“Okay,” I said, weakly. “But, we don’t know anything for sure, right?”
“Jo, she showed us a video. Of you and Darius fighting. She taped you.”
“What the fuck?” I breathed into the phone. I rubbed a hand across my face, suddenly feeling so tired. I would have to wake Darius up for this. He needed to know.
“I have to tell Darius,” I said. “This is getting weird. I’ll call you tomorrow, okay?”
We hung up, and I walked into the living room where Darius was still fast asleep on the couch.
“Darius,” I said. He stirred, opening his eyes and smiling at me. “We need to talk. It’s about Fig.”
I couldn’t stand to be in the house. It was stifling. I turned down the heat, opened the window. Darius kept things too hot. The cold air on my skin helped for a bit, but then I was anxious again, moving, wandering from room to room, chewing on my nails and waiting for something to happen. But why? I was uneasy because of a neighbor who took things a little too far? That sounded silly even to a writer. Maybe I just needed fresh scenery, a change of pace. Darius suggested I try to write at a coffee shop, so on Thursday I slipped my MacBook into my bag and drove the five miles to Venetian Coffee. The traffic to get there was awful, but I liked the shiny, tiled floors, and the stern owner who chastised you for using Starbucks terminology in his shop. I used to write there when Darius first opened his practice just so I could be near him. He’d walk over on his break and we’d share an apple fritter before he’d go back for his afternoon patients. That’s when the relationship was young, before I could have found something closer, but I’d written an entire novel from Venetian and I was looking to find my luck again. I parked near the entrance and walked in, anticipating the pale glow and chilled out atmosphere that had always helped me write. Instead, I walked directly into Fig, who was carrying her coffee from the counter to a table. She looked momentarily shocked to see me too, then wiped her face clean of emotion and greeted me with her usual, “Hey there.”
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
She motioned to a table where her laptop was set up. “Working. They have the best apple fritters here.”
“Oh yeah?” I said, licking my lips. “I’ll have to try one.”
“Have you spoken to Darius?” she asked. Was there uncertainty on her face, or was I just imagining things?
“Well, yes. I speak to him all the time, he’s my husband.”
“He was just in here,” she said, quickly. “Got his coffee to go.” She reached up to swipe a stray strand of hair from her face, and it was then that I noticed her bracelet as it caught the light. It was one of those bangle things everyone was wearing, but it was the charm that caught my eye, a tiny silver snake, coiled like it was ready to strike.
Fig didn’t like snakes. I’d heard her say it five, six, seven times. Why? Because Darius and I had been talking about his ex-fiancée who was deathly afraid of the creatures. Fig had said, “I don’t blame her, I’ve never liked them either.”
Her words rang in my head as I watched the little charm dangle from her wrist. But, Darius loved snakes. He loved them so much that there were snake coffee table books scattered around the house. He’d petitioned me for a pet snake for Mercy just months ago, a coral corn snake, he’d said, pulling up pictures for me to see. I had a snake tattoo, a souvenir from my Harry Potter days when I claimed Slytherin House; it was what had drawn Darius to me all those years ago in college. We were snake people, and Fig was not. So, why was she wearing a snake? My first thought was: because she is one. Or maybe, she was in love with one.
I rubbed at the goosebumps on my arms and looked out the window toward Darius’s office building. Maybe we had it all wrong and her obsession wasn’t with me after all. She obviously knew he worked nearby, had she come here because of him?
“I think I’m going to run over there first,” I said, slinging my bag back over my shoulder.
“He has patients till five,” she said. “He won’t be able to see you.”
I prickled.
“I didn’t know you were his secretary now,” I said.
Her demeanor changed in that instant. She looked away, started stumbling on her words.
“Oh … he just told me how busy he was going to be today. I was just saying. I’m sure he’ll cancel all his appointments for you. Come running…” She tried to laugh it off, but I’d heard the possessiveness. I walked out without saying anything else to her, crossing the parking lot to Darius’s office.
Darius was standing at the receptionist’s desk when I walked through the doors, holding a paper cup of coffee. He looked startled when he saw me, but then his face adjusted into a smile. The waiting room was empty, so I walked over and gave him a kiss. He took it with some hesitancy, his smile momentarily dropping.
“Writing next door?”
“Yes. I just saw Fig? Did you tell her about the Venetian?”
What was that that passed across his face?
“Yeah, I may have mentioned it to her.” He turned away and walked to his office door, his receptionist staring after us with mild interest.
“So, you claim you don’t like her, tell me that she’s a crazy stalker, and you have coffee with her every day?” He shut his office door behind us, and I tossed my bag onto the only chair in the room other than the one where he sat.
“I never said that I didn’t like her,” he said.
“You didn’t, did you? So, you just don’t want me to like her? Is there a reason for that?”
“Did you come here to pick a fight? Does that help you write?”
I had, hadn’t I? I ran my thumbnail over my lip as I stared at him. Back and forth, back and forth.
“No, it helps me gather the truth, which you haven’t really been giving me lately, have you?”
Darius looked at his watch. He wasn’t going to dismiss me. I wouldn’t let him. I walked toward the desk, and he followed after me.
“I thought you had patients until five,” I said. “Fig told me.”
“I had a cancellation,” he said.
His phone was sitting on his desk. I glanced up at him as I lay a finger on the screen, making it light up. There was a line of messages. He was busy. All women. I saw Fig’s name among them.
“Who are you texting?” I asked. “I though you were laying off the Fig texts.”
He wouldn’t look at me.
“How long has she been coming here to … work?”
“I’m not talking to you when you’re like this.”
“Like this?” I laughed. “You mean when I’m on to you?”
Maybe I was overreacting; maybe I was punishing him for something. Not being there enough for me with my father. He was trying in his own way—making sure Mercy had her bath at night, bringing me a glass of wine—it just wasn’t good enough for me. I was selfish that way, wanting people to bend and give me the love I needed, not necessarily the love they knew how to give.
“Okay,” I said. I headed for the door. But, I had to poke once more. It was who I was. I’d learned that first reaction told the deepest truth. “Hey, what’s your password for your e-mail?”
He just stared at me.
“You know the password to my e-mail…”
His face was impassive, a stone mask. I wanted to throw something at his face to see if it would move. I was crazy. I turned away before he could see my face. If he wouldn’t give it to me, I’d figure it out myself.
Things you think when at the dentist:
He definitely knows I haven’t flossed since my last visit.
Shit. He’s going to make me feel guilty.
Why is he talking to me when my mouth is stretched open?
What’s that pointy thing?
I promise to floss every day.
I fucking hate this place.
I got free floss!
That I’ll never use.
Fuck the dentist. Seriously. Were there people who actually enjoyed having someone’s latex fin
gers probing around in their mouth? Probably—everything is a thing nowadays. My rule was if you stick any part of your body in my mouth, there better be an orgasm in it for me. When was the last time I’d had an orgasm anyway? Darius and I hadn’t spoken since our showdown in his office. I was already in bed later that night when I’d heard the key in the lock. I’d snuggled down closer to Mercy, who I’d let sleep in the bed with me so he couldn’t. When he came slowly into the bedroom a few minutes later, he’d seen her lying next to me and left. Good riddance, I’d thought. I needed more time. I wasn’t going to let him schmooze his way out of this one. I needed to think.
I’d been thinking for days. I’d tried to guess the password to his e-mail, too. Nada. Darius was on lockdown. And why? Because something was up, that’s why.
The dentist’s office was a twenty-minute drive from where I lived. I scooted my car onto the jam-packed 5 cursing Ryan under my breath. It was a new dentist. Ryan, of all people, made the appointment for me when I confessed that I hadn’t been in two years. Darius would have flipped his shit if he knew. In all the years I’d known him, the guy had never made a single sexual advance on me, but Darius resented his presence in my life. In fact, Darius resented any male presence in my life. He’d never made me a dentist appointment, though I suspected there were times he’d wanted me to see a shrink.
Why there? I’d texted him when I saw the address. Dentists on every corner and you make me drive all the way there! I was agitated. He knew I hated driving.
He’s a buddy of mine. Just go, he’ll take good care of you. You go to the dentist like twice a year. Stop whining. So, I stopped whining. If Darius had told me to stop whining I would have given him something to whine about. For Ryan, I stopped whining. Fuck my life. What was even happening?
Henry Wu was a young Asian guy, straight out of tooth school, or wherever they went. He came to collect me from the reception area himself and led me to a room whistling the theme song to Dexter. Real comforting, guy. After he sat me down, he told me that this was his first practice, and that his uncle loaned him the money to get started. I felt better about the twenty-minute drive after his whole spiel, and made a mental note to thank Ryan.
“How do you know Ryan?” he asked. His eyes briefly wandered to my wedding ring.
“College, but we didn’t know each other well there. We sort of became friends after we graduated. You?”
“We worked at the Logan’s Roadhouse together. Beer, peanuts, two dollar tips all night.”
I tried to picture Ryan as a server. I couldn’t.
“He never ran his own food, we all hated him,” Henry said, and we both laughed. That I could picture.
An hour and no cavities later, he sat me up in the chair and asked what I did for a living.
I hesitated. “I’m an author.” It still made me terribly uncomfortable to admit it. I hated talking about myself. There was a certain butt naked feeling when you told someone you were an artist. It was sort of like telling them you’d been to prison. First they looked at you funny, then they wanted to know what you did. After that they started acting weird, not sure if they should be afraid of you, or impressed. Dr. Wu pulled his mask down and raised his eyebrows. I couldn’t raise my eyebrows anymore, too much Botox.
I thought he was going to have the normal reaction, maybe ask the follow-up questions about what I write. But, instead he said, “You’re my second author! How about that?”
“In this area?” I asked, sitting up straighter. I could count the number of published authors living in Seattle on one hand.
“She’s in Seattle too,” he said. “I’m not sure how she found me, I didn’t ask.”
“What’s her name?” I was immediately intrigued. Perhaps someone I knew, or at least my pen name knew. Few authors knew my real name, and I preferred to keep it that way for privacy sake.
He shook his head. “Can’t tell you, HIPAA laws.”
I was disappointed. “Is she well-known?” I probed.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But, she mentioned going on book tours, so I assume so. Writes under a pen name.”
“You’re kidding,” I said, incredulous. I listed off Seattle-based authors in my head: Sarah Jio, Isaac Marion, and even some based in far out Washington like S.C. Stephens, and S.L. Jennings. How had a new Seattle author slipped past my radar?
“She’s older then,” I said. An older female author without a social media presence. It made sense. Those of us on social media tended to find each other, pen name and all.
“No, no—she’s your age. Looks kind of like you, too.” He pulled off his gloves and pressed the pedal to the trash can with his foot.
“Looks like me how?” I asked. Was it cold in here, or was I getting the chills?
“Dark hair, same style clothes.” He glanced at my boots. “She was wearing Dr. Martens when she came in. Must be a writer thing, those things are extinct.”
“Hey, they’re on a comeback.” I smiled. I tried one last thing.
“Is she a Washington native?”
He shook his head. “Nope. Said she moved here from the Midwest.”
I got cold. From the tips of my toes all the way to my heart, which suddenly beat at a gallop. I moved through the rest of the visit as quickly as I could, signing, smiling, and making a follow-up appointment. The minute I got to my car I tossed my purse in the passenger seat and dialed Amanda.
“Fig,” she said, after I finished my story.
I breathed a sigh of relief. That’s exactly what I had been thinking, but I felt crazy even saying it.
“This is nuts,” she said. “I’m going to call and pretend to be her to find out if she goes there.” She hung up before I could protest. I sat in my car, feeling sick to my stomach. Why? Did she want my life so badly that she was even pretending to have it to the dentist? By the time Amanda’s number flashed on my phone I was a mess.
“Hello?”
“She’s a patient there. I scheduled a cleaning for her filthy mouth.”
I had to pull over.
“You’re telling me that Fig Coxbury goes to that dentist—that Wu guy?” My finger jabbed uselessly in the air.
“Yup.”
“Okay, okay,” I said, parking my car. I leaned my forehead against the steering wheel. “But, it may all be a coincidence, right? I mean there could be an author who goes there too, Seattle is a large city.”
“Nope, it’s not actually that large. No. You’re going to have to stop being so goddamn stupid—do you hear me? She wants your life. She’s even pretending to have it to your local dental health specialist. Wake up, Jo.”
“All right,” I said. “I’m awake. What now?”
“Sell your house. Move. She’s not right in the head.”
“I can’t just sell my house. I was there first.”
“She probably bought the house next door because she was already obsessed with you.”
We both fell silent. It was ludicrous, but wasn’t everything that was happening? What if it was true?
“I’ll, um … talk to Darius. See what he says.” I hung up feeling guilty. I had no intention of talking to Darius about this. There were a lot of decisions I needed to make.
Sometimes you get this gut feeling that something is wrong. It sits in your belly like a sack of hard rocks. You can’t forget it’s there, yet you sort of learn to live with it at the same time. You still don’t want to be right. You’d rather tell yourself you’re crazy, become an alcoholic, cry yourself to sleep every night. Anything but face the truth … that you are right. That he is indeed cheating. Since when did it become easier to be crazy than cheated on, you know? It’s just nicer to be crazy than to be unloved.
What were we fighting about when my life fell apart? Oh, yes—Ryan. Fucking Ryan. I’d not spoken to him in weeks. He was seeing a blonde, hashtagging all of his photos with #datenight. A martini sitting next to a rocks glass on a glossy bar top. That was enough to make me back off. I’d never tell someone not to tex
t me because I was in a relationship, but I wouldn’t text someone who was. I liked women too much to mess with their men. I was in the kitchen making coffee when Darius pulled up a photo Ryan had posted to Instagram.
“Did he post this for you?” he said. His face was damp—greenish—like he was sweating off a fever. He held the phone in front of my face and shook it.
“It’s not a snow globe, Darius,” I said. I grabbed his wrist and looked more closely at the picture. Ryan sat next to his baby niece on the grass. “Wait,” I said. “Are you asking if Ryan posted a picture of himself and a baby for me?”
“Don’t play stupid, Jolene,” he said. I balked. Was this really happening?
“I think I’m with stupid,” I said, turning away. He grabbed my shoulder and spun me back around. “The white box around the picture,” he said. “That’s what you do to your pictures.”
“Yes, me and a million other Instagram users. What the fuck does Ryan’s picture have to do with me? And why are you stalking him?”
“He’s in love with you.” He swiped at his sweaty forehead with the back of his hand. He looked like a fucking crack head.
“Again, what does that have to do with his niece?”
He didn’t stop me when I walked away. I heard his footfalls as he paced the kitchen. Back and forth, back and forth. He was opening and closing cabinets—something he did when he was anxious. Da fuck.
I’d seen him like this once before, years ago when he was leaving his fiancée and my best friend. He acted cracked out, manic. He’d sob one minute and be angry the next, then he’d start saying shit I preferred not to remember. Things that made no sense, void of logic. Like this, like the picture Ryan posted.
A few hours later I was folding laundry in our bedroom. What time was it? Midnight? One? He opened the door and walked in softly, tiptoeing almost. He was minimizing his noise to minimize my temper. It was comical.
“I’m sorry,” he said, before I could speak. “This guy makes me crazy. I’ve seen your texts. I’ve been reading them.” I blinked at him, and he looked away.
“You make yourself crazy,” I said. “You’ve been reading my texts? That’s not creepy at all.” I put my folded underwear into a drawer and slammed it shut, moving to the closet. I kept my movement steady, calm. But, my thoughts were flying around like darts, hitting all the sore spots. He had all of my passwords, possession of my iPad, which I knew about. I had never taken precaution to keep him from seeing anything. He was so paranoid that he’d been spying on me, and for how long? And yet, I didn’t have a single one of his passwords. How had that happened? Was I really that trusting, or was it that I didn’t care to keep an eye on him? It’s not like I didn’t know what he was capable of.