by Holly Brown
37
Dawn
Entry-Level Public Relations Marketing Assistant
Our company does marketing/PR work for the world’s most renowned nonprofits to reduce poverty. We are looking for creative, collaborative individuals who enjoy working with fundraising teams and want to know their work is meaningful . . .
Starting Salary: $35,000
Public Affairs & Media Relations Specialist
The Public Affairs and Media Relations Specialist supports, organizes, and publicizes the company-wide philanthropic program delivery . . .
Comprehensive benefits package. Salary range $32,000–$40,000 DOE
Coordinator of Donor Relations
The Coordinator of Donor Relations provides support to the Director, and coordinates activities to increase the engagement and participation of donors and prospective donors, including fundraising activities, direct mail appeals, and special events . . .
Starting salary commensurate with experience.
“It’s not too late,” Rob tells me, “to go see your mom.” His hand is already on the front door. It seems like this is how we communicate lately, in a series of parting remarks.
I’m standing in the kitchen doorway, still in my pajamas. For a second, I consider biting the bullet, just getting in the car and driving to Eureka so I can get back in Rob’s good graces, but some structural beam inside me holds. I shouldn’t be out of his good graces. He shouldn’t be sitting in judgment of me. People grieve in their own ways, and in my case, that means that every time I remember that my father’s dead, I feel relief. This could be a just world after all.
“Aunt Tanya’s spending a lot of time with Mom,” I say, “and she’s doing better.” That’s my assumption anyway. Her texts have dwindled significantly.
It’s only fair that my mother becomes Aunt Tanya’s problem. My aunt lives right there in Eureka; she has a comfortable middle-class life, works part-time, and has no children. She can afford to adopt my mother.
The last time I saw Aunt Tanya was at my wedding, and I noticed two things: she looked ten years younger than my mother, though she’s actually five years older, and her face didn’t move much. I’m guessing those two facts were related, that she’s Botoxed to the hilt, but she was the member of my family I was least embarrassed to introduce to Rob’s parents.
“I’ve got a lot to do this weekend,” I say. “With finals and applying for jobs.” I hate that I still feel the need to explain myself, to justify why I don’t want to spent the weekend in the hellhole of my youth. If Thad can understand it, why can’t Rob?
He barely nods, his disappointment palpable. “I’m going to work late tonight,” he says. “My dad’s out sick, and it’s the busy season.” I wonder if this is punishment for my refusal to go to Eureka. When he first mentioned a possible trip earlier this week, I thought he intended to go with me, but maybe he always meant for me to be on my own.
Once he’s gone, I throw myself into my senior project, working nonstop for hours, glad to think of nothing else. When I turn my phone back on, I’m surprised to see that it’s almost seven P.M. The shop closes at five, and he’s never been this late. He hasn’t texted me all day. If he were anyone else, I might think he was the one with something to hide.
I can’t believe Rob is unplugging from this marriage. If anyone should be pissed, it’s me. He’s the one who betrayed me in that conversation with his parents. He doesn’t know that I overheard, but you’d think he’d have some conscience about allowing them to believe I’m a gold digger.
Could he actually believe I am a gold digger? I look around at our nearly squalid apartment. Fuck him.
There are twelve texts from Thad.
I skipped lunch, and the refrigerator is nearly empty. I think of texting Rob to tell him that I’m about to order a pizza, but don’t. He can fend for himself.
After I call the pizzeria, I settle onto the couch and turn on the TV. I’ve earned some mindless celebrity trash, and TMZ obliges. I hear the sound of an incoming text. It’s Thad. I smile, but I don’t respond immediately. Keep him waiting, and wanting.
I eat my pizza on the couch as TMZ becomes Entertainment Tonight. When the phone rings, I answer without looking. It’s got to be Rob, finally. I’ve never bothered with discriminating ringtones.
“Hey,” says a resonant baritone. Not the male voice I expected to hear, and not the one I expected Thad to have, that’s for sure. He could sing opera.
He’s just upped the ante. For all he knows, Rob is right here beside me.
“Hey,” I say, my voice softened by gratitude. I hadn’t even realized I didn’t want to be alone.
“Can you talk?”
“For a little while.”
“I was about to text you and then I thought I’d take a chance. See if you’d answer.”
Ah, so he’s testing me. “I almost didn’t answer.”
“Because of your husband?”
“Because of you.”
He laughs. He likes being slighted. I wonder if Miranda instilled that in him. “You sound different than I thought you would,” he says. “Better, actually.”
“You do, too. Actually.”
“If you thought I’d sound like shit, why did you pick up?”
“If you thought I’d sound like shit, why did you call?”
Another laugh. It’s deep, and knowing, like he’s always in on the joke. Sexy, like his voice. “Because I knew you’d put me in a good mood.”
“What’s wrong?”
He sighs, a touch dramatically. I don’t mind, I could use a show. I turn off the television. “You know I’m trying hard to get away from my old patterns. Not using meth, or whatever else I get my hands on. Trying to do my art from a pure place. But it’s not just that. I’m trying not to be who I used to be with girls. Women, I mean,” he amends, like he’s anticipating my objection. “I don’t want to just screw them and go home, or send them home. I want to wait for someone who matters.” The briefest of pauses. “Who matters a little. I’m not talking about marriage or anything. But it’s hard, waiting. It’s hard being alone. Sex helps with that for a night. Well, a couple of hours. I don’t like waking up next to anyone.”
I’ve always found it irresistible, men wrestling with their demons. There was one, a rich tool named Aston, who made me a part of the fight. He would call me—like Thad is doing now—and tell me about his yearnings, how hard he was trying not to cheat, but he’d never been with one person for so long (the first time he said this, we’d been together three months), and somehow, I felt for him. I also felt turned on. He needed my help. He needed me to become someone else, just for a little while, someone new. He needed me to be good enough (well, bad enough) to keep him from straying. For a while, I was. For too long, probably.
It’s uncomfortable, getting horny with someone other than Rob. It’s wrong, I mean. But I want to help Thad. I want to help him get through the night. It’s like I’m programmed, on autopilot.
“Did you and Rob have sex today?” he asks.
“No.”
“Are you going to have sex with him tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Probably not. I can fuck angry, but Rob’s like a woman: sex is an outgrowth of intimacy.
“I love that picture you sent me. You’re so beautiful, Dawn.” His voice is growing syrupy. He can see me in his arms right now, and I can see it, too.
Rob and I are down to once a week, and we don’t talk about sex, we never really have. It’s something to be done, not to be imagined, and I miss this—stoking the fire, knowing it’ll blaze later.
I need to stop. I shouldn’t be talking this way. Listening this way. I’ve been cheated on, yes, but I don’t cheat.
“I’m married,” I say.
“If I had a dollar for every text where you wrote that.” I can hear him smiling. His body is stretched out languidly, a rubber band waiting to be snapped. One of the things I used to love most about sex with Aston was the contrast: the s
lack, and the tension. He was a master of that.
“Admit it,” he says. “You’re into me, at least a little.”
I don’t answer, which he probably takes as a yes. I should stop this right now. Hang up. Rob could be back any minute.
“I was with someone last week,” Thad continues. “I kept my eyes closed so I could turn her into you. My tongue was in her pussy, and I imagined your taste. Salty-sweet.” His hand is on his cock, I know it is.
I won’t allow my hand to move. I’m not a cheater, and Rob could be driving up right now. But I am wet.
“I don’t even need to come,” he tells me, “I just want you to.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’m not saying I wouldn’t come after, but first, I do you. Head to toe, every part of you.” He moans.
He keeps talking, telling me where he’s licking and kneading and how my body responds, and then it does respond, involuntarily. I shudder to a stop, without having moved. He did it all.
But I don’t make a sound. I won’t give him the satisfaction.
Only he must sense what’s happened, because he gets his anyway. In growls and snarls and yelps, like a dog whose chain has just been cut. I’ve never heard a man come like that.
“Dawn,” he says, again and again.
I’m silent, staring at the door. I came on my couch with a man who’s not my husband, when I knew Rob could return any minute and find me. That’s part of what made it so hot.
“Where are you?” he says. “I want to see it in my mind. The exact spot where I made you come.”
“You didn’t ‘make’ me anything.” I’m suddenly furious, though I keep my voice low. Rob could be walking up the building stairs right now.
“I could feel it, Dawn, even if I couldn’t hear it. I know you couldn’t let it out with Rob around. How far away is he? The next room? On the other side of the bed?”
“It’s eight o’clock, asshole. We’re not in bed.”
“Why are you so pissed?”
“Because you used me. And I’m telling you, I did not come. I didn’t get anything out of that. It was all about you, and not me, and don’t ever pretend otherwise.”
He’s quiet for a minute. “I’m sorry. I never meant to use you. I wanted to be close to you. I thought you’d like it.”
“I didn’t like it. You don’t respect me. You don’t respect my marriage.”
“You’re right about the marriage part. Sorry to break this to you, but there’s no way that guy is satisfying you if you’re texting me all the time.”
“You’re texting me all the time!”
“I can be an asshole, that part’s true. I just, I don’t know, I feel like there’s this connection between us.”
That connection, insanely enough, is his mother. But he couldn’t know that. Could he? Could this whole thing be a way for him to get back at his mother?
I know he dislikes Miranda. He hasn’t said that much, but it’s pretty obvious.
“Am I wrong?” he asks. Pleads, really. “If I’m wrong, if there’s nothing here, I’ll stop texting. I won’t call you again. Is that what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want.” But I know I don’t want him to go away. I just can’t tell him that, not right now.
“I’m sensitive to rejection, is the thing. My mom”—it’s hard to believe we’re going to talk about his mother less than five minutes after near-simultaneous orgasm—“she messed me up. She was all up in my business, but cold. She could give a lecture, but fuck if she knew how to give a hug.”
The hug thing again. I’m guessing he’s learned that the way to draw women in is to play the bad boy who, deep down, is just wounded and hurt, who needs a good woman to love him. I’m more susceptible to that ruse than most, because I think it might actually be true. We’re made bad by our bad parents. So who did it to me, really, my father or my mother?
The funny thing is, I’m most drawn in because of who Thad’s mother is. Because Thad holds the key to Miranda, and Miranda holds the key to something that I can’t yet understand.
“I should go,” he says.
“You get what you want and you hang up?”
“You mean you don’t want me to go?”
He’s a tricky son of a bitch. Ha ha, son of a bitch. He really is. “No, you should go.”
“I wasn’t trying to use you, Dawn. I feel like I’m falling for you.”
“Don’t.”
“Like that’s ever worked. Do you know how many times I touched hot stoves growing up?”
I laugh. “You warned me you’re an idiot.”
“An asshole. I never said idiot. But I’m a fool for you.”
“You’re corny, that’s for sure.”
“Can I call you again sometime?”
“Let me think about it.”
But I already know my answer, and I’m pretty sure he does, too.
38
Miranda
Kimberly Zhou was born in Hong Kong and speaks eight languages fluently. She is able to bring international flair (and international buyers) to the Westside real estate market, with an emphasis on the beach neighborhoods. In the past three years, she has broken records in Long Beach, Pacific Palisades, Marina del Rey, and Venice. She plans to break more.
It’s been on the tip of my tongue all morning, my confession, but I look at Larry and I remember his rigid body beside me the night I said Thad’s name and I just can’t bring myself to speak.
Confess, and I subvert Thad’s blackmail. I take away his power.
Confess, and Thad will likely have destroyed my marriage.
I tell myself that addiction has recalibrated Thad’s moral compass, that he’s not entirely to blame, that he’s not trying to destroy me, he’s just trying to meet his own needs, rapaciously. But in his increasingly sporadic texts to me and his much more consistent tweets to the world, he sounds so upbeat. His conscience isn’t eating at him at all; he’s completely fine with what he’s done. Maybe he’s even happy with it. He’s turned the tables on his manipulative mother, and secured himself double rent. This is as enterprising as Thad gets.
The word that comes to mind is “soulless.” And if that’s true, then the world isn’t what I thought it was. If Thad can do this, then there must be no bounds for someone like Dawn.
I’m torn up by betrayal, anger, and fear, yet I’m doing my best to keep up appearances. Right now, I’ve got a frozen smile on my face as I tour the Santa Monica house with Larry and Kimberly Zhou, the Realtor who came highly recommended by Larry’s colleague. She’s petite and lovely. She doesn’t walk so much as levitate; her steps are that light. She plays it up, in silver ballet flats and a diaphanous dress. Her hair is black and absurdly lustrous, cut in an asymmetrical bob with the straightest bangs I’ve ever seen. She must get her hair cut every three days to maintain it.
Her personality is just as blunt. “I don’t blow smoke,” she says repeatedly, and presumably the end of that sentence, left unspoken, is “up your ass.” Even though I’d dislike any Realtor at this moment, I especially dislike this one. She hasn’t said a kind word about the house yet, just a series of “mm-hms” and the occasional “you’ll want to put some money into upgrading this.” Her proprietary air suggests she knows she’s got the job as our sales agent, it’s just a matter of whether she wants to accept.
Larry likes her, I can tell. He’s amused by her go-getter affectations.
She pulls back the curtain on the tub in the back bathroom, a move that seems inappropriate to me, too intimate, as if she’s saying she thinks we might be hiding the body in there. Given her demeanor, I suspect she’d sell a house where a murder had recently occurred, qualm-free; she would just want to make sure she represented both the seller and the buyer for double the commission.
I fight the urge to yank the curtain back into place, but then my eyes follow hers to a ring of dirt in the white tub.
Kimberly raises an eyebrow. “That’s not permanent, is it?”
> “No,” I say. “The cleaners must have missed that.”
There’s no way they missed that. They might have forgotten to put out toiletries before, but they would never commit an oversight this egregious.
It has to be Dawn. This is the answer to my groveling e-mail: “You want a stain, I’ll give you a stain.” The war is raging on.
She’s saying she can get to me, whenever she wants. After all, she’s entered both my houses, in a week’s time. Or someone has, at her request. I’m not safe, not at all.
I can only pray that I’m wrong. My mind searches for alternate explanations. For example, the cleaners could have been less thorough than usual because they knew it would be their last time working for me. It could be another fluke, like the dead rat that’s indigenous to Beverly Hills.
But I don’t believe it about the rat, and I certainly don’t believe it about this ring. Two “coincidences” makes a pattern, even if I can’t get Officer Llewellyn to see it. I imagine his eye roll to the colleague at the next desk if I call him about this one.
Is part of Dawn’s scheme to rob me of all confidence and credibility? Has anyone ever been so diabolical?
“Have those cleaners come back out and take care of what they missed the first time around,” Larry says. He sounds irate, and it takes me a second to realize it’s at me, not at the cleaners. He clearly thought I should have done a walk-through myself before Kimberly arrived. I’m supposed to take care of everything in our lives, no grime left behind. “You coming?”
I give him a sharp look that he fails to notice; his focus is on Kimberly. I trail behind them. She’s got a suggestion about adding some wainscoting, though we can talk more about that later. Larry is lapping at her feet.
I feel faint as I walk behind them down the stairs. We’re headed for the back door, and I know she’ll have problems with the yard. It’s just a rectangle of grass. My parents wanted as little upkeep as possible, and despite my love of gardening, I can’t bear to change an inch. I can still hear my dad when he realized that you can’t get a teenager to mow a lawn anymore, “not even for twenty bucks,” and I remember how we all shared a laugh at his incredulity, and he pinched my mother on what he called her “keister,” and she swatted him with a dishrag, still laughing. Landscaping would feel like a betrayal of that idyllic scene.