Everyone's Dirty Little Secrets

by Miles, Matthew

  “Ah, Christ,” Dodge curses.

  “Dodge,” Jaime says, insisting on his attention. “He didn’t find out the way you think. He’s just a very manipulative man - very dangerous. It’s how he got to Siobhan, too.”

  “What the hell am I supposed to do now?” Dodge asks, groaning.

  “You’ve got to look out for yourself, Dodge,” Jaime instructs him, hugging him, comforting him. “Take care of your own needs.”

  “She can divorce me,” he said. “I could lose her. I could lose everything.”

  Jaime presses herself closer to him, holds his head in her hands and turns it toward her face. “Dodge, listen,” she says, ordering him to focus on her. “She’s guilty too. You don’t have to lose out in a divorce.”

  He barely hears her, thinking instead over everything Siobhan’s said or done recently. Anything that suggests she knows.

  She twists herself even more on his lap, facing him so he can’t see anything but her.

  “I can help you,” Jaime promises. “I know everything she does.”

  He’s just quiet, trying to breathe. He can’t concentrate.

  Especially with Jaime crawling all over him like this.

  He’s only a man.

  There are people around.

  He doesn’t want to lose his wife.

  She can help him.

  She stares into his eyes, whispers. “Let me help you.”

  “OK,” he mutters, agreeing finally, not knowing what else to do, his eyes looking at anything but her. “What am I supposed to do?”

  She lifts his head to look up at her, offers him her best smile. “Don’t worry. I’ll figure it out,” she assures him. “You know you can trust me.”

  This is all wrong.

  But this is not his fault.

  He doesn’t want any of this.

  “First, don’t go to the office today,” she tells him. “You’re upset. She’ll figure out you’re onto her, and we need her to continue whatever she’s doing. So we can get proof.”

  “OK,” he says. “But that’s going to cause its own set of problems.”

  “It buys us time, though, to figure something out,” she says.

  He nods.

  “Look, I’ve got to get back now. But I’ve got you covered,” she promises.

  “I know,” he says, but he can’t keep the fear out of his voice.

  She kisses him, quickly, lightly, on the lips.

  He doesn’t stop her.

  She holds him as they walk away, the caution tape on the broken merry-go-round flapping in the wind.

  It’s not his fault people don’t stay on the paths.

  *****

  Chuck pauses the mail cart, pretending to sort through a pile of envelopes. He’s watching the secretary Jaime from the lobby as she enters the building. The blonde who works in the public relations company. He doesn’t care if she notices him; he just wants to watch her.

  He knows her name, of course. That’s not weird. He delivers her mail. He knows everybody’s names. He knows all kinds of weird details about people. Magazine subscriptions. Shopping habits. There’s a guy who collects vinyl records on the second floor. Sometimes guitars. A woman who watches a movie from NetFlix almost every single day. In one day, out the next.

  Chuck knows that is the woman he should pursue. She’s lonely. She lacks social skills. She likes movies. She seems a lot like him.

  Chuck likes Jaime’s boss, too. She’s hot. Hotter than Jaime, technically. Maybe, depending on what you like. And she’s totally in charge. Like any good submissive, Chuck longs to be told what to do by Siobhan. Sometimes he messes up her mail. He waits to be hollered at. He cannot mess her mail up enough.

  But Jaime has those curves - those gorgeous curves. The way her shirts - her dresses - drape around her, reveal her shape around her.

  Chuck loses himself imagining the distance between the fabric of her clothes and the valleys of her flesh.

  He follows her into the elevator.

  He follows her a lot.

  Not just around the office.

  Someone’s mail only reveals so much.

  He wants so much more revealed.

  Jaime smiles at him as he enters behind her.

  “Hi Chuck,” she says.

  She’s friendly with him. She calls him Chuck. Not Mr. Chuck, not Mail Room Chuck. Well, she does, but not to his face. Others do. They forget it’s not his name - that it’s what they call him so they don’t have to take him seriously.

  Jaime can call him Mr. Chuck. He doesn’t care.

  He just smiles at her, keeps quiet. There’s no witty line for him to deliver, no catchphrase, no magic saying that will suddenly make him not Mr. Chuck. He’s a dead end street. Jaime can do better than him. Hell, she can have even Siobhan’s husband. She doesn’t need him when she has Dodge wrapped around her finger.

  “Special delivery for me today?” she asks him.

  She’s always friendly. He knows he should be normal. Just talk to her.

  To talk, or to stalk?

  That is the question. Chuck is no Shakespeare. Hell, he’s crazier than Hamlet. He’s only making this awkward now. He shouldn’t have chased her into the elevator.

  Finally, they hit the third floor, and the doors open. Jaime steps out. It’s his floor, too. The elevator is only going back down. But he can’t follow her out, he just stands there.

  The doors start to close.

  “Ms. Tu,” he finally says, in the last second.

  But she just looks back at him and flashes him the huge curve of her smile, and winks.

  She knows.

  He loves her. He loves her. He loves her.

  *****

  Siobhan is really starting to wonder where Jaime is when she finally walks into the office suite.

  It is very unusual for her to be absent.

  It worries Siobhan.

  Jaime is reliable. But she’s not trustworthy. It has taken Siobhan a long time to recognize this distinction.

  It means that if Jaime is not doing what you want her to, she might be doing what you fear she is doing.

  What Siobhan fears Jaime is doing is Siobhan’s husband.

  Literally or figuratively.

  She trusts Dodge. He has, really, everything to lose. Men would kill to get Siobhan in the sack. She knows that for sure. He has a fortune at his fingertips, and zero responsibility.

  She knows he’s a loose cannon. He’s like a little kid. He’s too wound up. He’s reckless.

  That’s Dodge.

  But she could never love another man at this point. She’s never met another man with his inspiration, or his passion. Simply put, she needs him in her life. Otherwise, it’s all work for her.

  Dodge is everything she wants to be. And since she can’t let herself be like him, she’s determined to make sure he’s always with her.

  But Dodge is insecure. And that’s Siobhan’s fault - she provides everything for him to make sure he can’t leave her, and then he feels like a failure because it’s not him providing for her.

  People are crazy.

  He should feel like a god.

  So she wants to put him to work.

  Jaime is cunning, though.

  Siobhan knows how women can hone in on a man’s weakness and stick the dagger right in the bull’s eye without blinking.

  Siobhan loves Jaime. She loves Jaime because Jaime is a younger version of herself. She sees herself in every curve Jaime thrusts in front of a man, remembers when she wielded that same power.

  Siobhan still wields that power, she knows, but she’s wiser. She uses it, of course, but in the end, all she wants now is Dodge to stick around and make her life fun.

  But Siobhan is no fool. She knows Jaime sees Dodge as a tool she can manipulate. It’s no secret what Jaime wants. Siobhan wouldn’t like her if she didn’t have that ambition, if she didn’t see something of herself in Jaime.

  But it doesn’t change the fact.

  Jaime nee
ds to back the fuck off.

  “Hey,” she says, as Jaime walks into the suite, calling her into the office.

  “Yes?” Jaime says, all sweetness.

  “Where have you been? It’s almost two.”

  “I took a late lunch,” Jaime says, coughing up that beautiful smile of hers.

  “No,” Siobhan objects. “You took a long lunch.”

  Jaime is too smart to lie twice.

  “I’m sorry, Siobhan,” she says. “I didn’t think you’d be back so quickly. And I took advantage.”

  “Jaime,” Siobhan snaps. “I need to be able to trust you.”

  “I know,” Jaime says.

  Siobhan can see the fear in her.

  “And, especially, I need to be able to trust you around my husband.”

  Jaime doesn’t blink.

  Siobhan takes this as a good sign.

  “Siobhan,” she protests. “I would never … I love Dodge - I mean, like a father, though. Or maybe brother’s a better word. An uncle or a friend … he would never …”

  Siobhan sighs.

  She won’t let on how happy she is to hear this.

  “Have you heard from Dodge lately?” she asks.

  Jaime looks relieved too.

  It’s not a pretty conversation for either of them.

  But Siobhan doesn’t avoid ugly conversations.

  That’s how she runs things.

  That’s why she runs things.

  “Oh,” Jaime pauses. “Um, he’s not coming in,” she says. “He said he had some big break on his research?”

  “OK,” Siobhan says, dismissing Jaime.

  But as Jaime turns away, she adds, “Hey.”

  Jaime looks back.

  “I will fire your ass so fast if you mess with my husband in any way.”

  “I know,” Jaime answers, walking quietly away.

  Siobhan feels much better. She is glad that is out of the way.

  She picks up the phone to call Dodge.

  She fully plans on giving him hell.

  *****

  Dodge decides not to answer his phone, letting it buzz away in his pocket. There is no way he can deal with Siobhan right now. There is - number one - the issue of what he witnessed her doing this afternoon. He’s still livid. And terrified. There is - number two - the issue that he is supposed to be there to collect an assignment he has no intention of taking, which will anger her - and terrify him even more.

  He doesn’t mind working for a living; he doesn’t expect everything to be handed to him. He was starting a career at one point, wanted to do investigative journalims.

  Instead he uses his skills to impugn the enemies of Siobhan’s clients.

  Guys like Dressler.

  His work makes her a lot of money.

  The big paychecks all come from the dirty work, as a matter of fact.

  Dodge is scared, no two ways about it. He feels the end is about to come crashing down around him. Money cut off, divorce, joblessness, homelessness, lovelessness. Lifelessness. His heart pounds as he accelerates through town.

  His phone beeps in his pocket. Siobhan has left a message, he is sure. He’s afraid even to listen to it. He wants to call Jaime, to get an inside scoop on what Siobhan is thinking. He can’t call her; if Siobhan answers, or is with Jaime when he calls, he’ll be busted. Siobhan could see his number and wonder why he’s calling Jaime, and not her cell.

  Dodge speeds at a solid clip through traffic. The driving relaxes him, forces him to pay attention to the road. He weaves and shoots around a car, crosses yellow lines. It feels good, reminds him he doesn’t have to drive in straight lines - that this whole thing doesn’t have to go one way.

  There are two ways about this. There are infinite ways about this. Maybe the question is will he let this happen to him, or will he make something happen. What he wants. When he thinks about what he wants, he thinks about Jaime, on the merry-go-round - about keeping that situation still, not letting it go where it propels itself.

  Conclusions are not inevitable.

  The facts are not in. The day is not over.

  Dodge realizes he has to go see Siobhan, has to take the assignment. If he doesn’t, he’s tempting fate. Siobhan doesn’t know he knows. He can be quiet for a while, he can watch. Maybe he can live with it even. Maybe he can have everything he wants too. Maybe nothing has to change.

  On a dime, as Dodge sees an opening in traffic, he slams on the brakes and cranks the wheel, using an intersection to give him space to whip an abrupt u-turn. He can’t get to the office fast enough. No speeding away from this one.

  He is greeted almost immediately with flashing lights.

  Sheriff Broonzy.

  Dodge contemplates a car chase.

  He pulls over.

  “Miss-ter Dahdge,” Broonzy announces, sticking his face in the window, tapping the top of Dodge’s car. He over-pronounces the name, relishes every syllable.

  “Sheriff,” Dodge says, rolling his head back on his seat, angling his eyes up to look at Broonzy, impatient.

  “Seen you up in the helicopter earlier today,” Broonzy tells him.

  “Not sure how you could have seen me, exactly,” Dodge says, “through the roof of your car.”

  “I know it was you,” Broonzy says. “Cause you were following cop cars.”

  “Wasn’t doing anything wrong,” Dodge tells him.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to prove,” Broonzy says, “but you ain’t going to do yourself no good. Troopers don’t like it. They want to say you had something to do with that accident on the Thruway today.”

  “They want to,” Dodge tells him, “but they can’t, because they know it’s stupid as all hell.”

  “You think you’re a lot smarter than everybody else,” Broonzy snaps, “but I wonder just what you’d be without all your wife’s money, and her bailing your ass out all the time. Don’t know how you haven’t fucked that one up yet.”

  Dodge’s stomach sinks. He has, pretty much.

  He’s not going to give Broonzy that satisfaction, though.

  “Must be I got something the rest of you assholes round here don’t,” Dodge snaps back.

  He can see Broonzy getting angry, knows it isn’t smart to rile the sheriff up.

  Though he probably won’t be sheriff too much longer. He may have kept his transgressions secret – except from Dodge, and Dressler, of course - but no one expects him to make it through the next election.

  Broonzy blames this on Dodge. But he should blame Dressler.

  Or himself, really.

  Don’t shoot the messenger.

  The dirty work always brings the big paychecks.

  “You keep it up, Dodge, see where it gets you.”

  “Not doing anything illegal,” Dodge assures him.

  “Maybe not in that helicopter,” Broonzy says, standing up straight, adjusting his hat. “But down here you are. So you just sit still for a minute.”

  Dodge drums his fingers on the steering wheel as Broonzy heads back to his car. He wants to catch Siobhan at the office, realizing it’s the best chance he has at saving everything. The afternoon is slipping away.

  “I only wished I could really nail you for something,” Broonzy tells him as he hands Dodge the ticket. “So watch your back.”

  Broonzy tails Dodge for blocks after that, forcing him to keep it slow, play it cool.

  That’s not Dodge’s nature.

  He knows he needs to move fast. He needs to be ahead of things.

  Because situations do not remain still.

  Everything changes.

  But at least there are no more lines in the road.

  *****

  Siobhan is gone when Dodge gets there, but Jaime has a folder she left for him.

  Dodge really only glances at Jaime once. Their eyes lock for a second, but there’s no change in their expressions.