Thirty-seven.
Almost forty.
Almost separated.
Still twenty pounds overweight.
No kids.
No pets.
The weighted blanket is sitting on my chest when my sister calls with a Facetime message a few minutes later.
“Hey,” I answer, putting on my happy birthday face.
“I know I already said happy birthday earlier, but Dad and I were at the Home Depot after dinner tonight. And he ran into this lady he used to work with. Tina?”
“I don’t know her.” This is a weird thing to call all the way to Mexico for.
“Anyway, Dad asks how she is and she says she’s getting a divorce. She caught her wife cheating, something to do with an app.”
“An app?” I ask.
“Yeah. Tina was snooping on her wife’s phone and found this weird app she didn’t recognize. She tried to hack it but couldn’t get in. Being a cop, she was sneaky and used her sleeping wife’s thumb to open it and sure enough it was this whole other dashboard.”
“What?” My happy face is gone and my heart is in a vice again.
“Yup. It’s a secret dashboard where all her phone calls, pictures, and everything related to the number of the wife’s girlfriend went. It was locked behind this secret dashboard in the app.”
“Sneaky,” I say, contemplating that.
“Which I will bet is why you haven’t found anything. Rod and Elaine use one of these apps. Apparently, there are a dozen of them.”
“That makes sense. That’s why he offered me his phone last time I asked questions,” I agree, glancing at the door to the room when I hear a click. “Anyway, I should probably get going. I miss you. I’ll see if I can check out that thing though.” I wink into the screen so she can see.
“Love you.” She makes a kissy face.
“Bye.” I wave and tap it off, lifting my gaze to Rod who staggers.
An app?
My stare fixes on his phone, which rarely leaves his hands.
“You okay?” I ask.
“Jusss fine,” he slurs and staggers into the bathroom, taking the phone with him.
When he closes the door, I Google the app. There are tons of them.
“What is wrong with this world,” I whisper and scroll through the list. I’ve read multiple blogs when he is finally done.
Rod flushes and staggers out of the bathroom, hitting the bed in his clothes. It’s nine at night and he is completely wasted. What the hell has he been doing since I came in here after dinner?
I can’t imagine what I’ve missed by pretending not to feel well. On my own damned birthday. At least it’s our last night here.
He continues to grip his phone when the first snore leaves his spit-covered lips. Grimacing, I realize he’s thrown up.
He snores loudly as I turn out the lights and crawl onto the bed, using the light of the fire alarm and clock to guide me. I find the phone and pry it from his damp fingers, trying not to gag.
It takes a second but I get it free and use his thumb to unlock it. Heart racing and fingers trembling, I hurry into the bathroom and close the door. I navigate through the phone, not sure what I’m looking for until I see it.
“Holy shit.”
It’s the holy grail of philandered spouses everywhere.
The app icon is exactly what I saw on the internet.
Nervously, I tap it and prepare to walk back out to get his fingerprint again but this one has a pin.
I contemplate what his pin could be. It’s four digits. Taking a guess, I enter the one he uses for his bank card. The phone vibrates when it’s rejected and the camera comes on, taking a picture of me. My startled face in the dark bathroom flashes once on the screen before the app locks up.
“Fuck!” I whisper.
My heart is racing as I call my sister on my phone. She doesn’t get a chance to say anything.
“He has the app. The stock photo one. I tried the pin and it’s taken a picture of me and now I can’t get it open. It’s a pin I don’t know and I don’t know what to do. He’s passed out drunk.”
“Take the phone and throw it in the ocean,” she says randomly.
“What?”
“No.” She cackles. “Pull the sim card and pee in the toilet and put the phone in there. Let it stay waterlogged overnight. He’ll think he dropped it in the pee and ruined the phone.”
“You’re kinda evil,” I mutter with a nod, realizing this is why my entire childhood was spent fearing her. “Love you.”
“You too.” I end the call and stare at the phone. Typical me, I have to Google how to remove the sim card. When I get it out I snap it in half like in the spy movies and put it in the garbage bin under the other trash.
My heart is in my throat as I sit on the toilet. I can’t relax and pee so I open my puzzle app on my own phone and start doing the word puzzle. It takes a whole level for me to calm down enough for a pee. I wipe and put the paper in the garbage can where the sim card is. Rod never uses paper.
Standing up, I turn the phone on and delicately place it in the pee water. The screen stays lit, showing the message that there is no sim card in. It doesn’t go out.
I wait but nothing happens.
The sim card message is still there.
I Google what will happen if the phone doesn’t turn off and cringe when I find a few studies have shown iPhones can last in the water and be dried out and will work normally. He will know I took the sim card out if he takes the phone in.
“Shit,” I whisper and realize what I’m going to have to do. It takes more bravery to reach into my own pee and pull the phone out. I wash us both for minutes before drying off the phone with Rod’s shower towel. Then I hurry to the dresser where I left the key card and slip out the sliding door to the patio.
It’s warm and breezy and dark but it doesn’t soothe the anxiety that’s giving me something resembling a heart attack.
Staying in the shadows, I speed walk down the path to the beach. I contemplate hopping from palm tree to palm tree but imagine there is a security system watching this. That forces me try to be cooler about the shady-ass decision I’m making.
The waves of the ocean are calm compared to earlier. I stare at the phone in the fading moonlight. This is the most dishonest thing I’ve done. Ever.
I grasp the flat phone, wondering if there is any way back from this. But I doubt it. I throw as hard as I can, flinging the phone into the rolling waves of the dark ocean.
“You know that’s going to come into shore, right?” a man asks from behind me, making me jump.
“Ahh!” I turn and scowl. “Make some noise.”
“Sorry. But the tide’s coming in. It’s gonna bring the phone back in.”
“Not before we leave tomorrow,” I say smugly and walk away.
“No, legit. It’ll be there by morning.”
“Okay, well it won’t matter,” I snap and walk away, deflated and exhausted. It’s the weirdest birthday I’ve ever had.
Chapter 12
February 14
“You still coming to the company party tomorrow night?” Simone asks as she pops her head in my doorway.
“Oh uhm—” I try to imagine the party—our annual cabin fever party—with Rod who has avoided me and the office and shake my head. “No. I’m lucky I’m not sleeping here at night with it being tax season.”