“Twelve calls!” I shout. “At least twelve calls. You couldn’t answer a single one of them?”
You grumble, and it’s probably something disparaging, but I can’t make out exactly what.
“Damn it, Bert! Answer me!”
You reach into your pants pocket and drop your cell on the floor hard enough that I’m afraid you’ve cracked the screen. “Phone’s dead,” you say, which might now be true. You take a step, miss the edge of the stair, and land face-first on one above it, bloodying your lip.
“God help me.” I roll you over to check for broken teeth. You’re rag doll limp and oblivious. I’m angry—no, furious—with you, but I know a loss when I see one. I can question you, yell at you, do pretty much anything I want to you right now, and I won’t get more out of you than this.
I look at your phone lying facedown on the floor and decide the inquisition isn’t worth the hassle. You’ve always been careless where phone records are concerned, and if the battery is in fact dead, you wouldn’t have had the chance to clear messages.
“Get up,” I shout, your heavy breathing the telltale sign you’re either falling or have fallen asleep. “Get up!”
You snap to, briefly but long enough that with considerable strain I’m able to get you safely to the second floor, into the bed, and out of your rancid clothing. There’s zero chance you’ll wake up, but I close the bedroom door anyway and head downstairs to plug your phone into the charger. It is, in fact, dead.
You are too drunk to lie, which makes me wonder if I shouldn’t have asked you about Claire outright. Odds are you wouldn’t remember tomorrow. I don’t see how what Vern’s accused you of could possibly be true, since I manage our finances, yet something tells me it might be, and that, for as observant and mistrusting as I’ve been, you’ve slighted me somehow.
It takes seconds for enough charge to power the phone on. I fear the worst, another lock or fingerprint security. Neither exists, and I’m able to immediately get into what I need to. I plan to start with e-mails, the ones I can’t access from your computer but which might exist on a server because you never set these things to completely delete. Before I can even open the app, missed call alerts and a text message roll in. The originating number isn’t programmed into memory, but the person it belongs to is local, according to the five-one-eight area code.
ANSWER YOUR PHONE! NEED TO TALK, NOW. IT’S IMPORTANT. –H.
H.
Fuck.
Claire is a problem. Vern is a problem. And when I think things can’t get any worse between us, you prove me wrong. I won’t flatter myself to think I’m the only H. in your life, or that I ever was, but in light of your son’s death, I’d have thought you’d take a break.
I wonder who this girl is with decent grammar who won’t sign off on her messages in full. Is her name “Hayley,” or the classic-but-ugly “Harriet”? What about “Holly” or “Hazel”? Both “Harriett” and “Hazel” are likely too old for you, so I am going with something else. Something popular post-1990, belonging to a girl too cool to use emojis.
Whoever this is, she doesn’t know you well enough to realize you don’t respond to demands. Why would she? You cut all of them loose the minute they become controlling. I consider calling H. back, but even the most sternly worded confrontation does little to ward off your groupies. That you still have them after years of waning success shows how truly clueless these young girls are about this industry’s ups and downs. I decide the better option is to try for a face-to-face. I type the kind of reply you’ve used with lovers past. The kind you used to send me: Sorry, love. Much going on. Let’s meet. When and where? –B.
You always call women, including, at least at one time, me, by pet names, most likely to avoid confusing us. While you’d probably rather be caught dead—no pun intended—than use B. as short for your name, it’s a nod to this girl’s H. Expecting she’s the literary type, she knows about irony. H. must really have something on her mind because her reply is nearly immediate: I’M STAYING AT THE HOLIDAY INN OFF EXIT 8. ROOM 215. I’LL BE WAITING.
It probably sounds dirtier than it is, or my imagination is overactive, but so help me, if the girl who answers the door of room two-fifteen is wearing lingerie, I’m going to lose it. The last thing I need tonight is to see some fit twenty-something in her underwear. If I do, you won’t be the only one of us headed for jail.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ALL THE WAY DOWN I-87, I fixate. Where did you meet her, H.? Is she another book-signing girl? A local you’ve swept away to the loft, a place we can no longer afford and so tainted I can’t stand to go there? And what could be so urgent? It can’t be a pregnancy scare. You’re medically sterile, a surgery you were too eager for all those years ago.
Does H. know that her plan to trap you will undoubtedly fall flat? Or has she seen news of Matthew’s murder, something she’ll convince you she knows something about? Might she lead you on so you’ll need her, so that you’ll be with her instead of me?
You can’t afford another divorce, which is a practical truth that cuts both ways.
Unless or until I write something to pay my own way, I’m tied to you. I say this is why I stay because it makes me look less foolish, but I fell madly in love with you once. While that feeling has waned, I’m committed to toughing this marriage out.
I pull into the hotel parking lot and tilt the rearview mirror so that I can see my reflection. I don’t look my best, and this bothers me because no matter what this twenty-something has done today she’ll be perky and perfect. Flawlessly beautiful in a way with which I can no longer compete. All I have is marital status. I’m your Harper, for better or worse. I apply a dab of pale-coral lipstick, run a brush through my hair, and pull the keys from the ignition with a sigh.
It’s game time.
I enter the lobby with my head held high and walk to the elevators with the confident stride of someone who belongs here—a registered guest to whom the staff should pay no attention.
I’m not here to cause trouble but to end it.
It’s late, well after one a.m. by this point, and the lobby is empty of all but the desk clerk intently focused on her cell phone.
I ride the elevator alone.
Do not disturb signs hang on most of the second-floor doorknobs. Abandoned room service trays line the hallway, and I wonder how long until housekeeping collects them, if they’re en route or won’t come until the morning when this is all behind us.
I am halfway to the room when a door opens behind me. I turn to catch the silhouette of a thin woman wearing a sweatshirt with an oversized hood obscuring her face. She enters the elevator, her head canted in my direction. I can’t see more than shadows. I appraise her, this girl dressed too warmly for the weather, roaming the hotel late at night, alone and careful to hide her identity.
My worried mind warns that I should follow her, but I won’t give in to the paranoia.
I arrive at my destination and knock softly at first. There are people sleeping here. When no one answers, I knock again, this time more loudly, but I’m still not banging. A couple more attempts, each slightly more aggressive, and it seems I’ve been had. For as careful a trap as has been laid, H. has seen through it. Maybe the return text sounded off. Maybe you’ve awoken to realize I’m gone and warned this girl I was coming.
Maybe you warned her all along.
I pound on the door, shouting to be let in. I become irrational when I swore I wouldn’t. I hate being made a fool of. I kick the door, throwing a full-blown tantrum I’ll be embarrassed of later. Right now, I’m too mad to care.
Two doors open simultaneously.
“People are trying to sleep,” says a clean-cut man in a T-shirt and cotton shorts, a travelling businessman perhaps.
I’ve probably awakened half the floor, though most of the guests will turn over and go back to sleep. No one expects quiet in a hotel, at least no one who isn’t a first-timer.
“I’m looking for someone,” I say, though anyone could guess
this isn’t a friendly visit. Friends don’t kick doors down. Crazy people do, which is to say that my behavior is exactly the kind I warned you to avoid. I imagine the police being called. Vern being alerted to this disaster on a day when too much has happened already.
“Well, I don’t think they’re in there, and unless you want me to call downstairs and file a complaint, I suggest you let this go until morning.”
I want to tell him it’s already morning, but he’s fuming.
An older woman watches our exchange and retreats into her room without saying a word.
The man has this handled.
Rather than push him, I hold up my hands and say, “You’re right. I’m sorry for waking you.”
“You’re done here, then?”
I nod. “Absolutely.”
“Great. Goodnight.” The man who complained of noise only moments ago slams his door.
I stand on tiptoes and try looking through the peephole, but I can’t see a thing. It’s designed to be one-way, offering a fisheye view from within the hotel room and nothing from without. I don’t know why I bother, when the room is obviously empty.
I hurry to the elevator, lamenting a missed opportunity. The one I let get away. H. I try but fail to recall details of the woman I believe has evaded me. Your latest mistress. I stopped numbering when there became too many of them to count.
I’m reluctant to push my luck, but I have to know who this one is. The clerk is my last hope. I return to the lobby, painfully aware how private hotels are about their registered guests, and ring the bell.
The night clerk appears and sets a cup of coffee on the counter. “Can I help you?” She’s strawberry-blonde, ruddy-complexioned, and plain. Her heavy, dark eyelids are unbefitting someone this young.
You wouldn’t give her a second look.
“I’m looking for my daughter, Harley.” This name alone would pique your interest. It’s edgy. Sexy. “She said she’s in room 215, but no one is answering the door.”
The clerk taps away at the keyboard and says, “I’m sorry. I can’t help you.”
I knew I shouldn’t have committed to specifics, but I don’t know how I’d have convinced the clerk to help me otherwise.
“Holly?” I can’t believe I’m doing this, but it’s worth a try. “Sometimes she goes by Holly. She’s always hated the name Harley. I blame her father, but—”
“No,” the clerk says firmly. “There’s no one registered by either name. You’ll have to call your daughter back, because there’s been some confusion.” She says this as though she has experience with jealous spouses, as if there have been scores of irate wives and I’m but the latest.
“No confusion,” I insist, pushing when I should cut my losses; walk away, become unmemorable. “She said two-fifteen. Please, check again. Room two-fifteen.”
“I’m sorry, ma’am, but two-fifteen is vacant.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
ANY WOMAN WITH A CHEATING husband knows the devil’s in the cell phone bill, which I should have been checking all along. Maybe I didn’t want to know. Maybe I was tired of the conflict and confrontation. Maybe after as many one-night stands as you’ve had, I’ve become complacent; content with the fact that while you might cheat, you’ll never leave me. More likely, though, I just didn’t care. Matthew wasn’t dead. You weren’t being called in for questioning. Your behavior wasn’t being judged as if being guilty of infidelity somehow makes you more likely to commit murder.
I didn’t feel as out of control then as I do now, as on the precipice of losing everything.
I log into our online account, ignoring the past-due warning you’re unaware of. You may have password-protected your computer and e-mail, but banking, the household finances, and billing accounts are all set up and managed by me. You wouldn’t begin to guess at passwords and couldn’t answer the security questions that married people should be able to answer about one another—ones I can answer about you. If you could or did know these things, if you cared, you’d see we’re on the verge of financial ruin. But Bertram Stone doesn’t accept failure, which is why I haven’t told you.
I don’t want to be blamed for overspending, which I haven’t, or mismanaging money, which I didn’t, or for refusing to get a paying job while you spent two years on some mystery project that is about to bankrupt us.
I can’t accept that yet another part of us is broken.
So I don’t.
I click past the sternly worded reminder to remit the past-due balance and call up our statement history. There is a year’s worth in archive. I download the past several months, opening the files and printing pages of details. I have been through this before, more times than I’m comfortable admitting, and come prepared with a stack of as many different colored writing instruments as I can find.
I pull the cap from a highlighter with my teeth and scan for patterns—numbers that appear multiple times, particularly those around the date you were supposed to be signing in the city. At the loft, dazzling some would-be writer girl with success stories she has no way of knowing are from glory days long behind you. With so many line items, I need to whittle away the junk to get a clearer picture. The first is an easy issue to spot. Your agent Tim’s number repeats far too often, reminding me that in addition to keeping you out of jail, I need to somehow focus you on whatever you’re supposed to be writing. I line through every time his number appears with yellow. Yellow is for caution, and marking him as such seems smart. If I highlight everything that triggers a warning yellow, I’ll have something to show you when we ever have the conversation I’ll avoid until I can’t. Pages upon pages of markups later, a pattern emerges: you have to get to work.
I line through any calls from me with a black Sharpie, redacting me from your social life and seeing on paper the silence between us in those recent loft days. Though not a surprise, it comes as a punch to the gut. Normal married people make check-in calls to say “goodnight” or “I miss you.” The radio silence is something I’ll eventually have to explain to the police, a conversation that will expose the discord between us.
Next comes a swath of green, numbers in the two-one-two, six-four-six, and three-three-two area codes, calls from the Manhattan area that are most likely work-related. Green is good but not abundant. Between yellow, green, and black I’ve cut the data by at least two-thirds. You’re not a talker by nature, and certainly not on the phone, which makes this task somewhat easier.
Of the remaining numbers are a series of one-offs, probably telemarketers as the area codes are all over the map. I put a dot next to them, narrowing the repeating numbers to four.
Ella immediately gets the first red marks. I’m out of highlighters so I move to red pen, checkmarking the times she’s called since Matthew’s death and grimacing at how often she’s reached out to you in the months before it. Not a call between you lasts more than five minutes—you were undoubtedly avoiding responsibility—but the sheer volume overwhelms me.
Not for the first time, I wonder at your relationship, not only historically but from Ella’s perspective. I’ve accepted your version of marriage to her as fact. You’ve cast her as selfish. A terrible mother. Responsible for everything that went wrong, not only with Matthew but between the two of you. I can’t reconcile that description with the grieving woman from Matthew’s funeral, but Ella isn’t my primary concern.
With so many details demanding my attention, I’m not sure what is.
I finish reviewing the statements. Two other numbers repeat at varying frequencies. Only one of them is familiar, belonging to H., whose number I added to my own contact list before deleting the accumulated history you had failed to erase and returning your dead phone to its charger. H. gets a red line. A strikethrough. It’s as close to erasing her as I can get. I wish I reserved the Sharpie, so at least I wouldn’t have to see those numbers anymore.
“I’ll be waiting.”
Her words taunt me, as does the way she seemed to know I might be coming, that I am
someone from whom she should run away. More worrisome is the concentration of calls between the two of you the days before and the day after Matthew’s murder. She’s called the day, the week, and even the month before he was killed, too. In fact, in this stack of statements there isn’t a month she hasn’t called.
I try not to think how deeply into this girl you are as I jot down the remaining phone number. The calls are less frequent and of shorter duration, but equally concerning because they, too, concentrate around the day Matthew was murdered. Before, and not a single call after. I quickly deduce this is likely Matthew’s number, something I’m eager and reluctant to confirm because, according to you, you haven’t spoken to each other since he left. This is part of your official police statement, and I don’t know a way to explain it if you have, other than to admit you lied.
I perform a reverse lookup that won’t tell me the owner, but the search narrows the location and carrier. Albany, New York. Verizon. It’s Ella’s carrier, but not necessarily Matthew’s phone. As with all I’ve recently uncovered, I don’t want to, but I have to know.
There’s only one way I can think of to find out.
I dial star-six-seven, adding a layer of protection between me and whoever you’ve been speaking to in the event I’m wrong, and key in the mystery number. The line doesn’t ring. No one answers. An automaton informs me that the number I’ve dialed has been disconnected.
Its owner is dead.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
SO MUCH HAS COME AT me at once that the only things concrete are loose ends and doubt. You skulk around the house like a beaten dog, and for two days we don’t talk about H., your drunken night out, or the cab you threw up in. I don’t tell you about Vern’s visit, suspiciously executed in your absence. I don’t ask about Claire, because you’ll lie if you’re guilty. And as much as I’d like to forget every bit of this, Vern won’t let me. He looms, a nefarious presence who waits to ruin everything.
Where We Went Wrong Page 5