Tabitha recognized that look suddenly with a cold sense of familiarity.
She thought about the words he used when they were alone.
COCK.
“You arrogant bastard,” she murmured, trying to make her tone sound friendly and indulgent as she typed the letters in, knowing before she finished that they would open his phone.
She didn’t recognize the name on the first text—Serena without a last name. When a photo of Serena No Last Name’s vagina popped up on his phone, Tabitha jumped back so quickly that she spilled her coffee on her thigh. The burn on her legs matched the burning in her throat, and she slammed the phone on the table, trying to make the picture disappear. It was a perfect pink vagina, waxed smooth, with only a landing strip of hair running upward toward a taut belly. Two delicate fingers with polished red nails were poised on either side of the labia. Tabitha jumped from her seat, clutching her now-empty coffee cup to her chest.
She felt like she’d seen into the throat of a monster and only just escaped with her life. Why did the fingernails have to be blood red? And what were they even doing there? Opening something up? Pushing it closed? Demonstrating relative size?
And who would send something like that to Royal? What on earth was wrong with people? He’d be mortified. His clipped English accent would grow even more pronounced. Royal was the model of a buttoned-up working man. He’d probably died of embarrassment when he saw this picture.
Tabitha caught a glimpse of herself in the hallway mirror and stopped pacing. Her dull blonde hair had gone wild over her head, her face was covered with a fine sheen of sweat, and her cheeks glowed bright red. Her robe had come loose again, and half of her left breast hung out of the gap—why did she even bother with a satin robe? It was useless and impractical.
Royal had given it to her last Christmas. She always thought she loved it.
She went into the bathroom and splashed cold water on her face, then pulled her hair into a tight ponytail. Had Royal seen that picture? She hadn’t noticed when it had been sent, or if it had already been read when she clicked on it.
She stopped rubbing the towel over her face. Royal checked his phone last thing before bed at night and first thing when he woke every morning.
Why wasn’t it deleted?
What if this was not the only one?
After tucking her breast back into her robe and yanking the belt so hard around her waist that she nearly gagged, Tabitha walked back to the kitchen table, picked up his phone, and typed the word “COCK” again. “You. Arrogant. Bas. Tard,” she muttered, more loudly this time, and with significantly less friendly indulgence.
The vagina appeared on the screen again. That word was now ricocheting across her mind like a cocaine-fueled tennis match. She took a deep breath and examined the sender. She didn’t recognize the name or phone number, and there was no message written with the picture. She started scrolling through the rest of his saved texts. The vagina parade was only interrupted by the occasional breast. Tit, she supposed he’d call it. That was his favorite word for that particular body part, after all.
She knew that about him because she was married to him. That was the type of thing a wife knew about her husband. His favorite nicknames for her body parts.
What a cock.
Her scrolling became clinical; her face barely moved as body part after body part appeared on her screen. She only tilted her head when the camera angled to the side, murmuring the occasional commentary.
He doesn’t even like gingers, you dummy.
Would a manicure kill you?
I mean, you’ll get a rash if you keep doing that.
That G-string makes your ass look— As much as she wanted to be cruel, Tabitha couldn’t complete that comment. The woman in this particular photo lay on her stomach, her eyes wide and her mouth slightly open. She wore a black G-string, and her ass rose from the bed behind her, softly lit by some gauzy light shining down from the heavens above her. Tabitha tried her hardest to come up with the appropriate insult to spit at this woman gazing up at her with hungry, doe-like eyes. But she couldn’t find it. The woman’s ass was a perfect apple shape; her hair was artfully tousled, her lips parted at the stupid angle all men seemed to love. Tabitha could think of no insult against this prize specimen of a human.
Oh, for fuck’s sake.
She looked at the reply, which he’d sent to this woman only last night.
This will have to do until I can see your darling little hedgehog in person again, my sweet little foxette.
Each reply to each naked picture was a repeat of the last. Thank you for the picture of the part of your body that should be covered by a swimsuit, I hope to see it again soon, my sweet little endearment.
Oh, for fox sake.
She counted forty pictures saved in his text messages, going back a full two years, before she stopped herself and set the phone down.
Tabitha began to chew on her inner cheek, a nervous habit Royal hated, but she didn’t try to stop herself, given the circumstance. She needed an outlet for all of the anxious questions in her head. Starting with wondering what kind of man didn’t even bother to erase the evidence of his indiscretions? Why on earth did he keep them all? Did he want her to find them? Did he honestly think she might never accidentally stumble across them?
Was he just stupid?
Which one would she prefer—that she’d married a cheater or an idiot?
She didn’t know which was more humiliating.
Forty pictures, two years. Granted, it was impossible for Tabitha to tell if it was forty different women or if all of the body parts belonged to each other. This could be forty separate affairs or one long affair, with one woman who was very fond of breast implants and dying her pubic hair and waxing every inch of her body bald and changing her contact number. Who could tell these days?
Be generous, Tabitha directed herself. Let’s say it’s twenty women. No, let’s be even more generous. Let’s say ten. Royal Hamilton, her Knight in Shining Armor, had fallen from his noble steed and had had roughly ten affairs over the last two years of their marriage. He had seen—and touched, according to his text commentary—as few as one but as many as forty naked women during a time he was supposed to be seeing and touching only Tabitha.
She sat back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, and chewed on her bottom lip. Why she bothered to lower the number for him, she could not figure out. What if it was only one woman? Was that somehow better? Would she forgive him? What if it was two or ten? Did it matter? He’d seen other women naked, and she had not seen any other men naked.
For that matter, she had not been seen naked, even by him, for—how long was it again?
Her crossed leg bounced over her knee, and then she jumped from her chair. Tabitha thought maybe she’d vibrate right out of her body. Her coffee-stained robe had come loose again, and she yanked it off and jammed it into the kitchen trash can, stomping on it with her bare foot. No more satin, she vowed. Not ever. What a stupid, slippery, useless material. Perhaps it would satisfy her to cut it to shreds.
Should she take her scissors to the robe? The idea exhausted her. But what else was there to do?
She paced her bedroom several times, flexing and clenching her hands as she walked. She wondered what it was like to kiss someone new. Despite the ring on his finger, Royal had been kissing lots of women in the last few years.
Maybe he didn’t kiss them. Maybe they only had sex.
She paced more. A familiar adrenaline coursed through her, a sensation she’d kept at bay since she first met him. She’d always thought it was because it was thrilling to have a man like Royal want her.
But that adrenaline coursing through her on their first date wasn’t ecstasy. It was a flight-or-fight response in her body. She should have punched him right in his man-junk, that very first day when she thought he could see through her blouse. Punching him down low would have deprived most of the women in Central California access to his no-goods. Hearts would be broken. B
ut she would have saved her own.
She walked to her closet and slipped on her highest heels. Pradas, the soles as red as that first woman’s bloody fingernails. Black leather, pointed tips, straps that wrapped around her ankles. She’d never worn them in public since she could barely stand upright in them. He bought them for her on Valentine’s Day not long after they were married, and he sometimes asked her to wear them during sex.
Well, if this look was good enough for him, why wouldn’t it be good enough for any red-blooded American male? They all wanted the same thing, evidently. A naked woman, an apple-shaped ass, pubic hair in a strange pattern? That was sexy.
Well, okay then.
Hands on her hips, she stared at her reflection. She’d kept it tight, as the kids liked to say. She didn’t go to the gym with Royal, she didn’t drink his revolting green smoothies, but she rarely got to eat a full meal these days, and still wore the same size jeans she’d worn in high school. Her breasts had drooped a little bit, but nothing obscene. What did he expect?
An apple-shaped ass.
He got to see naked people all the time. Whenever he wanted to, evidently. He had the gall to post flirtatious pictures on Facebook.
One woman or forty women, give or take. No men for her. There was an easy way to balance that spreadsheet.
Just then, the doorbell rang.
“Ha! Spreadsheet!” She cackled as she tripped down the hall, her arms windmilling out to her side so she didn’t fall over. “That’s what she said!”
She stopped in front of the front door. She pulled her hair out of the ponytail and flung the rubber band across the room. Her hair flew wildly around her face, and she whipped her head around to loosen it. She hoped it looked like tousled waves, draping her elegant face. She knew what men liked.
She took a deep breath and opened the door.
Springtime in Central California meant fog-bound mornings that burned off to sunny afternoons and chilly nights. They kept their house warm, she and Royal, sealed up tightly at night to ward off the cold. This time of day it was far cooler outside than it was inside. A crazy thought scooted through her head when she closed her eyes and let her head fall back: there is a metaphor in here somewhere.
The morning air rushed over her body, and her skin puckered with gooseflesh. She felt her nipples harden but resisted the urge to cross her arms over her chest, instead leaving them flung out to her side, Christlike, for Christ’s sake, letting the breeze engulf her. Her head back, she breathed deeply, trying to imagine the erotic picture she must be enacting for her lucky visitor.
There was no sound from the person on her front porch, so after several deep breaths, she lifted her head and opened her eyes. Her mailman, Chuck, stood in front of her, blinking his owl-like eyes behind his thick glasses. Chuck was shaped like an avocado, his large belly tapering up toward his neck.
She wondered how long they would stare at each other. Is this how it starts? Do we just look for a while and then have sex? Do I even want to have sex with Chuck? I never factored in the sex. I only did the math on women Royal has seen. What about women he’s had sex with? How many Chucks does a woodchuck fuck to make the spreadsheet balance?
Chuck cleared his throat. His eyes had never, she noticed, wandered down below her neck.
“Mrs. Hamilton? You feeling okay?”
Tabitha cocked her head to the side and regarded him. How would Royal have responded to her opening their door naked? Did Chuck’s wife ever do things like that? Did Chuck have a laptop full of pictures of other women’s body parts?
She blinked at him now, mirroring his owlish looks, and finally opened her mouth to talk.
“It appears my husband is having forty affairs.”
3
“Being Jillie Jones Lawson’s daughter can’t be easy.” Cori Melbourne unzipped a canvas bag, pulled out a yoga mat, which she unrolled on the floor of the studio in one smooth motion, and dropped down on to it. “I mean, that’s a lot of pressure to live up to, am I right?”
Tabitha didn’t know how to respond, so she stared down at Cori’s shiny black ringlets for a moment.
“She was—she is—my biggest influence,” she finally said. “I can only hope to have a career like hers someday.”
Cori looked up at her and cocked her head to the side, studying her face. Tabitha remembered what her twin sister Gabrielle had told her that morning. Don’t let your face go into that frowny thing it does when you don’t like a question. Just smile at her and tell the truth.
Well, she hadn’t lied yet, and she pulled her lips into what she hoped was a not-bitchy expression.
Tabitha didn’t own a yoga mat of her own, so she walked to the back of the studio to a stacked pile of mats. She pulled one from about midway down, figuring it was probably the least used of the bunch, and tried not to think of how many people had sweated on it before her. She dropped it on the floor beside Cori and flopped down next to her.
“So I’m looking forward to diversifying my portfolio. I feel there is a lot of opportunity for some incredible synergistic energy here.”
Tabitha clamped her mouth closed after saying this sentence, and pushed her lips into another bright smile. They sounded like official business-type words, but she wasn’t entirely sure she had used them correctly. She didn’t know how to adequately say I want to get the hell out of my job without actually lighting fire to the employees I love and the business I’ve worked so hard to build. “Synergistic” was the word she came up with. It made sense in her head.
Cori Melbourne sat cross-legged, facing forward but eyeing Tabitha in the smoky mirror in front of them.
“I still don’t completely understand why we’re talking about this job,” she said. “You’re leaving El Zop?”
“No, no, of course not. It’s just that I have been looking for some opportunities to work with new people, expand our reach, bring new influences into our portfolio.” Business word salad. Again.
The teacher walked into the room and bent over an iPad to start the music. The room filled with vaguely musical plings and gong noises. The sound of running water made Tabitha feel like she needed to pee. She crossed her legs and pulled her spine erect, trying to mimic Cori’s pose. She thought her face might crack from the forced serenity.
“I mean, like this. Doing a job interview during a yoga class. That’s a company that shares my values.”
“Do you do yoga regularly?”
“Yeah, totally. I mean, no, not really. I never have before, but that’s what I’m saying. It’s what I want my life to be like. I’ve never had time for yoga before because I don’t have a company that makes things like yoga a priority.”
“Time to calm your mind, quiet your speaking.” The instructor spoke with in a low vibrato that sounded like she was underwater. It set Tabitha’s teeth on edge. She took a deep breath. Cori’s eyes had drifted closed, and she sat motionless. Tabitha closed her eyes, too, but then cracked them open so she could watch Cori in the mirror. She wondered how long they would sit in this position. Nobody seemed inclined to move. Did they do anything except sit around? She had always thought yoga was all about complicated movements, but maybe she had it wrong. She could be down with a sitting class. She’d have to find another position, though because her tailbone was starting to hurt. Maybe she could lie down.
“This isn’t a job interview.” She sat up straight again when she heard Cori speak, and turned her head to look at her. Cori hadn’t opened her eyes, hadn’t changed positions, but she spoke in a low whisper. “We don’t believe in job interviews. Old World New School importers is not a company like that. We don’t interview people; we get to know them. Instead of hiring employees, we invite friends to join our family.”
Tabitha nodded with what she hoped looked like wisdom, though Cori still hadn’t opened her eyes.
“Right, I understand. I mean, I work with family too. A real family, you know. I co-own El Zopilote with my husband. Ex-husband. And my sister, my twin? She
works there, too, as the tasting room manager. It’s important to us that we keep a positive family atmosphere.”
Cori opened her eyes as they all stood and raised their hands over their heads. She inhaled deeply and then bent over, her elbows resting on the ground in front of her and her head dangling just above her yoga mat. Tabitha’s legs screamed at her when she tried to copy the movement, so she bounced her body a little bit, hoping she looked casual and playful.
They stood again, hands over their head, and then drifted back down to the ground. Cori could bend almost in half; Tabitha tried to mimic her but thought she might pass out.
“I’m not going to lie. I worry about El Zop’s”—Cori paused for an interminable moment—“reputation.”
“Reputation?” Tabitha stood up then, thinking that the blood rushing to her head was causing her to hear incorrectly. “We have a stellar reputation. Our most popular wine—the Zo Zin—just won first place in the California Wine Fair. We’ve been voted Best Overall winery at Vintner International for four years running. I’m a Silver Level Master Somm, and I’ve already got my application in for next year’s SommFest.”
“Yeah, I know.” Cori stood again and raised her hands over her head. “I know all the accolades. The awards don’t mean all that much to me. I’m talking about authenticity.”
“Authenticity? I’m, like, the most authentic person you’ll ever meet,” Tabitha began, but she was interrupted by a hand on her shoulder.
“Quiet your mind,” came a watery voice in her ear. “Now is the time for stillness, for learning about your inner being. The time to talk comes later.”
Cori looked annoyed, and she bent over again. Tabitha stared around the room, at the group of butts sticking up in the air. Now she’d have to chew on the word authenticity for the duration of this damn class, and she had no idea what Cori meant. Why didn’t people put on business suits and conduct interviews in offices anymore? Yoga classes smelled disgusting. Maybe that was the authentic part.
“You are game to try something new. I do like that about you.” Cori set two plastic shot glasses on the table in front of Tabitha and sat down across from her. Her skin seemed to glow from some magical internal light. Tabitha didn’t know if the class caused her skin to look so dewy, but she hoped she looked the same.
Prosecco Heart Page 2