False Step

by Victoria Helen Stone

  She could fill her house with books and bright paintings. A cat that would’ve made Johnny sneeze. All her curtains would be sheer and light, puffs of useless fabric floating on the breeze, exactly the kind of fluffy crap he hated. She’d have family and girlfriends over and not care whether any of them were sleeping with Johnny. Sangrias in the summer. Book club in the winter. And when she was alone, she’d be truly, blessedly alone. It would be so much less lonely than living with someone who’d ruined the love you’d once had.

  Half a mile from the senior center, she put her fantasy away and hit the Off button on the stereo. Fantasies were cheap and useless. This was real life. And she wasn’t alone. She was married. She was a mother. And she couldn’t go back to age twenty-two and tell herself that no man was ever a prize in life, much less Johnny Bradley.

  Two years ago, when her mother had announced that she was filing for divorce, Veronica had been surprised but not shocked. Not really. Sydney, on the other hand, had been blindsided and devastated by her grandparents’ split.

  Veronica still wasn’t sure why. Maybe they’d sheltered her too much. Maybe she’d seen a friend’s parents going through an ugly breakup. Maybe she just adored her grandfather the same way she did her dad. Whatever the reason, she’d cried uncontrollably. She’d begged Grandma not to kick Grandpa out. She’d started wetting her bed and coming home sick from school. And she’d sobbed and pleaded with her mom and dad, begging them to promise they’d never divorce.

  Veronica had promised. She’d had no choice. Her little girl had been anxious and weepy for months. Veronica would have said anything to stop her tears.

  So she’d promised. And here she was.

  “Here I am,” she said aloud to her quiet car as she pulled into a parking space. She squeezed the steering wheel and stared blindly at the welcoming redbrick of the senior-living facility. “Here I am.”

  Her phone buzzed. She picked it up to find a text from Johnny. Ok no biggie. See u tonite.

  No biggie? Really?

  She rolled her eyes and grabbed her purse. Whatever. She’d told him, so she was done with it. If he wasn’t worried, then what the hell was she stressed about?

  She stretched her stiff back and headed inside to deal with other people’s problems instead of her own, but before she reached the wide front doors, her phone buzzed again.

  What did they ask?

  Her muscles hardened into painful knots again. I already told you, she sent back.

  They were acting weird?

  I don’t know. The whole thing is weird.

  Yeah.

  She frowned at the screen. You told them you’ve hiked in Kittredge a lot?

  Went twice this summer.

  Oh. I didn’t know that.

  She paused, waiting for another text. She was about to sign off and slip her phone into her purse when he texted one more time. Let me know if they call u again.

  Of course. Sure.

  Hey can your mom get Syd? I booked a full day.

  Veronica nodded, but she frowned as she typed. I’ll check but she probably can.

  Great. Home around 8.

  She tucked her phone away and reached for the glass door. The woman in the reflection glared at her, accusing her of something. But Veronica had no idea what it was.

  CHAPTER 10

  She tried not to think about it. Tried to put the whole situation out of her mind for the day. She laughed at all of her clients’ jokes. She comforted the ones who seemed anxious. And she confirmed that Bess from the third floor had indeed confronted her lover about the rumors, and he’d admitted he was cheating before breaking up with her.

  Poor Bess was devastated, and her friend Sunny claimed that now Bess regretted confronting him about it at all. “Can you believe that? She wishes she’d just let him keep cheating! I’ve told her to have a little pride, but I guess you can’t find it if you don’t have it.”

  “She’s lonely,” Veronica had countered, trying to hide a little jolt of guilt as she watched Sunny do her finger stretches. “You’re at repetition fifteen,” she murmured. “Ten more.”

  “Well, don’t spread this around, but Bess told me she . . .” Sunny let her fingers relax and leaned forward. “She messed around a little with another girl in college. What was that, fifty-five years ago? I told her she should try it again. There aren’t enough men around here.”

  Veronica grinned. “All right. Other hand.” Gossip was the best way to keep her clients distracted from exercises that worked their stiff joints, but she had to keep things moving. “And what did Bess say to that?”

  “She just sniffed like I was ridiculous, but maybe she’ll consider it now if she hasn’t already. These men are no good anyway. And they can’t keep it up with condoms, so God knows what they have.”

  Veronica decided to let that one drop. “What about you? Are you dating any of these no-good men?”

  Sunny blew air through her teeth. “Never. I had two husbands. That was at least one too many.”

  That was a refrain she’d heard many times from many patients, but it still made her laugh. Sunny finished the last of her stretches and sat back with a groan.

  “You’re doing great,” Veronica said. “Which is good, because this is our last visit.”

  “No, don’t say that! My hands are still stiff.”

  “I know, but look how much improvement you’ve made since last month. Your range of motion is fifty percent better and I’ll leave instructions on doing these exercises on your own.”

  “But I still have arthritis.”

  “You’ll always have arthritis, but now you know how to manage it better. You can slow the progress. Keep things moving.”

  Sunny blew air through her teeth again. Veronica patted her arm. The men were often happy to be done with her and her instructions, but many of the women seemed to regard her as a friend, which was nice. Nicer than not having any female friends at all. “I’m not going anywhere, you know. I just had lunch here with one of my previous clients today. I’m around every week, and every other Saturday I’m in the memory unit.”

  “Fine. But you’d better stop by for gossip. You’re the only one I can trust not to rat me out.”

  “Deal.”

  Sunny was her last client of the day. It was only five thirty. Her mom had picked up Sydney from school, and for a brief moment Veronica considered walking to the old dive bar across the street for a bacon cheeseburger and an ice-cold beer. Her mouth watered. Her heart yearned.

  She’d missed out on solitary adventures in her younger, single years, but now she was older and less self-conscious. Now she could walk into a place alone and order a drink with a wink for the cute bartender. She could flirt. Let loose. Live in her own skin with no shame.

  She let herself take a long look at the bar and its flashing “Famous Cheeseburgers!” sign, but looking was all she’d do tonight. She couldn’t leave Syd at her grandmother’s for so long again. This week had already been too upside down.

  Sighing, Veronica packed her therapy equipment into her car and got behind the wheel with only one more wistful look at the burger joint.

  If she hadn’t settled down so young, maybe she’d have had enough one-night stands that she wouldn’t fantasize about the kind of crazy mistakes people made at a dive bar. If she’d waited until thirty-five, she’d have slept around and traveled alone and gone to weddings and yearned for comfortable companionship. Or maybe she was just her father’s daughter and fidelity had never been in the cards.

  For the first time it occurred to her to wonder whether her mother had ever felt the same. She’d married young and had Trish a few years later. Then Veronica a few years after that. Veronica had always thought of her mom as the boring one. The constant. The default parent who cooked and cleaned and laid down ground rules. But had she wanted more? Had she ever taken more?

  “No,” she said aloud, unable to imagine it even as an adult, though she was beginning to wonder how much of an adult she’d
become. Maybe she was still stuck at twenty-two, stunted and selfish.

  She was halfway home when she reached the intersection of South Street. The light turned red. She slowed. Stopped. Then, without even pausing to consider it, she signaled a right and slipped into the turn lane. Johnny’s gym was a mile to the east, and she headed in that direction. Each tenth of a mile ticked her jaw tighter.

  She knew what she was doing. She didn’t have to delve deeper into her consciousness to figure out her impulse. Johnny was likely working late with new clients, but he was also strangely distracted. Maybe it was just the newfound fame. Maybe it was more than that. Checking up on him would cost her nothing. Frankly, it was the smart thing to do.

  She spotted his truck as soon as she pulled into the lot, and she breathed a sigh of relief. He really was at the gym. She almost drove past it to continue on home, but the empty space just a few yards past his truck beckoned to her. Did she really still care or was jealousy just a habit at this point? Sad that she couldn’t find the answer even in her own heart.

  Veronica didn’t recognize the black-haired girl at the check-in desk. As she dug her membership card from her purse, she realized she hadn’t been to the gym in months. She’d been going for long biweekly runs and occasionally stopping in at a yoga studio, but that was it. It was almost as if she’d been avoiding her husband.

  “Surely not,” she whispered to herself with a little smirk as she slid her card through the reader and got a green light.

  “Have a great workout!” the girl called. Veronica waved in response, then ducked her head in the hopes no one she knew would recognize her as she crossed to the stairwell. Halfway up the stairs to the expansive workout room, she realized she should get an excuse ready. She could run right into Johnny as soon as she reached the second floor, and she wasn’t wearing any workout gear.

  She stopped, one foot perched on the next step as she breathed in the chlorine scent from the lap pool below.

  She hadn’t stopped in to say hi in years, and an explanation evaded her. Why in the world would she be coming by with no packed dinner or forgotten keys or . . . ?

  She couldn’t even conjure up a fake reason she’d want to see her husband. The misery of that knowledge swelled inside her like a black balloon. Her stomach ached with it. Her muscles burned.

  “A massage,” her mouth blurted out. The whir of machinery and the clank of weights drowned out her words, but she still glanced back in embarrassment at the man jogging up the stairs behind her. She smiled stiffly and he jerked his chin up in silent greeting.

  She hadn’t splurged on a massage in quite a while because they didn’t have splurging money these days. But now that Johnny was earning big bucks, it was the perfect excuse. She didn’t even need to check whether there was a massage therapist in residence today. Johnny wouldn’t bother checking, after all.

  A small smile tightened her lips as she bounced the rest of the way up the steps. When she reached the top, she eased toward the edge of the wall that hid most of the weight room from view.

  The thump thump thump of runners on treadmills prompted a Pavlovian response of weary scorn, and she sneered a little. No wonder she hadn’t come by in months. The gym filled her with all sorts of negative emotions, but the ball of knots inside her was far too tangled to pick apart quickly. Was it just because Johnny had wasted so many years here? Or did it remind her of the darkest days of their marriage, when she’d discovered that he’d cheated and that Trey and his buddies had talked him into using steroids?

  She’d been too absorbed with Sydney’s first year of kindergarten to notice any changes at first. She’d been annoyed at how much unbillable time her husband spent at the gym, but that hadn’t exactly been a new fight. He’d gotten a little bulkier. Fine. She didn’t care either way. He’d seemed happy with his new muscles.

  Until he hadn’t been happy. Until he’d gotten volatile and moody. Until the day he’d cornered her in the hall and screamed at her for five minutes about her leaving his favorite warm-up jacket in the washer until it smelled of mildew.

  He’d never hit her. That would’ve been a deal breaker. But he’d scared the hell out of her and made her cower in her own home.

  Scanning the weight room, Veronica told herself for the thousandth time that she should have left then, when she’d had an excuse. No one would have faulted her. But Sydney had been so little, and money had been so tight, and she’d told herself that they’d get back to trust and passion when Syd got older. They’d get through it. Grow closer after the struggle.

  Plus, Johnny had addressed the issue. He really, truly had.

  That fight in the hallway had scared him too. He’d admitted to taking some “questionable supplements.” He’d promised to give them up. And he had. But in the interest of starting over, of being honest, he’d dropped another bombshell. In the depths of his drug use, pumped up on steroids and frustrated with his life, he’d cheated on her.

  The suddenness of that revelation had thrown Veronica for a loop. He’d managed to frame it as something positive. “I’m being totally honest with you. I really screwed up and I don’t want to lose you. I’m telling you so we can start fresh with no lies between us.”

  In that horrible, shocking crack of a moment, she’d barely let herself feel the heartbreak. It had been there. She’d glimpsed it. But she’d plastered over it immediately. Johnny had given her honesty when he hadn’t needed to. He’d been terrified she might leave, and he’d begged her to stay. It was proof he really did love her. She hadn’t lost. She’d won.

  After all, he’d given her the power to leave or give him another chance. He’d left it up to her. So she’d forgiven him. She’d issued new ground rules that he’d followed. He was attentive again and cheerful.

  Their life had returned to normal, and she’d been grateful. At that point, she’d still had a picture in her mind of a white picket fence and a growing family.

  But the temporary plaster had eventually worn away, and she hadn’t realized until it was too late. He’d broken something. Her trust or her image of herself. He’d turned her into her mother, and it seemed she couldn’t forgive that after all.

  Now she didn’t love Johnny anymore, but somehow she still couldn’t stop competing.

  Veronica scanned the workout room again, but her husband wasn’t around. She was wondering whether she needed to go downstairs and check out the locker area. Specifically the individual family restroom with the locking door and extra-deep countertop area, where people were known to hook up. Maybe he was there with that redhead he’d slept with five years before. Maybe he was there with Neesa . . . or someone else entirely.

  Suddenly he stood up from behind a butterfly machine and she realized he’d been sitting on one of the low windowsills.

  She jerked away automatically to hide behind the wall, but when she eased her head back around, she saw that he was looking down at his phone, probably checking for more news stories about himself.

  As she watched, he tapped in a message with his thumbs, then waited. Veronica stared hard at his phone, wishing a giant text bubble would pop up and hover over the screen like it did in TV comedies. But nothing appeared and she realized she was being ridiculous, spying on her husband at work like a psycho.

  Why the hell did she even care if he was cheating?

  Glancing around to be sure she hadn’t been seen, she started to ease back to leave. But at the last second Johnny’s furtive movement caught her eye. He put the phone into the pocket of his very expensive Under Armour warm-up pants; then his eyes slid quickly over the room as he reached into the other pocket. Shoulders hunching a little, he lifted his hand and glanced around one more time.

  Veronica flinched, afraid she’d be spotted, but he didn’t look toward her hiding place as he palmed a phone. A different phone. A different phone he kept in his other pocket.

  He typed in a passcode. He checked the screen for a few seconds, his mouth tight, brow puckered. Then he tucked that p
hone away as well.

  “What the fuck?” Veronica whispered. She blinked several times as if she could reset her vision, but nothing changed. She watched Johnny walk to a shelf to grab a paper towel and cleaning spray. She turned and put her back to the wall just as he began wiping down a bench.

  Her husband had two phones? What the hell did that mean?

  No. That wasn’t the right question. That was a stupid question. She knew exactly what it meant. Bad things. Really bad things. Cheating or lying or breaking the law. The real question wasn’t “What does it mean?” The real question was “How bad is it?”

  That black balloon swelled inside her again. It choked up her throat and hardened her muscles and seized up her joints. The wall behind her refused to soften and swallow her up no matter how hard she wished for it to melt.

  CHAPTER 11

  “Thanks, Mom,” Sydney mumbled around the handful of fries she’d just stuffed into her mouth. She didn’t get fast food very often, and she’d been glowing with excitement since Veronica had pulled into the drive-through.

  Veronica didn’t eat fast food often either and she should have been relishing it, but she could barely taste her burger as she chewed, slumped over her kitchen table.

  Was her husband involved with steroids again? Had the police picked up on that? Maybe they’d found something in his car at the trailhead and that was why they were asking so many questions. Or maybe this had something to do with Tanner Holcomb himself?

  No. She shook her head at that. What could Johnny possibly have done wrong with Tanner? Even if he’d screwed up evidence or accidentally destroyed something at the scene, he was just a civilian. This had something to do with Trey.

  Or maybe the phone was about Neesa. Or ten other women, the competitive little lizard part of her brain suggested.

  She shook her head.

  “What?” Sydney asked.

  Veronica jumped a little at being caught. “Nothing, honey. Hey, you promised to show me that history presentation you and Brian put together.”