderful day punctuated regularly by the sound of Sebastian’s phone ringing. He’d look at it, hit ignore, and put it away. Emily suspected she knew who it was and refused to ask.
They were playing darts in Emily’s basement when Sebastian excused himself to go to the bathroom.
The moment he left the room, Emily’s gaze fell on his phone. He’d left it sitting on the pool table.
It was just lying there.
Emily glanced toward the bathroom. She looked at the phone. She glanced toward the bathroom.
She grabbed the phone. It wasn’t locked. There were several missed phone messages. She wanted to listen to them, but feared the phone would mark them as “listened to.”
She moved to the text messages. They were all from Greta.
“Where are you?” said one from the night Sebastian stayed at Emily
’s house.
“I was robbed! I am hurt!” said another.
Emily stepped out of direct view of the bathroom to give herself additional reaction time should Sebastian burst through the door. She checked his mail. One particularly long email caught her attention. Greta had written it a month earlier, packing it full of dramatic flair and claims of wanting to be a better girlfriend to Sebastian.
“I know we are supposed to be separated but I know you still love me. That night last week couldn’t have been a mistake. You were so sweet to me when I was crying. We belong together...”
Emily’s stomach lurched. She scrolled to the end of the email and found Greta’s boilerplate footer, featuring a cartoon kitten surrounded by colorful butterflies and flowers. Beside it in script font, it said, “Kitty says: Take time to smell the roses!”
Gag.
Emily closed the email and moved to another entitled “I need you.”
The email body said, “Sebastian, this is serious, please call me!!” It was followed by the same damn kitten.
Emily closed it.
Emily scrolled until she found the last email. The subject was ‘Help.’
The body said, “Sebastian I was attacked tonight!!!! I’ll tell you the details later – I just got back from the hospital and I need your help!! I am still so scared!!!!! I messed up my knee and he stole my wallet!!!! Please come home!!!”
Emily scowled. Did Greta get paid by the exclamation point?
She heard the toilet flush and jumped, nearly tossing the phone into the air. She set the phone gently on the pool table where she found it and then leaped away from it like it had teeth.
“Okay, where were we? Oh yeah, I was kicking your butt,” said Sebastian as he exited the bathroom.
“Pretty much,” said Emily, with a weak smile. Her stomach felt sick.
Greta would never let Sebastian go.
After the dart game, Sebastian announced he needed to leave.
“Why? Why don’t you just stay here?”
“I don’t have work clothes for tomorrow,” he said, gathering up his keys and phone. “And I’m not sure how much longer I can keep from ravishing you.”
“I don’t see that as a problem.”
Sebastian looked at his phone and Emily froze, terrified she’d left evidence of her spying. He slipped it back into his pocket. She relaxed.
