So Wrong It's Right

by Julie Johnson

  We were living together off-campus by the time I was a sophomore, married the month I graduated, and settled firmly in the house Paul bought for us before my first student loan payment came due. And, for a while, things were good. Or, at least to me — a girl with exactly zero other relationship experience to compare it to — things seemed good.

  Good enough.

  Paul was making great money as a financial consultant at a big Boston firm. I kept myself busy with freelance graphic design projects, despite my new husband’s insistence that I didn’t need to work.

  Just take care of the house, baby.

  Be home waiting every night, baby.

  Have dinner ready on the table, baby.

  I don’t want you too busy for me, baby.

  His gentle suggestions became increasingly demanding — and increasingly stifling — as the first years of our marriage passed us by. Slowly, at first. Then, so fast it was like I’d blinked my eyes and missed a whole half-decade of existence.

  The blushing twenty-two-year-old bride was long gone, and with her the majority of my twenties. By the time I snapped out of my stupor and recognized what had become not just of my marriage, but of me, Shelby, a woman with dreams and aspirations outside the shackles of matrimony… I was twenty-eight years old and essentially a stranger to myself.

  So, I resolved to get out.

  To walk away.

  To make a change before I lost one more single second of my life to a man who couldn’t even be bothered to make it home for dinner most nights, or ask about my day on the rare evenings he did, or summon the effort to give me an occasional orgasm during our increasingly infrequent encounters between the sheets.

  Did I say infrequent?

  I meant nonexistent.

  Seriously, when you’re binge-watching Mad Men and start relating on a fundamental level to repressed 1950s housewives like Betty Draper… you know things aren’t exactly going well.

  Hence: the divorce papers.

  Christmas Eve, while Paul was busy working — because of course he didn’t take the holiday off, don’t be absurd! — I left them under the tree with a big red bow on top and tucked myself in bed with an exceptionally good bottle of Syrah that Paul’s parents gave us as an engagement gift.

  To drink on your ten-year anniversary.

  I drained that bottle, every damn sip, having a solo celebration to mark an altogether different sort of juncture — ten years wasted on a man who never cared about me as anything but a possession. Just another antique piece of furniture in his immaculate home. An article of clothing in his pristine closet. An object to stake ownership over, not to cherish until death did us part.

  When I awoke on Christmas morning — my head spinning from a hangover rivaling the one I experienced following my friend Phoebe’s bachelorette party last month — I fully expected to find the papers signed, dated, and waiting for me on the gleaming granite kitchen countertops we had specially imported from Morocco.

  They weren’t.

  Instead, I found something else waiting for me. Paul. And the pure rage contorting his handsome features as his feet slowly closed the space between us and his hands not-so-slowly tore my papers clean in half… well, that was as surprising as it was terrifying.

  Suffice to say, it never once crossed my mind that Paul wouldn’t be quite so keen on the idea of divorce. I thought he’d be relieved to be rid of me. After all, I wasn’t the one who avoided coming home every night. I wasn’t the one who walked through the door on more than one occasion with ill-concealed lipstick stains on his collar. I wasn’t the one who gave up trying to make anything resembling an effort starting shortly after our second wedding anniversary and worsening with each progressive year.

  And yet, when it finally came down to it, Paul was surprisingly resistant. So resistant, in fact, he shattered a $300 lamp against a wall, put his fist through the foyer mirror, and screamed loud enough that the next door neighbors called the police.

  Let me tell you: nothing says Christmas quite like watching your enraged husband being tasered, cuffed, and loaded into the back of a squad car while the entire block watches from their front windows, hot cocoa in hand.

  Bring on the carolers!

  In the months since, Paul has stayed away. Physically, at least. (The restraining order I filed ensures that small detail.) Unfortunately, a legal document does very little to block him from contacting me via phone, email, voicemail… candy gram, flower delivery, edible arrangement…

  You name it, he’s tried it.

  Despite the fact that I changed both my phone number and my locks… that I have thrown out so many flowers Mother Nature has put me on some kind of hit list… that I have chucked so many chocolates in the garbage Godiva has issued a warrant for my arrest… that I have an entire box of jewelry I’ll never wear, including a gaudy Byzantine bracelet and a bejeweled golden egg, the exact purpose of which I’ve never been able to figure out…

  He refuses to see reason.

  He won’t even entertain the idea of a divorce — no matter how many times I have served him with papers via courier. No matter that we’re no longer living under the same roof or sharing any facet of each other’s lives. (Besides, of course, a last name.)

  Short of taking him to court for a messy public trial and forcing a judge to grant my freedom, I’m not exactly sure how to proceed from this point. So, for the time being, I’ve been letting things simmer on the back burner. Hoping he’ll eventually come to his senses and change his mind about this whole ‘marriage is forever, I’ll never let you go, you’re mine until the last breath leaves my body’ crap he started spouting on Christmas.

  Don’t worry — I’m not living under any sort of delusion that he’s trying to win me back because he’s desperately in love with me. For Paul, this is merely a point of pride.

  I am his perfect wife, who lives in his perfect house, on the perfect street in the perfect suburb. I host posh dinner parties for his co-workers. I mix a flawless gin martini. I attend business functions on his arm wearing gorgeous dresses he buys for me. I am the most important chess piece on the carefully calculated board that is his life.

  Giving me up might mean losing that game. Losing face in his business circles. Losing the respect of his family and friends. And if there’s one thing the man I married can’t stand…

  It’s losing.

  I don’t know where he’s been staying or what he’s been up to since I cut off communication. Frankly, it’s not my concern anymore. Or… it wasn’t until today, when two large thugs showed up at my yoga studio looking for Mrs. Paul Hunt.

  I’m not sure what, exactly, he’s gotten himself into that brought those men to my doorstep. All I do know is… I’m wishing like hell he’d signed those damn papers. If he had, no one would be looking for Mrs. Shelby Hunt.

  They couldn’t.

  She’d no longer exist.

  Chapter Two

  GHOSTED

  I can’t quite shake the creeping sensation that I’m being watched as I tug an open-weave white sweater over my sports bra, lock the studio doors behind me, and walk to my car. There’s an odd tingling at the nape of my neck as my eyes scan the half-empty parking lot, seeking evident signs of danger.

  There are none.

  What are you expecting, Shelby? A man in a black trench-coat, twirling his mustache and cackling maniacally as he plots your demise?

  After this morning’s strange encounter, I’m inclined to head straight home and hide behind the safety of a locked oak door… but I don’t want to give those thugs the satisfaction of ruining my day. Plus, knowing my refrigerator is currently as empty as one of Paul’s promises is enough incentive to turn my wheel in the direction of the Union Square Farmers Market.

  It’s still early but the crowds are already thick with those out enjoying a quintessential summer Saturday morning. I move from stall to stall, selecting a week’s worth of fresh fruit and veggies from vendors I’ve come to recognize after my man
y visits, smiling as I barter for a bouquet of hydrangeas and a bottle of wine, plum tomatoes and fresh baked bread, summer squash and a ball of burrata cheese.

  Live music drifts in the air, a fiddler playing for tips. Families stroll past on all sides, their squawking toddlers in tow. Couples lick ice cream cones and laugh as they purchase mulled cider from the carts. I watch a clumsy golden retriever puppy tripping over his own paws and contemplate, for the thousandth time, whether I should get a pet to keep me company.

  Shelby, you don’t need a pet, a snarky inner voice chides. What you need is a life.

  Sighing, I stow my produce away in a reusable cloth bag — really trying to regain some of my karma points with Mother Nature after the flower debacle — then grab a cup of coffee to sip as I wander around.

  I love it here.

  If I’m being entirely honest, that wasn’t always the case. Somerville wasn’t my first choice of living locations. I didn’t get a say in the matter; Paul purchased our home without so much as a conversation and told me I should be grateful my name was even listed on the deed of the fixer-upper Victorian he found in an up-and-coming area on the Cambridge border.

  We are the new wave of gentrification, the eager millennial homeowners who have rapidly transformed a suburb once known as “Slumerville” into “The Brooklyn of Boston.” It may not be as bustling as Downtown Crossing or as hip as the ever-evolving Seaport… but it’s close enough to enjoy everything the city has to offer while quiet enough to lead a relatively private life.

  The perfect place to raise a family.

  Not that I’d know anything about that.

  I’m winding my way through the dense crowd toward an impressive display of fresh herbs and spices when something slams into my legs with the strength of a small rhinoceros. I glance down to find a tow-headed toddler tugging at the thin fabric of my yoga pants to steady herself. There’s a pink bow in her corn-husk blonde hair and a tiny pair of red sneakers on her feet. My gaze gets stuck on her hands, splayed out like little starfish just above my knees, and I feel something pierce every chamber of my heart.

  “Oh! Watch where you’re going, sweetie!” The mother apologizes profusely as the father scoops his small daughter into his arms. Both beam at me sheepishly. “So sorry about that…”

  I smile politely and try to pretend I’m not struggling to breathe properly. Suddenly, I’m desperate to get home. To get out of this crowd, away from these picture-perfect families that remind me of everything my life was supposed to be. To shut myself inside my car before I start weeping in full view of the artisanal maple syrup stand.

  Pathetic, much?

  I race for the street as fast as my legs can carry me, flip flops smacking the pavement with each hurried stride, grocery bag swinging by my side. The throng falls away and with it the high-pitched sound of children’s laughter as I round the corner onto a blessedly empty stretch of sidewalk. When my low-slung, two-seater convertible comes into view, I breathe a sigh of undeniable relief and beeline for it.

  I’m so intent on getting home, I don’t even glance around the street as I load my groceries into the trunk. The feeling creeps over me so slowly, at first I don’t even register it. Not until the hair on the back of my neck begins to stand on-end. Not until my body begins to hum with that odd, prickly sensation, zipping along my skin like an electric current.

  I know, without turning to look, that there are eyes on me.

  Someone’s watching.

  Heart hammering faster, mind whirling with dreadful possibilities, I slam the trunk closed and try not to let my sudden tension show as I take slow steps toward the driver’s side door. I cast a surreptitious glance around the quiet street for signs of danger.

  Unfortunately if anyone is, in fact, stalking me, they don’t make their presence known. Errr, that, or I’m simply not astute enough to pick them out amid the collection of nondescript sedans and SUVs parked on this block. To my eyes, things look cheerful as ever in the summer sunshine — exploding flower boxes, quaint brick, outdoor cafes, tree-lined sidewalks. Nothing remotely ominous.

  You’re just rattled from this morning, I tell myself, dismissing my own overzealous imagination as I climb into my car and grip the wheel with tense fingers. Calm down, crazy pants.

  By the time I turn onto Merriweather Street and pull into my driveway ten minutes later, I’ve nearly managed to convince myself that the strange sensation was nothing but a fleeting paranoid delusion. A momentary lapse in sanity. A temporary breach in my otherwise calm, cool, collected mentality.

  These assurances would, of course, be far more effective if not for the fact that I make it halfway up my front walkway only to watch as a large, hulking figure detaches from the shadows of my wraparound porch and steps into my path.

  “Well, if it isn’t Shelby Hunt,” Lefty says, eyes glittering victoriously.

  My grocery bag falls to the ground, exploding on impact. Avocados and tomatoes roll in all directions like tumbleweeds in a windy Western movie as I backpedal away — right into something rock solid. Something that feels a lot like a man’s chest.

  Righty.

  The scream building in my throat never makes it past my lips; a large hand slaps itself over my mouth before a single squeak can escape. I feel my body go airborne as a beefy arm winds around my waist like I weigh no more than a damn football and starts hauling me up my front steps.

  Shit.

  “This really isn’t necessary!”

  My protests fall on deaf ears. They aren’t listening to me — not now, to my plaintive appeals. Not ten minutes ago, when they forced me into my own home against my will as I screamed bloody murder into the palm of Righty’s hand, praying someone on my dead-end street would notice me being abducted and call the police.

  Of course the one time I’m actually in need of nosy neighbors, they’re nowhere to be found…

  Righty adds another loop of duct tape around my arm, securing it tighter to the sturdy maple chair at the head of the massive dining room table Paul and I picked out seven years ago and have never once eaten an actual meal at. I suppose I should be happy it’s finally getting some use — if only for what I assume will be a session of interrogation.

  Or torture.

  I flex my muscles against the tape, testing its strength. It doesn’t budge. I’m officially stuck until they decide to cut me loose.

  “You lied to us, earlier.” Lefty doesn’t sound pleased with me. Actually, he sounds decidedly displeased as he bends down to look into my face. His dark brown eyes are terrifying. “Not a fan of liars.”

  “And I’m not particularly a fan of being kidnapped. We all make sacrifices..”

  “You’ve got a smart mouth.” He leans closer and I flinch back in my seat. I try to, anyway. I can barely move with my wrists and ankles strapped so tightly to the chair. “If you’re not inclined to use that mouth to cooperate, there are some other uses I’m sure we could explore…”

  My face goes pale.

  “I can see from your expression you don’t like the sound of that alternative. If you tell us what we want to know, we won’t touch you…” He strokes a finger down the exposed column of my neck, his eyes dropping to my cleavage. “Much.”

  “Get your hands off me or I’m not telling you shit,” I hiss, struggling to escape his creeping fingers.

  Smirking as though this is all some big game, he steps back and leans against the wall near his partner, who’s sprawled on the plush cushions of my window seat like we’re about to sit down for tea. For a long while, they both stare at me in silence, arms crossed over their chests, expressions unreadable. Simple enough, as intimidation tactics go, but effective as hell; my heart picks up speed and I feel my palms going clammy as the silence drags on, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

  “What is it you want from me?” I finally force myself to ask. I’m surprised my voice comes out so steady.

  “Like we said before — we’re looking for Paul.”

  “I
told you already, I don’t know where he is.”

  Lefty looks doubtful. “He’s your husband.”

  “We’re separated. We have been for months.” My chin jerks higher. “I have nothing to do with— with— whatever it is he’s done to piss you off.”

  “The thing is…” There’s a flash of rage in the depths of Lefty’s dark eyes — the first emotion I’ve ever seen from him. Frankly, I think I prefer his icy indifference. “Your husband took something that belongs to our boss. We want it back. And he hasn’t exactly been what you’d call…”

  “Cooperative,” Righty finishes.

  “Right. Cooperative.” Lefty smirks, but it’s colder than a glacier. “We think he might need a bit of cajoling. Just to help him make the right choice.”

  Okay. I’m not liking the sound of this.

  Not at all.

  “Look, I already told you I don’t know where Paul is. I don’t have anything to do with him anymore, so whatever you’re planning to do to me…”

  “We aren’t doing anything to you. We just need you to deliver a little message for us.”

  Relief sluices through me. “Fine! I’ll tell him whatever you want, just let me go and—”

  “Can’t do that.” Righty’s head shakes.

  “Why not? I already agreed to deliver your damn message!”

  Lefty smirks. “You are the message.”

  “What?”

  There’s a ripping sound as Righty tears a large piece of duct tape off the roll and steps forward. “When your husband comes home and finds you, he’ll know just how serious we are about getting our product back.”

  “But— you don’t understand! He won’t find me!” I yell, eyes widening as I watch that piece of duct tape coming closer, closer, closer, like a poisonous snake about to strike. I jerk my head to the side, trying to evade him, but he grabs my chin with bruising fingers and holds me still. “I told you — he doesn’t live here anymore! If you leave me like this I’m— Mmmmm! MMMMM!”

  My protests cut off into muffled, indistinct cries as he shoves the swathe of tape across the bottom half of my face. My lips move frantically against the sticky backing, trying like hell to make them understand that their plan won’t work, that Paul won’t ever get their stupid message because he no longer has a key to this house or a place in my life… but it’s no use. My screams are in vain. Useless and unintelligible.