It might have worked.
Although I can’t believe for a moment that Matthew would ever be attracted to someone such as Polly; she may be operating under a delusion. Or her motives for this attempted encounter could lie elsewhere entirely.
I wait for another twenty minutes, until Polly signals for the check. I watch as she slides her wallet out of that hobo bag. The taped-up note must still be tucked inside.
Polly tucks some cash in the leather folder and exits Giovanni’s.
When I follow a moment later, I take a final glance at her table, watching as the waiter clears away the wineglass. Polly didn’t even bother to finish her drink; the lipstick-stained glass is still half-full.
I stand by the exit to the parking garage, shielded by a railing, and watch as Polly’s VW Rabbit exits. She turns north, heading back in the direction of Maryland.
I’m not surprised. There’s no reason for her to remain downtown.
How disappointed Polly must be, I think. She has to feel as if her evening was wasted.
Mine, though, has gotten a lot more interesting.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
MARISSA
MARISSA POURS HOT WATER into her mug of tea and settles on the love seat in the family room. Her gaze drifts to the new couch, then her eyes jerk away. She’s grateful the replacement has finally arrived, but it looks so much like the original piece that it still unsettles her.
She’ll get a few throw pillows, she decides, to mix things up. Matthew won’t mind; he leaves the decorating to her.
It has been a long day, beginning with her oversleeping and awakening muddy headed, and culminating with Bennett’s Cub Scout meeting. At least that had gone well. On the coffee table now rests Bennett’s blue uniform with its adorable ascot—“It’s a neckerchief, Mom!” she can almost hear Bennett chiding—a travel sewing kit, and the badge Bennett earned tonight for tying knots.
Even though he’d had to practice with an old bungee cord that she’d cut down to the size of the missing white rope, he’d easily passed his test.
Usually, this time of night awards Marissa a sense of peace: her son is tucked snug in bed, the house is clean and orderly, and she finally has a few moments to herself.
But something feels off.
Maybe the room is haunted by the memory of the act she committed here. She shakes off the thought and picks up the sewing kit, but it takes her three tries to pass the blue thread through the eye of the needle. She wonders if anyone will notice that her stitches aren’t smooth and even.
A crack of thunder seems to shake the house. Marissa looks at the silvery rain streaking down outside, wishing Matthew were home. He tends to drive too quickly, and he’ll be exhausted when he finally leaves the office tonight, which is a bad combination on wet roads.
She snips the end of the thread and ties a knot, then stands up and walks to the staircase, folding the shirt as she climbs it. She enters Bennett’s bedroom and hovers on the threshold for a moment, letting her eyes adjust to the dim glow of his night-light. His giant FAO Schwarz dog is in one corner, leaning against a bookshelf that’s filled with the Harry Potter and Percy Jackson series.
Marissa places the shirt on top of his dresser so he can see it first thing when he wakes up. Then, even though she is tempting fate, she walks over to her son and presses her lips to his forehead. She closes her eyes and inhales deeply. Even if she were blindfolded and a hundred little boys were lined up, she could recognize Bennett simply by his smell.
“Mama,” Bennett murmurs as he rolls onto his side and instantly falls back asleep.
Long ago, Marissa had read a newspaper article about a teenaged girl who was flying a small airplane. The instructor was seated next to the girl, and her father was in the back. The plane crashed, and all three died. One detail of this tragedy stood out to Marissa: the father was found with his arms wrapped around his daughter. Even at the terrifying moment of his death, his fear was dwarfed by his need to protect and comfort his child.
Marissa looks down at Bennett, thinking that she understands the ferocity of that kind of parental love.
He is wearing his favorite Spider-Man pajamas, which he won’t give up even though the cuffs extend only to his forearms and the bottoms barely reach his shins. Marissa pulls the covers up more securely around him, then eases away and heads back downstairs.
In the distance, she hears the wailing of a car alarm that must have been triggered by the storm. She wraps her arms around herself, wondering if she should turn on the gas fireplace and curl up with a book or maybe take a hot bath. She can’t seem to get warm.
She puts on a soft fleece that she keeps in the hall closet and picks up an Anita Shreve novel she’s forever been meaning to read, but her mind is too jittery to process the story.
Every minute that passes brings her closer to the Monday meeting in the coffee shop. Avery seems so confident that she knows what to do, but what if she’s wrong?
Marissa’s eyes flit to the sofa again, seeing herself as she was that night: her back arched, her lips parted, her body set aflame by the slow touch of strong hands.
Enough, she orders herself, reaching for the remote and selecting a mindless comedy.
She watches two episodes while simultaneously scanning Instagram and replying to a few work emails, then turns off the downstairs lights and rechecks the house alarm, as she does every evening. Crime rates are surprisingly high in their neighborhood, and although most are simple car break-ins late at night, there is an occasional home invasion, and last year two armed men held up the neighborhood pharmacy where Marissa buys vitamins and gets prescriptions filled.
Marissa has just finished smoothing on her favorite night serum and climbed into bed when the home phone shrills. She’s tempted to let it ring. Only two categories of people call the house phone: telemarketers, and her parents, who prefer landlines to cells.
But telemarketers are prohibited from calling after 9:00 P.M., she remembers.
Her parents, who open the store at 7:00 A.M., go to bed early. If they’re calling now, something must be wrong. She throws off the covers and hurries to the side table where the phone rests in its charger.
It isn’t her parents: caller ID shows a 202 area code, which is for D.C.
“Marissa?”
The female voice is familiar, but Marissa can’t immediately place it.
“This is Renee Hammerman.” Matthew’s new secretary, the woman Marissa met just today.
“Hi, Renee. Is everything okay?”
“I’m sorry to call you so late at home, but I’m still in the office and need to speak to Matthew briefly. I wouldn’t bother him unless it was urgent.”
“Wait, isn’t he there with you?”
In the pause that follows, Marissa feels her skin prickle.
“No, he left about forty-five minutes ago.… I keep trying his cell, but he isn’t answering.”
There’s no traffic at this time of night, so the ride home should be twenty minutes, tops. Even if he’d stopped for gas, Matthew should be here.
Unless—Marissa clutches at the thought—he was hungry and picked up something on the way. Typically when he works late, Matthew gets takeout from Giovanni’s, the restaurant across from his office, and eats at his desk. But maybe his routine changed.
She shares this thought with Renee, but Renee immediately replies, “I actually picked up his dinner because he had to jump on a call.”