Finding Tessa

by Jaime Lynn Hendricks

  It has never occurred to me that a gentleman always lets the woman walk in front of him. Because I’ve never been with a gentleman. Asshole may have been an alpha male with a stable job, but he was also a narcissist who got off on humiliating me and making me feel small. Opening doors for himself and leaving me to enter after him was par for the course. He didn’t give a shit if the door slammed in my face.

  James moves cautiously through the hall and to the elevator, then takes every precaution through the lobby and through the lot to his car.

  He opens the door and I slide in and buckle up. He pops the trunk and loads his luggage before rounding to the driver’s side. When he turns the car on, the satellite radio is already on the Howard Stern Show and he quickly flips it to a Top-20 type station.

  “Sorry about that,” he says.

  I happen to like Howard Stern. “You can put it back. He’s funny.”

  “Oh yeah? Most women find him offensive. And I feel like you’ve been through enough shit tonight.”

  I chuckle. “Nah. It’s just a persona for radio, I think. I saw his movie. The one he acted in, about his life. I think he’s loyal. Went back and got everyone from his past as soon as he started to make it. And they’re all still with him. For decades.” I train my gaze out the window as he pulls out of the lot that I hope to never see again. “Loyalty is important.”

  He’s quiet for a quarter minute, then flips the station back on. “You’re something else, Tessa. I never looked at it that way.”

  The short ride to the hotel is filled with conversation about the show, and it’s easy to talk to him. He pulls into the lit-up drive and stops at the top of the semicircle near the front door.

  “Does Damon know you’re here?” he asks.

  I shake my head. “He wasn’t much for talking.”

  “Okay, good. Go inside. I’ll wait until the doors close behind you.”

  “Oh. I thought you were staying here too?”

  “I am. I don’t want you to have to walk from the other end of the lot after I park. I bet you just want to get inside and curl up in bed.”

  “Yeah, you nailed it.” I smile at him and reach for the handle.

  “Hey. Wait one second,” he says, then puts the car in park and gets out and rummages through the trunk. It slams shut and he comes to my side and opens the door for me, and hands me a Yankees hat. “Just in case you don’t want anyone to—you know—see.”

  I nod. “God, I must be hideous.” I punch the inside of the hat and then place it on my head. That was something Kenny always did before he put one on, and I was the adoring, copycat little sister. Old habits die hard. I lift my head extra high to see James’s eyes under the lip of the cap. “Thanks, James. I mean it. For everything.”

  “Take care of yourself, Tessa. And,” he pauses and reaches for his wallet, a small black leather one that folds in half. Inside the inner pocket he retrieves a business card. “My cell is on there. Let me know if you change your mind about going to the police. I was a witness.” He shakes his head softly again, in disbelief, then he smiles. “Or, you know, if you just want to talk or hang out or something. That’s okay too.”

  “Thanks. Maybe I will.” I turn to go inside, and as soon as my hand is on the door, he calls my name again, so I whip my head around. “Yes?”

  His smile is crooked and shy when he says, “I just wanted you to know you’re not hideous.”

  I’m laughing as I open the door, and when I’m in the lobby I’m aware of the bright lights, and thankful for the hat. I pull it down farther over my forehead and keep my head down as I head to the elevator.

  Once inside my room, I beeline for the bathroom and look at my face. Jesus, I can’t go out at all tomorrow.

  Disaster.

  I take pictures in the mirror with the cell phone, just in case. It’s always good to have evidence.

  I took pictures of bruises when Asshole got really rough. The hospital reports would never be used as evidence, since I was always adamant about the fact that I “fell” or “walked into something.”

  The nurses knew; they had to. They probably saw that shit on the regular. They didn’t even seem shocked by the third-degree burn on my arm from the boiling water, as the first ex-husband’s arm was around me, telling the nurses I’m clumsy. He was the tattoo artist. We were only married for three weeks total. I did it to get out of Foster Home Number Whatever, but decided that being burned was worse, so I went back. The marriage was annulled but it was never legal anyway since I was underage without parental consent. Whatever that was.

  Plus, I’ll never forgive him for what he did to me. It was worse than the boiling water.

  I grab one of the burners to see that a text came in from Asshole’s coworker Maribel Lopez—the one he’s been having an affair with. The one who, now, wants to see him go down almost as much as I do. I look at the screen.

  It’s done. Now we wait.

  16

  James

  When James got home, there were no reporters waiting in the driveway. He felt the tension ease from his shoulders as he pulled the car into the garage and brought the gun inside with him. He wanted to take Candy on a run, but he couldn’t risk her barking and giving him away while he completed his mission. While she explored the yard, he changed into a T-shirt and sweatpants, and grabbed his armband to strap his phone into. His headphones were on the kitchen counter, and when he plugged them into the phone, he blasted Linkin Park in his ears to drown out the swirls of accusation in his head. With one last peek out the front door, his head swiveled left to right. No one was there. No one was waiting for him.

  He let Candy in and refilled her water, and before he left for his run in the park, he duct-taped the gun to his lower back. Not the most perfect—or comfortable—way to handle it, but he certainly couldn’t brandish it while waving to neighbors.

  It was a perfect afternoon, the onset of fall, and the fresh cut grass smell was still thick in the air. The smell reminded him of simpler times, when all he needed to do to earn a few bucks was clip the neighbor’s grass. He started a slow jog on his way out of the neighborhood. While he normally stopped to talk to neighbors weeding their lawns or to pet dogs being walked, this time he kept his head down as he exited the cul-de-sac onto the main street.

  James ran cross country all through high school and college, and even ran the New York Marathon once in his late twenties, when he was in peak shape. Running was the one thing that put his mind at ease, pushed everything else bad out of his brain. When he was so focused on his pace and his heart rate and pushing himself to the brink, it was impossible to think about anything else except how to survive long enough to get home without passing out.

  This time, James had a mission.

  He ran three and a half miles to the park. It was one of those parks that had set up paved trails, a hockey rink, basketball and tennis courts, and, in the summer, a water spray park for the kids. He and Tessa often walked the grounds with Candy over the summer.

  He knew exactly where to go.

  Candy, being a herding dog, liked to go off leash and explore. She was a good girl and always stayed next to either James or Tessa on their walks. One time, a squirrel ran out in front of her and she zigzagged into the adjacent woods, making chase. The squirrel was faster, of course, and quickly climbed up a huge tree. When James and Tessa found Candy at the foot, barking like a dog possessed, they laughed, then marveled at the tree. It didn’t look like it belonged in New Jersey, with a trunk ten feet wide, sturdy branches billowing out from every angle and taking root in the ground. It looked like one of the trees near downtown St. Petersburg, where his parents lived in Florida.

  The gigantic hole in the middle of the multiple trunks and branches looked like a nature-made fort. Like the Keebler elves lived inside. An actual tree house.

  So James ran the trail he and Tessa and Candy were on that day. Passed other joggers enjoying the end-of-September weather. People walking dogs, kids riding bikes. When h
e got near the turnoff into the woods that Candy had taken, he paused, his hands on his knees, huffing and puffing in an exaggerated manner as he looked for other people. He turned off the anger music that pounded in his ears. The silence of the park, save for a few bees that buzzed by, shocked him on such a nice day.

  When the coast was clear, he turned right, crunching deep into the foliage, and found the tree. The majestic beauty was perfection, and the ideal hiding spot. He winced as he ripped the duct tape off his chest, then removed the tape from the small revolver. It was a .38 caliber, and he had the six bullets it came with in his pants pocket. He wiped the fingerprints from the gun with his sweat-covered T-shirt and placed it in the center hole of the tree—the Keebler elves would just have to deal with it. He scattered the bullets in the same place and covered everything with fallen leaves.

  Again, he looked left to right. Nothing. No one. No random dogs chasing animals through the woods. Even the bees weren’t buzzing in there.

  Back at the edge of the woods, near the concrete trail, he looked both ways again, like a child crossing the street, and no one was there. Just in case there was someone in the distance that he didn’t see, James stopped and did some calisthenics and stretches, so any passersby would think he just stopped to give his aching muscles a rest.

  Not that he was hiding an illegal gun.

  His feet hit the pavement for a fast walk, and he turned the anger music back on before he picked up speed again. Another half mile or so on the trail, then another three and a half miles back from the park to his house.

  Mission accomplished.

  17

  Tessa

  I spent the entire Sunday lying in my hotel room, and only went out once to walk to the McDonald’s down the block, because I needed to eat something. Now it’s Monday morning, and I can’t even look for a job. Not with my face looking the way it does, thanks to Damon. As per usual, the lumps on my head have settled into the shape they’ll take for the next few days, and the purple and blue marks I’m used to are taking hold. My split lip can’t be covered with lipstick. In fact, it makes it look reptilian.

  I stare at Maribel’s text. It’s done. Now we wait. For how long? I decide to call her. My anxiety bubbles in my subconscious as the line trills. She says she wants to help, but can I trust her?

  “Are you alone?” I ask in a semi-disguised voice when she picks up.

  “Hey. Hang on,” she says.

  The phone plunks into an abyss, and I know she’s at work with Asshole, trying to hide the burner before being discovered. “Let me call you back in a few minutes. I’ll go for coffee,” she whispers, then hangs up.

  Waiting never bothered me. Biding time.

  However, these five minutes are excruciating as I picture her, tall and blond, in her clicky-clacky expensive heels that Asshole probably bought her. He liked women to look a certain way, and even I fit the mold for a little while. Maribel Lopez was half Puerto Rican on her father’s side but somehow got her white mother’s less-dominant genes. She had her father’s height but her mother’s features, including the dirty blond hair and light skin. The first time I met her, I thought she was a model, so I sort of understood Asshole’s fascination with her. Right now, she’s probably ducking the little cheap phone into her Zac Posen bag, then popping her head into his office to tell him she’s running out, and does he want anything? Supposedly that’s how it started.

  Maribel told me everything when I approached her a couple of weeks ago. She had no choice, really. She was his “work wife” at the hedge fund. She knew me, his actual wife. I followed her home one day, when Asshole was out with clients, and she stopped in her driveway when I pulled up. She didn’t act paranoid when she saw me get out of my car—she was good at her deception. Maybe she thought I was just coming over to say hello, so she did what every mistress trying not to get found out does. Be accommodating. Smile. Lie.

  She stopped at her door and gave a little wave. Likely shitting her pants, but still. As I got closer, she saw my black eye. Her face registered shock when I came into full view.

  When I told her that I knew about the affair, and that Asshole did this to me repeatedly, she believed me.

  She didn’t go off on a tangent about how I’m crazy and that they’re in love. How I didn’t deserve him. She wasn’t jealous or confrontational, as mistresses usually are. She was immediately sympathetic, invited me in for coffee, and I even cried in front of her. She apologized profusely, saying she got caught up in his charm and it had been going on for a few months.

  Of course, I already knew that.

  One thing about the men I’ve dated in my past is that I know a cheating man. The signs. The late nights. The shower when they come home. The complete disregard for my feelings.

  He may as well have worn a red A on his chest. It would’ve been less obvious.

  One night when he passed out on some twenty-five-year-old scotch, I went through his phone, as most suspicious wives do. All the evidence was there, as most cheating husbands needed to validate themselves over and over by rereading the sexy text messages from someone other than their wife.

  What Maribel didn’t know was how he treated me. Of course, in the beginning of their affair, she said he gave her the same sad sob story that every horrible man with a handcuff on their fourth left finger said: She doesn’t pay attention to me, she doesn’t work, I buy her everything, the sex is dwindling, I’m a rich virile man with so much to give. And Asshole is charming—it’s how I fell for him too, but that’s a whole other story.

  So, one night at work, she stayed late. So did he. And what’s the term the guilty use? One thing led to another.

  Uh huh. His dick led itself right into her wide-open legs.

  But I digress.

  She said she asked him if he needed anything when she was leaving, and he pounced like a cat onto a tabletop. After months of them flirting, she said she made an error in judgment.

  Sixteen times. Sixteen times in two months. That’s a hell of a lot of error.

  But she did believe me, and I’m thankful for that. Her rage grew as she held my hand and let me talk about all the times that he put me in my place.

  When I told Maribel that I was afraid of leaving, she wore her guilt over the affair like blinking neon, and said she’d help me if I needed it. She’d even go a step further—she’d help me stick it to him. She even agreed to keep up pretenses for a couple of weeks while we figured out my next move. Fuck him a few more times. And after I disappeared, and he looked guilty, she’d go on record about their affair. Ruin his life. Really put the pressure on him.

  And keep me safe.

  I’ve never had a real friend, but I imagine this is what it’s like. Someone who has your back. Girl power and all that.

  When the phone rings, I answer with flourish. Giddy. Smiling even though she can’t see me, but she’ll hear it in my voice.

  “Hey,” I say when I pick up.

  “Hey. I’ve only got a few minutes. But I did exactly like you wanted,” Maribel says, and I hear the relief in her voice as well. “Drew didn’t tell me that you were missing Friday night, but he knows something is up. Just like you wanted, I texted him over and over, promising vile sex things. He didn’t answer me until late at night, probably when he realized you were just gone with no explanation. But we know what a pig he is, so he came over. Didn’t tell me you were missing though. He actually said that you were bitching at him about something and he left and came to me instead. Because he loves me.” She scoffed. “God, I feel like such an idiot for believing him all those months.”

  “That’s what Drew is good at. Making you feel like an idiot,” I say, thinking of all the times I fell prey to his misogyny and narcissism. Then, a twinge of self-pity creeps in. “He just went over to your house for sex, after he saw the blood and the hair?” She can’t see me shaking my head, but I’m doing it. “I could be dead, and he doesn’t care. He’s glad I’m gone.”

  When I met Drew, I was
a waitress at a dumpy little breakfast place near his office. One that, according to him, had the best sausage, egg, and cheese on a toasted croissant in the county. He flirted, I flirted back. It went on for weeks, until he asked me out. Mr. Hedge-Fund Man wanted to rescue the stupid little sandwich slinger.

  No, he didn’t want to rescue me. He wanted to control me. He needed someone to take out his machinations on, and I fit the bill. Really, where was I going to go, once he started beating me? I’d been upgraded from a studio apartment—with a Craigslist roommate who dealt coke—to suburban utopia. He figured that, after a taste of champagne, I wouldn’t go back to tap water.

  He was right. For a little while, anyway.

  “So, you planted the gun?” I asked.

  “I did. I had to fuck the ever-living shit out of him Friday night. Made me sick. But he did pass out and I put his prints all over it. Yesterday, he told me you were visiting family for the weekend and he invited me over, so I went over there and planted it, in the back of his closet, behind those ratty shoes he never wears but refuses to throw out. The ones from college.”

  It pains me for a second that she knows intimate details about those shoes, and why he won’t get rid of them.

  She continues, “I left a bunch of my hair everywhere too. And my grandmother’s ring behind the bed.” She pauses. I know how much that ring means to her, but that tidbit was my idea, and a good one. She’ll get it back when this is over. “He’ll never know it’s there, but once I tell the police about the affair, he’ll deny it, of course. I’ll tell them my ring is missing and to look for it. Plus, my hair is in your bed now. My underwear is wedged between the mattress and the box spring.”

  “Okay. Good.” This must be so hard for her. The man she fell for is a monster, and that discovery hurts her as much as it hurt me. “Hey, are you okay? How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” she says quickly. “We all make mistakes. Mine was the worst, but I’ll make sure he pays for what he did to you. And what he’d probably do to me if I continued to see him. I’m still so sorry.”