Dead to Her

by Sarah Pinborough

  It was like having a bouncing puppy pawing at her legs, and now that she had Jason home and in such high spirits, even with her suspicions about his recent behavior, she wasn’t ready to wreck it all by having Keisha causing trouble. Out of Keisha’s orbit, Marcie’s sanity was returning. She had been longing for her freedom and youth, that was true, but she wasn’t going to lose everything she’d worked for because of some crazy infatuation, and definitely not because the person she was infatuated with couldn’t keep her mouth shut. Especially now that everything was going so well for Jason. When they were about to join the true elite. The women of the city would be turning to her for their lead on charity events and luncheons. No one would look down on the second wife anymore. Not when her husband had access to all their private financial and legal affairs.

  Her fingers flew across the keyboard. Having a day out with Jason! Sorry! she replied. But yes, will text tomorrow about party planning. See you in the week! Not unfriendly, but not intimate. She tucked her phone away again, satisfied. She would take control of this. Control was something she was good at.

  She swept through Sacchi’s, nodding at familiar faces here and there, enjoying how casual her beaten-soft white jeans and blue and white cotton shirt looked compared to the carefully coutured outfits on display in the old-fashioned leather wingback chairs that filled the gloomy interior. Sacchi’s was a home away from home for most of the club crowd, somewhere central and yet familiar in decor and ambience, servers dressed impeccably as they delivered perfectly mixed cocktails before whispering away across thick pile carpet.

  When in the cool, softly lit bar, it was hard to remember that it was eighty degrees and humid outside, but thankfully the courtyard in back was a more relaxed affair and Marcie was pleased they’d gotten a table outside. She was enjoying the freedom of the sunshine today, and she didn’t care if it meant her back would be slick with sweat under her shirt before too long.

  She froze as she stepped outside into the bright light, a stage set before her, as her brain tried to process what she was seeing. Jason had his back to her at the table, but even from several feet away she could see how stiff his spine was. Marcie’s own was suddenly a bolt of lead through her core, even as her hands trembled. A dark-haired woman was standing beside the table, leaning forward. All the catlike angles of her face seemed sharper in the bright sunshine, her expression hard as she whispered into Jason’s ear.

  Jacquie.

  Marcie no longer felt the heavy afternoon heat. Instead, a chill prickled over her skin as if she were still inside the fiercely air-conditioned bar. Keisha had been right. Jacquie was back. Those feline eyes looked up, as if their owner shared that animal’s nine lives and sense of danger, and they glittered as the face pulled into an angular smile and Jacquie straightened up and waved.

  Marcie forced herself to smile back, sauntering over to the table on unsteady legs, determined not to put on a show for any beady eyes that might be watching for entertainment. Jacquie was elegant in a powder-blue fitted dress, hips impossibly narrow to still have a waist, slim feet in elegant open-toed sandals, and Marcie felt like a waitress all over again, dressed down as she was. Jacquie had never failed to make her feel like a child. And a dumb one at that. It was something in her eyes and it was stronger now that the heartbreak had left them. Pure disdain with a veneer of polite grace. Jacquie might be all smiles now, but Marcie could see that Jason was pale and angry. What was going on here?

  “You’re looking well, Marcie,” Jacquie said. “Those extra pounds suit you.”

  Marcie grinned, ignoring the insult. “Bless your heart, thank you. We’ve had a day date at the beach.” She hated how she sounded. Kind of passive-aggressive defensive. A day date? Who ever said that? And why did it matter to her that Jacquie should think everything was rosy in their marriage? Jacquie was history. But what had she been saying to Jason with such intensity? Had Jason known she’d be here? Unlikely. Sacchi’s had always been a favorite of Jacquie’s. If she was back in town, of course she’d drink here.

  “How lovely.” Drips from an ice block.

  “Oh, I meant to say,” Marcie ignored the other woman’s cool and kept her own sting sweet. “I’m so sorry for your loss. It must be hard to be on your own at your age.”

  “Thank you. Yes, it was very sad.” Jacquie glanced down at Jason and then back at Marcie. “Of course, some losses turn out to be gains. And who knows what the future holds for any of us.”

  “God willing, only good things.”

  Jacquie tossed her hair carefully over one shoulder. “Anyway, I’ll leave you two to your afternoon. Annabelle is waiting inside. I only stopped to apologize to Jason for missing his call a couple of days ago. I was at the spa. I meant to call back, but you know how it is, you get started doing something else and then forget.” She smiled, razor thin and just as sharp. “I guess that might be my age too.” And then she was gone, breezing past Marcie and leaving only a waft of expensive and heavily floral perfume in her wake. It nauseated Marcie. Maybe that was the point.

  Jason had called Jacquie. The thought was so absurd Marcie couldn’t quite absorb it. It sat like oil on the surface water of her mind as she took the chair opposite her husband. “What did—” she started. What did Jacquie mean she missed your call? was the embarrassingly passive-aggressive question she was going to ask, but then Jason’s phone started ringing.

  “William,” he said, cutting her off as he picked up the phone, leaving all her confusion and anger caught in her throat. Why the hell did you call Jacquie? Maybe that was the approach she should take. No, that was how she wanted to confront him, but this was Jason. Aggression would get her nowhere. When he finished talking to William she’d ask him casually, as if she didn’t care. Not that he’d believe that, but politeness was the Southern way, and she’d have half a chance of getting some truth out of him that way.

  She looked over at her husband. His face had already been like thunder and nothing William was saying was cheering him up. His jaw had tightened and his knuckles were white on the cell. She listened to his side of the conversation. Who? When? Of course, absolutely. Looking forward to getting it done. His upbeat tone of voice was so at odds with his expression that it made Marcie shiver.

  The waiter came by and she murmured an order of two margaritas, even though Jacquie’s unwelcome presence had killed her enthusiasm for an hour at Sacchi’s, and no doubt Jason’s too, but why should they give her the satisfaction of driving them out as if they should still be ashamed? Jacquie was the past. Forgotten. And Marcie had never been ashamed anyway. All was fair in love and war. All was fair in life if it got you what you wanted.

  Finally, Jason hung up. “What is it?” she asked. “He hasn’t changed his mind?”

  “No, nothing like that. Nothing important. He’s getting an audit done before the sale. Figures it’s due diligence, which I guess it is.”

  “What’s the problem with that?”

  “There isn’t one. But they won’t start until after the holiday. It’ll delay everything by a month or so.” He flashed her a smile. “Guess I’m impatient.”

  “The time’ll go fast enough.” Their drinks appeared and Marcie forced herself to take a sip, even though an alcohol haze was the last thing she wanted now and the sharpness just tasted sour. “How come you called Jacquie?”

  “Why do you think?” He was still staring at his phone. “Because Keisha said she was back. I just wondered why. You know how she can be. I didn’t want any trouble.”

  “She must be done with all that by now, surely?”

  “She’s still a bitch.” His jaw tightened again.

  “What did she say to you? You looked totally pissed.”

  “Nothing. The usual. How shitty I was.” He looked up, irritated, and sipped his drink. “Can we forget about Jacquie? We’re having this great day, how about we don’t ruin it?”

  It was already ruined, Marcie wanted to say, but didn’t, not wanting a fight, especially not here
. Instead, they sat in an awkward silence, Jason’s mind elsewhere, their time occasionally marked out by Marcie’s asking an innocuous question about a TV show or a friend, answered in monosyllables. Jason was angry about something, she knew that, but who had annoyed him? Jacquie or William? Or was it a combination of both? The way he had looked while on the phone had been so strange; Jason’s voice had been upbeat, yet it seemed to come from a robotic or dead body. So disconnected.

  They finished their drinks and left, Marcie claiming to be tired from a day of sea breezes and fresh air, but in reality wanting to get out of the goldfish bowl of Sacchi’s. Jason didn’t argue, and when they got home he went straight for a long shower before making supper, which they ate with the TV drowning out the stilted atmosphere between them. When they went to bed, he didn’t try to touch her and she found she didn’t much care. Once again, she felt filled with mistrust of her husband. What was he holding back? Why wouldn’t he share with her?

  She finally fell into a fitful sleep, and this time, she felt no surprise when she woke in the dark to an empty bed and no sign of Jason’s phone on the nightstand. Another late-night call. Spiders of suspicion emerged, scuttering from the corners of her mind, forming webs to ensnare dark thoughts: If it wasn’t Keisha, then who was he talking to? Jacquie maybe? Was it whatever she’d been whispering that had soured his mood? Marcie hated to admit it, but Jacquie had looked good. Could Jason be secretly in touch with her again? Was it Jacquie who’d been sitting in her car outside their house when Jason was away? Had she hoped he’d sneak out and talk to her? Maybe now that the surgeon was dead and Jason was heading to the highest rungs of their social ladder, he wanted an old-school Southern wife again. Maybe Jacquie was toying with her, wanting her to feel as bad as she had when Marcie was in the process of stealing her life from her. All’s fair in love and war.

  Marcie closed her eyes and waited for his guilty tread and the feel of him as his body weight sank back onto the mattress. After a moment, she risked opening her eyes slightly. Jason didn’t notice. He was staring at the ceiling, his face as cold and impassive as it had been when he’d been on his cell with William. What was happening in that mind? Did she even know him at all? Secrets. Their marriage foundations had been secrets, an affair, and lies. It had been exciting then. It wasn’t so much fun now. Not when he was keeping secrets from her and she was cheating on him. But still—if he had his secrets, what was so wrong with her having hers? Why shouldn’t she have something for herself?

  31.

  Marcie had been here before. She had shivered with this sense of an imminent and terrible unraveling that she was central to, that she was causing, but that she just couldn’t stop. There were so many echoes of her affair with Jason. Even this position, straddling Keisha in the car, her skirt hitched up around her waist, was how she and Jason had fucked the first few times. Then it had been about making him come, keeping him happy, but now all her thoughts and focus were on her own pleasure and what the other woman was doing with her fingers. Marcie had said we can’t keep doing this every time they’d met since the weekend, and her resolve had gotten weaker each time. That was the problem with affairs. Once you started them they were so very hard to stop. Addictive. Exciting. Especially when Jason’s moods were still so unpredictable and she was starting to actively dislike him, and there was something flattering, if dangerous, in Keisha’s neediness for her. It was so opposite to how Jason had become. It was nice to feel wanted and special and to have her own secret—screw you, Jason—even if there was a slightly worrying edge to how hard and fast Keisha had fallen for her.

  “You’re so beautiful,” Keisha murmured. “I could watch you come all day.” Marcie pressed herself down onto those long, beautiful fingers as she shuddered to a climax. “I could let you,” she whispered, smiling. It was strange how Keisha was so fragile in the emotional side of the relationship and yet so confident in the sex. Marcie liked it. Despite Marcie’s constant proclamations to the contrary, the Englishwoman had wormed her way inside her head, and when she wasn’t wondering what duplicity Jason was up to, she was thinking about Keisha’s soft skin and dirty laugh, which no longer seemed crude and coarse but joyful and fascinating. She leaned forward to kiss her, hair falling across both their faces. “You’re so good at that. Do you want me to . . .”

  “No, I’m okay. Making you happy makes me happy. Anyway, they’ll be waiting for us at the club.” Keisha rolled her eyes. “I swear to fuck the only way I get through him touching me is thinking about you.”

  Another thing Marcie liked about Keisha was the way she cursed. It reminded her of her own youth when life was grittier and her lungs felt raw with every breath just from the power of surviving. “Don’t start on that again,” she said, sliding back over to the driver’s seat. “What are you going to do? Leave him? You’re kidding yourself. And I keep telling you, I’m happy with Jason. Things are good for us. I’m not going back to having nothing and being nothing. You need to understand that.”

  “You’re not happy with him,” Keisha said. “I can tell. The man’s an arse.”

  “Happiness is relative,” Marcie said, adjusting her underwear. Sex with a woman in the underground garage on Whitaker Street. It made her want to both laugh and also slap herself around the face for the stupidity. She was in that moment of postsex clarity, a window of sanity before all her desires resurfaced and lust took over once more. Maybe the sex would wear off and they’d get bored with each other. That would be the best outcome.

  “We’re not like you and William. Jason doesn’t revolt me. And maybe I’m not as in love with him as I used to be, but I did love him.”

  “What does that mean?” Keisha looked stung.

  “You know what that means.” Marcie softened, leaning over and kissing her cheek. “I don’t think badly of you for it, because I totally get why you did it, but if you marry a man for his money, sweetheart, you will always end up earning it.”

  “We could be happy poor?” Keisha was like a hopeful puppy.

  “No, we couldn’t. I couldn’t. And you want money as much as I do, otherwise you’d have left him by now, postnup or no postnup. So forget about it. Please.”

  “I thought getting married to Billy was everything I wanted. But it’s everything everyone else wanted.” Keisha’s eyes were clouded with hurt and anger. “And he’s not who I thought he was.”

  “No one ever is,” Marcie said softly. “Now come on. Go get in that little red Corvette and let’s go tell those dull men of ours all about how decadent this party is going to be.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Keisha smiled then, suddenly all light and life again. She was so childlike. Marcie had seen it again when Julian and Pierre had talked them through the various food options for the night. Keisha had found that boring, Marcie could tell by the way she’d backed off and let Elizabeth, who’d joined them at the start to discuss various food intolerances of some of the guests, take over.

  Only once Elizabeth had left and they’d started looking at the various red and black satins and velvets to be draped across marble plinths and decorated with gold snakes wound around them, glittering lights sparkling from open-fanged mouths, had Keisha lit up again, clapping her hands together with delight. They hadn’t chosen their dresses yet, but Julian had promised to show them a selection that would make the rest of the partygoers “simply die” with envy. For the first time, Marcie was actually looking forward to one of William’s parties. “Now, shoo. I’ll go ahead.”

  Keisha leaned over and kissed Marcie, her tongue sliding between her lips, and despite having just come Marcie tingled all over again.

  “I’m so smitten with you, Marcie,” Keisha said. “I really am.”

  “I think you’re crazy,” Marcie answered, but smiled. “Put some lipstick on, otherwise William will wonder what you’ve been doing.”

  Keisha groaned and got out of the car. “God, I wish he’d just die,” she said, and not for the first time. “Why can’t he just die?�
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  She closed the door and Marcie watched her saunter across the lot, all firm curves, proud and strong. One day she’d have to tell her that life didn’t work like that. Men like William got to go on forever. Real life didn’t touch them, and Keisha would be best off making her peace with that.

  It was funny how life turned in circles, she thought, as she kissed Jason on the cheek, joining him and William in the clubhouse restaurant. Her panties were still wet from Keisha’s work, and yet here she was, breezing in all smiles for her husband. Is this how it had been for him, when he’d been married to Jacquie? This shifting between situations?

  “Where’s Keisha?” William asked.

  “Following behind. Got caught at the lights I think.” At least Jason hadn’t had to manage having Marcie across the luncheon table when he was still with Jacquie. “You’re going to be amazed by how well she’s organizing this event. She has a natural flair for it.”

  William looked pleased, as if she’d complimented a pet on performing a trick well. How much did wives mean to someone like William? Did he understand love, or was it all about tradition and ego? How quickly he’d gotten over Eleanor. Perhaps even before she’d died he was already wondering what would come after. That flirting with waitresses he did. Eleanor had been a dead weight before she’d died. Was Jason like that too, underneath it all? Did he understand love or just possessions and social placement? All this politeness and refinement had been sucking the life out of Marcie, a slow puncture she hadn’t noticed. She may not want to leave Jason, but neither could she bring herself to give up this passion. Not yet. Men got to have their cake and eat it all the time. Why couldn’t she? “Have you ordered?” she asked. “I’m starving. I think I’ll have a steak.”