Abby decided she had better say something to Randall about the toaster, in case he had planted it there as a test to see if she’d really gone out to the cottage.
They were sitting by the pool, Randall still in his work clothes, minus shoes, and she in a one-piece swimsuit with a long flowy cover-up over it. The cover-up, when properly belted, did a pretty good job of hiding her bruises. Even though two weeks had passed, she was just starting to recover. No part of her body had gone untouched that day. Fortunately, her nose didn’t seem to be broken after all, and her face looked okay. Today’s trip to the diner and cottage had been the first time she’d left the house since the beating. Tomorrow she’d be back at work, wearing tights with her skirt and a turtleneck.
Normally Randall complained if Abby wore a one-piece swimsuit, but today he said nothing. They were eating some cold salads that Rosa had made for them before leaving for the day. There was chicken salad and a loaf of freshly baked bread to make sandwiches, a bowl of fruit salad, chopped veggies in marinade. A regular little picnic. Randall was not impressed.
Abby had been about to launch into her story about the toaster when he pulled out his phone and placed a call to Lobster Brothers.
“Randall Greer here. Is this Shandra? How you doing, Sweetie? Good, good. Send over a number four and number seven. That’s right, 519 Celosia Boulevard. Hold the coleslaw. Give me some extra bacon rolls.”
“I’m good with this,” Abby whispered, gesturing toward all the food Rosa had made. It didn’t matter. He wasn’t listening.
“You haven’t got it on file? How do you know my address, but you don’t know my credit card number? I’ve told you to write it down. Give me a second.” He rolled his eyes in annoyance, pulling his wallet from his back pocket. He read the number. Abby picked at her fruit salad, smiling blandly, trying to seem like she was sympathetic to his troubles. He did this step, the reading of the numbers, slowly, deliberately, in a voice that said he felt he was talking to someone really stupid. To Abby, each number sounded like Spit in my food, Spit in my food.
“You have a good one, too.” Randall set down his phone, shaking his head in disgust.
“I went to the cottage today,” Abby told him.
“Get me another one, would you,” he said, holding up his gin and tonic.
“Sure.” She got up, went inside, and made him a drink. She put some slices of cheese and some crackers on a tray as well. He would be telling her to do this next, once he got sick of the hour-long wait for Lobster Brothers to arrive.
She poured herself a glass of white wine, took a couple of big drinks of it, and added some more to it. She considered bringing the bottle out with her, but she decided it was better to maintain some measure of alertness.
She stole a few daisies from a vase of flowers Rosa had set on their kitchen island, and stuck them in a small white vase. She carried everything outside and set the tray before Randall. Then she settled back into her chair.
“It looks like you’re trying a little harder. I appreciate that,” he said in a cold, businesslike voice. She imagined this was how he spoke to Krissa at work.
“I’m glad you appreciate it.”
“It doesn’t mean we’re in a good place, however.”
“Really.”
“Have you heard of microchips?”
“Like people put in dogs, to help them find their way back to their owners when they’re lost?”
“That’s exactly what I’m talking about.”
“Are you planning to put one in me?”
“I certainly don’t want to.”
“Randall, you’ve got to be kidding me.”
“I wish I were,” he said sadly.
“I’ve told you over and over again that the reason I never saw that movie was only because I ended up shopping longer than I expected. There was never more to it than that. I should have told you but I didn’t think it was a big deal.”
“When you lie to me it means one thing: You’re doing something wrong. Why would you do anything wrong when I give you everything? Do you know how many women would want all of this?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong though. I swear!”
“I don’t know, Sugartitties. I wish I could believe you.”
“Then believe me.”
He made himself a little cheese and cracker sandwich. Randall’s cheese and cracker sandwiches weren’t like other people’s cheese and cracker sandwiches. They were backwards. Instead of two crackers holding a slice of cheese, two slices of cheese held a cracker. Abby had been sure to put out the correct proportion of each on the plate.
“I’m done talking about that day,” he said.
Right. She nodded in supposed deference. “Me too,” she said.
“Didn’t we have any white cheddar?”
“I didn’t see any.”
“I don’t like to run out of white cheddar.”
“I know. I’ll mention it to Rosa.”
“Why don’t you start looking for her replacement. Someone who can cook a meal instead of whatever this spread is. A bonus would be if she could remember not to wear her dirty shoes in the house. Could you do that for me?”
“Okay. I’ll put an ad online tomorrow,” Abby said. This took care of her concerns about Rosa working for Randall once she was gone. She’d pictured them in this house together, Rosa having to deal with Randall’s rage over her disappearance. She would be doing Rosa a favor if she told her now to start looking for another job.
“You’re not going to argue with me about getting rid of her?” asked Randall.
“No.”
“Well how about that? You’re finally wising up. Seeing that you and I work better when we’re on the same page.”
“Yep.” Abby sipped her wine, reconsidering her choice to leave the majority of it inside the house.
“You haven’t even asked me about my day,” he said.
“How was your day?”
“Long. Mentally challenging. Nothing I can’t handle. And what did you do today?”
“I was out at the cottage. Like I told you. And… It’s probably nothing.”
“What’s probably nothing?”
“I don’t know. I got concerned,” she said. Too late to turn back now.
“Why’s that?”
“There was a toaster there. Do you know anything about it?”
“Tell me again why you were out there today?”
“To check on things. I told you I was going out there today, and I checked in with Krissa this morning to tell her, too. I hadn’t been there for weeks and I wanted to see it again.”
“I thought about it more, and I don’t want you going there again. You’ve lost those kinds of privileges.”
“You said you were okay with me going out there today.”
“Buying that place was a mistake,” Randall added, scanning the street down below for any sign of the Lobster Brothers truck.
“Did you have someone put cameras in it?” Abby asked him.
“Why do you want to know that?”
“Because someone had been there. There was a toaster I’d never seen before plugged into the wall in the kitchen. Plugged in! I got really scared.”
“I can honestly tell you I don’t know anything about it.” He shoved another cracker sandwich into his mouth. He seemed to be telling the truth.
“Well, I’m pretty sure somebody’s been there,” Abby said.
“That’s why you don’t live in the woods. That’s why you stay away from the swamp. What do you expect? A trashy little place like that is going to attract squatters. Druggies. Meth heads. Naturally.”
“The cottage isn’t trashy. It’s cute.”
“Don’t be so fucking sensitive. Any abandoned property is going to attract meth heads. You don’t know there’s a meth head epidemic going on? Sugartitties, you gotta read the news.”
“I don’t think it was meth heads. Wouldn’t meth heads mess it up or leave it dirty? It looked pretty much the same as before excep
t for the toaster.”
“How long has it been since I called Lobster Brothers?”
“I don’t know. Maybe twenty minutes.”
“How fucking long does it take to make a couple of lobster dinners? No one else takes as long as them. Do they have to go out and catch the lobsters and fucking butcher them?”
“Well, yeah. It’s not like steak or chicken, where they’re already dead. There’s a tank of lobsters and when you call, they kill them to make you your meal.”
He took a drink of his gin and tonic and nodded, his eyes clouding over like he was remembering some distant memory. “That’s right, isn’t it? That’s really fucking sad.”
“Maybe if I call them back right now we can still save the lobsters,” Abby suggested.
He ignored this. “If it wasn’t meth heads it was coke heads, Sugartitties. Coke heads’ll leave it cleaner than it was when they showed up. I was a coke head in the eighties and I didn’t even need a housekeeper back then.”
“I don’t know, Randall. And how’d they get in? There was no sign of anything broken. And what kind of burglar makes toast?” As soon as she said it, Abby got a funny feeling like she might want to ask Charlie about all of this. She instantly wished she’d never said a word to Randall.
“I don’t know. I don’t care. I still haven’t set foot in the place and I don’t intend to. I’ll give Enid Roseman a call tomorrow and tell her to get it put back on the market. She’s got a whole team. They’ll clean it from top to bottom, mow the grass. You won’t have any excuse to go out there again.”
“But I love it! And I just got it all decorated.”
“Yeah. I’ve noticed. You’ve spent forty-five thousand dollars on furniture in the past two months.”
“We spend that on stuff for this house all the time.”
“No we don’t.”
“That painting in the hall was fifty-eight thousand dollars!”
“That’s different. That’s art. It’s an investment. Get me another drink.”
Abby took his glass and went inside. She wasn’t sure why she felt so disappointed. The cottage had never had any real purpose aside from being a way to squirrel away money. It had served its purpose better than she’d ever dreamed. Easy come, easy go.
She fixed him his drink and brought it to him just in time to see the truck shaped like a giant lobster chugging up their driveway. Randall’s face lit up. “Doesn’t that truck make you feel like a little kid again?” he asked.
“I don’t like to think about being a kid,” Abby said.
“They’re going to the front door. How many fucking times do I have to tell them to bring it out here to the pool? Go catch them before they think we’re not home,” he said, holding out his hand to retrieve his drink from her. “And while you’re at it, pull your dress closed better than that. I can see your skin and it’s green. It’s disgusting.”
Chapter 31
“Why didn’t we ever think of this before?” Abby gasped.
“Good question. Maybe because I walk most of my route. Plus, it’s probably a federal offense. Not that that would stop me.”
Charlie and Abby were having sex in the back of his mail truck. He’d attempted to park it in a small patch of shade, but it was still well over a hundred degrees inside. Sweat was running down both their faces. Charlie was sitting on a bag of mail and Abby was on his lap. It was so much more comfortable than the floor where they’d started. She was a little concerned about how the mail truck might look to people passing by, but Charlie didn’t seem worried about it.
Her bruises were finally healed. She’d somehow avoided sex with Charlie that whole time. Now that it was finally happening again, it felt like heaven. Better than she even remembered. She started to groan and they came together, clinging to each other after it was over, panting in a slippery hug. He kissed her salty lips.
“Do you want to run away with me?” he asked.
She took a deep breath. “I feel like I’m going to pass out,” she said. Charlie picked up a piece of mail and fanned her with it.
“So do you?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said.
“Just maybe?” he asked.
“Maybe.”
“I’ll take that, if it’s the best you can do.”
“Hey, I’ve been meaning to ask you, you weren’t at the cabin, were you?”
It was dim in there, but she could see his face. It contorted into a funny, fishy look. “Why do you ask?”
“Someone was there. That day we went to the diner? I stopped out there afterwards and there was a toaster plugged into the wall.”
“Really?”
“Yes. And I thought I heard someone walking around upstairs.”
“The day we went to the diner?”
“Yes. Right after that. I went from the diner out to the cottage and I noticed the grass was smooshed down, like someone had parked a little off the driveway. Then inside, I saw a toaster that hadn’t been there before, and then I heard the floorboards upstairs creaking. I mean, obviously it wasn’t you, but do you know anything about it?”
“We need to get some air,” Charlie said.
They both got dressed and reemerged from the mail truck. Charlie went up front for his water bottle, took a big swig of it, and offered it to Abby. She took a long swallow and they passed it back and forth a couple of times, trying to cool off.
“So, I guess you don’t know anything about this?” she asked.
“No. Of course not.”
“I didn’t think so.”
“I’ve got no idea what could have been going on,” he said.
“I guess it doesn’t matter. Randall made me put it up for sale, and we already got an offer. Would you believe that cleaning it up and decorating it made it sell for twice what we paid for it a few months ago?”
“Are you serious?”
“Totally serious. He’s not even mad about all the money I supposedly spent on furniture since we made back much more than that. I shouldn’t say we. It’s not like that’s mine.”
“You mean when you sold it you made back more than what you gave me to hold onto for you?” asked Charlie.
“How much was that again?”
“Twelve hundred,” he said.
“Yeah, we made more than twelve hundred when we sold it. I guess I ought to go into house flipping, right?”
“Oh. A lot more?”
“I don’t know the exact amount. Anyway, I can’t access it.”
Charlie nodded. “So, do you have more money from those fake receipts that you want me to hold onto it for safekeeping?”
“Yeah, maybe I’ll have you do that. Next time I see you. I’d better get home. We’ve got a new housekeeper and Randall has her reporting the time I get home from work to him. She tries to be all sneaky about it, but she’s totally obvious.”
“A housekeeper,” he mused.
“It’s not as great as you’d think. She’s like a spy who does chores.”
“Does she wear a French maid costume?”
“No. She wears yoga pants and old t-shirts.”
“Before you leave, what do you think about what I said? You could stay with me at my apartment. Or we could get a new place. We’ve got twelve hundred dollars for a security deposit, plus whatever else you can add to it. How much is that?”
“I’m not sure.”
“We’d make it work.”
“That’s really sweet of you, but I don’t know.”
“What don’t you know?”
Abby sighed. “I can’t stay at your place. I have to have a real plan. I need to make Randall believe I’m gone. Disappeared. Dead. It’s the one and only way he’s going to let me go.”
“You can stay at my place and together we can come up with a plan. It would be so much easier if we were together all the time. We can’t come up with a solid plan when we only see each other once or twice a week. Right? I need your help and information about your husband and his schedule.”
“I already told you, I’m not okay with something bad happening to him.”
“No, I’m not going to kill him, but without the details and facts I don’t know where to begin. I don’t have the structure to build a plan from. We need to do this together. That’s why I need you with me.”
“Yeah, but it’s not as easy to get away from him as you think.”
“Leave him. Boom. Leave him. While he’s worrying about where you went, you and I will have the time and space to come up with a solid plan to convince him that you’re dead.”
“He’ll have every cop in the world looking for me. And I’m not sure if we’ve been careful enough that somebody might not link us to each other. I mean, look at us right now, having a conversation in the middle of the street when you’re everybody’s mailman and they all know you, and it’s broad daylight. We need to stop being careless. We shouldn’t even be talking right now.”
“No one’s home on this street right now. The whole street’s at work. I know every house. Trust me. So yeah, think about staying at my place. Tell me you’ll at least think about it.”
“If we did that, I wouldn’t be able to even step outside for a breath of fresh air without being afraid of Randall catching me. It would be exactly like my current life.”
“But we’d be together all night.”
“I’ll think about it. Now really, I need to go.”
“Okay. Thank you.” He refrained from kissing Abby goodbye, even though anyone watching couldn’t have missed what had just happened.
Chapter 32
It was a typical Friday night. Randall and Abby were on the Lorbmeers’ boat. The Reeds were there and another couple Abby had only met a few times: Bobby and Bobbie. They were old, at least eighty, and drunk. They made Abby feel, as much as anything else she’d suffered, that she didn’t belong here, that she was wasting her youth. It was unnatural to be with these people, to have to speak in ways and about things that were too old for her. In protest, she was sitting alone at the front of the boat. She’d confided to Danna-Dee that she had her period and didn’t feel well. Danna-Dee had looked annoyed, like Abby was bragging about being the only still-fertile woman on the boat.
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