by Faye, Amy
No less than four separate news people sat in the back with Helen, and no doubt she had them spun up in her web somehow. She smiled at him like a wolf smiles at a sheep as he walked back. Frowning.
"Yes dear?"
She looked pointedly at the chair opposite her. "Have a seat."
"Okay, what's the problem?"
"Don't you think it's time we had a nice chat?"
He couldn't think of the last time that they'd had a nice chat. In fact, she'd never had a nice chat with him, except for the first couple. The ones where she'd convinced him against his better judgment that this marriage was a good idea. Listening to her was his first mistake, and he'd been making them ever since.
"What's the problem?"
"The problem?"
He looked over at the reporters, who were busying themselves with not listening as carefully as possible.
"I don't know. Why did you call me back here? Is something wrong?"
She smiled at him in a way that he guessed was supposed to be knowing. It didn't work very well but she did it either way, as if she were hoping to spite him or something by her sheer smile.
"Wrong? Nothing's wrong. I just needed to clarify a few things."
"Okay, what's that?"
"That woman and her boy; I don't mind them around. The boy, he seems sweet."
That was a lie, and she didn't bother to hide it. He wasn't surprised. Helen hated children, hated people who had children. Hated the idea of children. It was as if a child had stolen her lunch money once and she'd never forgiven the entire concept of young people.
"Okay. I'm hearing a 'but' coming."
She leaned in close and he took a deep breath and leaned in to meet her halfway. "I'm listening, dear."
"If she gets in my way, or if she tries to start taking my place at the table, I want you to know, I won't be held responsible for my actions. You can have your fun, I've never begrudged you that. But there's no way that I'm going to lose everything that I've worked for because of your fucking pecker, are we clear on that?"
Paul leaned back and took a breath. He should have been angry; he should have, but he wasn't. Instead, he was completely, remarkably unsurprised. "Yeah, I hear you, Helen."
"Do you hear me or are you just telling me what you think I want to hear?"
"You can calm down, there's nothing for you to get yourself worked up over."
"Are you sure about that?"
"Absolutely sure," he said. He excused himself without saying goodbye, knowing that she would take it as a personal slight and not caring. She was going to get offended no matter what he did, and the truth was that she deserved it this time.
Every time that Paul dealt with his wife again, rather than treating her as a sort of traveling companion that needed to be endured, he was reminded of exactly why he couldn't stand her, and reminded that his reasons weren't exactly bad ones.
He took a breath, smiled at the girl; her name was Cheryl, he thought, but he'd never really bothered to learn it. "We have anything to drink on here?"
She smiled a little more warmly, as if he were asking her for anything other than to do her job for a moment. "Yes, sir."
He took the bottle she offered him, poured two fingers into a glass, and handed the bottle back to her, stepping through the curtain with his glass and taking a mouthful before he knew what he was doing.
"Everything go alright?"
Lara didn't look up from the book she was reading, but she at least expressed the bare minimum of interest, and that was all that he really wanted from her at that point.
"Everything's fine."
"You sound upset," she offered.
"I am upset," he confessed. His voice sounded grumpy, and he didn't have the mental capacity to change it so he didn't care.
"Is there something else?"
"No," he told her, but it was a lie. If he'd been honest then he'd have told her to get over here, get on her knees, and figure out a way to improve his mood.
But the truth was, he wasn't sure that would do it. He didn't want her to fuck him; he wanted someone to stop trying to give him the runaround, and he wasn't going to get that by just using her like some kind of tool.
At the end of this glass, though, well… at that point, all bets were off. His body was already starting to feel that welcome, warm hum of drink, and as he looked over at Lara, he couldn't help remembering other times that they'd been together.
He was younger, then. She was younger, too, though she didn't look it. And they'd both been a lot more eager to take things into the bedroom. Well, she was, at any rate.
He could stop himself, and he did stop himself, but that didn't mean he'd changed. The only thing that had changed was how he thought of her.
Ten years ago, Lara Beech was someone that he liked to have around. Someone convenient. And damn did she have a body to die for. One she wasn't afraid to let a District Attorney use for his pleasure, particularly if he'd have a word with her professors.
There was something else, now. Something that he didn't want to think too hard about. She'd changed, sure. Ten years would do that. But he hadn't changed one bit. Sex was something that he was accustomed to. Something he wasn't afraid to get where he wanted it, and he wanted it from her.
But he didn't ask her for it, and he didn't know why, but he didn't change it, either. He couldn't. Something inside his chest told him that the minute that he tried to force things again was the minute that everything would go sideways, and he wanted to at least be able to stay this close to her, even if it was just for a little while.
16
Lara felt like she was an animal stuck in the wrong pen at the zoo. Like she was a heron who had wandered into the lion pen and only now was she realizing what a mistake she'd made.
Paul had never been angry with her before; now he seemed angry at everything. Her chest hurt. It had occurred to her that she might be making a mistake, but it hadn't really processed, and she wasn't really thinking about it very hard.
"Do you want to talk about it?"
"No," he said, his eyes focused on a point on the divider wall.
What had happened on the other side of that curtain? Something inside her wished she could have spied on her, or something. Lara stood up and took a breath.
"I can at least refill you drink for you on the way back from the bathroom, if you'd like."
He looked at the empty glass in his hand. His fingers, she saw, were white-knuckled in their grip. He had to be glad that he'd managed to keep himself at least under control enough not to smash the thing, if he was that angry. But he didn't know what it was that he was so upset by.
He gave up the glass and she looked back at him as she stepped through the curtain, covering up the mid-ship bathrooms. Whatever he was upset by, whatever he was thinking, Lara didn't want to know. Because if it was something else then he would tell her if he didn't want her not to know.
If he didn't want her to know, then it was something that she needed not to be told, whether she liked it or not.
On the other hand, if it was something to do with her… well, then she definitely didn't want to know, because she didn't know if she could handle that kind of trouble in her life.
She closed her eyes, sat down on the toilet and covered her face with her hands. The room was claustrophobic, but somehow it felt better than that big, spacious cabin with her nice comfortable leather chair and her little table, big enough to play god damn dominoes on it if she'd felt like it.
Lara's head ached. What was she supposed to do now? Well, the first step was obvious, at least. Figure out how to get herself out of the doghouse, or calm Paul down if it wasn't something to do with her.
The thought occurred to her in a flash and hit her where it hurt. What if he had realized? She'd thought her lie was convincing. She'd hoped. But with the money that the Greens had access to, it wasn't hard to hire a professional detective. The math would add up, and there might be someone who remembered her just after. If t
hey'd called Mom, then…
Would Mom have lied, if someone claiming to be the F.B.I. or the police asked about the circumstances ten years ago? Lara knew the answer without having to really worry. She knew instinctively that Mom didn't have a lying bone in her body, and she'd been about the only person Lara saw for the entire summer break.
By the time she'd finally started attending classes again, giving Fall semester a miss entirely, she'd given birth. Mom didn't have all the pieces. Lara had never even said Paul's name to her, so she certainly didn't know who the father was.
But if she were asked what happened with the child, well…
That was a different question entirely, wasn't it? Lara felt sick. That was a real possibility. They'd asked him back to tell him what the private detective had found out about her, and he'd found out that she lied.
She took a deep breath. The room was too small to relax, and too small to get a deep breath in. The air wasn't fresh, it had a septic smell and she needed to get out, but the minute that she left she'd be back under Paul's scrutiny again. She'd be facing him down and she didn't know if she could do it.
It could be anything, she reminded herself. There was no reason to assume that she was in trouble, not yet. That wasn't nearly as convincing as it should have been, though. Not nearly as convincing and not nearly as comforting even if she tried to believe it. A pit opened in her stomach and she finally raised the seat on the toilet to stick her head in.
Her stomach didn't have anything in it to empty, but it did its best. She took a drink from the faucet, forcing her face into the bowl of the sink as much as it would go and took a deep breath. Then she washed her face, and took another deep breath.
She didn't have a brush in the bathroom, so she did her best to tease her hair the way that Paul liked. If she was going to do this, and she had to figure out a way to get out of that bathroom eventually, then she would at least build up as much advantage as she could.
She took another deep breath, put on her war face, and stepped out. The girl waited there, her back pressed against some cabinets, and as soon as Lara stepped out she raised an eyebrow.
"You alright?"
"I'm fine," Lara answered. She tried to sound like she meant it.
"He got you on his leash too?"
"I'm sorry?"
"The old man," she said. She raised her eyebrow again, that same smile. Like they were sharing some kind of secret, but Lara didn't feel like she was remotely part of it.
"I'm sorry, I'm just… I'm not following."
The girl's eyes flicked to the left. Towards the front cabin. "He's good, you know, for an old guy. If he hasn't had you yet, then you're missing out."
The girl was young enough to be… well, to be her, ten years ago. Lara felt sick to her stomach, but she forced herself to hold it together.
"Could you get me some of whatever Paul's drinking?"
"Of course," the girl said. She grabbed a bottle and put it down on the counter. Lara grabbed it herself, afraid that the pilot would pick that exact moment to hit a pocket of turbulence and the bottle would go flying to the ground. "You know, for an older lady, you don't look half bad."
Lara's lips pressed together. "For a little girl, you don't look half bad yourself."
She poured a little too much into the glass on purpose and took a drink herself before she went back. If she were being honest, she could use the whole rest of the bottle to herself, but she tried not to drink to excess any more. It had already gotten her into trouble before. With Paul, no less. She held the next mouthful in her mouth for a moment before swallowing, savoring the burn and the smokey flavor.
Then she headed back through the curtain and hoped to hell that things didn't go half as bad as she thought they might. That, and hoped to hell that she didn't have to talk to that young girl again. But she'd do it a thousand times before she let Paul talk to her again.
It was petty, she knew. She wasn't anyone special, not any more. She never had been, if Lara was being honest with herself. He'd told her that when he sent her away, as loud and as clear as anything.
But that wasn't really enough to get her to not feel bad when someone younger and prettier came along to not mean anything instead of her. Ten years later, Lara knew. Ten years, and a thousand miles, and the instructions to get rid of her unborn child, and all she wanted from Paul was for him to look at her again, one more time.
17
There was something that Paul should have told her, he knew. Lara deserved some kind of heads-up that Helen had the woman in her sights. He didn't want to tell her, though, because the minute that he told Lara what was going on with his wife was the minute that she realized exactly what a big mistake she'd been making with this entire thing.
If she wanted to leave of her own volition then he wasn't going to have a problem with that. She'd done it once before and he respected her right to get the hell away from him if that was what she wanted.
What he didn't respect was his wife's ability to rob him of anything he wanted at any time, just by snapping her fingers, and if there was a way that Paul could avoid that then he was going to do his damnedest to make sure that he didn't let her get her way. If Lara left then his wife was just going to win, and if he told Lara then she'd leave.
"Thanks," he said softly. Lara took the seat opposite him; it was a surprise, because as far as he could tell she'd been avoiding him all morning.
"You want to tell me what has you so sour now?"
"No," he repeated. "Trust me, it's nothing you should be worried about."
He could see that she was worried about it, though, right or wrong. How long was he going to keep her in the dark? It wasn't fair to her, he knew. But he wasn't in a position to change it, either. So he would let her worry even if it wasn't fair.
"Are you sure?"
"I'm sure," he said. He took a drink and let out a breath. "It's just, uh… 'marital strife.'"
He swallowed another mouthful. He wasn't taking the time to savor the drink, but his mood wasn't the one that he should have been drinking in anyways. Drinking for the taste of it was one thing. Drinking to try to drown out his anger was something else entirely, and he was supposed to know better.
Lara's expression shifted, and Paul immediately knew the reason. She'd had her fair share of run-ins with Helen, he knew. If he could have avoided it then he would have done it ten years ago.
Keep his work life and his private life separate. Plus, then, when he decided to walk away from it all, and Lara walked away from him first, Helen wouldn't be able to have that smug fucking expression the whole time.
"Helen being her usual self again?"
"More or less," he said. He drank again and tried to push his anger out with his next breath out, but it didn't work. Just spread the heat through his nose and his face and his chest. "Is she some kind of fucking lizard person? Are the tinfoil hat people right about that?"
He snorted at his own joke and pushed his head down deeper into his hands. How could he possibly have fucked up this bad?
"I don't know what I'm going to do, Lara. I don't fucking know what I'm going to do."
"You're smart, you'll figure it out."
"Yeah, I'm sure I will. But the fact is… I don't know."
She looked at him hard. Something in her expression was changing, and he wasn't sure whether he was too drunk or too unsympathetic to know what it was but he didn't recognize what had enjoined it. Could it have been worry? What did she have to worry about?
"You've got it," she repeated. "If you want to talk about it, then I'll be right over here."
"I'm going to check on Tim, if that's alright."
Tim was something very different. The only thing on this God forsaken plane that he could honestly think of as mostly innocent. He was supposed to be in the back going over his lessons. What were kids learning these days, anyways?
Paul stood up and made his way toward the back. Cheryl-or-something stood off to the side, watching him go by with
an expression of something like interest that he tried to ignore. He made a mental note to drop her at the next stop, because she was starting to get a little attached and that was the one thing that he couldn't stomach with her.
She'd never meant anything, and he'd never pretended. Something hard-wired into her had apparently interpreted that absolute lack of interest as a signal to pursue harder, and he apparently hadn't been disinterested enough to prove that notion wrong yet. If she hadn't gotten the message already then she wasn't going to figure it out all of a sudden. She was just going to stay this way and he didn't want anything to do with it any more.
The journalists were on their phones, doing who knows what. Texting whoever they texted, or writing articles, or something. They didn't talk much among themselves, as far as he knew.
They certainly didn't talk amongst themselves when he was around, and whatever they talked about, he didn't think it was particularly worth keeping tabs on it to the point that he'd have someone else report back on their activities. If they had a story to discuss with each other then he wasn't going to get in the way of it.
He pushed back a little further. There was another private cabin at the back, and he could hear Tim's voice before he pushed the curtain aside.
"Nine?"
"That's right. Now… hmm…" The tutor's voice was light and playful. He had a certain way with kids, it seemed. It was almost a charming quality. "What about four times five?"
There was a long pause. Long enough for Paul to step through and into the room. Helen sat in one corner, watching the boy silently. His stomach did a flip and it was a serious force of effort not to say something to her. Instead he leaned back against the wall and watched.
"Twenty," Tim said. He wasn't asking, but he didn't sound remotely certain, either.
"Twenty? Final answer?"
Tim's eyes scanned the ceiling as if the answers were written up there. "Um… Yeah. Twenty."