You Made Your Bed: A Novel

by Cornelia Goddin

  “Nah, the divorce biz pays pretty well. It just doesn’t give me the feeling I’m doing anything to advance humanity.”

  “Oh, is that what we’re supposed to be doing?” I laugh. “You look like you’re doing okay,” I say, gesturing to his suit, which does not look off the rack.

  Amory shrugs. “This is completely embarrassing, but my mother bought it for me.”

  “Aww.” I snicker, enjoying him immensely.

  “And for the record, the only suit remotely this good I own.”

  “Well, I approve. The cut is good, and you can’t go wrong with a subtle windowpane.”

  “I’m so glad. Now I will be able to sleep peacefully tonight.”

  I give him a playful shove and make up an excuse to move away. No more banter for me tonight, no matter how dreamy Mr. Porter is; the last thing I want is a Morton repeat on my hands. Though I glance back and see him watching me, and feel what I would embarrassingly have to call a tingle go up my spine. I turn away without acknowledging him.

  I sidle my way through the crowd, scattering greetings and cheek kisses as I go, back to my stash in my bathroom. My thought processes could use a little sharpening, and my defenses, some reinforcements.

  So I am not at my best when I pass by Mummy, standing near the bar and crying to one of her museum friends about having to fire Marecita.

  What?

  “Your father thinks she is responsible for the vandalism,” Mummy explains.

  “What vandalism?”

  “His beloved painting, that horror in the foyer.” She titters to her friend. “I mean, really, did he think for one second anyone wants to look at that when they step off the elevator?”

  Unintended consequences. Never in a million years did I anticipate Marecita being punished for my bit of fun.

  He can’t take her away from me, I won’t let him do it. Without that moment in the morning when she brings me coffee, I’m going to be lost. Sure, fine, accuse me of whatever you like—but I’m telling you, I need Marecita here. She’s the last tether to sanity I have.

  28

  Caroline

  It’s night. Under the streetlights, the sky is gray, the wind is whipping down the avenues, and all I’ve seen are a couple of miserable people out with their dogs. I’m still trying to outmaneuver this trickle of nausea that won’t leave me alone, and figured a walk in the bracing cold might do the trick.

  But so far it’s not working. I still need boots. And the so far intractable problem of shutting up my blabby brother remains unsolved. There’s got to be some leverage somewhere I can use, or maybe all I need is a good distraction, something shiny to lure his ADD-addled brain away from Sandie…

  I’m heading back up Lex when my cell buzzes in my pocket, and what do you know, it’s Wee Willie himself.

  “I’m not FaceTiming, it’s too cold,” I say, fitting earbuds in so I don’t have to hold the phone to my ear. “So what’s up? How goes the glorious, magical world of psychotherapy?”

  “It’s…so…not sure where to start, Caro. Sandie is doing this thing with me, it totally sounds like snake oil mumbo jumbo, but I looked it up online and it’s really not. It’s actually this super powerful technique and good for PTSD and other stuff. I mean like proven, in studies and everything.”

  “Uh huh. Sure. So, all better now?” This is good news. The more whack-a-doodle this therapist is, the better. I turn off Lex onto Seventy-Eighth and blessedly the wind is cut significantly. The street is empty, as anyone with sense is inside hovering near a radiator.

  “The idea is that EMDR can make past trauma come back to the surface,” he says.

  I stop. “Trauma? What do you mean, trauma? Come on, Wilson—you and I had the best and easiest childhoods imaginable. Don’t you think this is starting to be, I don’t know, a little whiny? Like you expect not just a fantastic life, but a perfect one?”

  “I’m not talking about what it looks like from the outside.”

  “It sounds to me like this Sandie Shearer’s doing what therapists do, trying to make up some story about a horrible family and how you were treated so badly. And we both know, Wilson—that’s not true.” My body is trembling but my voice is steady.

  He doesn’t say anything.

  “Don’t you think Gordon will stop writing you checks if he finds out about this?” I ask.

  “Is that a threat?”

  I let a nice, pregnant pause hang in the air before answering. “I haven’t said a word to Gordon or Mummy about your little adventure. But Wilson, think. Are you really willing to do the whole marriage and family thing without any of Gordon’s money?”

  “Don’t tell them, Caro.”

  “I’m not planning to. But that doesn’t mean they won’t find out. And also—does Sandie think it’s okay for Gordon to pay for your sessions when he doesn’t even know about them? Seems a little shady to me. Her integrity’s a little iffy, eh?”

  “Why does this matter so much to you? I’m trying to tell you—I’m really messed up. Fucking miserable half the time. So if this EMDR—”

  “You’re searching for something that doesn’t exist. Tragic memories starring yourself as some kind of victim? Please.”

  Even out of the wind the cold is ridiculous, but I don’t want to be one of those people who breezes by the doorman talking on a cell, so I take another turn around the block. I can feel Wilson winding down, his attention flittering away from me. I decide to change tactics. “Well, don’t you think, when you really think about it, that if something is buried, there might be a good reason for that?”

  Silence. I can’t tell if I’ve made a misstep or not. “Wilson? Did I lose you?”

  The connection is broken. I don’t know whether he hung up on me or it’s a random cell phone thing. I run back to 744 until my throat is burning from the icy cold, praying there are no photographers out tonight.

  But it is freezing and the street is desolate. I fly inside and wave to the night doorman, desperate to get to my room alone.

  There is no one I can call. No one I can talk to about anything. Once safely in my room, I take out my phone and look up this EMDR Wilson’s going on about.

  “…facilitates the accessing of the traumatic memory network…”

  “…the past events that have laid the foundation for dysfunction are processed…”

  “…effective form of treatment for trauma and other disturbing experiences…”

  Oh, Wilson, no.

  No.

  29

  Amory Porter’s apartment on 108th Street is on the second floor of a limestone townhouse. The once-grand building is now divided into seven apartments; Amory has the second floor front, with a bay window. It is a studio with an all-in-one refrigerator/stove that does not do either job well, so he eats out almost every meal.

  “Hey, Chub,” he says into his cell as he’s putting on a coat and leaving the apartment. “We still on for lunch?”

  “Yeah. Tom’s?”

  “On my way.”

  As soon as Amory hits the pavement he switches into high gear for the few blocks’ walk uptown. Dodging pedestrians, he thinks about last night’s gig and wonders how illegal the deal his employer was doing was (very, if his happiness at the end of the night was any indication). It’s cold and he’s not wearing a coat, just jeans and a gray hoodie that’s seen better days, one of his stake-out costumes.

  “Chubs,” he says, dropping into a booth across from his friend. They bump fists and grin, friends since grade school, happy to see each other.

  “Went to Gordon Crowe’s last night.”

  “Yeah? You invited?”

  “Nah. Bodyguard for that scumbag Donald Powell. Nice place, I’ll say that. It’s been a while since I’ve been in one of the good Park Avenue buildings.”

  Chub shrugs. “You’re not missing anything.”

  “So…Caroline Crowe.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell me what you know.”

  “Oh, jeez. You don
’t want to get mixed up with her. She’s…she’s the last person you should get interested in.”

  “Why?”

  “Total snob, for starters. And way worse—her dad totally fucked your dad over. Publicly. Crowe should’ve gone to jail for what he did.”

  “Yep. Agree a hundred percent. But you can’t blame her for that.”

  Chub makes a face. “Fruit of the poisonous tree,” he says.

  “That’s rules of evidence—”

  “I know, I know, but hey, it fits, doesn’t it? I’m telling you, keep your pants zipped up tight and stay away from that family. Didn’t you learn anything in high school?”

  “I remember being at some parties, years ago. Noticing her. But we never actually talked before last night.”

  “And you liked her.”

  “Yeah. I did.”

  “Good fucking luck with that.”

  “You know if she’s seeing anyone?”

  “Nah. Don’t know, don’t care. I don’t think she’s ever had a boyfriend that I knew about. She doesn’t have a lot of friends, either. One of those people…everyone knows who she is but nobody actually knows her, get what I’m saying?”

  “Aloof.”

  “Aloof on steroids, man.”

  Amory leans back and signals the waitress. “Hey Marion,” he says cheerfully. “The usual for me, please.”

  “Same,” says Chub. The two men eat at Tom’s at least twice a week and have put away many hundreds of grilled bacon and cheese sandwiches over the years.

  “Some drama last night, not with Caroline but her mom. Broke down in tears. Caroline took her to her bedroom and never came back out. Don’t know what that was all about.”

  “You’re a shitty investigator,” says Chub.

  “I just try not to get too nosy when I’m not working a case,” says Amory, a little defensively.

  “Right,” says Chub, still grinning.

  “I’m gonna ask her out,” says Amory.

  “Big mistake.”

  Amory shrugs. His last girlfriend moved to Prague. They didn’t ever break up, not formally, but the emails and messages got sparser and more strained until eventually they stopped altogether.

  “What can I say? I’m in the mood for companionship,” says Amory to his friend.

  “Get a dog,” says Chub.

  30

  Wilson

  I’m driving home after the second session of EMDR when I get hit with a wave of queasiness and pull over. I get out and put my hands on my knees, thinking I’m going to puke right there in the street.

  Long strings of spit stream down from my mouth, but after a minute or two, I figure maybe the worst is over. I put my hands on the front fender of the Volvo coupe feeling relieved, simply enjoying the feeling of the coldish metal on my palms. I imagine Sandie standing next to me and patting my back.

  And just like that something cracks open in my consciousness and I see Caroline, in Jamaica. I see her standing in a room of our villa, without her bathing suit top on. I see her oiled-up tanned skin, and the pure whiteness of her breasts. Her eyes are half-closed, seductive. I start to get a boner and then the queasiness comes all the way back in a rush and I retch into the gutter.

  31

  Caroline

  Thanks to my job working for Professor Ticknor, I’m a familiar face at the Public Library, which for the task I have in mind works against me. I’d like to check some books out, books on ways of killing a person (of which there are numerous volumes in the catalogue, long live the First Amendment), but the two girls and one guy who man the checkout station know me; I couldn’t get away with using a fake ID to make a new account, and I’m certainly not sloppy or stupid enough to check them out under my own name or the Professor’s.

  Hell, everyone knows me, or rather knows my face and family name. Increasingly it feels as though my cage is getting smaller and smaller, and soon I will be struggling to breathe.

  So in any case, though I would prefer to read the books in the comfort of my bedroom, I don’t dare take the chance. I put on a half-assed disguise of cheap sunglasses, hair tucked into a ski-cap, and a bulky sweatshirt Mummy would die if she knew was in my possession, and set out for Forty-Second Street. I’m thinking of it as the next outing for my old friend Kayley Ann Barker. It will be a decent test to see whether the outfit is enough to keep people who are familiar with me from recognizing me.

  Just to enter into the undercover feel of the whole thing, I leave by the stairs, go out the service entrance to 744, and take the bus downtown. It’s crowded even in the middle of the day and a swarthy short man keeps bumping up against me unnecessarily. It occurs to me—and excuse me for saying so out loud, I know it’s rude and unforgivably snobbish—that if a comet hit Manhattan and somehow I were suddenly no longer rich, there would be a lot of unpleasant things to get used to. This man on the bus, right now, he’s at the top of the list.

  Kayley Ann sails past the marble lions, Patience and Fortitude, and into the building. Right past several people I know and they don’t give me a second look.

  Good.

  I could test my disguise further by settling in at the table where I usually perform Professor Ticknor’s research, but the books I need to consult today are in a different section and I don’t have time to manage every tiny detail.

  I believe I have told you that I’ve discarded shooting as a workable method? Also, since I never exercise and have no physical strength to speak of, strangulation or anything that would require me to overpower anyone are also off the table.

  I have considered ways to make the death look like a suicide. For some time I was stuck on the idea of hanging, but it turns out, it’s not that simple. Even if a body is found hanging from a noose, if the person did not actually die from the hanging, the medical examiner will know, from various signs of bruising, etc. Not to mention the difficulty of getting the person into position once they’re dead. The phrase “dead weight” didn’t arise from nowhere, I suppose. I need something with fewer physical demands, something with perhaps a touch of elegance mixed with the harshness.

  Which is why I spend the better part of the afternoon reading about poisons. Yes, I know—the choice might present an extra sliver of risk because poison is overwhelmingly the choice of female murderers, so perhaps I would be giving the detectives on the case a leg up. But the thing is, I can’t weigh every possible outcome of every decision. I don’t have time; I’m being hurried along by Wilson’s recklessness. As a result, a feeling of dread increases and swells and the only way to beat it back is to stoke myself with so much cocaine I fear giving myself a heart attack and thereby killing the wrong person entirely.

  I’m not kidding myself here. I know what I’m plotting to do is extreme, and it is brutal.

  But Wilson seems harmless enough, you say? He’s your brother. You love him, right?

  You’re going to sit there judging me, when you have no idea, no fucking idea, of everything I’m dealing with? You’re as bad as the jeerlings.

  I don’t tell you everything, after all. I don’t trust anyone. And I have very good reasons not to.

  Deep breath. Another one. I pretend to drop my pen and duck under the table, where I do a quick hit of blow to fortify myself, and then back to the matter at hand.

  It’s tempting to go old-school Agatha Christie, and use arsenic or strychnine. I read through a long list of lethal agents, considering how to procure them, administer them, cover up all evidence of their existence. I contemplate side effects and how much Wilson would suffer (which, despite the admitted callousness of what I am embarked on, I wish to avoid). And of course, I look for ways to prevent him from alerting anyone about my guilt, if there is no way to do the deed surreptitiously.

  It’s late afternoon by the time I’m ready to leave. I walk slowly past the gang at checkout, lingering so they have a chance to see me, but I am a stranger to them. Outside, snow is starting to fall, and I elect to walk the thirty-some blocks home rather than talk
to a cabdriver or face more swarthy short men bumping into me on the bus.

  I would like to say that I feel calmer, now that I’ve edged closer to a decision, but I do not.

  In any case, this decision is about how to do it, not whether I will. Big difference, as I hope I do not have to explain.

  For thirty blocks the jeerlings do not let up. They shriek at me to act quickly, to stop fussing about details that do not matter. Their incessant cries are enough to rattle the most indomitable among us, giving the zombie dragons in Game of Thrones a run for their money.

  I need high-quality personality, and lots of it. Yes, it increases anxiety, but it also sort of redirects it, which has a soothing effect. It makes me into a mistress of the universe, no matter how falsely anointed.

  So that’s how the evening goes, bent over my sink sucking up coke, riding the usual roller coaster that goes along with that, even though I suspect—no, I know—that I have a weight sitting on my chest now that no drug is going to be able to lift. Fear has a density that can press down until you are short of breath, and it is exactly that pressure which I hope murder will alleviate.

  I wish I were numb. It’s a laughable irony, isn’t it, that the state Wilson says has driven him into therapy—that threatens his actual life—is the precise thing I yearn for, the reason I make such frequent calls to my dealer.

  Searching for numbness, I sniff up a line, tip my head back, and close my eyes, but instead of a soothing darkness, all I see are jaggedy red lines, branching out like cracks in a broken mirror.

  Look at it this way. Suppose I’m a cheetah, living my life on the African plain. And I’ve got a couple of cheetah cubs, cutest little spotted kittens you’ll ever want to see, and my babies are hungry. So I creep up to the waterhole where some Thomson’s gazelles are bending their graceful necks down, having a good long sip.