He’d tasted like salt and mangoes, and had apologized as soon as he had done it. I’m sorry, mon chaton. I just cannot control myself around you. I had blushed and beamed like a schoolgirl for the rest of the afternoon.
Tomorrow we were going to take the boat to Catalina Island for the day, just the two of us. Beneath the table, my foot jittered against the chair leg, and I set my slice down after taking only one bite. Mike was still looking at me, expecting more, so I tried harder with my lie. “An older couple died in a car accident, so I have a double obit to do. I spent most of the day with their kids and grandchildren.”
Funny that I used to think of my job as cool. Now it seemed so morbid and dreary. And for what? The bottom rung of journalism salaries? I was making more money in jean shorts and flip-flops than I had at the Times, and with no Fran to answer to, no traffic to battle, no deadlines continually hanging over my head.
I lifted my glass of ice water and took a sip. “What about you?”
Mike always loved the spotlight, and he took the mic without hesitation, launching into a long and confusing narrative about Bitcoin and a potential financing solution that involved converting funds into blah blah blah—I tuned him out and eyed our son, who was on his phone and his third slice of pizza. Jacob was worrying me. If he sensed the turmoil in our household, he didn’t show it. His emotional detachment was convenient, but becoming more pronounced with time.
“But that’s the issue, isn’t it? If the market turns, then we’re fucked. So it’s this game between buying now, when opportunity and risk is high, or waiting until the price rises with stability.” Mike got so excited about this shit. Was she into this? Was she matching him, line for line, and diving into the economies of foreign entities over late-night drinks and expensive steaks? Was that the missing piece, the opening she had used to worm into his life?
“You didn’t tell me that you won Employee of the Month.” I had meant to sit on the info but couldn’t stop the accusation from coming out.
“Oh.” He deflated slightly with the awareness that I didn’t give a damn about his current path of conversation. “Yeah. Last month. And the one before.”
The note of pride that crept into his voice on the added sentence only fueled my anger more. Two months he had gotten the bonus? What had he done with those? Two bonuses would have covered six months of severance from the Times. “So?” I folded my hands neatly on the table, one over the other, my elbows jutting out to either side. “Where is that money?”
“What money?” He glanced at Jacob, and it was a clear Let’s Talk About This Later sign, one that I ignored.
“The bonus money, Mike. What did you do with it?”
His eyes darted to the saltshaker, then to his beer, then back to me. “Credit cards. Just paid them off.”
“Hmm.” I contained so much in that one word.
The question of what had been on all those credit cards.
The note that Mike had never held a balance on his credit cards, not in twenty years of marriage.
It was a point of pride for him, a notch on some invisible scorecard that made him better than other men, that made us better than other couples, and one he felt the need to point out at any loan appointment or financial-planning session. And, just so you’re aware, we don’t have any credit card debt. He had never had debt, so I had never had debt, because my husband knew best.
Mike wanted to say something, wanted to defend himself against my one snarky, passive-aggressive response, but he didn’t. I let him hang there while I carried my paper plate to the kitchen and dropped my half-eaten slice into the trash. I washed my hands, opened the fridge, grabbed one of his beers, and carried it upstairs.
I locked our bathroom door and ran the tub until it was full, stepping in with a moan as I sipped the ice-cold beer. I should drink more beer. Wine was so pretentious, the elaborate sniff-and-swirl event of it all. Ice-cold beer—with a lime; I should buy some—that was more in line with my live-like-Taylor approach. I sank into the hot water, submerging up to my chin, and set the bottle on the side of the tub as I let the heat cook my tired muscles. I’d never walked or jogged so much in my life. After just a week of working there, I was stepping across wide gaps from docks to boats with ease, carrying twenty-pound bags of ice instead of tens, and could almost run from the ship store to the farthest dockage without pausing to catch my breath.
I drifted my hands under the water, running them across the stiff peaks of my nipples and then lower, my legs opening up, eager for the contact. I closed my eyes and focused on Mike, then a sexy soap opera star, before finally, reluctantly, I gave in and let myself think of David.
That confident smile.
The way his eyes lingered on me.
His fingers, drifting up along my bare thigh.
The brush of his facial hair along my neck.
The soft press of his lips.
How would they feel along the curves of my breasts?
How would he feel between my legs?
I closed my eyes, and mentally, I surrendered.
ONE MONTH BEFORE THE DEATH
CHAPTER 23
LILLIAN
@themysteryofdeath: I am taking a hiatus from social media. Maybe I’ll come back, maybe I won’t. Ciao for now . . .
David’s gift sat on our desk in the study, beside the landline phone. Each morning, I would check my email, read some news, and pull off the prior day’s page to unveil a new fact. The gift was a bit cumbersome, due to a speaker on the front that announced the day’s date if you pushed a button. It was an unnecessary feature that, if I had been a calendar buyer, I would have shaken my head over. But critical review aside, I didn’t mind the heft and enjoyed the interesting facts.
Today’s was interesting, if not slightly morbid. A sea slug’s head, if severed, can grow itself a new body. Peeling a tangerine, I scrolled through my email. All junk. Closing the browser, I sat back in the ergonomic chair and popped a wedge of the tart fruit in my mouth. Stretching out my legs, I admired the cut of muscle along the top of my thigh. It was liberating, the changes I was starting to feel and see in my body. And the freedom of setting my own schedule was heaven.
I had assumed it would be a shoulder job—something to give me some cash while I figured out what my next move would be—but I was having fun.
Every day at the docks was different. I walked dogs—small, medium, and large—and sometimes Arch Billow’s parrot. This week, I’d bought groceries for a dinner party and driven to Sonoma to pick up a case of custom wine. On Tuesday, I’d met a semitruck in the parking lot and watched as they’d slowly backed an off-white Ferrari down the truck’s ramp and over to a freight boat. Last week, I’d called someone’s teenage daughter, pretending to be the airline, and told her that her upcoming flight was canceled. I did whatever was asked, without question, and enjoyed every minute of it.
The extra pounds that I’d carried around since Jacob’s birth were starting to melt off as I went from a sedentary life to one of activity. On my wrist was a new watch, one that counted steps and calories, and I rejoiced over my daily averages, ones high enough that I could eat anything I wanted.
The money was good, and the boat owners were a wealthy chocolate box of variety. The Greedy Girl owners had crawfish boils for two hundred guests and brought out their fiddles and sang Cajun songs at sunset. The tattooed gentleman of Santa’s Baby played chess with me and slipped me beef jerky with his fifty-dollar tips. A lesbian couple had visited for four days aboard a superyacht—one a famous actress, the other a tech exec—and given me a box of Cuban cigars that I had passed on to David.