by A B Whelan
I set my phone and keys on the only dry spot on the counter that has been spared from splashes of water, wet towel pieces, and spilled soap and wash my face. I rinse my mouth with a bottle of water I purchased at the convenience store while I was getting gas, then answer Anaya’s call that’s been blowing up my phone.
“Where are you?” she asks. It was only yesterday I saw her, but her clipped Britishness comes through, compared with the accents around here. “Do you have a moment to talk?”
“Hey, yes. I’m getting gas. What’s up?” I try to sound casual as I wipe my face with a paper towel.
“Can you talk about what happened at the office yesterday?”
I take a hard look at my face in the cloudy mirror. “There was a misunderstanding during my background check that needs to be cleared up. What did you hear?”
The sound of a forced exhalation resonates through the receiver. “You know how this place is. If you don’t tell the truth to people, their imaginations run wild.”
“Do I want to know what the gossip about me is?”
“Probably not,” she scoffs. “But I did overhear an agent who was reporting about a telephone interview with your parents that’s been arranged for Friday. I think he was talking to the chief, but I’m not sure.”
“Who was it?”
“Some dinosaur named Ted.”
Great, just what I need. An old-fashioned hardhead who has no understanding or patience for anything outside his social norms.
“Well, I got nothing to hide. Agent Ted can investigate away,” I say with conviction, yet my stomach is in a knot.
“As much as I want to know what’s going on, I understand you can’t talk about it.” Anaya allows a moment to pass in silence, her final attempt at giving me a chance to share more information. When I don’t respond, she concludes our conversation and sighs in disappointment. “Anyway, I hope things clear up for you soon so we can have you back in the office. The deadline is putting a real squeeze on us.”
“I’ll do my best, Anaya. Trust me, I wish I could be there with you. But hey, call me if you have any questions for me, okay?”
“All right. Let’s keep in touch. And hey, don’t hesitate to reach out to me if you need help. I’m here for you.”
I hear incomprehensible chatter in the background and a door closing. I picture Anaya sitting in our special-operations office, and my heart skips a beat. An overwhelming sense of failure settles on me. I know I can’t keep up the acting much longer. “Will do,” I say. “Thanks for calling. I really appreciate your concern.” I’m about to hang up when I realize I have the means to reciprocate her support. “By the way, do you have any plans for tomorrow? Doug and I are having a little get together. We can see the fireworks a few blocks from our house.”
“Awww, thank you! I wish I could, but I’ve already made arrangements to go home and visit family.”
“Well, enjoy yourself. I’ll see you back in the office, I hope,” I add with a short, frustrated chuckle.
I hang up the phone and gaze at my reflection in the restroom’s mirror, going over the new developments in my head. My parents won’t be able to lie during an FBI interview. My mother thought she had the right to deflect my questioning earlier, but I hope she’s smart enough to come clean with the Bureau. I’m not sure what scares me more: my parents being interrogated by the FBI or finding out the truth.
It’s approaching two o’clock in the afternoon, which means I ran out of time, so I opt to drive home instead of visiting Barbara Sullivan. Even if I leave right now and miraculously evade heavy traffic on the freeway, I still won’t make it home by four as I promised Doug. The dread of an inevitable confrontation weighs me down as I walk back to my car. Before I roll out of the parking lot, I arrange a grocery delivery over the internet to save some time for cleaning the house. When I get back on the road, I feel overwhelmed, underappreciated, and most of all, downright out of luck.
15
As Doug’s friends began to arrive at our house for the Fourth of July party, we both already have our welcoming and smiling faces on, putting the previous hour of bickering on the backburner.
It wasn't a spontaneous argument. Doug was upset with me from the beginning of the day.
I arrived home late last night to a chillingly vacant house, feeling mentally and physically exhausted. By the time I put away the lukewarm groceries I had found on the porch, ate dinner, and showered, I had no energy left to do much else. I spent the remaining hours of my evening sitting on my bed and going over Blake Sullivan’s file again, hoping to find a clue I may have missed to his current whereabouts. But there was nothing in those files that could have pointed my investigation in a new direction. At that point, interviewing people from Blake’s past seemed to the only logical step to take.
I have a faint memory of Doug stealthily climbing into bed with me just before midnight, reeking of cigarette smoke and beer breath. I pretended to sleep to spare us both an unpleasant argument.
In the morning, we both overslept. I took the blame for not setting the alarm in silence so I could get on with the tidying up of the house.
But the cleaning didn’t go too well as I lacked focus and dedication to the task at hand. I was all over the place, jumping from doing laundry, preparing dishes, and cleaning bathrooms. Naturally, nothing was completed in an orderly fashion, and I felt I was making little progress. My house growing up was always clean and organized, a skill I never seemed to acquire. My mom should have passed down the secret art of tidying up to me before I flew from the nest. I guess she did try to teach me; I just wasn’t paying attention.
On the other hand, Doug is a master at managing his time. He worked relentlessly, mostly out in the back, mowing the lawn and setting up the tables and chairs on the patio. Every time he came inside for a cold drink, he appraised my progress with the rolling of his eyes or a heavy sigh. An hour before the party started, he ripped the vacuum cleaner from my hand and sent me to make myself look presentable, reminding me that this party was my idea.
Doug’s business partner, Ethan, was the only guest I was actually eager to see. He was one of the last to show up at the party; by then, I had become worried he might have found something better to do than to hang with us. At the sight of him, a rush of relief washed over me.
“Hey, Vic,” Ethan leans in to hug me as I hold the door open for him. His lumberjack-inspired beard tickles my cheek. I relish the scent of his cologne as I return his embrace.
“I’m glad you could make it,” I say, pulling away swiftly; Doug is approaching us.
“My man!” Doug whoops in with open arms for his best friend. He scoops Ethan away from me and leads him toward the patio, cutting through the crowd of people, who, despite eating my food and drinking my booze, never make an effort to get to know me.
I fix a smile on my face and check on the tray of pigs in a blanket baking in the oven. The uniform little mounds have turned golden brown. I unload them onto a dish and head to the backyard to place them on the table.
“Vicky!” Doug beckons me to a group of people encircling him like vultures. His fan club includes three women I have never met in person, but recognize from his Instagram posts, and some others I’ve met before, like Angela and Christine from the office, Ethan, and a tall, slim man with Asian features whose name I can’t recall.
“I need your help, please save me,” Doug swoons.
I step next to him, and he loops his arm around my shoulders.
“What seems to be the problem,” I ask, smiling at my boyfriends as we are under scrutiny.
“My friends are asking me how we met, but you are a much better storyteller than I am, so please take center stage.” Doug plays this intro with his usual theatrical flair. As the youngest of three brothers, born nearly a decade after the second son, he was the baby of the family. Doug’s constant need to prove himself hasn’t waned as an adult. His drive to do more and be more was what I adored in him, but learning how he’s willing to l
ie to make himself look better tarnished my image of him. Yet I am his partner in crime because that’s what couples do—they get each other’s back.
There is nothing unique or #Instaworthy about how Doug and I met. Consequently, Doug doesn’t like to talk about it. He made up a silly story about us crossing paths in a bar on Saint Patrick’s Day and being tricked into love at first sight by a leprechaun. In reality, we stumbled across each other on an online dating site. Like most ordinary people, we, too, went out for dinner for our first date, then again, and again. After two weeks of eating and talking, Doug invited himself back to my apartment and stayed the night.
Every little detail between us seemed to click as if we were part of the same puzzle. Doug was my door to freedom and joy. He got me into running around the neighborhood in the mornings before work. And soon enough, Doug’s love for outdoor activities, especially hiking and snorkeling, had rubbed off on me.
At the three-month mark of our relationship, Doug gave up the apartment he rented with two of his friends and moved in with me because it made sense financially. It worked out. Life was good together.
After being on the force for eight years, I was promoted to detective, and the increase in my pay allowed us to upgrade to our current charming little two-bedroom house located close to the beach. The excitement of starting a new chapter in our lives drove us on and kept our relationship strong.
But there is no light without darkness.
When the housing market crashed in southern California, Doug lost his job as a sales representative for a pool-construction company and couldn’t find another job in that area of expertise. He decided to venture into new waters and obtained his realtor license. My paycheck had to stretch far enough to put Doug through school and finance his endeavors as a rookie agent. Money was tight: we could no longer afford to go on fun trips and enjoy the things in life we wanted to do. I worked as much overtime as I could to prevent our lifeboat from sinking, and Doug slowly increased his real-estate listings. We managed to survive those few tough years.
Doug is now a social-media star and a hotshot agent. We could afford to return to our former exciting lifestyle, but neither of us seems motivated to do so. Sometimes I wonder what went wrong between us.
Now here we are, keeping up appearances and telling lies to people to prove how happy we are.
The period of awkward silence drags on in the room. Doug must be sensing my hesitation and responds by coercing me to play along before his fan club grows suspicious. I give in and recite the made-up romantic story about how fate steered us together, keen to pay attention to the details. Some of these people already heard the story.
“Remember, Doug, you followed my girlfriend’s car; she was taking me home from the bar, then you picked me up in secret and drove us to the beach?”
Doug kisses my cheek and tightens his grip on my shoulder—a reaction that receives a swoon of approval from his friends.
“The car’s tire became stuck in the sand,” Doug always adds that bit to make him look like a romantic soul. “We were too embarrassed to call for a tow truck, so we had to push the car out of the sand on our own, remember?”
I smile, and it’s a genuine smile. We’ve told this lie so many times, I now believe it.
Doug did try to be romantic in the beginning, although I’m not sure he knew what he was doing. But that’s not why I fell in love with him. His go-getter attitude and relentless energy toward life made me fall for him. He inspired me to better myself, and his enthusiasm was contagious. His love for life gave me an interruption from my responsibilities and taught me to relax. He helped me understand that the world had as much beauty in it as evil, if not more. I never forgot Susie and her killer, who was never caught, but I did learn to allow myself to enjoy a sunny day at the beach without feeling remorse. Doug taught me to compartmentalize my life, to oversee the balance of good and evil in my mind. I’ll be forever grateful to him for that.
I steal a glance at Doug’s face, stretched with pride as he wraps up our story. I think I still love this man, although I’m not sure. My feelings seem to be tangled lately.
“Did you guys know Vicky is an FBI agent?” Ethan blurts out without warming up the audience to a change of subject.
It’s a statement that requires a few moments to marinate, but once it does, I’m bombarded with questions and expressions of amazement.
“I had no idea,” says the brunette breathlessly. “How cool!” The young, attractive woman bursting with confidence punches Doug in the chest. “How come you never told us that your girlfriend is a special agent?”
Doug shifts on his legs, his pale face cringing. “I thought I did.”
“Are the criminals getting smarter, Agent Collins?” Ethan continues, despite the obvious disappointment on Doug’s face. “I read somewhere that the number of serial killers has declined in recent years. Which means that the perpetrators are either getting better at hiding their tracks or you guys are better at catching them faster.”
“Well, all the crime shows and available information online about forensic science definitely has made our job harder. The media is educating criminals.”
“She can’t talk about her job, Ethan, you know that,” Doug chimes in, stepping away from the circle in an attempt to break up the group.
I have no intention of stealing Doug’s spotlight, so I second his warning.
I excuse myself by saying that it’s time for desserts, and I head for the kitchen by myself. I remove the store-bought pies from the refrigerator and start popping off the tops when I sense someone behind me. I turn around. It’s Ethan.
“Wanna join me for a smoke?” He flashes me a pack of Marlboro Lights poking from his pocket.
I’m not a smoker, but Ethan and I have this special tradition we’ve always shared. I enjoy his company because he loves hearing about my job. We could talk for hours about criminology because he’s always shown a genuine interest in my work. In Doug’s company, I feel the need to hold back, play it down, but with Ethan, I can be myself.
We go out front to the street and sit down on the curb. Ethan lights my cigarette, and I wash down the taste with my Bacardi and Coke. I developed a liking for this economical drink in college and I never cared to change to something more sophisticated.
“You’re unusually quiet today,” Ethan observes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing special. I just have a lot on my mind.”
“Working some big cases lately?”
“Yeah, you could say that.” I smile at him. I usually avoid looking into his eyes because it’s hard not to get lost in the azure blue, but I gaze into them now. “That thing that’s growing on your face always looks so well-groomed. What’s your secret?”
He crosses his legs and leans back, chuckling. “I have a rigorous grooming method. You wouldn’t believe how many products are involved if I told you.”
“I wish you would shave it all off once so I could see your face.”
He runs his fingers down his beard. “It would feel like losing a limb.”
“You are too handsome to cover a face like that.” I don’t know why I blurted that out, it was a mistake.
Ethan stares into my eyes. “Maybe I don’t want to get noticed.”
I take a long pull from my glass to deflect and watch him put out his cigarette on a smidgen of moist dirt between the curb and sidewalk. “I heard you’re hunting a guy.”
I sigh. “Doug and his big mouth, huh?”
“Don’t be mad at him. It’s guy talk. He means no harm.”
I push the glowing ashes into the dirt too. “Have you ever heard the name Blake Sullivan?”
“Sullivan?” Ethan muses, gazing at the fading sky. “I can’t say I have. Why?”
“Forget it. It’s not important. This drink is messing with my head.” I rub my forehead as I pour the rest of my drink down the gutter.
Ethan puts his hand on my thigh. “Is everything okay between you and Doug?”
&
nbsp; My face flares up. “Yeah, we’re good. Why?”
“Only asking for a friend,” he laughs, and I can’t help but laugh with him. Staying here with this charming man any longer could be dangerous. Ethan’s gravitational pull is becoming too strong to resist. I sometimes imagine being with Ethan instead of Doug, but I could never stoop that low to date my boyfriend’s best friend.
A car drives by, and the warm air of its wake envelops me. It enhances the dizziness in my head. I gaze at Ethan, and he leans in to kiss me. I don’t push him away. I don’t return the gesture either, I simply close my eyes and let his soft lips pepper mine.
He pulls away. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what came over me.”
I suck in my lower lip to taste him. “I think we’d better go back inside.”
His red tongue runs over the surface of his lips. “I think you’re right.”
For the rest of the night, I make a point of staying away from Ethan. But during the fireworks, I lock eyes with him a few times, which prompts me to loop my arms around Doug’s waist and kiss him. He doesn’t like to be affectionate in public, so our kiss turns out to be awkward. For the first time in a long time, I have a gut feeling Doug is cheating on me. Suddenly, the kiss I shared with Ethan doesn’t make me feel so guilty.
MEREDITH FALCONE’S LAST DANCE
My biceps flex and strain as I do my pull-ups on the bar hanging from my bedroom door, trying to work out my restlessness. “Twenty-five, twenty-six …” I count out loud over the soft humming of the fan. The air conditioning would cool down the temperature in my condo, but I need the suffocating warm air to sweat out my frustration. “Thirty-two, thirty-three …” I count between clenched teeth, squeezing out the remaining power from my arms.