Seeing Red

by Heidi Brod

  No, she isn’t at all how I pictured her to be, all cheap and desperate. Not standing here, a work of art, with her slinky black skirt, tight body, and heels as tall as the Empire State. She looks sleek and sophisticated, a disguise to conceal her true identity as a home-wrecking, husband-thieving whore.

  So much for my parents’ theory that cheaters never prosper, because it looks like Harper is feeling rich as a king, while I stand here freezing, poor as a pauper.

  I’m humiliated, and my stomach churns. Now I’m wasting more than time; I’m wasting precious tears. They fall from my eyes like icicles hanging from the windows above. I can imagine one breaking free, plunging into him, the weight of it so heavy and damaging, proving even new love isn’t indestructible.

  It is a cold night; snowflakes whip and whirl as if dancing in the wind.

  All smoky eyes and heaving bosom, she’s the kind of girl who shops at Kiki de Montparnasse for lingerie, a girl who could have been Man Ray’s muse. She is so sexual and provocative, it’s as if she’s dripping with honey.

  This girl has gotten sloppy seconds, and my husband, well, he’s just gotten sloppy. After leaving Jacob earlier, I called Harper’s office, and his new assistant gave me this address.

  She said, “It’s really no problem. He’s just working, and I’m sure he would love to see you.”

  My life is being clever, showing me what could have been if I had only opened a different door. Any door would have been better than the one I walked through and my life with Harper. All of these thoughts run through my mind as my body propels forward, as if tied to an engine. Until I’m standing in the doorway of her building, staring at her buzzer.

  I ring.

  “How did I know you would be back? I’ll send the elevator down,” she says seductively.

  It arrives. I get in, heart pounding, an unnatural stillness to my body.

  The door opens into her apartment. There is no turning back now, the horror of seeing my own confusion and grasping at the straws of it.

  “Who are you?”

  “Not my husband, and I’m guessing that’s who you were expecting. I’m Seraphina.”

  “Jessa. I’m Jessa. He’s not here anymore. He may even be home by now,” she says nervously, looking at the open elevator door and hoping I will turn and go.

  Instead, I step inside.

  The empty living room is sexy and modern. I can see Harper here, settling in and happy. My eyes scan the art, books that line the shelves, Milton, Shakespeare, and Marlowe. Jessa has pinned her hair back. There is something very familiar about her. My mind whirls like the blades of a helicopter, and then I realize why she looks so familiar.

  She is the friend of that NYU student, Brooke Beck, the one who was murdered in her apartment. I remember seeing Jessa’s picture in the pages of the Post.

  Those sapphire eyes, so wide open and haunted, her face is etched in pain. She has a dangerous beauty and one that is hard to forget.

  As I look around, everything in this apartment holds the promise of sex. The air still smells thick with it. I move toward the window. I can feel my thoughts layering, one on top of the other.

  “Listen, I don’t know how you’re going to take this, and it really doesn’t matter to me. I want to let you know that the man you are fucking is mine. Everything from the clothes on his back to the bed he sleeps in, all of it is mine. I can see you’re young and beautiful. You own a lot of expensive things. You must even love some of them.”

  I move toward a lamp. It has a cobalt-blue base made from blown glass. I pick it up and hold it, balancing it with one hand.

  “Some things are delicate. Maybe you’ve taken them for granted, but deep down you still love them, and then some stranger comes along and breaks it.”

  I let the light drop to the floor. It shatters everywhere, each piece cloudy, like sea glass. The light goes out, leaving us standing with only the glow from the streetlamp.

  “I think you should leave before I call the police,” she says.

  “Now I know you’re a whore, but are you also a prostitute? Just like your friend … Brooke, right? I can’t really see Harper going for that sort of thing.”

  I watch the storm settle behind her eyes, the darkness that moves through her in seconds, her fear fading to anger.

  She moves closer to me, like a cat on the prowl, and sits down next to me.

  “Don’t judge me, Seraphina. Maybe I’m just like you, minus the rich daddy who paid your way to mediocrity. We really aren’t so different. If you would allow yourself a little more fun, just a little more freedom, maybe your husband wouldn’t be fucking someone else.”

  She puts her hand on my leg. There’s something about Jessa, so alive and passionate.

  “I’m nothing like you, Jessa,” I say.

  “Women like you wouldn’t exist without women like me. Most of the men I see are married. They just need somebody to listen, maybe burn off a little stress. I help them with that. It’s all business to me, and sex is only a small piece of it. So your judgment, Seraphina, it has no place in my conscience.”

  I can feel my head scream, like the thrash of the wind against the windowpane. I turn to go.

  “Maybe we can help each other,” she whispers, moving in closer and brushing her lips against mine. “I can show you what I do for Harper. I can teach you.”

  Blood-red anger rises up, a tidal wave of destruction, and I lose control, pushing Jessa backward with all of my strength.

  She falls and hits her head on the metal edge of the coffee table. Her breathing is shallow and faint.

  This girl even makes broken beautiful. Her eyes are closed, peaceful and angelic.

  I have crossed the line of logic and reason, and now I’m running like hell, with no hope of going back. My heart is lodged firmly in my throat. I’m so tired, and yet I keep running.

  I hit the down elevator button. I look around to make sure nobody sees me leave. My heart is beating, and my anxiety is rising.

  A stellar collision is the coming together of two stars, their competing gravitational forces throwing off gas and matter as they collide. Each burns bright, pulsating heat and light. Some will form a union, one that doubles in size and strength.

  But for some, the forces of their interior are too strong, each star exploding, and what remains is a black hole.

  I dig my cell phone out of my bag and dial Harper’s number.

  “We need to talk. Where are you?” I say to Harper, my voice windy, almost musical.

  “I’m driving. I’m almost home.”

  “Stay home. I’m on my way,” I say.

  He is a liar and a cheat. I hail a taxi.

  “Can you take me to 87 West River Road in Rumson?”

  “Where?” He rolls his eyes.

  “It’s off the Garden State Parkway.”

  “Fine. Get in.” He plugs the address into Waze.

  I can feel myself falling down a black hole, a place where some say time even stands still. I’m not falling in love; I’m falling in anger and hate. Every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom, I fall even farther down.

  I call Birdie to check on Sky and tell her I’m on my way home. I slip my phone back into the pocket of my jacket, and I find the card Carter had given me earlier at Penn Station with his phone number on it. If I was going to cheat on my husband, I wouldn’t waste it on someone random. I want revenge. It would have to be someone who would drive the knife in deeper and twist it. Someone like Carter, who went against his grain; that would burn a hole in his heart.

  The call goes straight to voicemail.

  Some love dies a natural death. Some love has the life choked out of it, denied its most basic needs, like oxygen.

  I leave a message for Carter. “Hi, it’s Seraphina, and it was great to run into you on the train this morning. I would love to get t
ogether. Give me a call.”

  I smile and close my eyes.

  In my mind, I can see Jessa, gasping for air, fighting for her last breath. My hands are around her neck, eyes bulging and veins throbbing as she drops to the floor. My mind plays tricks on me. I can see the terror in her eyes as she thrashes and claws, begging for me to let her live. Even as she takes her last breath, she is still fighting me.

  If truth is only an illusion, I’m no longer sure what is real. I remember, when the elevator door opened, I turned back when I should have run, and the rest of it is now damage that can no longer be undone.

  “Miss.”

  Someone is shaking me.

  “Miss, this is 87 West River Road. We’re here.”

  Eleven

  SERAPHINA AND HARPER

  The light in the bedroom is on, and I can see Harper pacing. He catches a glimmer of light from the headlights. He moves toward the window and takes a drink. The house is soundless. The night is unseasonably warm, and a fog hangs heavy in the sky. It feels like I can fade away into the darkness of it.

  The distressed wood and stone, chestnut bricks hand cut and stacked make our home feel like it belongs in another place and time. My mind goes blank, and my heart stumbles to catch up with the moment, as I climb the stairs toward the end of my marriage.

  I stand in the doorway, arms folded, watching Harper pack his clothes. He has a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth. He turns toward me; our eyes lock, fierce and ready for battle.

  “So that’s it. You’re just going?” I say.

  Harper doesn’t like messes, so he’s careful with his words, even withholding. The betrayal and damage are the roots that grow from our love and affection.

  “I don’t want you to go. At least not right now. We need to talk,” I say.

  His lips tighten, and his words trickle out of his mouth slowly. He picks up a stack of white dress shirts, clean and pressed, carefully packing them away in his suitcase, not lifting his eyes to look at me.

  “Stop speaking in code, Seraphina. Say what you have to say. You always make everything so complicated.”

  I smile, and it’s bright and cold, laced with poison. “Okay. Then why don’t you start by telling me about the other woman you’re fucking, Harper. I think you owe me that. Or am I just making things complicated again?”

  He looks at me, his lips tightening, his body coiled like a rattlesnake, tense and just waiting for the right moment to strike.

  “You kissed her, Harp. Right there in the middle of the street. Have you lost your mind? You’ve always been selfish, but you’ve never been stupid and crazy.”

  Harper stops packing and takes the cigarette from between his lips, crushing it in the ashtray until the embers fade.

  Harper could never understand why I wouldn’t let him smoke in his own fucking house. He smokes around the baby, not all the time but every once in a while, with no regard for her health or mine. He has to do it all his way. He’s so controlling and selfish, and now a cheater.

  “I’m crazy? Are you kidding me? You need serious help. You aren’t a healthy person. You aren’t fit to be a mother. You need medication. The nightmares and paranoia, it’s like you’re in a constant manic state, buying things on the Internet. If you’re not sick, well then you’re just a spoiled, unhappy bitch, and I’m done with you and your negativity.”

  “You’re a liar and a cheat. You’re acting like the spoiled child. You slept with someone else! Don’t even try to blame all of this on me.” I can hear my voice raised and angry.

  He zips up his suitcase. He won’t look at me. He turns to go. I stand in front of it, blocking his way. I’m not prepared to let him go on his own terms. I need to find out all of his lies, the filthy secrets he has been hiding, like Brooke Beck and Jessa Dante.

  “How many others?” I ask, snatching his cell phone from his hands and scrolling through his texts.

  “Give it back. Now.”

  He tries to take it back, but I throw it against the wall, shattering the glass of his iPhone screen.

  “Are you in love with her? Come on, Harper. I deserve some answers. How long have you been cheating on me with that bitch?”

  He manages to get his hand around the doorknob. “Fuck you, Harper. You’re a coward, just like your father. A cheater and a drunk with one foot out the door.”

  He stops to let the words seep in and burn, and then he turns, throwing his suitcase at the wall. It opens, clothes spilling out everywhere.

  He faces me, eyes blazing. He charges toward me and grabs my arms roughly. I’m filled with adrenaline, rage, and a merciless need for revenge. Arms pinned, I have no armor, so all I can think to do is spit in his face. He lets go, and I grab his drink and throw it at him. The glass smashes into a million jagged pieces.

  He backs away in disgust as if I’m vile.

  “Why are you doing this? I’m giving you back your freedom. At the hospital, you said it’s who we are together that’s your problem,” Harper says.

  “Well, then I have to let you go, Seraphina. Because I can’t stand who you’ve become. The more I try to love you, the more I feel myself suffocating.”

  “I accept your apology.”

  “And lately, I don’t love you. I can’t even pretend to tolerate you. You’re completely insane.”

  “You don’t care about me. You’re not willing to do what it takes to make our marriage work. You’re nothing but a lying, cheating psychopath, a loser.”

  “Shut up, you crazy bitch!” he says as he raises his fist. He catches himself before he takes a swing and pushes me out of the way. I fall onto the broken glass, and I look down at my hands, now bloody and raw, just like in my dream. I’m scratching, hitting, and clawing. He’s covered in the blood from my hands. I want him to feel my pain.

  Then I hear the sound of my daughter crying, her voice a fallen melody, a battle cry I recognize from my own childhood.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen,” Harper says.

  “Just get out. I don’t want you here anymore.” A million jagged pieces of glass rip through my heart, my pain reflected in the sound of him leaving.

  I hear Birdie singing a soft lullaby, the notes filling in the spaces between my sadness.

  I am bloody, broken, and bruised.

  So I stop fighting, and in that moment of silence, I surrender. The emotions gush out of me, a rush of tears and wrath, a ramble of words and feelings, things I have never dared to think or say.

  I love my parents, even though their pain and fear haunted my childhood and left me with scars, the kind that take up too much room in my heart. Scars that leave a mark on anyone who tries to love me.

  Harper does not know that I have drawn a target on his back. I am not like my mother, hiding behind vanity and superficiality, suffering and screaming behind closed doors. I will bring our fight into the light. I pull the glass from my hands and clean my wounds, wrapping them, as if I’m a boxer ready for the next round. It is Harper who taught me the rules of the game.

  He said, “The greatest knockouts are the ones that touch you, tear at you, heart and soul. They take a combination of physical power and mental brilliance, precision, planning, and balance. The more connected you are to the fight, the more pain you feel as your opponent goes down.”

  There’s nothing more dangerous than a woman scorned who takes pleasure in pain.

  Twelve

  HARPER

  Harper wakes up at 5:00 a.m., head pounding. He’d fallen asleep in the car; he checks for his phone, only to remember it shattered along with his marriage the night before. He had passed out in the car last night. He had flirted with alcoholism all week, but last night he officially committed.

  Seraphina was angry, and last night hit them both like a wrecking ball. He could easily rationalize Jessa. She was only a side effect of
his problems with Seraphina. Jessa struck like lightning at his heart.

  He grabs coffee and a bagel and heads north on the Garden State, arriving at the office early, expecting to find peace and quiet, not a room full of strangers.

  “I’ve been calling you, Harp. Where have you been?” Belle asks, looking frantic and anxious.

  “Sorry. I was dealing with a family emergency. I need a new phone, and while you’re at it, a new assistant.”

  “You remember FBI Agent Walthrop,” Belle said.

  “Please tell me you have news on Brooke Beck’s case,” Harper says.

  Belle has his computer open to an e-mail; he slides it over to Harper. “Can you click on the hyperlink?”

  He clicks on the mouse, and an image comes up on the computer screen.

  It’s small, and the picture is grainy; it’s some sort of street cam. He can see pedestrians weaving in and out. The camera moves in closer. It’s a video from last night, with Jessa, locked in a heated embrace, before she leans in and kisses him. The scene from last night, his infidelity playing out in front of him.

  Harper is sick. He can’t take his eyes off of the screen. Someone has deliberately sent in this feed. His heart is pounding.

  “Harp, Jessa was found last night strangled in her apartment.”

  Harper can feel the blood drain from his face. He can feel the bile and venom rising up in his chest. His Jessa, murdered. He feels lightheaded.

  “Are you okay, Harper?”

  “Yes. I just … I’m all right.”

  Agent Walthrop says, “Harper, you know how this works. We’re going to get the preliminary results back from Quantico soon. Anything you want to tell us about last night?”

  Harper is tempted to get on a plane and oversee the operation himself. All of it, the fingerprints, the DNA, all of it would lead to him. Now that the FBI is involved, everything flows through them, and his office has very little control over it.