“Hello?” she says in a groggy and somewhat annoyed voice.
“Lacy, hi. It’s Mel.”
“Yeah I know. Cell phones show the person’s name these days,” she says, which I find unexpectedly witty coming from her.
“Sorry, were you asleep?” I hear a baby in the background.
“We were just napping a little.” She says this more to the baby, I think, than me, considering the suddenly light tone.
“I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I just wanted to ask you to lunch, if you’re free.”
“Today?” I hear her rustling around, a grunting noise as if she picked up the baby, then a faucet turns on.
“If you can.”
“I have Ronny Lee,” she says, and I’m not sure what she means at first...but then I remember it’s her son’s name.
“Oh, well, bring...Ronny Lee. It’s my treat,” I add, knowing that she would be hard-pressed to give up a free meal. I guess that’s underhanded in a way, but I need her to be an ally. We need to work together, and she needs to feel like there is no danger of me reporting any of the abuse. She has no idea that it’s the last thing I could do in my position. It would look like retaliation for Joe’s inquest into my life, especially without proof. And proof is what I need to find.
“Really?” I hear a smile in her tired voice. We decide on Love’s Café because she needs good coffee, so I rush to shower and make up a plate for Claire before I leave for a couple of hours. I don’t have any clue if Joe’s involvement is just fiction I’m creating in my mind, but adrenaline is pumping through my veins, and it’s at least a place to start. At least I’m doing something.
Ronny Lee sits in a high chair at the table, cooing and gumming on a saltine cracker with fat little clenched fists. Lacy is hunched over the menu, leaning on one palm, when I arrive. I reiterate that she should get whatever she wants, and I see her carefully making her decision for the most amount of bang for my buck. I wish they served booze, but I settle for the soup of the day and Lacy orders a double cheeseburger and fries with a kids’ mac and cheese for Ronny Lee and a Coke. I force myself not to calculate the calories in horror while she speaks to the waiter. I patiently wade my way through small talk about the weather and the Frank Sinatra–themed decor on the walls.
I need to get right to it. It’s not like she’s going to report the things I’m asking back to Joe. If anything, maybe it will make Lacy more fearful of him and it could actually do some good. It doesn’t implicate me in any way, it just plants a seed, so I take the risk.
“I need to ask you something,” I say, with determination. Lacy instinctively looks to her child, protectively, thinking it may be about Joe’s abuse, no doubt. “It’s okay, it’s not about that—not really.”
“Not really?” she asks, still looking at Ronny Lee, fussing with the wet crumbs on his place mat. Of course he is too little to understand, but I admire that she knows that kids absorb more than we think, even when they’re small, and that she wants to protect him. “It’s not about what happened...to you...with him, I mean. Something else.”
“Okay.” She looks like she regrets coming now, and I try to steer the conversation quickly.
“Look, I promised I wouldn’t say anything and I won’t, okay. It’s not that. I actually...I need your help. With something.” At this she turns away from Ronny Lee, holding a milk-filled sippy cup, which he’s reaching for. She waits for me to continue.
“Did he know about you and Luke Ellison?” I ask, and her eyes fill. She behaves as if they were war-torn lovers over many years and that she’d suffered a great loss.
“Why?” she asks, defensively.
“I know it’s none of my business, okay. I just—it would...” I trail off. I don’t know how to frame it without telling her exactly what I’m getting at. She interrupts me though, looking down at the table, tracing the rim of her glass with her finger.
“I don’t know.” Her voice is soft. “I didn’t tell him, if that’s what you’re asking. But he has a way of finding things out. Luke never asked about my past boyfriends.”
My heart lurches at the sound of his name on her lips in that intimate way.
“If Joe did find out, he probably would have tried to ruin it for me. Luke never said, but...” She stops as though she’s had an epiphany, and makes eye contact with me. “Do you think that’s why he quit me? ’Cause stupid Joe got involved or said something?”
I want to tell her that’s not the reason. It’s because he loved me, not you! How childish. How absurd and hypocritical. I shake my head in silent protest. How in the world can I even feel that way when I love Collin the way I do—when I feel the depths of remorse the way I do. I don’t understand the duplicity of these emotions, existing simultaneously.
“No, I’m sure...” But then I stop myself, because telling her that I’m sure that’s not why he stopped seeing you implies that the reason was something more personal.
“You think he did somethin’ to Luke.” It’s a statement, not a question. She’s still looking down at her cup.
“I just thought, perhaps, if you were seeing Joe again...” I stop a moment, assuming that she’ll object, swearing that she wasn’t, but she doesn’t interrupt. “I thought maybe, considering...” I look to the baby, and become more careful with my phrasing. “Considering his history, he may react...strongly if he found out.”
“You don’t know how hard it is.” She meets my eyes now. They’re wet and frightened. “You’re so lucky. You have this perfect life and a husband, and—it’s hard. It’s lonely. He says the right things. And like, you know in your head, like you know that it’s just a line he says, but when you need to hear it...”
I place my hand on top of hers. She stops and looks up to the dusty hanging lamp above our booth so tears don’t fall. She takes a deep breath and when she’s blinked them away, she continues.
“When Luke dumped me, I let myself believe what I wanted to believe,” she says matter-of-factly.
She’s so pretty behind the bad eyeliner and trashy booty shorts. I can see what a man would see in her—what someone like Joe would want to claim as his own. At least behind closed doors. She didn’t need to tell me she was seeing him again. It was apparent in the faded purple bruises down her arms and the blue lines around her neck that are either from the erosion of a cheap necklace that stained her skin, or from Joe’s hands, cutting off air.
“Do you...do you know where he was September 20, by any chance?” I ask, and she laughs.
“Why? What’s September...” she stops when she realizes it’s the day Luke died. “Oh. Jesus, I don’t even know what day of the week that was. Who the hell remembers what they did weeks ago?”
“It was a Thursday,” I say, softly.
“I work Thursdays, so...”
“Does Joe ever come to...see you...at work?” I imagine him and his pervert friends pawing at the dancers, throwing singles at their naked bodies and laughing, going out of their way to humiliate the women. She just shrugs.
“It’s important,” I add.
“He’s been there before. I don’t know about that night. Like I said, who can remember? I do the same shit every day, nothing stands out exactly.”
“So maybe, then?” I try to push without making her shut down. She shrugs again. It’s exasperating. Our food comes and she pours copious amounts of ketchup over her fries before spooning cheesy shells into Ronny Lee’s little puckered mouth, avoiding eye contact.
“I don’t know. He could have been there and I didn’t even see him. He pays for lap dances in private rooms with other girls. So do his gross friends. It used to make me crazy and we’d fight about it, but I don’t care anymore.”
I try to imagine sleeping with someone, caring for someone like she does Joe, and watching him take other strippers into private rooms for b
low jobs, because that’s exactly what a “private lap dance” means depending on how much he pays, I suppose.
“Could you get, like, receipts from that night from the club or something...to see if he used a credit card, if we can place him there?”
She almost chokes on her soda at this.
“How the hell am I supposed to do that? I’m not the manager. I don’t know how to do that,” she says, through a mouthful of cheeseburger.
I’m growing frustrated.
“Who are the girls he gets private dances from? Can you give me names?” I don’t wait for her to reject this. I add, quickly, “I know it seems like I’m invading your life, I’m not trying to, Lacy. I just need your help on this.”
Her face is bunched up in an annoyed snarl.
“Cinnamon and Luscious are his favorite two. Good luck.”
I don’t know why I thought she’d give me real names or want to work with me to nail him. Just as I consider how to change tactics, the waiter comes over. He’s a thin, frazzled-looking teenager with a smattering of whiskers that do little to cover his pockmarked face, and he’s overwhelmed with the amount of tables he’s trying to serve in the understaffed dining room. I think he’s going to ask us how everything is, but instead, he apologizes as he places something in front of me. I stare at it. I don’t register it right away.
“Sorry, I guess this is yours,” he says hurriedly. I look at the silver chain with the oval locket dangling from it.
“I don’t think so,” I start to say, but then I look at it more closely. As I open the locket, I see what it is.
“What?” Lacy asks, reading my expression.
I look daftly to the waiter and back down to the locket in my hand. Inside is a photo of Henry. Henry, Luke’s beloved, deceased dog. It had been handed down from his grandmother, he told me, and he said he always had it on him—in a pocket or on his keys. I lose my breath.
“Mel?” Lacy asks, but I look at the waiter, angrily.
“Is this a joke?”
“Uhhh.” He expected gratitude, I’m sure, and is startled by my fury. “No? It’s...”
“Why do you have this?”
He’s taken aback again by the venom in my voice, but I don’t care.
“You dropped it?” He says this like it’s a question. He looks frightened of me. Lacy looks a little scared herself.
“No. I didn’t. Where did you get it?”
“Uh...” he stutters. “Sorry. I don’t—I...A lady gave it to me a little while ago, and said you dropped it when you came in. I was just really busy at the moment. So...yeah. I just—forgot and then, as soon as I had a free second...” He makes a gesture like “there you go.”
“Who? Who gave it to you?”
“Look, I got nine tables. I don’t know. Some lady.”
“What did she look like?” I demand, but he’s backing away with his tray, clearly wanting to be rid of me.
“It’s busy, I don’t know. Average. Old.”
“How old?” I stand, asking questions lightning-fast so he doesn’t walk away before I get answers. It would look unhinged if I were to physically grab him by the collar, but I might if I need to. I’m standing toe to toe with the exasperated waiter now. “How old?” I repeat.
“Like thirty, thirty-five,” he says, and then adds quick details before turning to go. “Like brown hair, kinda long. Normal, I don’t know. I gotta work.” He walks off quickly and greets a new table.
“What the hell?” Lacy says, looking at me with her mouth open and in a slight smile, maybe impressed with the assertiveness she didn’t expect from someone she thinks is a rich, suburban lady who has it all. There is no plausible explanation I could give her for my behavior.
“I...this was stolen from me.” I shove it in my pocket so she can’t examine it. Did Luke share it with her too?
“What do you mean?”
“A while back. It was just missing, so I know I didn’t drop it like he said. I haven’t had it in weeks.”
“That’s weird.”
“Yeah. I mean whoever gave it to him must have had it. Why give it back?” Am I getting too good at coming up with a quick lie, or do I sound like a lunatic? I can’t tell.
“Sounds like someone’s messing with you,” she says, seemingly less engaged in the problem than I thought. She dips three fries at a time into ketchup and crams them in her mouth. I guess she sees things I can’t even imagine at the club every night and this doesn’t even warrant a second thought.
“Yeah,” I say, because someone is indeed messing with me. Is this a warning? A threat? A woman gave it to him. I didn’t expect that. Who could it possibly be? I take my wallet out and lay down some cash on the table. More than enough to cover the bill.
“I’m not feeling all that well. I know I dragged you here, but can we take a rain check? Maybe get together in a few days.”
I see her eyeing the sixty dollars, mentally calculating that the bill is probably less than thirty. Her eyes widen a moment.
“Yeah, of course,” she says, pretending she’s not looking at the money. I don’t care if she pockets the rest. I just need to go. I try to slow down so I don’t run out of the place. The last thing I need is witnesses discussing my odd behavior with the cops.
“Bye, Ronny Lee.” I touch his little hand and his chubby baby fingers wrap around my thumb. “Bye-bye,” I repeat, and he coos. I smile at Lacy before I walk, deliberately controlled, out of the café.
In the safety of my car, I scan the parking lot, looking for anyone who might be watching me. Because I am being watched. I can’t see anything out of the ordinary. I pull the locket out of my pocket and open it. The image of a sweet-faced border collie looks back at me with a black-and-white muzzle and one ear bent. The patina on the metal shows its age, that it’s a well-loved keepsake. Who would have this? What do they want?
I will myself not to cry. I will not break down, I will get angry. I will get ferociously enraged, and I will find whoever is doing this.
21
Money.
AS I CROUCH UNDER the bathroom sink later that evening, sitting on my heels, I read the text that finally comes through on the burner phone. The last thing I’d texted was What do you want? And now this is the response.
A second text reads, and don’t pretend you don’t have any.
I stuff the phone back to the corner of the cupboard. The kids are on the back deck helping Collin fill the grill with chicken and vegetables. I can’t think how to respond and I need to get out to my family.
With the cooler weather, the three of them practically live out there. I can hear Ben yelling, whining that he wants to wrap the onions in foil. I imagine Rachel or Collin have inadvertently taken over his special task. Collin will de-escalate before it becomes an issue, I know. I should be cutting cantaloupe for a fruit salad, but instead, I’m hiding a secret phone, communicating with someone who’s blackmailing me and thinks I’m a murderer. How quickly someone’s life can change so completely.
In the kitchen, I pull a bottle of red from the wine rack and open it, then I pull out apples and grapes from the fridge and set up a cutting board on the counter in front of the open kitchen window that looks out to the deck. I make sure they see me, so they know I’m present and not acting strangely. I wave to Ben, who holds up his onion slices with pride. I give him a thumbs-up. The breeze from the open window whispers around my ears and brushes my hair back ever so slightly. It’s a perfect night with my beautiful family. I hold the sensation in my mind, memorizing it. I’m not sure why. Maybe I see myself in prison orange, only seeing my children through bulletproof glass. Maybe I’m afraid that at the very least, they will find out what I’ve done and they will opt to live across town with their father and there will never be a night like this again.
Collin opens the sliding door with an elbow, hands full of raw meat
juice he’s come in to wash off.
“Oh, hey.” He kisses my cheek, holding his contaminated hands away from his body. If he is doubting me or suspicious of me, he’s electing to let it go. I feel that he truly believes what he said after the police left: that it’s just a bunch of “hick-town detectives with no experience asking idiotic questions” because they have no real leads. Once the initial jolt of the whole situation wore off, he softened a bit and seems to be over it, so I’ll take it.
“I opened a malbec if you want some.” I lean into his kiss and smile.
“Sure. Thanks.” He washes his hands. We both see out the window that Ben has opened the grill lid in Collin’s brief absence and has dropped a chicken breast. He wails as it hits the deck floor and rolls off into the grass.
“Buddy!” Collin shouts as he runs out to get Ben away from the flame.
“Have him come in and help me with the fruit, hon!” I yell after him, trying to offer a hand. I watch Collin make a show of brushing off the chicken on the ground and telling Ben it’s fine, making him break into a smile, and then handing it off to a smirking Rachel to throw away behind Ben’s back. I smile at their kind conspiracy. I pour two glasses of wine and carry them to the outdoor table.
“You wanna carry out the fruit bowl, bud?” I ask Ben, and he runs inside to the kitchen to help. “We got those bubbly waters you like if you want one?” I say to Rachel, who is now back in her chair, glued to her phone.
“Okay,” she says, absently. Ben carries out the fruit cautiously as if he may spill a very full glass of something, concentrating on not dropping it. I tell him how great he’s doing before I go in to pull some flavored water out of the fridge. I notice the TV on in the living room. The squeaky voices of cartoon animals that I don’t recognize flit bright colors across the screen. Ben must have left it on. I walk over to switch it off, but before I do, I collect the remote and look back through the kitchen to make sure everyone is still outside before I turn quickly to the news, expecting the same dead-end reporting about Luke. At this point, the coverage is fading and there is less big news about the case. Murders and crises of all kinds in New Orleans commandeer the news feeds. Luke is already disappearing by the day.
Such a Good Wife Page 17