by Sadie Rabbit
I know, I know, she thinks. I do have caller ID.
“I’d like to apologize for inconveniencing you at such a late hour. It’s unprofessional, perhaps, and I’m ever caught in the balance of breaching personal time and sharing time-sensitive information with my clients. It’s a delicate task to say the least. Most delicate.”
Yes, yes, yes. Out with it, man!
“However, in this particular instance,” he said, “I thought it prudent to inform you that your husband has agreed to, shall we say, an equitable separation.”
Olivia’s heart thumped faster in her chest.
“What do you mean by equitable?”
“I mean to say that he intends to divide the assets equally down the middle,” Mr. Albion said. “‘Fifty-fifty’ in common parlance. He plans, as I’m told, to sell the house, delivering to you one half of the proceeds. All other assets will be divided between yourself and your husband as well.”
“You’re kidding?” Olivia said. “No, please don’t tell me you’re kidding. The emails worked?”
“It wasn’t the emails in this instance,” Mr. Albion said. “No. It was simply the mention of the name ‘Jude.’ As it happens, upon hearing that name and extrapolating the implications of it, your husband decided that a protracted legal battle might not be in his best interest. If the terms, at this stage, are pleasing, I’ve taken the liberty of scheduling a face-to-face meeting between myself, yourself, your husband and his attorney, to sign the paperwork and begin putting the wheels, so to speak, in motion to finalize your dissolution.”
“What time do I need to show up?” Olivia asked.
“10 a.m. tomorrow,” Mr. Albion said. “If you have any questions, or should you to think of anything perchance, please don’t hesitate to call me.”
“I do have one question,” Olivia said. “Is it safe for me to speak to Thomas?”
“I had a feeling that might be a question foremost in your mind, dealing as I do with quite a large number of these cases,” Mr. Albion said.
Olivia felt as if she could hear Mr. Albion smiling on the other end of the line.
“You can contact him after our meeting tomorrow.”
∞
Four days later, Olivia sat in the backseat of Charlotte and Kenneth’s SUV. Kenneth was driving with Charlotte beside him in the passenger seat. In the back, Olivia sat beside Thomas.
I can’t believe this is happening, she thought.
They were going to the opening of Deceit, all of them dressed like they were off to a cocktail party at the White House. Olivia wore her tallest heels, four inches high, Dolce & Gabannas. She wore a thin black dress and black pearls around her neck. Topping it off was a pair of black-framed, non-prescription glasses. They were a gift from Charlotte who swore they made her look like a true artist.
Olivia stole a glance at Thomas beside her. Even in the dying light, she could see he was nervous. He was stunning nonetheless in a pinstriped Kenneth Cole suit with his unkempt hair beckoning her fingers. She almost gave into the urge to reach out and touch him. She’d shared so much emotion with him, but she’d never done more than shake his hand. We need to do more than that. We have to do more than that.
“So Thomas,” Charlotte said from the front seat, “you’ve got to tell me about this side business you’ve got.”
“Charlotte,” Olivia said, “hush.”
Thomas shifted in his seat.
“It’s all right,” he said. “You’d be amazed how many questions I get about it — and by how many recordings I’ve made over the years.”
“Where do you get the ideas?” Charlotte asked.
“The sex part is usually the same,” Thomas said. “But the stuff that makes it good is the backstory, the details, where you’re at and why you’re together. I learned that, I think, from my grandfather.
“He was always telling stories, and one of those stories was about how powerful the radio is; how he thought it was more powerful than television. He always talked about his time in the war, about this radio program he listened to. There was a broadcaster named Tokyo Rose.”
“Yeah,” Kenneth called out from behind the wheel. “She was a broadcaster the Japanese used to spread lies among the U.S. troops.”
“Exactly,” Thomas said. “They all knew she was fake, though, and that there was actually more than one Tokyo Rose, but that didn’t stop them from listening. Just hearing a sultry female voice and American music; that’s enough when you’re at war. It was a little piece of home. So, yeah, my grandfather always talked about how recordings could be more intimate than TV.”
“How’s that?” Charlotte asked.
“Video and TV make you lazy,” Thomas said. “When you strip away all the pictures, the mind’s just left with the voice, and it’s incredible how much more than words a voice can communicate. On top of that, you might not be attracted to some famous actor in a movie. If you’re visualizing someone in your mind, though, you get to see exactly what you want.
“So, that was the idea. I toyed with it while I was working at the newspaper. As soon as I started selling whispers, though, I couldn’t keep up with the demand. I was making more money than I was at the paper, so I left.
“I’ve branched out since then,” Thomas said. “I write books, articles, blogs. You can only tell so many stories about sex.”
“So, what was different about our Livy?” Charlotte asked. “Why’d you seek her out?”
“I’m still trying to figure that out,” he said.
He reached his hand out and laid it on top of Olivia’s. His skin was warm and soft. Olivia acted like it was the most natural thing in the world, but she felt giddy as a high schooler.
They were exiting Interstate 75 now. Kenneth looped around, then turned onto 6, and the heavy gray museum loomed ahead on the right.
“Oh my God,” Charlotte said. “Are all these people here for the exhibit?”
Olivia unbuckled her seatbelt so she could get a better look. She was speechless. A line curled out of the museum and stretched out of sight around the corner.
“I think we’ll let you ladies out here,” Kenneth said.
Olivia linked arms with Charlotte, and they walked in together.
“This is incredible,” Charlotte whispered. “My bestie is famous!”
The other Olivia found them almost as soon as they walked in. She pushed wine glasses into both of their hands.
“How did you manage such a turnout?” Olivia asked.
“I was going to ask you the same thing,” the director said, smiling.
She led them toward the hotel entrance. It was breathtaking.
“This place even smells like a hotel,” Charlotte said.
A young man in a crisp white shirt and maroon jacket stood behind the desk.
“We hired him away from the Westin for a few months,” the director said. “He’s the real deal.”
Olivia and Charlotte approached him.
“At-at,” the director said, “one at a time, remember. I’ll see you on the other end.”
Charlotte untangled herself from Olivia’s arm and pushed her friend forward.
“Good evening, miss,” the hotel receptionist said, “just one room tonight?”
Olivia nodded.
“Please sign in here, and I’ll get your key,” he said.
Olivia wrote her name down. She saw that some 40 other guests had signed in before her — members of the media, she suspected. Reporters, photographers and bloggers.
The man behind the desk handed her a key. The fob said “Hotel California,” but the key itself didn’t list a room number.
“Follow me, please,” he said.
Olivia picked up her purse and did as instructed, stealing a glance back at Charlotte who was glowing behind her in the lobby. Olivia rounded a corner and found herself ushered into a dimly lit room. The man pointed up at the ladder.
“I think you’ll find that key fits any door you’d like,” he said.
; The receptionist left, shutting the door behind him. Olivia was alone in the small, quiet space. They’d even installed a small elevator near the ladder. This is incredible.
At the top of the ladder, Olivia stood on a landing exactly like what she’d imagined. She was surrounded by eight doors, each with a label on the front. A placard glowed on the floor and Olivia moved closer to read it. Please choose the deception you most often engage in, try your key in the door and proceed through the exhibit.
Olivia smiled when she realized she hadn’t even considered which door to pick. It made perfect sense now, though. She chose “pretending to love my significant other.” She unlocked the door with her key and slipped into the narrow hallway beyond.
She was struck by how real it felt. The museum had run ductwork overhead, and the backs of the plastered walls reminded her of her Cat Lady’s House. It looked like this corridor had been standing for 100 years. Beams of light at various heights shot through the darkened hall, and Olivia approached the nearest one. She held her breath as she placed her hands on two-by-fours and leaned in to peer through the hole.
On the other side, she saw a room, one wall entirely dominated by her photograph of a college student getting fed wine and olives by two scandalously dressed girls. In front of the photograph was a bed, and Olivia was startled when she realized it was occupied by an actor. The person appeared to be genuinely asleep. She tiptoed over to the next hole and the next and the next, forgetting to some extent that she was looking at her own artwork, her own creations, and simply enjoying the sublimely voyeuristic moment.
When she reached the lounge at the end of the hall, she sat in the small armchair and watched herself climbing the ladder, circling the room and picking the door that told the world she only pretended to love her significant other. The video looped on endlessly.
Then, the phone rang, loud and shrill. Olivia covered her heart with her hand. Without thinking, she picked up the handset and said “Hello,” but the recording had already begun. The voice they’d chosen was a female, British, or at least from somewhere in the UK.
“We’ve captured your deception on video,” the recording said. “Please push the red button to delete the footage. Press the green button if you’d prefer to donate the footage to the artist for use in future projects.”
Olivia thought about Mike seeing footage of her picking a door, and it occurred to her that he probably would have picked the same door. That knowledge felt like a release; like a weight had fallen from around her neck. She pressed the green “donate” button, and the exit door opened.
After the dim light of the exhibit, Olivia was dazzled by the reception hall. They’d made it look like an ornate hotel lobby with enormous prints of her photographs plastered on the walls. Men and women mingled while caterers dressed as bellhops carried silver trays of drinks from the bar to the guests. There was a large digital screen, too, and on it, a sort of scoreboard that kept track of how often each deception was chosen.
Acting Confident When I’m Not was in first place, followed closely by two others: Pretending to Like a “Friend” I Can’t Stand and Acting Like I Don’t Care About My Appearance. Olivia blushed when she realized only one person had chosen Pretending to Love My Significant Other.
That must have been me!
She hoped that no one would put two and two together. In the end, though, she didn’t have much time to think about it. The other Olivia approached, and shortly thereafter, she was mobbed by reporters. The night went by in a blur.
Two hours later, she found herself standing in a circle with Charlotte, Kenneth and Thomas. The wine, the reporters, the reception, the whole night, in fact, had her feeling fabulous; until she saw Mike approaching from the far side of the room.
“Oh no,” she muttered. She could tell from his eyes that he was upset and probably more than a little drunk. When he reached her, he grabbed her arm, pulling her aside quickly.
“Ow, Mike,” she said. “You’re hurting me.”
Thomas was there in a flash. He grabbed Mike’s shoulder and spun him around. It was clear to everyone at that moment that Thomas didn’t stand a chance if they came to blows. He was lithe and compact, while Mike was thick and muscled. Both men had their hands balled into fists.
“So is this him, Liv?” Mike said. He was speaking too loudly, and Olivia saw with horror that the people around them were turning to watch.
“Mike, this isn’t the time for this,” she said.
“Of course it’s not the time,” he said. “No one ever wants to talk about perverts sending their wife obscene emails.”
“Hey, buddy,” Thomas said, “I don’t know anything about you, but I think you need to calm down. Have some respect.”
“Some respect?” Mike yelled.
He turned in a rage and yanked one of Olivia’s photographs off the wall. The wooden frame cracked and bent in his hands as he swung it at Thomas.
Camera flashes went off, women squealed and Thomas dropped to his knees, dodging the heavy frame by inches. Security was there in a flash, one man on either side of Mike. They had him under the arms, and they lifted him in the air so his feet scarcely touched the ground. Veins bulged in Mike’s neck as they hauled him out of the room. He looked back at Olivia.
“You’re scum,” he said. “This work is scum. Your friends are scum. And that dirty prick is scum...”
She didn’t hear the rest. A tidal wave of sound filled the space as everyone in the room started talking at once. Thomas was at her side quickly. “I have to say this is the strangest first date I’ve ever had,” he said.
“Well, at least I know you’ll defend my honor,” Olivia said, laughing. “Let’s just say it was a test.”
“Did I pass?” Thomas asked, moving closer to her — closer than she might have wanted with everyone looking at them.
“Let’s give them something else to talk about,” Thomas whispered as he moved to kiss her.
The sounds, the faces, the lights, everything faded and Olivia felt lightheaded. Thomas’s lips were fuller, thicker than Mike’s, and they were softer. She couldn’t get over how soft they were. Seconds into the kiss, she opened her eyes. A heartbeat later, Thomas opened his. They looked directly at one another while they kissed. Olivia closed her eyes quickly, put a hand on Thomas’s chest and pushed him away. Suddenly, they were aware of the crowd around them. They smiled awkwardly, and then clasped hands. First Charlotte began to clap, and then they all did with Olivia and Thomas blushing in the center of the room.
“I need a drink,” Thomas said.
“Get me two,” Olivia said.
∞
Their second date might have been stranger than their first. It wasn’t exactly dinner and a movie. They were headed to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base where a safe deposit box waited for them.
“Don’t you think it’s a little early for us to be proclaiming our love?” Olivia asked.
“Why waste time?” Thomas asked.
“Well, we haven’t even been intimate yet,” she said.
“Yes, but that doesn’t happen until after we’re married,” Thomas said, smiling deviously. “Besides, I feel like we’ve known each other for years.”
Olivia grinned. I do, too, she thought, remembering the whispers. I almost feel like I’ve already had sex with you.
The bank was a grim, unadorned, white brick building that could have passed as a jail.
“I can’t believe this bank is still here,” Olivia said.
“It’s a good omen,” Thomas said.
He grabbed Olivia’s hand and helped her from the passenger seat. They walked hand-in-hand, both of them squinting in the light. It was March in Ohio, and it felt like years since Olivia had last seen the sun. The blue sky was here now, though. It stretched above the Army base like a giant fish bowl.
A frail elderly woman led them to the security boxes. Olivia wondered if the woman was working there some 25 years ago when Pika originally bought the box. Maybe so…
>
Olivia stared at Thomas, and he stared at her. She felt like he was really seeing her — seeing her in a way her husband never had.
“Are you ready for an adventure?” he asked.
“I’m always ready for an adventure,” Olivia said.
Thomas took her hand in his and kissed the back of it. Then, he guided both their hands toward the safe deposit box. She slipped the key silently into place and paused with his hand motionless on top of hers. They both took a deep breath, and they turned the key together.
EPILOGUE
The night after Olivia’s opening at the Cincinnati Contemporary Arts Center, newspapers were crowded not just with stories raving about Olivia Hampton’s show, but with stories of old-fashioned scandal, too. The media loved a jealous lover, and they ruthlessly ran photographs of Olivia’s enraged husband destroying one of her pieces while he tried to kill her younger, sexier boyfriend.
The publicity cost Mike not just his boyfriend, Jude, but his new job, too. P&G couldn’t afford that sort of scrutiny in one of the company’s most expensive divisions, they said.
“That fight was better marketing than anything we could have come up with,” the museum director told Olivia.
Indeed, it helped drive more than 300,000 visitors through the museum in four short months. The show alone netted Olivia enough to put a down payment on the Cat Lady’s House. She wouldn’t be a renter anymore.
Summer came to Ohio sweet as a song, and Olivia was hosting a dinner party when Charlotte told her the news: she was pregnant.
“I want both of you at my side with Kenneth at the hospital,” Charlotte told Olivia and Thomas.
The young couple shared a glance.
“We’ll be there,” Olivia and Thomas said simultaneously.
“At least, we hope we will,” Olivia said.
“What does that mean?” Charlotte asked.
Olivia pursed her lips.
“This has to do with that damned safe deposit box, doesn’t it?” Charlotte asked.
Olivia nodded. “We might be going on a trip,” she said.