White Widow

by Kaitlyn Cross

  “Don’t be.” Turning away from him, I run a finger under my eye. “Have your parents been here to get anything yet?”

  Lincoln looks around, pausing to stare at a dark sports jacket hanging from a coat tree in the corner. “I don’t think so.” Without sitting back down, he pulls back the center drawer in the top of the desk. It’s stuffed with oddball papers, pens, staples, and dry erase markers. He takes out a brochure and holds it up. “Were you guys planning a trip to Yellowstone?”

  I almost laugh. Jack despised national parks. He could barely stand Clearwater Lake just outside town. “No,” I reply. “He thought they were overpriced tourist traps.”

  Tossing it onto the desk, Lincoln dives back in. “That’s what I thought.”

  I lower my voice to a salty whisper. “Do you think he was planning a romantic getaway with his secret lover?”

  “Maybe.”

  Pursing my pouty lips, I scowl at the brochure. Jack took me to Vegas three times and the Bahamas twice. It was fun, but about as romantic as a picnic at an ant farm. Most of the time, he gambled while I stuffed my face and checked my phone. For the life of me, I cannot imagine him taking his boy-toy to a family-friendly national park where there wouldn’t be anything to do except hike and talk. A sliver of hurt slices through me because when we took vacations together there was always something to distract us from talking.

  I hear another drawer slide open. “Here we go.”

  The sound of Lincoln’s voice pulls me back into the room. I click my pumps around the desk to see what clue he’s found, knowing this is the smoking gun we’re searching for. My pulse races, senses heightened. The room is warm and the smell of popcorn drifts in under the door. Despite the fact that I am Sienna McConnel, the good professor’s wife, I can’t shake the feeling we’re trespassing. That we’re going to get caught. “What is it?” I whisper, squinting into a lower drawer.

  Reaching in, Lincoln pulls out what looks like a bundle of tiny balloons and sets them on the desk. I stare confusedly at the bouquet of brightly colored objects.

  “What are those?”

  He grins at me. “Edibles.”

  My eyebrows pull together. “Edibles?”

  “Some pot suckers we brought back from Colorado last summer.” He spins the tightly wrapped bouquet of individually wrapped suckers on the desk. “I don’t think he ate a single one.” He snorts his amusement. “Mine’ve been gone since Christmas.”

  “Wait, you guys went to Colorado together?”

  “You remember that car show we took the Vette to in Denver?” he says, gesturing with the bundle of lollipops. “All this stuff is legal there now.”

  A faint memory of that weekend pulses through my mind. I don’t remember what I did that weekend or really care. “Wait, Jack ate one of those? He hated drugs.”

  “Oh, I know,” Lincoln replies, staring distantly at the suckers on the desk. “After the show, I talked him into smoking some OG Kush before going to this bar where he thought spiders were crawling in his hair all night long. The bartender thought he was a tweaker. I was dying laughing.”

  “Now, that I would’ve paid to see.” Craning my neck, I stare into the far reaches of the drawer. “Anything else in there?”

  Lincoln reaches back in and flips through some wrinkled folders, classic car calendars, and pads of paper. Moving on to the next drawer, he rifles through it for something that will point us in the right direction. A hidden picture of Jack and his lover, a handwritten note, a key to some seedy motel, a suspicious receipt from H&M. Anything! Closing the last drawer, Lincoln sighs. “Even if there was a list of student names somewhere in here, there’d be hundreds to sift through.” He sits on the desk and crosses his arms. “Looks like a dead end.”

  My eyes snag on a framed picture of Jack and I perched upon a built-in bookshelf across the office. I’m glowing in a short, white dress while Jack sports white pants and a breezy button down. Blue waves crash in the background and if you would’ve told that poor girl our wedding picture would end up becoming a prop to cover up Jack’s alternative lifestyle, she never would’ve believed it. She had high hopes for the future and, standing here now, I feel sorry for her. She never stood a chance and damn Jack for doing that to her. She gave him everything and it was never enough.

  “I remember that day,” Lincoln says, stopping next to me and staring at the photograph. “I spilt a glass of red wine on his shirt about fifteen minutes after that picture was taken.”

  I smile, a fond look softening my eyes. “He was so pissed.”

  “It looked like somebody shot him in the stomach.”

  I laugh. “I thought he was going to kill you,” I say, arching an eyebrow at him. “Why were you drinking red wine anyway?”

  “I wasn’t; my date was.”

  I tip my head back. “Ah, that’s right. What was her name again?”

  “Mandy.”

  “Wait, I thought it was Brandy.”

  “Maybe it was Candy.”

  “She did look like a stripper.”

  He spreads a sly dog grin. “She was a stripper.”

  Rolling my eyes, I actually believe him. “What now?” I ask, leaning next to him on the desk.

  Blowing out a heavy breath, he looks around the office while my eyes gravitate to his bulging biceps. I once felt safe in Jack’s arms, but I bet I’d feel even safer in Lincoln’s.

  No. Stop. Doing. That.

  If anything ever happened between us, people would talk. Would get hurt. For instance, if Lincoln were to lay me out on this shiny desk and slide my jeans off, that would be a bad thing. If he then went on to kneel before me and worship the wet spot growing in my underwear, that would be a really bad thing. I mean, what’s the point? My husband just died and Lincoln is my brother-in-law. Even if he is adopted and my husband is dead, it’s still weird. Dismissing the flood of warmth between my legs, I clear the thought with a quick shake of the head. Instead of ripping my jeans off and fucking me silly, Lincoln crosses the room and stops in front of the coat rack. Trading a knowing look with me, he searches the pockets of a navy-blue sports jacket and my heartrate accelerates with anticipation. Pulling out a small piece of paper, he brings it closer to his eyes.

  “What is it?” I ask, voice laced with hope because, somehow, I know this is the clue that will unlock this mystery and lead us straight to the blond kid.

  Lincoln holds it up for me to see. “Dry-cleaning stub.”

  My shoulders sink with my spirits. “Oh.”

  “Well,” he says, setting his hands on his hips. “I guess that’s about it.”

  Biting on a pinky, I scour the place with investigatory eyes, refusing to give up. Arduously, I search every nook and cranny because there has to be something we missed. We were brought here for a reason. Checking more drawers and shelves, I stop to hang my head because the cold, hard truth is, there are no clues to be found here. No skeleton key hiding beneath the false bottom of a desk drawer that unlocks an old chest buried in his grandmother’s attic. Just a couple of old memories that leave us forlorn and cheated. This isn’t some big screen thriller, peppered with wild car chases and brazen shoot outs. This is real life. This is me. Looking at Lincoln, I clear my throat. “Did you check for a false bottom in the desk drawers?”

  “Actually, I did.”

  Exhaling a conquered breath through my nose, I yank a sucker from the tightly wound bunch. “Sucker?” I say, offering him a red one.

  He can’t stop a laugh.

  I shrug. “What else do you have to do?”

  “You want me to eat a pot sucker in the middle of the day?”

  I unwrap it for him. “No, I want you to suck on a pot sucker in the middle of the day.”

  “And go where?”

  “Wherever the mood takes us.”

  Eyeing me over for a thoughtful moment, he accepts it. “Fine,” he says, popping it into his mouth.

  Smiling, I set the bouquet on the desk and hike up my jeans. “Ready to ge
t going?”

  His brow folds, sucker wiggling in the corner of his mouth. “Aren’t you going to eat one?”

  “Naw, that stuff makes me waaay too paranoid.”

  “But I already put one in my mouth!”

  “Yep,” I say, checking the Rolex on my wrist. “And you should be coming on any minute now.” Laughing at the mortified look on his face, I unwrap a red one as well and cheer him with it. “Happy?” I say, wrapping my lips around it.

  He smiles and we leave the empty cardboard box on the couch, slipping back out into the brightly lit hallway. The front desk lady with salt and pepper curls gives us a sympathetic smile that fizzles on her cherry stained lips. “You’re not taking anything?”

  Lincoln holds up the bundle of lollipops, one jiggling in the corner of his mouth. “We got these.”

  Chapter Nine

  It’s the Pot Sucker

  Sipping an iced mocha through a straw, I search unfamiliar faces for the guy I saw Jack fucking in our bedroom. After what Mary told me, I know he’s a student here. Has to be. Over the last couple weeks, however, the disturbing image has grown distorted and blurry around the edges, turning half the students inside the Campus Cafe into leading suspects. My drink is cold and chocolatey and I can’t tell if it’s making me jittery or if it’s the sucker I finished fifteen minutes ago.

  “I don’t feel anything yet,” I whisper across the table, watching people come and go. “Do you?”

  “Not yet,” Lincoln replies, twisting a cup of black coffee in his hands.

  “Well, how long does it take to start working?”

  He shrugs. “Depends on how much you’ve had to eat today.”

  My heart drops. “I didn’t eat lunch.”

  “Uh-oh.”

  Panic rises in the back of my throat because I’m not a big drug person. I smoked some joints back in college and don’t have a problem with weed. In fact, it should be legal. The tax dollars alone could fund half our entire public-school system but, personally, drugs aren’t my thing and I don’t know what to expect from this edible sucker. I’ve never tried one before. “Did you eat lunch?”

  “Oh yeah.” Lincoln pats his smooth stomach. “Went to Rocky Rococo’s and chowed down hard.”

  My bloodshot eyes bulge in their smoky sockets. “You did?”

  “Had three slices of sausage and mushroom, plus a cup of breadsticks.”

  “Oh my God,” I mutter, pushing my mocha away. My head feels dizzy and I can’t stop looking for Jack’s lover even though I know it’s like looking for a needle in a haystack. I haven’t been here in a few years and don’t recognize a single face. Everyone looks so much younger than before, it’s equally as startling as it is depressing. Clothes faded and unkempt, their faces are so blank I wonder if they aren’t android hosts sent here to suck the planet dry of its color. “Why is everyone staring at us?”

  Lincoln looks around the small shop, lips pulling down. “They’re not. You’re just getting paranoid. Try to relax.”

  “God, doesn’t anyone smile anymore?”

  He shrugs before sipping his coffee.

  “How long does this stuff last anyway?” I rattle off, forcing myself to stop toying with the wedding ring I have to keep wearing whether I like it or not.

  “The mocha?”

  Tilting my head to one side, I press my lips together and Lincoln laughs.

  “Do you want to get out of here?” he asks, grabbing his smartphone from the table.

  “Yes.”

  The air outside is crisp and fresh and never smelled sweeter. I haven’t strolled this campus for a long time and it’s good to be back. It’s alive. Electric. A warm breeze runs its fingers through my long, dark hair and I miss the days when life was so much easier. When my friends were just a nudge away. Mary is right. Working a fulltime job sucks. My chest lowers as I give a melancholy breath back to the wind. The sad truth is, I don’t have many friends now, let alone a fulltime job. I teach yoga part-time and wonder how long the money from the house and Jack’s life insurance policy will hold out. If I’m frugal, I should be okay for five or six years. Seven if I start clipping coupons.

  “Penny for your thoughts?”

  Turning to Lincoln, my pulse dips when I realize I’ve had my arm looped through his as we stroll a sidewalk of restaurants, cellphone stores, and head shops. “Sorry,” I say, flashing a sheepish smile and taking my arm back. “I think the sucker is starting to kick in.”

  He trades me a smile for my hand. “Come on,” he says, leading me across the street and around the block. Cresting a grassy knoll, the park opens up before us on a downward slide, a natural amphitheater already green and lush. Sun sparkles dance off the Skunk River running through it, reflecting back up into the clear, blue sky. Situated along the banks, people stretch out on their backpacks and study their phones. Others toss frisbees on the breeze holding notes of lavender and freshly cut grass.

  “God, I haven’t been here forever,” I admit, letting him lead me to a shady spot under a maple tree.

  “Me neither.”

  Sitting, I wrap my arms around my knees and take in the pink Magnolias and purple Redbuds. “Wait,” I say, removing my sunglasses. “How long did you go here again?”

  “I did a couple semesters before transferring to culinary school. After that, I just came for the parties.” He blows out a slow breath and his eyes even glimmer in the shade. “God, I miss those days. Now all my friends are married with children and that party is over.” Lincoln cracks a faint smile. “Except Eddie. He’s always up for a cold one and a game of stick.”

  I lean back on my elbows and watch a stream of joggers and bikers slip past on the paved trail running alongside the river. Sunlight sifts through the swaying treetop above, making bright spots dance upon our legs and cheeks. “I used to have so many friends here.” A wistful sigh escapes me. “I always thought we’d be friends forever but then…”

  “Life happens,” he finishes for me, picking a blade of grass and tossing it into the air.

  “Yeah.” We grow quiet and watch the world go by a minute at a time, enjoying the moment. “It’s beautiful here.”

  “It really is,” he agrees, staring right at me.

  Blushing, I kick my shoes off and run my feet through the cool grass. I can feel every blade and it’s like the world’s softest shag carpeting. Everyone is out soaking up the sun after a long, cold winter and, soon, summer will turn this campus into a ghost town. “Don’t these people have class?”

  “I was just thinking that!” Lincoln leans back on an elbow. Shafts of sunlight sprinkle over his face, making him look like Edward Cullen in that one scene at the top of the mountain. Or was it in a field of purple flowers? Jesus fucking Christ, I can’t remember anything anymore. But it’s like that now. Peaceful. Serene. Just the two of us.

  “Everyone must be skipping,” I hear myself robotically reply, running my red-painted toes through the grass. “It’s perfect out.”

  Lincoln gets quiet and watches the river run past through distant eyes, picking at the grass. “I can’t believe Jack is gone.”

  Frowning at him, laughter bursts from my nose. I try to hold it in with a hand but it’s too late. The moose is loose and now it’s pouring out.

  He scrunches his face up at me. “What’s so funny?”

  I wave him off, laughing even harder at the warped look twisting his face. “I’m sorry,” I pant, covering my mouth. I can barely breathe, let alone stop the tears from painting my cheeks.

  Lincoln shakes his head and picks another strand of grass.

  Inhaling a calming breath, I let it out and pull myself together. “Sorry,” I say, clearing my throat and brushing bangs from my face. “It’s the pot sucker. I’m so sorry.”

  Snorting his understanding – or repugnance, I’m not sure which – he watches two squirrels go zigzagging across the grass and chase each other up a nearby tree. “The last time I was here was four years ago,” Lincoln says in a soft voice
, pitching a green blade into the breeze. “I dropped by Jack’s office one afternoon and tried to get him to knock off early and hit the campus bars with me – ya know, for old time’s sake – but he wouldn’t do it. No matter how hard I tried to get him to take a break from this stack of papers, he stuck to his guns and I ended up leaving that office and never coming back.” He plucks another piece of grass. “Until today.” Grunting, he nearly smiles. “It was like that my whole life with him. Always brushing me off for something else and I never knew why.” He tosses the grass into the air. “And now I never will.”

  Bringing a fist to my face, I clench my teeth and hold my breath. My face turns red and, despite my best efforts, air shoots from my nose. “Oh Jesus, I’m sorry!” I blurt, launching into more laughter. Tears storm my cheeks and my nose runs like the river through this park. “This is so rude; I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

  Lincoln frowns before laughing a little himself. “You’re high as a kite is what’s happening to you.”

  Our amusement snowballs into something that cannot be stopped, a steam engine of laughter barreling off the tracks. A group of smart looking people turn our direction and it only makes matters worse. I can’t breathe. I can’t see. My head is floating up in the leaves and Lincoln is right there next to me. When it runs its course and we float back down to earth, we’re left collecting our breath and exchanging blurry-eyed glances. I still don’t know what was so funny and feel awful for laughing at Lincoln’s sob story about his dead brother – my dead husband. Sighing, I return to running my toes through the grass while Lincoln prunes the earth beneath us.

  “But you’re right,” I finally say. “I still can’t believe Jack is gone.” This time no laughter follows. You can only run from the ugly truth for so long before it catches back up to you with a sledgehammer and drives you into the ground.

  “I still can’t believe you married him.”

  Aghast, I hone my eyes into angry slits.

  He shrugs and watches a white grocery bag go tumbling past with the breeze, twirling high up into the air. “I guess he wasn’t always a jerk.”