Dear Wife

by Kimberly Belle

  But the point is, Sabine’s job, which began as a fun little way to provide some extra income, is now a necessity.

  My cell phone buzzes against my hip, and I slow to a stop on the trail. I check the screen, and my gut burns with irritation when I see it’s not Sabine but her sister. I pick up, my breath coming in sharp, sweat-humid puffs.

  “Hello, Ingrid.”

  My greeting is cool and formal, because my relationship with Ingrid is cool and formal. All those things I admire about my wife—her golden chestnut hair, her thin thighs and tiny waist, the way her skin smells of vanilla and sugar—are glaring deficiencies in her twin. Ingrid is shorter, sturdier, less polished. The wallflower to Sabine’s prom queen. The heifer to her blue-ribbon cow. Ingrid has never resented Sabine for being the prettier sister, but she sure as hell blames the rest of us for noticing.

  “I’m trying to reach Sabine,” Ingrid says, her Midwestern twang testy with hurry. “Have you talked to her today?”

  A speedboat roars by on the river, and I wait for it to pass.

  “I’m fine, Ingrid, thank you. And yes, though it was a quick conversation because I’ve been in Florida all week for a conference. I just got home, and she’s got a showing. Have you tried her cell?”

  Ingrid makes a sound low in her throat, the kind of sound that comes right before an eye roll. “Of course I’ve tried her cell, at least a million times. When’s the last time you talked to her?”

  “About an hour ago.” The lie is instant and automatic. Ingrid might already know I hung up on her sister this morning and she might not, but one thing is certain: she’s not going to hear it from me. “Sabine said she’d be home by nine, so you might want to try her then. Either way, I’ll make sure to tell her you called.”

  And with that I hit End, dial up the music on my headphones to deafening and take off running into the setting sun.

  BETH

  The District at River Bend is an uninspired apartment community on the banks of Tulsa’s Arkansas River, the kind that’s generically appealing and instantly familiar. Tan stone, beige siding, indistinguishable buildings of three and four stories clustered around an amoeba-shaped pool. There are a million complexes like it, in a million cities and towns across America, which is exactly why I chose this one.

  I pull into an empty spot by the main building, grab my bag—along with the clothes on my back, my only earthly possessions—and head to the door.

  People barely out of college are scattered around the massive indoor space, clutching paper coffee cups or ticking away on their MacBooks. Everybody ignores me, which is an unexpected but welcome development. I make a mental note that a complex like this one would be a good place to hide. In the land of self-absorbed millennials, anybody over thirty might as well be invisible.

  I spot a sign for the leasing office and head down the hallway.

  The woman perched behind the sleek glass desk is one of them. Young. Blonde. Pretty. The kind with a carefully curated Instagram feed of duck-face selfies and hand-on-hip glamour shots. I pause at the edge of her desk, and she looks up with a blinding smile.

  “Hi, there. Are you looking for a home in the premier apartment community in Tulsa? Because if so, you’ve come to the right place.”

  Good Lord. Her Midwestern drawl, her Kardashian whine, her unnaturally white teeth. This girl can’t be for real.

  “Um, right. So I was looking at the one-bedroom units on your website and—”

  “Omigosh! Then this is your lucky day. I literally just learned there’s a Vogue unit available starting next week. How does eight hundred square feet and a balcony overlooking the pool sound?”

  I hike my bag higher on a shoulder. “Sounds great, but I was hoping to find something that’s available a little sooner.”

  “Like, how much sooner?”

  “Like, immediately.”

  Her collegiate smile falls off her face. “Oh. Well, I have a couple of one-bedroom units available now, but they’re all smaller, and they don’t offer that same stunning view.”

  I shrug. “I’m okay with that.”

  She motions to one of the upholstered chairs behind me. “Then have a seat, and I’ll see about getting you into one of our Alpha units. When were you thinking of moving in?”

  I sink onto the chair, dragging my bag into my lap. “Today, if possible.”

  Her eyes go wide, and she shakes her head. “It’s not. Possible, I mean. The application process takes a good twenty-four hours, at least.”

  My heart gives an ominous thud. “Application process?”

  I know about the application process. I’ve already scoured the website, and know exactly what it takes to get into this place. I also know that this is where things can get sticky.

  The woman nods. “I’ll need two month’s worth of pay stubs, either that or proof of salary on your bank statements, a government-issued ID like a driver’s license or passport, and your social security number. The background check is pretty standard, but it takes a day or two depending on what time of day I submit.”

  I have all the items she requested, right here in an envelope in my bag, but as soon as this woman plugs them into her computer, one little click of her mouse will propel all my information into the ether. Background checks mean paper trails, clues, visibility. Once you spot me in the system, and you will, I’ll have only a few precious hours before you show up here, looking for me.

  She checks the time on her cell. “If we hurry, I could get everything through the system by close of business tomorrow.”

  By then I’ll be long gone.

  I push the envelope across the desk. “Then let’s hurry. I start my new job in two days, and I’d really like to be settled before then.”

  She flips through the packet of papers. Her fingers pause on my bank statement, and the air in the room thickens into a soupy sludge. Apartment complexes require a minimum salary of three times the rent, which is why I added a couple of zeros to that statement in lieu of proof of salary. Part of the preparations for Day One included learning Photoshop.

  It’s not the amount she’s focused on, but my former address. “Arkansas, huh? So what brings you to town?”

  I relax in the chair. “I got a job at QuikTrip.”

  It’s a lie, but judging by the way her face brightens, she buys it. “A friend of mine works there. She loves it. Great benefits. Way better than this place, though if you ever repeat that I’ll deny ever saying it.” She grins like we’re in on the same joke, and so do I.

  I gesture to the packet in her hand. “I don’t have pay stubs yet, which is why I’ve included a copy of my contract.” Forged, but still. It looks real enough. As long as her friend doesn’t work in human resources, nobody but me and the Pine Bluff Public Library printer will ever know it’s a fake.

  I give her time to flip through the rest of the documents, which are real. My real driver’s license. My real social security number. My real address—scratch that, former address. This entire plan rests on her accepting the papers in her hands, on me laying this decoy trail, then disappearing.

  She looks up with a wide smile. “It’s not often that I get a prospective tenant with a record this spotless. Unless the system catches something I’ve missed, this is going to be a piece of cake.”

  I can’t tell if her words are a question or a warning. I smile like I assume they’re neither.

  She drops the papers on her desk and reaches for the mouse. “Let’s get you in the system, then, why don’t we?”

  * * *

  You and I met at a McDonald’s, under the haze of deep-fried potatoes and a brain-splitting migraine. The headache is what lured me there, actually, what gave my body a desperate craving for a Happy Meal. A magical, medicinal combination of starch and salt and fructose that works better than any pill I’ve ever poked down, the only thing that will loosen the vise clamping down on my skull and settle my churning stomach.

  But good, so there I sat in my sunglasses, nibbling frenc
h fries while tiny monsters pounded nail after nail into my brain, when you leaned into the space between our tables.

  “What’d you get?”

  I didn’t respond. Speaking was excruciating and besides, I had no clue what you were talking about.

  You pointed to the box by my elbow. “Don’t those things come with a toy? What is it?”

  I pushed my sunglasses onto my head and peered inside. “It’s a plastic yellow car.” I pulled it out and showed it to you.

  “That’s a Hot Wheels.”

  I settled it on the edge of my tray. “A what?”

  “Pretty sure that one’s a Dodge Charger. Every boy on the planet has had a Hot Wheels at some point in their lives. My nephew has about a billion of them.”

  You were distractingly gorgeous, the kind of gorgeous that didn’t belong in a fast-food joint, chatting up a stranger about kids and their toys. Tall and dark and broad-boned, with thick lashes and a strong, square chin. Italian, I remember thinking, or maybe Greek, some long-lost relative with stubborn genes.

  I held the car across the aisle. “Take it. Give it to your nephew.”

  Your lips sneaked into a smile, and maybe it was the carbs finally hitting my bloodstream, but you aimed it at me that day, and the pain lifted just a little.

  Three days later, I was in love.

  So now, when I push through the glass door to the restaurant, I am of course thinking of you. Different state, different McDonald’s, but still. It feels fitting, almost poetic. You and I ending in the same spot we began.

  The smell hits me, french fries and sizzling meat, and it prompts a wave of nausea, a faint throbbing somewhere deep in my skull, even though I haven’t had a migraine in months. I guess it’s true what they say, that scent is the greatest memory trigger, so I shouldn’t be surprised that one whiff of McDonald’s can summon the beginnings of a migraine. I swallow a preventative Excedrin with a bottle of water I purchase at the register.

  For a fast-food restaurant at the mouth of a major interstate, the place is pretty deserted. I weave through the mostly empty tables, taking note of the customers scattered around the dining area. A mother flipping through a magazine while her kids pelt each other with chicken nuggets, a pimply teenager watching a YouTube video on his phone, an elderly couple slurping brown sludge up their straws. Not one of them looks up as I pass.

  I select a table by the window with a view of the parking lot. A row of pickup trucks glitter in the late afternoon sun, competing for most obnoxious. Supersized tires with spit-shined rims, roll bars and gun racks, wavy flag decals on the rear window. People of God, guns and Trump, according to the bumper stickers, a common Midwestern stereotype that I’ve found to be one hundred percent true.

  Another stereotype: the lone woman in sunglasses, sitting at a fast-food restaurant with no food is up to no good. I consider buying a dollar meal as cover, but I’m too nervous to eat. I check my watch and try not to fidget. Three minutes to five.

  This Nick guy better not be late. He is a crucial part of my plan, and I don’t have time to wait around. You’ll be getting home from work in an hour. You’ll walk through the door and expect to find me in the kitchen, waiting for you with dinner, with the endless fetching of newspapers and remote controls and beer, with sex—though whether your desire will be fueled by passion or fury is always a toss-up. The thought makes me hot and twitchy, my muscles itching with an immediate, intense need to race to my car and flee. An hour from now, a couple hundred miles from here, you’ll be looking for me.

  “How will I know you?” I asked Nick two days ago during our one and only phone call, made from the customer service phone at Walmart, after I lied and said my car battery was dead. Nick and I have never actually met. We’ve not exchanged photographs or even the most basic of physical descriptions. I didn’t know he existed until a week ago.

  Nick laughed. “What do you suggest I do, carry a rose between my teeth? Don’t worry. You’ll know me.”

  I cast a sneaky glance at the teenager, laughing at something on his screen. Surely not. When we spoke on the phone, Nick didn’t seem nearly so oblivious. My gaze shifts to the elderly man, offering the rest of his milkshake to his wife. Not him, either.

  When Nick rolls up at thirty seconds to five, I blow out a relieved breath because he was right. I do know it’s him, because any other day, at any other McDonald’s, he’s the type of guy I wouldn’t have noticed at all.

  It begins with his car, a nondescript four-door he squeezes between a souped-up Ford F-250 and an extended-bed Dodge Ram. His clothes are just as unexceptional—generic khakis and a plain white shirt over mud-brown shoes. He looks like a math professor on his day off, or maybe an engineer. He walks to the door, and his eyes, shaded under a navy baseball cap, don’t even glance my way.

  He orders a cup of coffee at the counter, then carries it over to my table and sinks onto the chair across from me.

  “Nick, I assume?”

  From the look he gives me, there’s no way Nick is his real name. “And you must be Beth.”

  Touché. Not my real name, either.

  Up close he’s better looking than I thought he’d be. Wide-set eyes, angled chin, thick hair poking out the rim of his cap. In a normal world, in jeans and a rumpled T-shirt, Nick might not be half-bad.

  He dumps three packets of artificial sweetener into his coffee and swirls it around with a red plastic straw. “It’s the only way I can stomach this stuff, by masking it with something that tastes like it was imported straight from Chernobyl. If I grow an extra ear, I’m blaming you.”

  It’s a little dig because Nick here wanted to meet at the Dunkin’ across the street. He wasn’t the least bit subtle about it, either. “If you don’t mind, I’d really rather meet at the Dunkin’,” he said, not once, but enough times that the old me almost caved, even though I did mind. Because what I called Nick here to discuss has to be done in a McDonald’s. The universe demands it. Symmetry demands it.

  “This place has special memories for me,” I tell him now, not so much an apology as an explanation, an olive branch for the Chernobyl coffee. “Not good memories, but memories nonetheless. Let’s just say it’s karma that we do this here.”

  Nick shrugs, letting it go. “Karma’s a bitch. Best not to piss her off, I always say.” He takes a sip of his coffee, then puts it down with a grimace. Clasps his hands on the Formica table. Waits.

  “I understand you travel extensively for business.”

  Nick came highly recommended to me exactly because of this qualification—must travel extensively for business. The other qualifications, must be dependable and discreet, were something I mentally checked off as soon as I clocked him walking through the door, on time and in clothing that might as well make him invisible.

  “I’m on the road more often than not, yes.”

  “Long trips?”

  “It varies. Sometimes I need to stay put for a day or two, but even then, I’m never sleeping in the same bed two nights in a row. I like to move around just in case.”

  He leaves it at that, just in case, and I don’t ask. Whatever he means by it, I honestly don’t care to know. For the job I called him here to do, it makes zero difference.

  “But sure,” he continues, shrugging again, “in a typical month, I’ll log three to four thousand miles so I guess that qualifies as long trips.”

  “Do you have a home base?”

  “Multiple home bases. But like I said, I’m hardly ever there.”

  “Perfect.”

  He grins. “Tell that to the missus.”

  I’m pretty sure he’s joking, or maybe he’s saying it to try to throw me off his tail. Men like Nick aren’t the marrying type—or if they do marry it’s more for convenience or cover than for love. Never for love.

  “That’s funny,” I say, twisting the cap on my water. “I always liked it when my husband traveled for work.”

  As soon as I say the words, I want to swallow them back down. The skin aro
und Nick’s eyes tightens, just for an instant, but long enough I catch it. Unlike his joke, harmless words about a wife that doesn’t exist, mine revealed too much—that the husband is real, that life was better when he was gone. Nick is not my friend. He’s not someone I should be joking with over a cup of crappy coffee. This is a business meeting, and the less he knows about me, the better.

  I slide a shiny Wells Fargo card from the side pocket of my bag and push it across the table. “I want you to spend my money.”

  He doesn’t say anything, but he picks up the card, running a thumb over the shiny gold letters across the front—my real name, definitely not Beth. When he looks back up, his expression is unreadable.

  “For the record, I don’t mean spend it as in booking a first-class ticket to Vegas and going nuts at the roulette wheel, but spend it as in ten dollars here, twenty there. I want you to move around a lot. Never the same ATM, or even the same city, twice. The farther away the withdrawals are from each other, the more varied the locations, the better. Think of me as your ATM fairy godmother.”

  “You want me to lay a trail.”

  I tip my head, a silent confirmation. “Assuming you don’t withdraw more than a hundred dollars a week, which you can’t because I’ve set up the card with a weekly limit, you’ll get five weeks of money off that card.”

  “And my fee?”

  His fee is five hundred dollars, an amount he made very clear on the phone is nonnegotiable. Whatever it is I’m hiring him to do comes on top of that, which means this is a job that comes with a hefty cash bonus, one that’s double his fee. Probably the easiest money he’s ever made.

  “Your fee is on there, too. You can withdraw that today. The weekly limits kick in as soon as you do.”