That black mark is there to this day, holding me back from better things. Derek, on the other hand, I did manage to shake. He went away for five years, and I divorced him while he was in jail. He wasn’t too happy about that.
Once burned, twice shy. I dated here and there after Derek, but I was always leery of getting serious. Nobody got through my armor until Connor came back. And he’d left me dragging through my days, feeling like the hollowness inside would never go away. That’s why, after several weeks passed with no word from Connor, I let Hayley at the restaurant shame me into going on Tinder. She’d just gotten engaged to a guy she met on there. A nice guy, who owned a lawn-care company and went to church with her on Sundays. When I told her one time too many that I had no weekend plans, she grabbed my phone out of my hand and insisted on making me a profile. I don’t know if I was reckless, or stupid, or just desperate. But I let her do it, figuring it couldn’t do any harm. Wrong.
At home that night in the privacy of my apartment, out of curiosity I opened Tinder and started browsing eligible men in my geographical area. None of them could hold a candle to Connor, and I was about to give up when I found myself staring at a photo of my ex-husband. I couldn’t believe it. What the hell was Derek doing on there? I’d set Tinder to show me profiles within a twenty-mile radius. He’d gotten out of jail a year ago and moved to Florida. I’d heard that from enough people to accept it as fact. Whenever I woke from a bad dream about Derek, the thought that he was a thousand miles away always comforted me. But if Tinder was showing me his profile, that could only mean one thing.
He was back.
If I’d seen his profile, had he seen mine? If he had, would he come looking for me? I jumped up and drew the blinds. I double-locked the door, looked in both closets, and pulled my shower curtain aside. Then I sat back down on the sofa, my breath coming in fast spurts. After he went to jail, I’d moved from the small house we’d rented together into this ground-floor studio in an apartment complex. My address was not listed anywhere online that I was aware of. On the other hand, Derek and I knew people in common who knew where I lived. My apartment faced the parking lot and had two large windows with flimsy locks. I knew my neighbors well enough to smile and exchange pleasantries, but none were friends I could turn to in a moment of need. If I screamed loudly, I was pretty sure they’d call 911, but that was small comfort. I took a butcher knife to bed with me that night, and barely slept.
The next day at the restaurant, I was constantly looking over my shoulder. I told everyone to be on the lookout for him, and even pulled up an old photo on my phone and showed it around. Matt tried to reassure me that, since I hadn’t swiped right on Derek’s profile, we hadn’t matched, so it was unlikely that he’d seen mine. For all I knew, Derek had been back in this area for months without getting in touch, so maybe I had nothing to fear. Still, to be safe, I had Matt walk me to my car that night, and for several nights after.
A week passed with no sign of Derek. I let my guard down.
It was a Tuesday night. My shift had just ended at the restaurant and I was walking to my car through the dark parking lot when Derek came up from behind. I saw him from the corner of my eye, and the look of him shocked me. He’d always been a big guy, a gym rat, built. I’d liked that at first, until it scared me. Now he looked heavier, and not in a good way—puffy, unhealthy, with pasty skin. His hair was different, too, shaved into a fade that screamed jailhouse. I backed away, my chest tight with fear.
“Not so fast. Where do you think you’re going?” he said.
“I don’t want any trouble. Leave me alone.”
“Why should I? You’re my wife.”
“Not anymore.”
“Because of some bullshit piece of paper? I know you’re mad over the drugs, but come on—divorce? I was just try’na make a buck for us, babe.”
“Don’t blame me for your arrest. I never asked you to break the law.”
“Oh, right. You just wanted shit. A house, a new car—”
“I never said that. You decided to deal, without telling me.”
“Whatever. I apologize, okay. Now, cut the bullshit, and come home to me. I see you on Tinder, giving yourself to strangers. I’m right here. I miss you.”
He stepped toward me, into the light, and I got a look at his eyes. The pupils were pinpricks in the light-blue irises. He was on something. I started walking. He grabbed my arm. I screamed, and he clamped his hand over my mouth.
“Shut up, you’ll get me in trouble.”
My whole body was shaking. Derek had never physically hurt me before, but he’d punched walls and broken things. When he got the divorce papers in the mail, he called from prison and said I’d regret it and I shouldn’t make the mistake of thinking we were done.
I bit his hand. He yelped and let go.
“What the fuck.”
A rowdy group of customers exited the restaurant, shouting and laughing. Using them for cover, I ran for the door. He didn’t follow. Inside, I told Matt in a trembling voice what had happened. He insisted on calling the police. By the time the officer showed up and searched the parking lot, Derek had gone. There was a piece of paper stuck under the windshield wiper of my car—a flyer from a pizza place with Derek’s handwriting on the back.
“Nice to see you too,” the note read, and I heard the words in Derek’s bitter voice. “You dump me when I’m down & then your on Tinder looking all happy. You owe it to me to meet up. Call me.” And he left his number.
The officer was an old guy with gray hair and a beer belly who refused to take the situation seriously.
“He’s not here. Call if you see him again,” he said.
“That might be too late. He’s hostile. He’s stalking me.”
“He says right here, nice to see you.”
“That’s him being sarcastic. He grabbed me, I’m telling you.”
“Any witnesses to that?”
“No.”
“Then it’s he said, she said, and you won’t get far in court. If he was still loitering, I could do something, but.”
“I thought the police were supposed to protect people from criminals. My ex-husband has a criminal record. He’s on probation.”
“There’s your recourse, then. Call his parole officer and complain.”
“What’s the parole officer going to do?”
“With a domestic complaint like this—”
“It’s not domestic. We’re not married, not anymore.”
“He can sit him down and give him a talking-to.”
“Talk?”
“Yes.”
Which would achieve nothing except to piss Derek off.
I spent the next two nights tossing and turning on Matt’s couch. He and his husband, Justin, told me to stay as long as I liked. But they lived in a tiny house with one bathroom and two enormous rescue dogs. A third person in that space was a lot, and I couldn’t impose forever.
I went back to my place. I wasn’t sleeping much. I was thinking about buying a gun to protect myself. On top of everything, I seemed to have picked up some weird stomach bug that left me feeling queasy. I hated my life and couldn’t imagine a scenario in which things would get better.
That’s the frame of mind I was in when Connor finally called.
10
The buzzing of the phone woke me from a fitful sleep. Pink light glowed around the edges of the windows as I reached blearily toward my nightstand. A number I didn’t recognize was flashing on my phone. It started with 917. New York. It was him.
I’d been telling myself that if Connor called, I’d decline. Instead, I frantically swiped Accept before the call rolled over to voicemail.
“Hello?”
“Did I wake you?” he said.
His voice on the phone was low and intimate. My blood raced just from the sound of it. I looked at the clock. It was a little before six.
“It’s okay.”
“I’m on a boat,” he said.
“A boat?”
>
“In the Mediterranean.”
Oh, that kind of boat. He meant a yacht.
“It’s later here. I tried to wait, but I just had to talk to you.”
“I’m so glad you called. I miss you, but I was afraid to. We said we wouldn’t,” I breathed.
“We shouldn’t. I’m only calling because I have an important question. Did you send me a photo?”
“What?” I asked, sitting up in bed.
“Did you text me a photo just now?”
“No. We agreed not to communicate.”
He paused. I heard static on the line.
“Right,” he said, “that’s what I was afraid of.”
“What photo?”
“Of the two of us, from the first night at the ski house.”
I gasped. “That’s the night we heard the noise.”
“I know. Someone was actually there. I don’t know how. I went outside and searched, remember? And didn’t see a thing.”
“It’s a picture of us? Taken through the window?”
His sigh echoed across the ocean. “No. From closer up.”
A chill went through me. “You mean, somebody was inside the house?”
“From the looks of the picture, they were standing a few feet from us.”
“How is that possible? We would have seen them.”
“In the picture, we’re sleeping.”
I felt nauseous. “Oh, God. Are we…?”
“Yeah, sleeping, naked, together. The whole deal.”
“Jesus. That’s creepy.”
“It’s a fucking disaster.”
“Who would do that?”
“Someone who works for Nina, I imagine. The only thing I don’t get is, why send it to me? Why not just give it to her directly?”
“Maybe they did already.”
“I worry about that. She has the photo, and she’s biding her time till she kicks me out.”
“Isn’t that what we want, though? For her to end it?”
“Not if she has proof of infidelity. That triggers the prenup, remember?”
How could I forget? He’d gone back for the money, that was the bottom line. I knew I should hate him for it, too. But love didn’t work that way. The sound of his voice on the phone was making me itch to have him in bed beside me.
“Are you there?” he said.
“Do you miss me?” I said, hating that I needed to ask.
“Of course. I think of you constantly. I want to call. I want to be with you. But I have to handle things here. I don’t know what this means.”
“Whoever sent the photo—did they ask for money?” I said.
“No demand for money. No message, nothing.”
“What are you going to do?”
“I don’t know. This situation keeps getting worse. I’m sick of it. I just want us to be together.”
I waited for him to say something more. Like, when that might happen, or what his plan was for achieving it. But he didn’t.
“When will I see you?” I asked, a note of desperation in my voice.
“I’m working on it. We’re on the boat the next couple of days, but we’re flying home in time for the Fourth. Once we’re back in Southampton and have some privacy, I’ll talk to her.”
“Talk to her? You mean, ask for a divorce?”
“That’s the plan,” he said, but he sounded vague. “It’s tricky. I need to figure out how to finesse things. Under the terms of the agreement, I can’t be the one who does the leaving.”
I was silent.
“Tabitha, believe me, I wish I could see you.”
“If wishes were horses…”
“I mean it. Talking to you is the only time I don’t feel crazy.”
There was a noise in the background.
“Shit, I have to go.”
“Connor. Wait.”
“I’ll call when I can. Don’t call me, okay? It’s too risky.”
He dropped the call.
I sat there staring at the phone in my hand, feeling sick to my stomach. Classic. I’d become the thing I’d sworn I’d never be. A mistress, a side chick, stuck waiting for her married lover to call. I wasn’t just ashamed. I was stupid. We were no closer to being together than we’d been the day he left. If anything, we were farther apart. I wanted to give up on him. But hard as I tried, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.
11
You think things can’t get worse, and then they do.
The same day that Connor called to tell me we’d been photographed naked, I was driving to work at the restaurant when I looked in the rearview mirror and noticed an ominous-looking SUV tailing me. It was a black Chevy Suburban with windows tinted so dark that I couldn’t see the driver, following closely enough to rear-end me if I braked hard. I sped up. The driver sped up, too, and stayed behind me all the way to the restaurant, a solid fifteen minutes that included getting on and off the highway and making three separate turns. Each time he followed me through an intersection, I felt a sick jolt of fear. When I turned in to the restaurant parking lot, the Suburban slowed down momentarily to get a better look before speeding away.
Shaking, bathed in sweat, I wondered—who would do that? Derek? From what I knew, unless he was dealing again, he couldn’t afford a brand-new, tricked-out Suburban like that one. And if Derek went to the trouble of stalking me, he wouldn’t hide behind tinted windows. He’d get up in my face, so I knew it was him. Could it’ve been the same person who’d followed me and Connor to the ski house and photographed us sleeping? But why would they bother with me? I was a struggling waitress with a thin wallet, not worth blackmailing. The incident made no sense. I tried to calm down, to tell myself that I was overreacting. Some jerk just tailgated me, and that’s all it was. Trying my best to believe that, I went to work.
The Baldwin Grill closed at ten on weeknights. At the end of the shift, as I walked to my car, the northern sky glowed with a delicate light, and a balmy breeze washed over me. The beauty of the night made me long for Connor. Who was with his wife, on a yacht, in the Mediterranean. What a fool I was.
Thoughts of him distracted me as I pulled out of the parking lot and headed home. As I merged onto the highway, I looked up and saw that Suburban on my tail again. The shock made me swerve into the next lane, which caused the driver coming up beside me to lean on his horn. I jerked my car back into place and stepped on the gas, surging ahead. When the Suburban kept pace, I broke into a cold sweat. Twice in one day? This was no coincidence. That SUV was definitely following me. I looked for a license plate number, but there was no front plate. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t see in through the dark tints. Who was behind the wheel, and what the hell did he want?
If I continued on to my apartment, he’d see where I lived.
I couldn’t go home.
Shit.
It was dark by now. There weren’t many cars on the road. Most businesses were closed. I drove past my usual exit, hands tight on the wheel, with no idea what to do. I let a second exit go by, then a third. I was well past my town now, flying along at seventy-five, heading nowhere, with the Suburban right behind me. The gas light blinked on. Shit. A sign said NEXT SERVICES 17 MILES. Okay, if I could make it that far with what was left in the tank, I’d at least be in a populated area. There was a big commercial strip with a Home Depot, a Walmart, a Pier 1. The stores would be closed by now. But there were service stations and fast-food joints. Something would be open, people would be around—if only I could make it there before I ran out of gas.
The next fifteen minutes felt like fifteen years. I white-knuckled it in my old Corolla, the Suburban lurking like some horror-movie creature behind me, until finally I glimpsed the exit in the distance, coming up fast. This was my chance to lose him. I was no stunt driver, but I’d have to pull a fast move if I wanted to get home tonight. Holding my breath, I pushed the pedal to the floor and barreled straight ahead, jerking the wheel at the last second and swerving sideways across the solid line onto the off-ramp. My c
ar fishtailed, tires squealing, as an acrid smell filled the passenger compartment. But the Suburban shot past, missing the turn.
I’d lost him, for now.
As much as I wanted to disappear to some back road where he wouldn’t find me, I needed gas ASAP. I pulled into a Sunoco station just past the exit ramp. I started the gas going, then reached into the glove compartment for the flyer where Derek had scrawled his phone number. He was the most logical suspect, and I refused to live in fear of my ex-con ex-husband. I’d call him up and confront him. The gas station was brightly lit. It had a convenience store with customers inside. I felt safe here for the moment—safe enough to demand answers.
The phone rang for a long time before he picked up.
“Who’s this?” he muttered.
From the thickness of his voice, it sounded like I’d woken him. He couldn’t be asleep at home and following me in a giant SUV at the same time. Unless he was pretending.
“It’s Tabitha. Are you following me?”
“What?”
“Are you following my car, in a black Chevy Suburban?”
“Hah, right. You wish.”
“So, you’re not?”
“Why would I follow you?”
“Why did you jump me the other night? I can’t explain how your brain works. I’m telling you right now, Derek, if it’s you, I’m calling your parole officer.”
“I didn’t jump you. I wanted to talk, and you made a scene. And I’m not following you, okay? I don’t own a Chevy Suburban. I don’t even have a friggin’ driver’s license right now. They suspended it.”
The Wife Who Knew Too Much Page 6
