by Paul Pen
“Why did you throw the cell phones away?”
“Same reason I punctured the tires. To give you more time.”
Frank pricked his ears, alert to any movement in the motor home.
“What is it you want?” he asked her.
“For you to confess.” Mara adjusted the elastic on her panties before continuing. “For you to tell your wife about me, about us. And about you, tell her about you, most of all. So that poor woman knows she doesn’t have the perfect husband she thinks she has. So she knows how you treat women who aren’t her, how you walked out on me as if I was worthless.”
A sudden sadness dulled her eyes. When they lit up again, they glowed with malice. She tried to grab his hand, make him touch the skin he already knew. “When you left me”—she paused, harboring thoughts that darkened her gaze—“nothing has ever hurt me so much. And now you’re running off to the other side of the country to get as far away from me as possible, right? You didn’t think I’d find out, of course. How would I? But, as you can see, I did. Your wife tells us everything on her channel.
“Did I not mention I subscribed?” she added with a smile. “You’re not going to get rid of me this easily, Frank. The truth is coming after you, and you’re going to have to face up to it. She was so nice, the server at the restaurant, wasn’t she? I didn’t mean to knock her over.”
“That was you.”
“Sitting at the next table. Listening to where you were going. I didn’t intend for you to hit me, that was unexpected. I would’ve settled for you stopping to help a poor girl with a broken-down car . . . and seeing the expression on your face when you discovered it was me. I wanted to be with you, with your wife, with your happy family. All together in the RV. Making you come clean.”
“Don’t do anything to my family.”
“I’m not doing anything to them. I’m doing it to you.”
Frank pushed her aside and searched inside the tent. He shook out the sleeping bag, looked under the pajama pants on the floor, kicked the cushions Grace had brought out. He examined folds in the tent fabric.
“Where’s your purse? The knife, the cell phone. Where are they?”
“I wasn’t stupid enough to keep them in here.”
“Don’t you try anything.” Frank spoke with the most authoritative tone he could manage in a whisper. Really, he wanted to shout with all the air in his lungs. “Don’t you dare say anything.”
“Are you going to tell her?” Mara asked. “Are you going to tell her everything?”
She grabbed the bulge in his briefs, not in the provocative way she had when it had been she who’d taken them off for him, but squeezing so that it hurt.
“If you have enough of these to do what you did”—she kneaded his testicles—“then use them to face up to what you’ve done. Because I’m staying right here. We’re all going to stay on this road for as long as it takes for you to decide to behave like a man and tell the truth.”
Frank shoved her arm away and grabbed her neck, so slender he could almost fit his hand around it.
“You can’t hurt me anymore,” she said. “You could’ve run me over completely and I wouldn’t have cared. It would’ve been fun to sit in hell and watch you tell your wife that the girl you’d just killed on the road was your—”
Frank tightened his hand, strangling her words. He didn’t even want to hear the name she was about to give to what had happened between them. Mara looked at him with defiance in her eyes. The muscles in her neck fought to expand her throat, to keep her breathing. She didn’t look away even when her eyes began to swell under her eyelids, even when they filled with tears. The rest of her face was swelling up, too, the blood trapped in her head, her face purpling. Frank realized it would be very easy to keep exerting pressure. Just a little while longer and the problem would disappear. Grace had said it: accident victims who appear unharmed often die hours later from invisible injuries. Mara had already choked, so it wouldn’t seem unusual if, in the night, she suffered another seizure like the one they’d all witnessed, only this time it killed her. Frank’s hand began to tremble, alarmed at what could happen if it continued to squeeze, at how easy it would be to keep squeezing. He began to fantasize about—
“Dad?”
Simon’s voice was deafening in the silence. Frank released his grip, ashamed. The father of the lovely boy who’d just spoken couldn’t be the person who was fantasizing about strangling a woman in the night.
“Are you outside, Dad?”
Mara dropped to the floor, coughing into the sleeping bag.
“Yeah, taking a pee.” His son wouldn’t know where the voice was coming from. “I didn’t want to make the tank dirty.”
“Can you blow on my eye?”
Mara twisted on the ground, regaining her breath.
“I’ll be right there,” said Frank. “You go in, I’ll be right there.”
He waited for the click of the door. Squatting, he found Mara’s line of sight.
“Leave,” he said. “Disappear.”
She was opening and closing her mouth the way Simon’s fish had when they found it on the carpet the afternoon he accidentally smashed the tank with a baseball.
“When . . . when you confess,” she managed to say.
Frank left the tent. He zipped up the door, wanting to close the entrance to a past he’d hoped to leave behind him when they moved. He caught his thumb on the zipper’s last tooth. He held it to his mouth. He hated the taste of blood.
Simon was waiting for him inside the motor home.
“Can you blow on me now?”
Frank smiled, and tickled his son’s tummy.
“Sure thing, Gizmo.”
He kissed the top of Simon’s head and, kneeling in front of him, blew into the darkness to soothe the itching.
“I love you, son,” he whispered. “I love you all so much.”
18.
If only he’d killed her.
If only she’d died.
If only he hadn’t swerved with the motor home.
Frank knew his thoughts were abhorrent, but he couldn’t get them out of his head. His ex-lover’s battered body under the wheels seemed less problematic than having her out there, sleeping right near his family. He pressed his tongue against his teeth, scraping it to censure that last idea with pain. He was so tense under the sheets that only his shoulders, backside, and heels touched the mattress. Beside him, Grace was asleep. A wife dreamed in the marital bed while her husband fantasized about how he would get rid of the secret that would destroy their marriage.
Frank shook his head on the pillow. He wanted to stop thinking about how believable the death of a woman would be when she had been in an accident and refused to seek medical attention. How innocent he would be in the eyes of any authority, having swerved to avoid her. How simple it would be to explain why he hadn’t allowed a stranger to sleep in the motor home—he had a young son and didn’t want her sleeping near the boy. The knife they would find in the victim’s purse would also confirm that she was a dangerous person.
The family’s behavior toward her had been exemplary after the accident. They had treated her injuries, given her a change of clothes, offered her accommodation in a good tent. An unexpected complication from the accident causing her death later would be a tragic but believable outcome. Unfortunate for almost everyone, convenient for Frank. Very convenient. So convenient that he dug his fingernails into his thighs to distract his attention from how tempting the idea was. Because he knew that the more tempting it was, the more dangerous it was, too, and he hadn’t been very good at resisting temptations lately.
He focused on his family’s breathing. The three people who made his home, the three people who were his whole life. Rocked by his wife’s sleepy spasms, lulled by his youngest child’s snoring, and touched by the mere existence of the daughter who was turning into a woman, Frank couldn’t understand how he had risked destroying so much stability, so much love, just to have a stupid affair
with the woman who was sleeping out there. The woman who’d also sold them this very motor home.
The idea to buy the RV had been Frank’s. Grace had thought it an unnecessary expense, as well as an eccentricity unsuited to a man who’d worked in the hotel industry all his life. “Aren’t these things supposed to lose you customers?” she asked. Frank had suggested it two years ago, when Simon was seven and Audrey was about to turn fourteen. The children were no longer little kids and were beginning to look like responsible people—it had been a while since traveling with them had stopped being the living hell of tantrums, fits of gluttony, and puking in the car that their family vacations had usually become. But it wasn’t easy to persuade Grace. Frank had to make the argument a thousand times that an RV would be the best way to travel as a family, to explore the country, to make geography something more than just boring information in textbooks for the kids. That every week off would be an opportunity to hit the road, and every trip would be a factory of family memories they would treasure forever. He also tried to persuade Grace that she could make interesting videos for her YouTube channel, but she rejected that idea outright—taking her camera on their trips would make them the opposite of a vacation. Frank seduced her by describing idyllic scenes of the children toasting marshmallows over a fire in Yosemite, of the four of them watching shooting stars from the top of a rock in Joshua Tree National Park or telling ghost stories under a blanket—the ones Simon liked even though they frightened him—after a picnic of hot dogs on the sands of Carmel-by-the-Sea. They would have snow, cactuses, beaches, fireflies, meteorite craters, mountains, the Grand Canyon, the Mississippi, geysers . . . all on their doorstep. They could look out their bedroom window at the most beautiful landscapes of the United States, because with a house on wheels, they could take their bed wherever they wanted. And wherever they were, their house on wheels would be a twinkling light in the darkness of the fascinating places where they would stop to sleep, making any point on the map where the four of them were a cozy home. On several occasions, the picture-perfect scenes Frank imagined for Grace made her defocus her eyes as if she could see them, too. Sometimes she even smiled at the living room when Frank described details like the cackle Simon would let out when Audrey’s marshmallow fell off her stick into the fire. But what finally persuaded Grace, almost a year after the initial suggestion, was Frank describing the way he’d hug her with his raincoat to protect her from the cloud of water Niagara Falls would spray on them.
He’d gone alone to choose the motor home, in the spring of the previous year. He wanted to avoid the comments Grace would make about the cost, her inevitable insistence on choosing a cheaper model. He also wanted to avoid Audrey’s and Simon’s impulses—unlike their mother, they would push for the more expensive models they couldn’t afford. On the Saturday morning when Frank went to the dealership, the sun was reflecting off the silver, blue, and red bunting strung overhead. The breeze was blowing a gigantic Stars and Stripes hoisted in the middle of the site. While sales agents drove other customers around in golf carts, Frank wandered among the rows of parked RVs, waiting for someone to attend to him. He peered into the windows of several motor homes from the outside, examining their interiors like a nosy neighbor. He paid no attention to the young woman who positioned herself beside him, even when she cleared her throat for the first time.
“I know everyone expects their salesperson to be a man.”
She said it when he was jumping to snoop through a high window on one of the vehicles. Realizing he’d been caught, he feigned innocence like a child, rearranging the polo shirt that had ridden up as he leapt.
“But you got me, the saleswoman with the best record in the dealership. I’m also the only saleswoman, but hey. My name’s Mara Miller.”
She held out her hand with a smile—the way Frank had tried to cover up his mischief seemed to have amused her.
“It wasn’t because you’re a woman.” Frank indicated another sales agent passing in a golf cart. “It was because you’re not wearing the same uniform as them.”
“The men wear a jacket. They make me wear this dress.”
She ran both hands down the garment, from the round neck to the skirt’s hem. Her frown and sharp tone made it clear that her comment was a criticism of the sexism encapsulated in the gender-specific company clothing. However, from the way she positioned her body’s curves to emphasize the femininity of the dress, Frank detected a hint of an actress doing a twirl on a red carpet. A very attractive actress. An actress with whom Frank couldn’t help but establish instant, furtive eye contact, the automatic mode of a man wanting to confirm whether, despite being married, he was still attractive to women.
She held his gaze. Under other circumstances, Frank would have interpreted the gesture as subtle flirting, but now he suspected it was a sales ploy. He had come to the dealership well aware of salespeople’s ability to manipulate customers, and he was determined not to allow himself to be influenced by anything they said. Not even when the sales agent was a good-looking girl with gray eyes who seemed to be paying too much attention to him.
“Can you tell me what kind of motor home you’re looking for and I’ll help you?” she asked.
“I’ve done all my homework online,” Frank explained. “Don’t take it personally, but I think the time when we just trusted a salesperson is well and truly over. In the months I’ve spent reading about motor homes, I’ve learned much more than you could tell me here in a few minutes.”
“OK, no problem, then. I respect the decision you’ve made based on the opinions of those people on the internet who know so much but who probably don’t know the promotions and special offers we have at this dealership.”
The saleswoman gave him a slanted smile, a mixture of commercial tactics and teasing again. Frank held her gaze. When she wet her lips, the meaning of the looks they traded changed completely, they both knew. Neither of them was thinking about RVs or the dealership’s special offers anymore. Frank worried that it was obvious he was becoming excited.
“But if you don’t mind me asking,” she went on, “what model did you choose after all your research?”
Frank revealed his choice with all the confidence instilled in him by hours spent on manufacturers’ websites, user forums, and specialized YouTube channels.
“It’s one of the biggest models,” the saleswoman replied. “Do you have a large family?”
“Two children.”
Frank could feel the seductive energy that had enveloped them until now fade. He also knew what her next question would be.
“And a wife, I imagine,” the sales agent stated instead of asking.
Her voice had lost its flirtatious overtone, instantly respecting the other woman she must have begun to visualize in her mind. Her uniform was no longer the party dress of an actress strutting along the red carpet, just work clothes. The contrast, the change to a more boring register, seemed so tragic to Frank that he refused to accept it.
“No,” he answered, thinking of Grace, “not really. I’m single. Divorced.”
The lie escaped his lips easily. He didn’t even have to worry about hiding his hand in his pocket because he never wore his wedding ring. At first he felt ashamed, imagining Grace hearing him deny her existence, but he soon persuaded himself that he was doing nothing wrong. Flirting isn’t cheating. And he just wanted to play the game a little longer, prolong the stimulating twist to the encounter. What was supposed to be a cold commercial transaction had proved to be more fun than expected. And so what? There was no reason marriage had to deprive him of some harmless flirting in broad daylight.
“Free, then. Great,” replied the saleswoman, who made her smile glow when she wet her lips with her tongue. “It’s beautiful, a father traveling with his children in a motor home. And you made a good choice of model—it’s a very good make. I’m not going to try to persuade you to change your mind. What I can offer you is an upgrade . . .”
“Here we go,” Frank blurted
out with a boldness that kept the conversation less formal. “This is where the price starts going up.”
“It’s an upgrade that’ll enhance your RV but won’t make it more expensive, because it costs the same as the ten percent discount we’re offering today on all the class As.” She winked, blurring the boundary between seduction and commerce even more. “Better?”
The upgrade she offered consisted of an improvement to the finish in the galley—the word she used to refer to the kitchen—and a better distribution of the basement—the name she gave to the exterior storage area that Frank would call the trunk. Accepting the offer must have sent the wrong message to the saleswoman, who, as they walked toward the model of choice, then set about trying to sell him more things, some of them completely absurd.
“And would you like to add a security system with surveillance cameras for your new house?”
“For this house?” Frank rested his hand on the chosen motor home.
The saleswoman nodded.
“Yeah, sure,” he said. “As if people buy stuff like that. I’m not going to add anything else that costs money, thanks.”
“A lot of RVers install security systems,” she insisted. “Keep in mind there’re owners who live in them full time. They park in inhospitable places and leave all their belongings inside. Valuable things. If you think it’s sensible to have security cameras in your home, then it’s just as sensible to have them on your house on wheels.”
“I don’t even have any in my house,” explained Frank. “As if I’m going to put them in a car.”
“I’m the opposite. I’m a security freak. And the basic cameras are so cheap these days, I have them all over my house. Even on the balcony. The only place I don’t have one is in the bathroom, out of respect for my guests.”
Frank let out a disbelieving snort. He hadn’t missed the saleswoman’s insertion of the word cheap into her spiel. He admired how well crafted her lies were. “You’re making it up to sell me a security system no one buys.”