Red Blooded Murder

by Laura Caldwell

  “Yeah, but I know why Sam did what he did.”

  “And if you’re so fine with that, then why aren’t you back together?”

  A good question. One Sam had been asking me, one I’d been asking myself for months.

  A few years ago, when Sam and I discussed getting married, I had journaled about it, I had visualized it and debated the pros and cons. I talked to Sam about it, and I talked to my friends about it. And the conclusion I came to in my heart was…Yes. I wanted to be married, and I wanted to be married to Sam. But the big wedding Sam desired and my mother supported entirely had completely overwhelmed me. I was just about to talk to Sam about scaling it back, maybe even cancelling it, when he disappeared. So much had happened since then, and now something felt stuck in our wheel, dragging Sam and me slower and slower.

  “I guess we’re not back together,” I said to Jane, “because it would have to be a hundred percent. I wouldn’t be dating anyone else. I wouldn’t be sleeping with anyone else.”

  “Don’t judge me because I had sex with that writer last night.”

  “Actually, I’m not judging you at all. When Sam was gone and I had no idea where he was, I kissed someone else. My friend Grady.”

  “See? And a lot of times I don’t sleep with these people, by the way.” She picked up the mug and took a sip. “A lot of times it’s just a make-out thing.”

  “Does it matter, though? I’m really not judging you, I swear. God knows I’m spinning around, trying to figure out my life, so I’m the last person to judge anyone. I just think that cheating is cheating.”

  “Oh God, are you one of those people who think that even kissing someone else is cheating?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So you cheated on Sam when you kissed that other guy?”

  “I’m not proud of it, but yes, it was technically cheating.”

  Jane’s expression was now one of disappointment. “Izzy McNeil, I wouldn’t have thought you were such an innocent.” The word innocent had a bite; it wasn’t meant as a compliment.

  I was quiet, watching Jane, processing these new bits of information about her. Jane was right-no one was perfect. But she was wrong to say I was an innocent, because I’d learned the hard lesson that no one in my life was exactly who I’d thought they were, a fact that had unsettled me at first. And yet, with distance and time, the altered images I now had of those people delighted me in a strange way. They made me realize that there was no end to the random flotsam of traits, beliefs, habits and secrets that were hidden under the controlled exteriors people wore. Which meant that the world was a mystery and always would be. Although this fact had initially depressed me, had nearly taken me down and left me there, I’d finally decided to see the wonder in it and be amazed.

  I knew that Jane prized honesty, so I said, “Here’s my thinking on the topic. Maybe it’s old-fashioned, but I think if you’re fooling around with someone other than the person you’re committed to, then cheating is cheating. Whether it’s kissing or rolling around or sex.”

  Jane leaned forward, her eyes lighting again. “Okay, so go with me for a second. Let’s say you and Sam are together, let’s say you’ve already gotten married, but you need a break, and you decide to take a vacation with a friend. Who’s your best girlfriend?”

  “Maggie Bristol. You might know her. She’s a criminal defense lawyer.”

  “Martin Bristol’s kid?”

  “Grandkid.”

  “We should get both of them on Trial TV. But anyway, let’s say you and Maggie decide to go to South Beach, okay? You head down there with some other girls for a weekend. You’re just gonna tear up the town, drink too much, dance your asses off, have bloodies by the pool in the morning.”

  “Sounds great.”

  “Exactly. It’s just you and the girls. But of course, you’re going to talk to guys at the pool. I mean, you can do that, even if you’ve got a boyfriend or a husband, right? That’s not cheating.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, and when you see the same group of guys out that night, you’re going to talk to them again, aren’t you?”

  “Yes, Jane, I talk to men. What’s the point?”

  “Stay with me. So there’s one guy in particular who thinks you’re incredible. You know how you can tell when a guy thinks you’re sexy?”

  I laughed. “I guess.”

  “You know. Like Theo last night. There was no question about that, was there?”

  I blushed. Nope, there had been no misunderstanding with Theo last night. None this morning, either.

  “Okay, so your girlfriend Maggie, is she single?”

  “Not really. She recently got back together with a guy named Wyatt.”

  “Well, imagine this is right before they got back together.”

  “Sure.” Maggie was perennially single, so it wasn’t hard to imagine.

  “So Maggie is flirting with one of this guy’s buddies, and you and this guy who has the hots for you, you’re just talking, and he buys you a drink. You’d accept that drink, wouldn’t you?”

  “Sure, and I’d buy him one, too. I’d probably buy for the whole group.”

  “Definitely.” Jane was talking faster now, her voice excited. “And you think this guy is cool. I mean, he’s definitely good-looking, and he’s super smart. He’s got this great job, doing…I don’t know…something that takes brains like running a hedge fund. You’re having an amazing conversation. Nothing wrong with that, right?”

  “No, there’s nothing wrong with talking to someone.” I took a couple sips of my tea. I was suddenly exhausted. The night with Theo hadn’t allowed more than three hours of sleep. Not that I was complaining.

  “You really have a great connection with this guy,” Jane continued. “You start to think about how attached you feel to him, just from your conversation, and you realize you haven’t felt that connected to Sam, not in the same way, for a while. Not that you don’t love Sam, but you don’t always feel in sync with him.”

  I blinked a few times. I knew what she was talking about. “But you can’t feel connected to anyone a hundred percent of the time, so of course you’re going to feel connected to other people sometimes. Other guys.”

  “Absolutely. So you’re feeling this connection, and it’s exhilarating. It’s literally making you feel more alive to have this conversation. The drinks are flowing, and your Maggie is gone for the moment, but you don’t care, because you feel safe with this guy. He’s married, you’re married. The bottom line is you just think he’s wonderful. You’re thinking that maybe you could introduce him to Sam and they could be friends, or maybe you could set him up with one of your other girlfriends. He’s that great of a guy.”

  “Okay, Jane, I got it. What’s your point?”

  “My point…” She scooted forward in her seat, her long torso stretching toward mine. Her black hair swung over her shoulders and hung in two gleaming sheets along the sides of her face.

  “You want to know my point, Izzy?” She leaned closer. She smelled warm, like a cinnamon apple. I could see a few delicate lines that cut through the puff of her bottom lip.

  Her voice was hypnotic; I was waiting to find out where she was taking me. “Yeah,” I said.

  “My point is…” She leaned even closer so that our faces were only an inch apart. “What if…” I could feel her soft breath near my mouth. “What if he moved toward you, just like this? What if you could feel the heat from his body and his mouth when he spoke to you? You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.” I didn’t move. I felt as if I was holding my breath, waiting for the end of the story.

  “No one is around.” Jane was now speaking her words in my ear. “It’s loud and it’s buzzing in that bar, and the more you talk, it just seems like the two of you, no one else. You know what I mean?”

  “Yeah.” In my peripheral vision, I saw the front window of the coffee shop over Jane’s shoulder, but I wasn’t truly seeing. I was in South Beach at that bar.


  “So what if…what if right at that moment, he stopped talking…” Jane halted for a second, turned her head a fraction of an inch. Her mouth was near mine. “And what if he kissed you?”

  We stayed there, Jane’s lips close to mine, and for a second I wondered if she was going to kiss me, just to prove her point. And though I had never thought of kissing a woman before, it didn’t seem a terrible prospect. In fact…

  I let myself drift, far away from my mind, which had been so sure of what it wanted and how it would act only minutes before. I closed my eyes. I parted my lips for just a second.

  “See?” Jane said. “See? You would have done it!”

  My eyes bolted open. “No, I wouldn’t.”

  She sat back and slapped her knee. “Yes, you would. You would have kissed me.”

  “Bullshack,” I said, trying out one of my swear word replacements. Then to really make my point, “Bullshit.” I picked up my mug and drank a few gulps of tea.

  “Fine, then you would have kissed that guy in South Beach.”

  “No.” But the way she’d told the story, she might have been right. In a moment like that, I might have slipped. “If I did,” I said, “I would have felt awful. It would have been cheating to me.”

  “No, that’s not cheating. Kissing or making out, especially in a situation like that, is not cheating.”

  “It is.”

  She sighed. “You know how many of your friends who are in relationships do stuff like that?”

  “None that I know of.”

  “None that tell you.”

  I laughed. “Maybe you’re right.” But the truth was I felt like a farm girl led into town for the first time. Was she right? Was this one of those things that everyone believed except for me? Was I some innocent, as Jane said? Someone behind the times?

  “You won’t tell anyone about me…you know, about me being red-blooded, will you?” She smiled then dropped it.

  “No way. I’m a vault.”

  “Good. You’ll be the only one in the news business.” She glanced at her watch. “I should get going.”

  I felt as if I had missed some amorphous opportunity, one that would have allowed me to connect with Jane, and I regretted it. “Hey, Jane. I’m sorry.”

  She shook her head, silent. She picked her phone off the table, looked at it, then bent down and tossed it in her bag. She straightened up and smiled.

  “That’s your anchorwoman smile,” I said. “I’ve seen it.”

  She laughed, her own personal smile returning, one that was natural and made the sides of her eyes crease just a little. She reached across the table and lifted my hand, giving me a little squeeze. Her fingers were smooth but firm. “I’m glad we’re going to be working together.”

  “Me, too. Hey, Jane, don’t I need to do something this weekend, like rehearsals?”

  She shook her head. “Just the on-air people. But be ready for trial-by-fire on Monday.” She took a silver cigarette case out of her purse. Opening it, she pulled out some bills and put them on the table. “I’ve got to get out of here. Zac has had enough time to cool off. Time for damage control, and then I have to get to the station.”

  “Will you and Zac be okay?”

  She gave a hard, short laugh. “A few months ago, I would have said ‘yeah.’ Zac knows I’m red-blooded. And he still loves me.”

  “What’s happened over the last few months?”

  She gathered her wrap made of taupe-colored cashmere, her eyes downcast. “He’s been getting sick of it. I mean, who can blame him? It’s just that we had an understanding before, and now he’s not…Well, he’s not so understanding anymore.”

  Elegantly, Jane swung the wrap around her shoulders, then released her deep black hair, letting it fall around her like a shiny shawl. She stood. “I forgot to ask you-what happened with Theo last night?”

  I said nothing, and in that moment, Jane must have read my face.

  She laughed. She leaned over me. “Was it hot?”

  In that instant, I saw Theo leaning over me, moving into me, his hair brushing the sides of my face. I blushed with the memory. “Yeah.”

  “Did it feel like anything you’d ever had before?” When I paused, she said, “C’mon. You’ve had sex before, Izzy, but this was something different, right? Something more electrifying than you’ve felt.”

  I could feel his lips biting mine; I could feel his fingers everywhere. I flushed more deeply. “Yeah.”

  “Was it so good it felt like your whole body filled up with heat? The kind of heat that you didn’t know if you could bear, but yet somehow you loved it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And you felt like your mind was going to explode?”

  I saw Theo and me then, slick with sweat, coming together, setting off explosions. “Yeah.”

  She stood up, taking the heat of the moment, the heat of the memories with her. “That’s how I felt last night, too,” she said. “That’s how I always feel. That’s one of the reasons why I’ve had such a hard time giving it up.”

  “What are the other reasons?”

  Her eyes went thoughtful. She looked past me for a moment. “There isn’t one person who can be everything to me. I think it’s unfair to try and make Zac my best friend, my lover, my business partner, the co-owner of our houses, my accountant, the person I cut loose with, the person whose shoulder I cry on.” She looked at me.

  I said nothing, sensing more.

  “Different people inspire me in different ways,” she continued. “They fascinate me in different ways. I like to be let into someone else’s life, to see what other people are doing with their days.” She stopped and shook her head. “I just look at my own life differently after I’ve gotten a taste of someone else’s.”

  I nodded. I understood a little, I suppose.

  “Anyway, I’ve got lots of other reasons,” Jane said. “Those are just some of them.”

  Before I could respond, she turned, and then Jane Augustine was gone.

  8

  J ane sat in Zac’s studio in their basement. They always did their best talking while he worked. Her husband’s back was to her. Years ago, he used to be hunched over the wet tray in the dark room. Now he hunched in front of the computer or over his printer, searching for the blackest of blacks, switching papers from Portfolio to Silver Rag to Maestro.

  “You want to tell me who it was?” He didn’t turn, his eyes firmly on the screen.

  The image there was one of a pink balcony hanging precariously over an orange brick alleyway just off Belden Avenue in Chicago. Back Alleys was the title of Zac’s photographic exhibit at an art gallery here in town. He’d been successful with these photos of alleys in New York and D.C., and he’d finally felt it was time to feature the town he had called home for almost a decade. The show had been so successful, selling hundreds of photos in the three weeks since the opening, that Zac had been working constantly to fill the orders. He’d been on a roll and had been happy lately. But then he’d returned early from meeting his agent in New York and found Jane missing.

  It wasn’t that such a thing hadn’t happened before. In days past, sometimes, Zac actually wanted to know a few details-what they did to her, what she did to them. Sometimes the details got him excited. Other times, he was only putting up with her and her dalliances because he loved her.

  Today was definitely one of the latter.

  She could tell this from the way Zac’s lat muscles tensed under his stylishly worn T-shirt, originally black but grayed from so much washing. She could tell from the way his movements were fast and sharp, rather than relaxed, almost dreamy, the way he usually worked when he was happy.

  “Just some-” she started to say.

  “Just some guy?” he interrupted, his voice edged with impatience.

  “Something like that.” Although that wasn’t true. He was some guy who’d been following her. Some creep who’d been making notations about the most minute, private things in her life. Despite her public job
, Jane hated for her life to be made public. And she’d been lucky because her affairs had always existed in a void for her.

  Zac cleared his throat, a habit of his that sprang up when he had something to say which he didn’t feel confident about, but something he’d thought about for a long time.

  It was so strange how well she knew him. In many ways, she knew him better than she knew herself; she understood the reasons for his behavior so much better than she did her own. For example, she was a wife who cheated, and according to most people she was wanton, immoral and wrong. And although she had her reasons for it, ninety percent of the time she agreed with those people. It was the ten percent she had told Izzy about. The ten percent that got her into trouble.

  She’d promised Zac recently that she wouldn’t do it anymore, that she would be a proper wife who never strayed. She meant it, too, but it was harder than she thought. And yet, she had expected him to forgive her. But now there was this edge to his back, this fuming energy that poured off him.

  “Are you all right?” she said.

  He turned to face her.

  He rarely looked at her during these types of discussions. Usually he kept working, as if he were more comfortable to let his words rise from a blank canvas rather than let her see his expression.

  But now he was definitely looking, and there was nothing resembling forgiveness there. What she saw was anger, along with something she hadn’t ever seen before. Something like disgust.

  9

  J ohn Mayburn walked in ten minutes late. I pointed at my watch as he strolled to the table.

  “Sorry,” he mouthed, a smile on his face.

  It was the smile that threw me.

  At his job during the week, when he met with lawyers like me (the lawyer I used to be) who wanted him to dig up dirt on a plaintiff, Mayburn wore a boring navy-blue suit or slacks and a jacket, a button-down shirt underneath that was starched so stiff it could stand on its own. When I got to know him better, I learned that on the nights and weekends, he was rather relaxed. So the stylish jeans, Ramones T-shirt and beat-up brown boots he wore now didn’t throw me. It was definitely the smile.