The Two Lila Bennetts

by Fenton, Liz

  Ethan hated coming to those parties with me. He thought the attorneys I worked with were patronizing. That they treated him like a kept husband. Last year it had been held at the Ritz-Carlton, and he’d grabbed a bottle of good scotch and hunkered down at a corner table and gotten shit-faced with Chase. “David,” I answer. “And no, not really.”

  “Why the hell not?” Ethan demands as the light turns green.

  I accelerate and choose my words carefully. “They think I can handle it on my own.”

  Ethan is exasperated. “What does Sam think of all this? He always seems to look out for you. Can’t he help get you out of it?”

  I play back Ethan’s words for any hidden meaning, any latent sarcasm. But there’s none I can detect. I’ve always painted Sam as something of a savior for me at work, looking out for my career. And it’s true—he has. But now I’m experiencing the other side of Sam—the one who goes through three assistants a year, the Sam who will smile at you one minute and then cut your throat out in the next. There’s a reason he rose to managing partner so quickly—he likes to win, no matter the cost. I think I romanticized the soft side he’d always held for me, long before we became involved. There’s a part of me that feels like I know him in a way others don’t, that Carrie doesn’t. That there’s a kind heart underneath the ambition.

  I was so wrong.

  “There’s nothing he can do,” I say evenly, careful to keep the emotion and the lie out of my voice. Because the truth is, I am deeply hurt by the way Sam has turned on me. I am surprised by my own naivete—thinking I could walk away from a man like him without any consequences. He helped build me up, which I thought would protect me. I thought that no matter what, he valued my equity. But it turns out it made it easier for him to tear me down, exposing my weaknesses one by one until there was nothing left. “Don’t worry; I’m sure I’ll figure it out.”

  Ethan seems to sense I don’t want to discuss it anymore and changes the subject. “I wrote another chapter today,” he says, and I can hear the smile in his voice, the cabin of the SUV too dark to see. “The work space is so inspiring. There’s another novelist writing her first book. There’s a screenwriter. So many creative minds.”

  “That’s great!” I exclaim. “So when are you going to tell me what your book’s about?” Ethan has always liked to hold his writing close to the vest. He says it’s a writerly thing. I secretly think it’s because he is terrified of being critiqued. The mere idea of negative feedback seems to paralyze him. He had to stop reading the reviews of his first one, each critical word like a shard to his insecure heart.

  But to my surprise, he answers me now. “It’s about a complicated marriage,” he says, and my pulse quickens.

  Is his book about us? Our marriage is complicated, for sure, but I’ve often mused that I’m the only one between us who realizes that. Ethan is often too caught up in his own challenges to comprehend how much of the time I’m merely phoning it in. Or so I thought. But was I wrong? Is he more insightful, more aware than I give him credit for?

  “Don’t worry,” he says, moving his hand to my knee, as if he can read my mind. “It’s not about us. I don’t want to say too much, but it’s the story of a woman cheating on her husband and the fallout after he discovers the affair. He goes off the rails a little bit. Does some crazy shit.”

  I slam on the brakes to avoid running a red light. “Sorry,” I mutter under my breath as I collect my thoughts. Does he know? No. People write books about cheating spouses all the time. Calm down, Lila. “That sounds really interesting!” I say with what I hope sounds like enthusiasm and not the horror I’m actually feeling. “I’m happy you’re writing again.” That part’s true.

  But I wish he weren’t writing about some cheating whore and pray it isn’t because he recently realized he’s married to one.

  I manage to calm down before we pull off the 405 Freeway at Artesia and head into Redondo Beach, forcing myself to enjoy a story Ethan tells about a woman he encountered earlier at the local coffee place near his new writing space. (I was right the day I met him—he hates Starbucks! “Corporate greed at its worst,” he always says when he finds the discarded white-and-green cups in my car.) His voice is pitched high as he imitates the way she yelled at the barista for putting 2 percent rather than nonfat milk in her vanilla latte.

  “How can you tell the difference?” I ask.

  “You can’t, that’s the point! Sometimes people just want others to be as miserable as they are,” he says, and it makes me think of Steve Greenwood. There is something miserable about him too, and I hope the investigator is able to figure out whether his wife is part of the problem or if he’s like the woman at Starbucks, pissed off and wanting to take everyone he can down with him.

  I park in the closest spot I can find—almost two blocks down from my mom’s townhouse—tucking the Range Rover in between two large vans. Ethan grabs my hand as we walk to her place, and I find myself leaning into his fingers, the warmth of his grip making me feel safe for the first time all day.

  My mom hugs me when we walk through the door and then draws back, giving me a long look as she squeezes my shoulders. “You okay?” she asks, and I can feel Ethan’s eyes on me.

  “I’m great, Mom. A little bit tired.”

  “You’re always tired,” she says, disapproval dripping from her voice. “You need to rest. Take some time off! I worry I set a bad example for you growing up.”

  I laugh. “How do you figure that?”

  “I worked nonstop after your father died. Never took a second to myself.” She peers at me. “Didn’t spend as much time with you as I should have.”

  It’s true. After my dad passed, my mom became the superhero of our family, working summers as a server at one of those tourist traps near the Hermosa Beach pier. Tutoring struggling students most nights during the school year in our cramped living room at the shabby wood table we found at a yard sale. And I worked my ass off too—babysitting and then joining her when I turned sixteen as a hostess at the same restaurant, hating every minute in that tacky Hawaiian dress they forced me to wear. I understood that we had a responsibility to each other. But I could probably count on one hand the times she and I went shopping or out to lunch.

  I hug her again. “You did your very best. And I’m grateful. It’s because of you that I’m where I am today.”

  “That’s what I worry about sometimes,” she mutters, but I choose to ignore the comment and disentangle from her and walk into the kitchen, inhaling the scent of garlic and basil. “It smells wonderful. Pasta?”

  “Sausage and peppers, with penne. Your favorite,” she adds proudly.

  “Garlic bread?” I ask, but I already know the answer.

  “Of course!” She smiles, and I’m hit by her love for me. The way she craves my happiness as much as her own. She’s always told me that it comes with being a parent—the willingness to trade your own happiness for your child’s. But I’ve often feared that, with the exception of her, I don’t have that in me—that I’m incapable of being that selfless.

  “And Ethan, how are you?” she asks as she hands him a stack of plates and nods toward the distressed round table behind him.

  “He’s writing again,” I interject.

  Ethan smiles shyly. “It’s true. I am.”

  My mom’s face explodes in joy. “Well, that’s wonderful! How long has it been—”

  “Mom,” I warn.

  “No, it’s okay,” Ethan says, waving me off. “Alexis, it has been forever, hasn’t it? What can I say? The inspiration finally struck me.”

  I inhale sharply. Was I that inspiration? Does he know everything, and this is his way of torturing me? No, this is Ethan. He would never do that.

  “I’m happy for you, Ethan. If you need a beta reader . . .”

  Ethan smiles politely as he fills the water pitcher with ice. “I’ll let you know.”

  “Honey, we’re about ready to eat. Where’s the wine?” my mom asks.


  “Oh, shoot. I left it in the car,” Ethan says, glancing down at his full hands, then back at me. “Can you grab it, Lila?”

  “Sure.” I scoop up my keys from the counter. “I’ll be right back.”

  I head down the steps to the sidewalk, jogging lightly in my three-inch heels through the semidarkness, the air chilly from the beach breeze, goosebumps popping up on my bare arms.

  I reach my car and open the back door carefully so I don’t bang it against a truck parked a little too snugly next to me, the van that was there before now gone. Reaching over and cursing as the wine bottle rolls to the floor, I lean in more, my back leg lifting off the ground, and set the bottle back on the seat so I can regain my balance.

  It takes me a second to process that someone is behind me.

  Before I can react, I’m being pulled by my hair and then by my chest, my screams hushed as another hand moves to my mouth. My heart pounds, and I slam my heel hard on my assailant’s foot, causing him to groan and lose his grip slightly, but it’s enough for me to grab the bottle of wine, swinging it hard, making contact with his head as it shatters.

  “Help!” I scream. “Somebody help!” I shriek again as the masked man reels backward, stumbling slightly and using his arm to balance himself on the truck. Every muscle in my body tells me to run—to take flight! But instead I reach for the ski mask. I grab the fabric and start to pull it up, but before I can, he grabs my wrist and twists it, making me writhe in pain.

  “You should have run when you had the chance,” he says, his voice breathless, and then he raises his fist to my temple, and I crumple to the ground before everything falls away.

  I hear my name, softly at first. Then louder. I force my eyes open, wincing from the ache in my head, and find myself surrounded by a group of people, including my mom and Ethan, sirens wailing in the background, getting louder each second.

  “Oh, thank God!” my mom cries out.

  “What happened?” I whisper, but as I ask the question the last few minutes return to my memory with a sickening thud. The wine. The man with the mask. His fist.

  “You were attacked,” Ethan said, his face pale.

  “I heard you screaming and came running out with my dog and a baseball bat.” A slight woman in her thirties steps forward, gripping the leash of a thick blue-nosed pit bull. “He ran away when he saw me and Rex.”

  I let that sink in. What would have happened if this woman hadn’t heard me? If she didn’t keep a bat and a guard dog handy in this seemingly safe neighborhood? You should have run when you had the chance, he warned. The fear I felt in that moment hits me hard and fast. “Thank you,” I say to her and Rex and gulp back the sob in my throat.

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” she says.

  The ambulance pulls up a moment later. A police cruiser arrives, and two officers emerge and disperse the crowd. The officers wait patiently as the EMTs attend to the lump on the left side of my head. They want me to come to the hospital to make sure I don’t have a concussion, but I refuse as my mother protests loudly. “I’m okay,” I try to say with confidence, but I can’t stop shaking. Can’t stop thinking of where I’d be right now if that woman hadn’t heard me.

  One of the EMTs shrugs and gives my mom and Ethan a list of symptoms to look for. He’s seen it all before. My life was just changed forever, but this was only another call for him.

  We head back with the officers into my mom’s townhome, the smell of dinner now making me feel sick. My mom mutters about how safe she always thought Redondo Beach was. That maybe she should move.

  “Can we open a window?” I ask, and Ethan immediately does. We all settle at the kitchen table—my mom, Ethan, and the two police officers, all of us ignoring the flowered china and overflowing basket of garlic bread. It’s almost as if my attack stopped time.

  My mom picks up the bread basket and offers it to the policemen, who both politely decline. Then they ask me to walk through what happened, and I do, trying to not look at my mom out of the corner of my eye. To not see the horror in her face as I describe how he pulled me from the car, to not comprehend the anger in her eyes when I admit how I chose to pull his mask rather than run for my life.

  “Why not run?” one of the police officers, the younger one, asks. His name is Detective Franco, and he sports a head of thick black hair and a strong right dimple.

  “I’m not sure.” I pause, remembering the moment I could have fled. When my adrenaline was pumping so hard I could feel it charging through me. But my mind had a different plan—to try to pull off the mask, to find out who it was. It was almost as if I were being told to do it. To find out who was going to capture me. “It was instinctual, I guess. I needed to know who it was.” I glance at my mom finally. Her lips form a tight line. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking.”

  “Can you give us a description?” Franco asks.

  “A male. He seemed average height, but it was dark. I have no idea how tall he was. He was sturdy, though, strong, definitely works out. Oh, and he was wearing track pants and Adidas tennis shoes,” I say, thankful that my job has taught me to memorize descriptive details.

  “What color?”

  I think for a moment. “The pants were dark. The shoes were red with white stripes.”

  “Eye color? Ethnicity?”

  I shake my head. “He was wearing a ski mask, so I’m not sure. His face was shadowed. I think he was Caucasian.”

  “You said you didn’t have your purse with you, right?” the older officer, Detective Johnson, asks.

  “Right,” I concur.

  “It doesn’t sound like a mugging or a carjacking, based on what you’ve told us. Do you think his intent was to take you? Hurt you . . . or . . .”

  “Rape me?” I add.

  Ethan swivels his head my way, giving me a horrified look.

  “It could have been any of those things. Or maybe he wanted to kill me?” I say, surprised by how detached I feel. As if I am simply speculating about the details of a case I’m working on.

  “Did it feel personal?” Franco asks.

  I give him a half shrug. “I’m not sure.” You should have run while you had the chance. “But there was something about how he told me I should have run. Like he had plans for me. Bad ones.”

  “I bet it was Franklin!” Ethan says, his voice filled with anger.

  “Who is Franklin?” Johnson asks.

  I put my hand over Ethan’s. “Franklin is someone who used to stalk me. But he hasn’t been in contact since he showed up at my office, and I got a restraining order a few months ago. And this man, he seemed larger.”

  “It’s been a while; maybe he’s started lifting,” Ethan says flippantly. No one responds.

  I fill them in on the details of Franklin’s stalking, and when I’m finished, Franco asks me his last name and writes it in his notebook. “We’ll check him out.”

  “Is there anything else?” Johnson asks, not unkindly.

  I remember the car that seemed to follow me out of the parking garage at work. Was the driver tailing me or simply leaving at the same time? There’s no way to know, and if I bring it up now, I’ll seem paranoid. Stephanie also comes to mind. The way I could have sworn I saw her outside my house the other night. But whether she followed me or not, she made it very clear she’s pissed off at me. That the man she thinks killed her sister is free, and in her mind I’m responsible.

  She could have hired this man to attack me, but I’m not sure she would. Or maybe I don’t want to believe that could be true. Plus, do I really want to anger her more by having the police show up at her doorstep, asking questions? Hasn’t she been through enough?

  The room is silent for several minutes, everyone waiting for me to answer. “No,” I finally say. This is a lie, of course. There could be so many people from the course of my career, beginning from my very first trial. The one that still haunts me—the two adolescent boys sitting on each side of their mom in court, the sobs from the younger one when the verdict was re
ad. The older boy simply stared straight ahead as if he hadn’t heard. I lost that case. Unexpectedly—when the jury had begun its deliberations, we’d all thought a nonguilty verdict was in the bag. Until it wasn’t. Until the kids watched their father get taken away in cuffs, never to return.

  “Okay, I think we have everything we need.” Franco stands, and Johnson follows suit. We walk them to the door, all of us silent as we watch them get in their car, turn off their flashing lights, and drive away.

  An hour later Ethan and I head home, despite my mother’s protests that we stay the night with her. She argued her case as we ate the cold sausage and peppers without any joy, finally conceding when I told her I have an early morning at work and that sleeping in the old, sunken double bed in her guest room wasn’t going to cut it. She promised to deadbolt the lock on the door and call me in the morning. My instinct is that the attack was only meant for me and that my mom is safe, but how can I know that for sure?

  I lean my head against the window as we speed down the freeway, away from what almost happened to me. My near miss.

  “I’m sorry I brought Franklin up. That was juvenile. But I’m worried about you,” Ethan says, and I nod. “You going to be okay?” he asks after a long period of silence. I appreciate the question, although we both know the answer.

  “I don’t know,” I say and pick up my phone from the center console. I shoot off a quick text to Chase, letting him know I might be a little later than six tomorrow morning and asking him to call the investigator and have him check in on Franklin. I don’t think it’s him, but Ethan could be right: maybe he gained some muscle. Or maybe my skills at describing my attacker aren’t as good as I think they are.

  My heart stops for the second time tonight when I check my in-box. It’s an email from Janelle. I haven’t heard from her since we graduated from law school. And the truth is, I was hoping I’d never hear from her ever again. I wonder if it’s the wedding invitation from our old college friend Tiffany that has her thinking of me. I’m hoping that’s all it is.