Things You Won't Say

by Sarah Pekkanen

  “Is Mike okay?” Lou asked. Suddenly she had the wild hope that the whole thing had been cleared up. A misunderstanding—it could happen, couldn’t it?

  “Not really,” Jamie said. “There’s a DiGiorno pizza in the freezer,” she continued. “Can you toss it the oven for the kids? Just take out all the stuff I store there before you preheat it.”

  “Um,” Lou began, then she decided Jamie had enough to deal with. “Sure” was all she said.

  “We’ll be there in ten minutes.”

  Lou focused on airing out the house as much as possible, turning on ceiling fans and even opening the chimney flue. But the first thing Mike said when he walked in the house was “Is something burning?”

  Then Eloise padded into the hallway and Lou turned to look at her, suddenly realizing her niece had something sticky-looking matting her hair—ice cream, probably—and her white T-shirt was covered with stains. Her face and hands weren’t all that clean, either.

  “I threw up,” Eloise announced.

  “Oh, baby,” Jamie said, rushing toward her. She buried her head in Eloise’s small shoulder, like she was the one seeking comfort. “I’m so sorry I wasn’t here when you were sick.”

  “She seemed okay earlier,” Lou offered.

  “Her stomach wasn’t upset?” Jamie asked.

  “I don’t know,” Lou said. “She didn’t mention it.”

  “Well, did she eat anything?” Jamie asked. She leaned back and brushed Eloise’s hair away from her face, then she put the back of her hand against Eloise’s forehead.

  “Oh, yeah,” Lou said. “She had popcorn and ice cream.”

  “M&M’s, too,” Sam added.

  “Popcorn, ice cream, and M&M’s?” Jamie said.

  “Well, when you put it that way, it doesn’t sound like as balanced a meal as I thought,” Lou said. She was aiming for a joke, hoping to squeeze a laugh out of Jamie and Mike. She saw the corners of Mike’s mouth lift up briefly, but it seemed to take an effort for him.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Jamie said. “I’m going to put you in the bathtub and get you some crackers and juice.”

  Lou felt a flash of guilt. Jamie’s skin was tinged with a ­violet-blue undertone. She seemed to have sprouted a few lines around her eyes, too.

  “I’ll check on the other kids,” Mike said. He put a hand on Lou’s shoulder and gave it a squeeze before walking out of the room.

  “Sorry,” Lou called after Jamie as she hustled Eloise up the stairs. Maybe she shouldn’t have teased her sister about her detailed lists quite so much, she thought.

  “Can you come up here a minute?” Jamie called.

  Lou followed her into the bathroom, where Jamie was running water into the tub. Lou reached for a washcloth on the rack by the sink, but Jamie grabbed it first and began to clean Eloise’s face.

  “I should’ve gotten them a better lunch—” Lou began.

  Jamie interrupted her. “Lou, it’s fine,” she said. But her voice still sounded irritated. Lou didn’t blame her; Jamie hadn’t asked for much, especially considering all she had done for Lou over the years, and Lou had made one of her children ill and caused the house to smell horrible.

  “I can give her a bath,” Lou offered.

  Jamie shook her head. “Why don’t you go talk to Mike? Keep him company.”

  “Okay,” Lou said. She could do that. “Was it . . . pretty awful today?”

  “He couldn’t even talk about it,” Jamie said. “His new partner threw him under the bus!”

  Jamie was silent as she worked Eloise’s stained shirt over her head, then removed the rest of the little girl’s clothes and tested the bathwater with her wrist before helping Eloise climb into the tub.

  “I’m worried sick about what’s going to happen tomorrow,” Jamie said. She reached for the shampoo and squirted a bit in her palm.

  “Why?” Lou asked. Jamie didn’t meet her eyes when she answered.

  “The mother of the teenager who died? She’s holding a press conference.”

  •••

  Christie bent over at the waist, reached into her push-up bra, and hefted her breasts another inch higher. They were in danger of spilling out of the top of her blouse now, which was precisely where she wanted them. She sat with her legs crossed on the edge of the bed, nibbling a hangnail. Doug was ten minutes late, and she hoped he was stuck in a terrible traffic jam. Every passing minute meant more money in her pocket.

  Doug’s wife was paying for a video Elroy would deliver in a manila envelope. Elroy had promised to edit the evidence so that Christie would be unrecognizable, which was a smart strategy. God forbid she bump into the woman at the gynecologist’s office.

  Christie imagined the scene. Maybe Elroy would meet Doug’s wife at a neutral spot, like a playground. While her kids sat in bucket swings, calling out to be pushed, Doug’s wife would reach for the envelope. Her fingers would probably tremble. She’d carry around the evidence until she got home. Maybe she’d wait until the kids were in bed, then she’d pour herself a big glass of wine and slip the DVD into the player. Even better, maybe she’d wait until Doug was home and suggest they watch a new movie together. Christie only hoped the house wasn’t just in Doug’s name—his wife deserved alimony, child support, and most of his assets. She’d overheard too many stories while working at the salon of women who’d lost everything, because they’d trusted their husbands to be fair. Christie always hid a snort when those sad tales spilled out. Who did these women expect to look after them, if they couldn’t even look after themselves?

  Someone knocked on the hotel room door, three raps in quick succession. Christie ran her finger over her top teeth to sweep away any lipstick smudges, took a deep breath, and went to pull the door open.

  Doug’s eyes lit up as he got a glimpse of her: Ka-ching! He’d hit the jackpot, and he didn’t even have to pay for the hotel room. That $2.49 he’d spent for her milk was the best investment he’d ever made.

  “Nice to see you again,” she said, stepping back to let him in. He gave her a kiss—fortunately not a lingering one—and treated her to a whiff of what smelled like an entire container of Axe body spray.

  He wore jeans and a black T-shirt with a blazer over it, and he seemed to be sucking in his gut. Infidelity chic, she thought. Macy’s should create a new line.

  “You look hot,” he said.

  She ran her tongue over her lips, slowly. “So do you,” she lied.

  He took a step toward her, then hesitated. “So, ah, should we . . . um . . .”

  Christie smiled. He was making this too easy. She’d been worried he’d launch himself at her—she imagined he’d be all paws and slobby kisses, a human golden retriever—and she’d have to slow him down. She wanted everything to look and sound good on tape. Plus she was making a rather generous hourly rate. Why not draw it out?

  “Can I get you something from the minibar?” she asked.

  He nodded. “A beer sounds good.”

  “Sure,” she said. She took her time opening the bottle and pouring its contents into a glass, then handed it to him. He nearly dropped the glass, and she saw him wipe his hands on his pants. His palms must be sweating—she could see the droplets of perspiration on his upper lip, too.

  “Sit down here,” she directed, patting the cushion of a chair. That would put Doug’s face directly in line with the video-­recording device Elroy had attached to a light fixture. There was another chair opposite Doug’s, and she took that one, crossing her legs and allowing the slit in her skirt to fall open, revealing a long expanse of thigh.

  “Okay,” he said. He sat down, his eyes ricocheting between her thighs and her cleavage.

  “Do you know what gets me really hot?” she asked.

  He shook his head mutely.

  “Hearing you talk about what you want to do to me,” Christie
said. She leaned back her head and stared at him from under heavy-lidded eyes.

  She could see his Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

  “I, um, want to kiss you,” he said. “Then lick your boobies.”

  Boobies? She struggled to keep a straight face. “Tell me more, big boy,” she breathed.

  “Then I want to take off, um, your clothes,” he said.

  Please don’t ever try to get a job working on a phone sex call-in line, she thought.

  “Then what?” she prompted.

  He frowned, thinking hard.

  “Maybe you could walk around for a little bit.”

  “I’m wearing a black lace G-string,” she said. “Should I keep it on? And maybe keep on my high heels, too?”

  “Yes! God, yes!” he said.

  They were finally getting somewhere, but only because she was steering him, like he was a horse and she had a firm grip on his bridle.

  She waited, but he didn’t add anything to the scenario she was trying to help him paint.

  She leaned forward. “Then what are you going to do with me?”

  “Then I’m going to, I’m . . . then I’ll take out my . . .”

  “Yes?” she breathed.

  He burst into tears.

  “I can’t do it,” he sobbed. “I’m married.”

  “Oh, shit,” Christie said.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, misunderstanding her disappointment. “You’re really pretty and everything, it’s just . . . I love my wife.”

  Maybe she could still salvage this.

  “But I bet she doesn’t understand you, does she?” Christie asked. She leaned forward. Keep your eyes on the boobies, Doug.

  “No, she does!” Doug protested, wiping his eyes. “She’s great. She takes care of the kids and she makes really good buffalo wings and she drives whenever we go on the Beltway because I hate doing it. I just . . . I’m turning thirty-five this year and I feel really old.”

  “Thirty-five isn’t old!” Christie said quickly. “It’s actually quite young!”

  “I found a gray hair the other day,” Doug confessed. “I had to pluck it. It hurt.” He began to cry harder.

  Jesus, Christie thought.

  “Have you ever cheated on your wife before?” she asked.

  Doug shook his head. “Never.” He sniffed. “Do you have a tissue?”

  She tossed him a box from the table by the minibar. Would they still get paid? she wondered. She’d better still get paid for this.

  “I should go,” Doug said. He stood up.

  “Okay,” Christie said.

  “I’m sorry,” Doug said. He walked toward her, clearly intent on giving her a consolation kiss, but Christie sidestepped him and stuck out her hand. When he was finally out of the room, she took a deep breath, inhaling a potentially dangerous amount of Axe, and collapsed onto the bed. A moment later she heard a knock and she sprang back up. Maybe Doug had changed his mind.

  “Did someone order champagne?” Elroy asked when Christie opened the door. He was shaking with laughter. She gave him the finger and walked back to the chair Doug had just vacated. He hadn’t even taken a sip of his beer, so she gulped some.

  “Boobies?” Elroy echoed, and Christie began to laugh, too.

  “I still get paid, right?” she asked.

  “Of course,” Elroy said. “Not the first time a guy has chickened out. His wife is going to be thrilled. She won’t dispute the bill. Good thinking on asking if he’d ever cheated on her before, by the way.”

  “Thanks,” Christie said. She began to feel a little better. The Heineken could be helping with that, too, she thought as she had another gulp. “So what now?”

  “Now I prepare the file for the wife and you get ready for your next victim,” Elroy said. He stood on a chair and peeled away his device from the light fixture.

  “Good,” Christie said. She tipped back the glass and swallowed the rest of the beer. “You know, I could juggle more than one at a time. I mean, if you’ve got that many clients.”

  Elroy appraised her.

  “You wanted to see how I’d do on this job first, didn’t you?” Christie asked. “Was this a trial run?”

  Elroy nodded. “Yep.”

  Christie wondered, not for the first time, how it was that she could be so cunning about some things and so dumb about others. In high school, she’d known during the first week which teachers were going to ride her ass, giving her Ds on homework assignments and suggesting she sign up for the free tutoring the geeks gave in the library after school, and she’d easily discerned which teachers didn’t care if she copied off other kids. And take men—she could be so savvy about certain guys, knowing which ones would be good in the sack but bad about remembering her birthday. Yet when it came to Simon, she’d been a complete fool. It all boiled down to not caring, she thought. Emotions distorted your vision. Maybe those women at the hair salon who’d cried about their divorces hadn’t thought about holding on to their assets because they were too busy trying to hold together the shards of their hearts, Christie thought.

  “You might’ve told me this was a test before I quit my job,” she said.

  “I didn’t know you quit your job,” he said.

  “Well, I did,” Christie said. “So you’d better keep me busy.”

  “Okay,” Elroy said. He tossed her two folders. “Take a look at these guys. We can set up meet-and-greets tomorrow if you’re free.”

  “At sixty bucks an hour, you’d better bet I’m free,” Christie said. She emptied her beer, then reached into the minibar and took out a few mini-bottles of alcohol. “Let’s call these a signing bonus, shall we?” she said. She put them in her shoulder purse along with the two folders.

  “I think Doug’s wife would want to treat you to them,” Elroy said.

  Christie grinned, then walked out, her step light.

  * * *

  Chapter Eight

  * * *

  JOSE. THAT WAS THE name of the boy Mike had shot. The teenager had been in trouble a few times before, for fighting and truancy. He’d also gone to church with his mother every Sunday and had sung in the choir. He’d possessed a rich tenor, the newspapers reported. He’d lived with his mother and younger brother in a transitional area of D.C.—not far from the million-dollar row homes or from the run-down ones with cardboard covering broken windows. He was an in-between in other ways, too. Not quite a man, but at five feet, eight inches tall, no longer a boy. The brushes with the law and the church choir were balancing on opposite ends of a scale, too. Eventually Jose would’ve tipped one way or the other.

  The press conference was scheduled for noon today, and Jamie had no idea what Jose’s mother was planning to say.

  The front page of the Metro section held a photograph of Jose looking off to one side and grinning, his eyes shaded by a sweep of long lashes. Jamie stared down at it, wondering if he had been smiling at his mom. She didn’t realize she’d released a whimper until Sam, who was lying across her lap, asked what was wrong. Sam had been extra clingy lately, trailing after her as she worked around the house and waking up in the middle of the night to climb into bed with her and Mike. “Nothing,” she said as she bent to kiss his head. Jamie caught a whiff of sweet shampoo and something else, a scent that was uniquely Sam. She wondered if Jose’s mother was kneeling in her son’s closet, breathing in, despairing at the thought that she might someday forget the sound of her boy’s voice. Jamie closed her eyes against the sharp prick of tears and held Sam tighter.

  “Are you going to watch?” Jamie asked Mike a few hours later.

  Mike shrugged. He was sitting at the little table in the kitchen, an untouched turkey-and-cheese sandwich on a plate in front of him. Three large electric fans had appeared and were blowing air around the house, giving them a little break from the stifling heat. Lou must’
ve bought those, Jamie thought. She vaguely remembered hearing her sister go out last night.

  By now the kids were in the living room, watching Frozen for the dozenth time. At this point they could probably recite all the dialogue. Jamie had started to set up the sprinkler on the front lawn, but then she’d spotted a guy with a big camera slung around his neck. She’d run back into the house and yanked the curtains shut, her rage swelling. They were trapped. How long were reporters going to be lurking? So far Eloise was mostly unaware of what was happening, but Jamie knew Sam and Emily had figured out some of the details. And Henry had probably read all of the news stories.

  So had the neighbors, apparently. When Jamie had driven past an older woman who lived alone at the corner of their block, someone who’d always made a nice fuss over her kids, the woman had deliberately averted her head after Jamie called a hello out her van’s window. Jamie’s back had stiffened as she pressed harder on the gas.

  At least most of their friends were being supportive. The family two doors down had put together a container of fried chicken and a green salad and dropped off the meal along with a kind note, and a number of other people had called or emailed, offering to help in any way possible. Sandy had brought by a giant box of brownies and she’d given Jamie a fast, hard hug.

  “I know,” Sandy had murmured. But she couldn’t. Jamie had sensed Sandy wanted to come inside, but she made up an excuse about Mike being asleep on the couch. If Jamie sat down and looked into Sandy’s soft brown eyes and felt Sandy’s slim hand grip her own, she might fall apart, and then what would happen to her family?

  “Reporters keep trying to interview me,” Sandy had said just before she’d left. “They’ve been leaving messages.”

  Jamie’s heart had skipped a beat. “Please don’t talk to them!” she’d cried.

  “Of course I won’t,” Sandy had said. “I deleted all the messages. I just wanted you to know.”

  Jamie had held the box of still-warm brownies in her hands as she watched Sandy get into her car and drive off. The casualties kept mounting—Jose, Mike and his reputation, their family’s happiness . . . Maybe her friendship with Sandy would be another.