by Gina LaManna
It must have been Samuel, sneaking into the room to torture them again. At four years old, he was fascinated by his two younger siblings, though his fascination often walked the fine line between love and hate.
“Mom!” Gretchen, the oldest at seven and a half, yelled unhelpfully from the living room. “The twins woke up!”
“Right, I can hear that,” Anne hollered back. “Go get your jammies on, will you? Help your brother, please.”
Anne shoved tomorrow’s lunches back into the fridge and slammed the door. She did a super-quick cleanup of the kitchen and told herself it was good to let the twins cry it out for a little longer. A quick check of her watch told her the babysitter was due to arrive in under twenty minutes.
Mark had scheduled Olivia to arrive half an hour earlier than she needed to be here. It was her husband’s way of checking up on her. Then again, scheduling the babysitter for extra hours wasn’t Mark’s only way of checking up on his wife. In fact, he orchestrated unexpected checks so frequently they were anything but subtle by this point.
There were Mark’s famous “surprise” lunches where he’d pop home unannounced for a bite to eat. Mothers from Gretchen’s school had taken to showing up with trays of lasagna for no obvious reason. Playdates with Samuel’s friends appeared on the calendar on days Mark worked extra shifts.
He still didn’t trust her, and that was beginning to drive Anne batty. She was fine, fine, fine. She’d been fine for almost three years now. Mostly fine, she amended, but only to herself. She still had her days.
With a sigh, Anne glanced at the clock again. She had time to speed-rock the twins back to sleep, change into a somewhat sexy outfit, and apply some concealer to the bags under her eyes that felt permanent. Maybe her mother had a point. If she didn’t shape up soon, she’d be a single mom of four. As much as Mark drove her nuts some days, she was married to him, and she wanted to keep it that way.
Anne cursed as she made her way into the living room and tripped over a stuffed elephant. As she hopped over to the stairway, her anger found a target in Gretchen, who still hadn’t moved from the couch.
“Turn the TV off,” Anne barked. “Olivia will be here soon, and I want you ready for bed.”
“I want Olivia to put me to bed,” she moaned. “She reads me extra books.”
“You’re not getting any books if you don’t get ready for bed. You know the rules.”
Babying her stubbed toe, Anne made her way upstairs and found Samuel in his room, staring at a tablet. She made a note to discuss the overuse of screens in this house with her husband later tonight at dinner.
“Put it away,” she snapped at Samuel. “Get your pajamas on. Now.”
Samuel didn’t appear to hear her. The twins’ shrieks reached new levels of earsplitting. Anne’s blood boiled in her veins. Mark should have been home twenty minutes ago. He’d promised to help get the kids ready for bed so Anne could bake the boatload of cupcakes that Gretchen needed for some fundraiser tomorrow.
If Anne didn’t get them baked, they would have to pay for the volunteer hours Anne hadn’t completed. Unfortunately for the Wilkeses, they couldn’t afford to pay for the hours, so a shitload of cupcakes was the answer.
Easing into the twins’ bedroom, she saw the source of their discontent. Her cell phone chirped with a missed call on the rocking chair tucked into the corner. She must have forgotten it in the room after tucking Harry and Heather in. If she was a betting woman, she’d guess there was also a message from Mark that he was running late.
The twins quieted, watching her as she grabbed the phone. It felt like they were mocking her, teasing her, playing a game that Anne would forever lose. At once, Anne felt guilty as she looked at her babies. Her eyes welled with tears.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered, then grabbed her phone and disappeared from the room.
Once safe in the hallway, Anne expelled a breath. Her fingers worked the screen, unlocking it to find a missed call from her husband along with a text message to match. Perfect, she thought. Not only was he not home, but he was also the very reason the twins had woken up from their miracle early bedtime.
Anne opened the message from her husband, confirming what she’d already expected. He wasn’t on his way at all. As she read the text a second time, her scalp prickled with dismay. Her very core trembled.
Mark: Sorry, hon. Really behind at work. Tried to swing it but can’t. Do you mind canceling with Olivia? We’ll reschedule for next week. You feeling okay?
Anne briefly wondered what she would say if she told her husband the truth. Was she feeling okay? Ha, ha, ha. Poor Mark couldn’t handle the truth. If only men knew what it was like—motherhood, the insane wave of chaos and hormones and sleep deprivation, along with new baby mouths to feed and hearts to love. She struggled while Mark floated through it all, oblivious, content to contribute happy little paychecks and consider his duties fulfilled.
Anne began to type a response then deleted it. She typed another one, deleted that. What could she say? Mark had sent the babysitter home twice in one month, and Anne would be an idiot not to be suspicious at this point. Especially when she’d called his partner last time at the office to see what the holdup was, and his partner had said that Mark had gone home early due to a stomach bug.
The doorbell rang downstairs. The twins screamed. Anne looked down at the blank message on her phone. She couldn’t bring herself to respond, so she tucked her cell into a pocket and returned to the twins’ room. She performed a Cirque du Soleil–type maneuver to get both babies secured in her arms before hustling downstairs to open the front door as the bell dinged a second time.
Those Vegas acrobats had nothing on her. After nursing two babies at the same time and singlehandedly maneuvering a stroller with several small children in tow through a grocery store, she deserved some sort of accolade. A trophy. At the very minimum, a big, fat gold star.
Harry spit up all over Anne’s neck. She closed her eyes. That was the sort of accolade she was used to getting.
“Olivia,” Anne gasped, unlocking the screen door so the young woman could let herself in. “Actually, I’m so sorry. Mark is not able to—”
Olivia’s face began to fall. “You don’t need me…er…again?”
Without waiting for a response, Olivia reached for one of the twins. Anne handed Harry over and sighed with relief. The silence, the simple pleasure of having to hold only one child at a time swept over her as she studied the young college student.
“Actually…” Anne spun around and saw Gretchen on the couch. She could hear Samuel on his tablet upstairs. Suddenly, she didn’t want to deal with any of it. She wanted to tuck her children (safely) into someone else’s arms and disappear. For a long, long time. But that would be impossible. She couldn’t run away and not come back. He’d find her.
Anne cleared her throat. “I was just going to say that Mark’s running late, so I’m meeting him at the restaurant.”
“Hooray!” Olivia’s face brightened. “I was looking forward to babysitting. Plus, I imagine you could really use a night out.”
“I suppose I could,” Anne said.
But the truth weighed heavier on her. A night out was too small. Anne dreamed bigger.
“Let me just get the kids—”
“Stop!” Olivia raised her free hand, waved Anne away. “Go get ready. You’ve got spit-up on your shirt, and we can’t have that for your romantic dinner.”
Anne snorted with the irony of it all. Olivia merely smiled, missing the funniest part of the joke.
When Anne had married a cop, she’d known the drill. The long hours, the weekend shifts, the lifestyle that came with it. But after twenty years on the force, Mark had finally gotten enough seniority at the LAPD to move to day shifts. That meant he was supposed to be home at night.
Olivia set Harry down, took Heather from Anne’s arms. Olivia was an olive-skinned beauty with long, dark hair and gorgeous almond-shaped eyes. Better yet, she was a magician with the
children.
Heather and Harry each latched on to one of Olivia’s fingers. Gretchen peeled her skinny limbs from the sofa and finally managed to find the Off button on the television remote. From upstairs, the sounds on Samuel’s tablet went mute.
Samuel’s curious voice called down, “Is that Olivia?”
“Only if you’re in your pajamas,” Olivia called back, tittering with laughter. “And what about you, ma’am? Those don’t look like jammies to me.”
While Gretchen heaved with laughter, Anne shot a grateful look over her children’s heads to the babysitter. Olivia tilted her chin up, directing Anne upstairs to get changed.
Anne did so, taking a luxuriously long shower. It was seven minutes in total, start to finish, including time for shaved legs, plucked eyebrows, and the removal of one nasty ingrown hair. She spritzed her best perfume onto her bare skin and studied her reflection in the mirror.
Anne wasn’t gorgeous by any right. She’d been cute, once upon a time. But her long, chestnut hair had since been chopped into a bob, and her once-plump hips now carried an extra twenty pounds that were no longer cute but quite saggy. Her breasts had also joined the saggy club, along with her biceps, her ass, and her thighs. They were a stubborn bunch.
Anne wrapped a robe around herself and made her way into her bedroom. She slid into a forgiving black dress and popped on simple pearl earrings. It didn’t matter what she wore, seeing as she’d be alone tonight, but if she didn’t make half an effort, Olivia wouldn’t be convinced.
Anne sat on the edge of her bed and reached for the box of heels she kept stashed underneath. They were a new purchase, one her husband hadn’t—and wouldn’t—find out about. He’d go berserk if he found out she’d spent $250 on a pair of high heels when he’d worked overtime for a week to pay Gretchen’s ballet camp fee.
That’s what the private cash stash is for, she reminded herself. Random birthday money she received, cash back from store returns, the hundred dollars her friend had given her to house-sit all those years ago. Anne had earned those shoes.
Standing, Anne took one last look at herself in the full-length mirror. The shoes were worth every penny of the $250 she’d spent. They made her legs look more goddess-like than human. They even gave her butt a few extra inches of lift, making the excess weight look something close to attractive.
At the last second, she slipped off her heels and tucked them neatly into their box. She covered them with tissue paper and pressed them back where they belonged. Under the bed. Then, she slipped into comfortable flats and grabbed a purse. There was no need for heels. Not where Anne was going.
Jogging downstairs, Anne tossed keys into her bag and let herself out into the cool night air. She paused, inhaled deeply. The guilt hit when she exhaled.
With a flutter of panic, she turned back inside and sprinted up the steps to Gretchen’s room. She stood in the doorway, breathless, before the babysitter and a pile of children.
“Anne, are you okay?” Olivia asked. “You look flushed.”
Anne raised a hand to her forehead and felt sweat beaded there. She shuffled into the room and planted kisses on her children’s foreheads. She muttered half-hearted instructions to her children to obey the babysitter. When she let herself out of the room, her babies hardly seemed to notice.
Anne took the stairs two at a time. She wondered curiously if her family would notice if she disappeared. Stepped through the front door and never returned. Would Gretchen be relieved to see her meanie mom gone for good? Would Samuel even look up from his tablet? The twins…they wouldn’t know. They’d be fine. They’d all be fine.
Once situated inside her minivan, Anne wiped the beaded sweat away again.
“I’m okay,” she breathed to herself. “It’s fine. Plenty of moms forget to say goodbye to their children.”
She sat there for a minute, convincing herself it was true. When she didn’t like any of the thoughts dancing through her brain, she switched to safer thinking: her evening agenda.
Anne could go walk around Target for an hour, and it’d be nothing short of heavenly. She could push a cart without kids hanging off the sides or draping their bendy bodies across the underbelly. She wouldn’t have to play hide-and-seek across the clearance racks of clothes.
She could take a snippet of quiet time and read. There was a self-help book from her old friend Eliza that she’d been meaning to dive into for ages. She could grab a coffee at the all-night diner down the road and read, undisturbed. It would be a small slice of paradise.
Or she could do neither of the sensible options. The second the latter thought tiptoed into Anne’s brain, she knew there was no turning back. She was going to find answers. Answers she’d been seeking for weeks. Easing her key into the ignition, she cranked the car’s engine until it turned over and prayed their battery that needed replacing would last the night.
Mark, Mark, Mark, she thought as she pulled onto the streets. It’s time to find out where you’ve been going, oh husband of mine.
TRANSCRIPT
Prosecution: Ms. Sands, how long have you been living in Los Angeles?
Penny Sands: A little over a year. I moved here in May 2018, and it’s July now, so…thirteen months?
Prosecution: Fourteen.
Penny Sands: Whatever you say. I’ve never been great at math.
Prosecution: What brought you to Los Angeles?
Penny Sands: What brings anyone to Los Angeles? Lies, I guess.
Prosecution: Lies?
Penny Sands: You grow up thinking you can be anyone or do anything, but none of that’s true. Everyone moves here to be a movie star, and where do most of us end up? Well, I ended up in court, so there’s that.
Prosecution: When did you first meet Eliza Tate?
Penny Sands: During one of her book events. She was throwing a launch party for Marguerite Hill’s second book, Be Free, and I had an invitation.
Prosecution: Where did you get your invitation to Mrs. Tate’s event?
Penny Sands: From Roman.
Prosecution: Roman Tate—Eliza’s husband—invited you to the party?
Penny Sands: That’s what I said.
Prosecution: So you met Eliza Tate via her husband?
Defense: Objection. Already stated.
Prosecution: I’ll move on, Your Honor.
The Court: Very well.
Prosecution: Ms. Sands, when did you know that you were in love with Roman Tate?
TWO
Nine Months Before
May 2018
Penny Sands sat on the bus, eyes peeled wide, feeling much smaller than her 124 pounds. At five feet six inches tall, she was taller than the average woman and quite pretty, if she said so herself.
She felt much younger than her twenty-six years of age as the bus rolled its way into Los Angeles. She tried to take in everything— every honk from angry cars as they cruised in and out of traffic lanes, every closed-down, boarded-up, and graffitied shop, every overflowing garbage can.
The slightest bit of confusion flooded through her. A hint of panic. Barely discernible but definitely there. Surely, the Hollywood sign was hiding out of sight, just waiting to peep over the next overpriced gas station.
The beautiful people and movie stars, they’d be just around the next corner. On Rodeo Drive, probably. The bus just hadn’t made the correct turns yet. The glitz and glamour and hopefulness were tucked out of sight, waiting to be discovered by eager new hands. They must be.
“First time here?” The man in front of Penny turned and gave her a lopsided smile. “I can tell by that starry look in your eyes that you’re new to the area. By the way, name’s Kurt.”
“Oh.” Penny stifled a laugh. “Hi, Kurt. I’m Penny. And I didn’t realize I was that obvious.”
“Where you from?”
“A small town in Iowa. I’m sure you don’t know it.”
“Des Moines?”
She gave a faint smile. “Close enough. What about you? Are you from the ar
ea?”
“Nobody’s from LA originally.” Kurt smiled again, though it looked strange. It didn’t reach his eyes. “We’re all a mix from everywhere else. But I’m considered as much of a local as anyone now, been here twenty years. You moving here to be an actress?”
“Is it that obvious?”
“You look like an actress.”
“Well, thanks…I guess. But I also like to write. I thought about screenwriting while I’m out here or even producing. One day, I’d love to direct. Actually, back home, I worked for the local paper,” Penny said proudly. She’d graduated summa cum laude with an English degree from Iowa State and had nabbed one of the few writerly jobs available in her town. “In fact, the reason I’m here at all is because of a book.”
“How’s that?”
“Well, it sounds stupid when I say it out loud.”
“Why would it sound stupid?”
“It’s sort of self-helpy,” she said. “Anyhow, the author got me thinking, and I realized that I wanted more. I wanted something big, something huge. And I couldn’t have that in Boone, Iowa.”
“No, you most certainly couldn’t,” Kurt said. “Where will you be living?”
Penny frowned, glanced down at the slip of paper that had grown somewhat sweaty in her palm. “An apartment near…this street?”
She held it up so he could read the address. Kurt’s eyebrows twitched slightly, but Penny couldn’t interpret what the movement meant.
“Do you know it?” she continued. “Is the area safe? I tried to Google it, but it’s so hard to tell online. Not that I had many options. I mean, housing prices are so high out here, and I can’t afford a car just yet.”
“It’s right near me, actually,” Kurt said. “I live a few blocks away, down on Western. Want a lift home? It’s probably a twenty-minute walk from the bus station.”
“Oh, no. That’s fine,” she said. “I like to exercise.”
Kurt glanced out the window. “You’re gonna walk in the dark?”
