by Minka Kent
She laughs as she retrieves a small carton of heavy cream from the bag.
“What is your Instaface handle?” I play dumb.
“At . . . MeetTheMcMullens,” she says. “All one word. You should look me up. Are you on Instaface?”
For a second, I’m momentarily speechless. Last I looked, I couldn’t find it anywhere.
Was I delusional? Did I dream all of that up?
“I’m not,” I lie.
“Oh, really?” Her voice raises. “That’s too bad. You’re missing out. You should join. It’s so much better than those other sites, you know? No fake profiles. No spammers. It’s completely legitimate.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“Go on, look me up! I love getting new followers.”
With her permission, I pull out my phone and look her up.
Her profile isn’t private or search-restricted or MIA anymore, and I’m confused, stunned. I offer a timid smile, my face numb with excitement, and I turn my attention to the children. “Grace, are you good on crayons?”
Grace looks up at me, batting her short lashes. “Yes, Autumn.”
Ever since this morning, she’s been a little angel, and we both promised not to mention the makeup situation to Daphne. It’s our little secret. And she promised me she wouldn’t go wandering off without me ever again.
I know this girl like the back of my hand, and maybe it’s a combination of watching her grow up over social media the last decade or maybe it’s because she’s a part of me.
But I get her.
I speak her language.
She’s the most perfect little girl I’ve ever laid eyes on, and I’ll cherish these summer days with my Grace for as long as I live.
“All right.” Daphne peruses the spread of ingredients along her marble island. “I think I’m good here if you want to call it a day, Autumn? I’m sure you’re exhausted.”
I laugh through my nose. “I had a blast today. See you guys tomorrow?”
“Bye, Autumn!” Rose calls from the table.
Sebastian says nothing. Typical.
Grace hops down from her chair and runs at me, wrapping her arms around my waist. My back is to Daphne, and all I want is to run my fingers through her hair and squeeze her tight.
My eyes mist, but I blink it away. “See you in the morning, sweet girl.”
It makes it slightly easier to leave tonight knowing I’ve got weeks’ worth of photos to catch up on tonight.
Thirty-Three
Daphne
“Hey, Uptown Girl.” Mitch wears a devious smirk on his face when I show up at his house in the middle of Wednesday afternoon. “Wasn’t expecting to see you today.”
When I woke up this morning, I didn’t plan to come here, but I also didn’t plan to decide I’d randomly crack into my husband’s email and read all of his messages to hotpinkpout at gmail dot com.
The most recent message was sent yesterday.
A simple, “I miss you. I want to see you again.”
This comes after the fact that my husband has been nothing but doting and adoring, showering me with gifts and tokens of his appreciation, sweeping me off to surprise date nights and reminiscing with me about the good old days.
“Are you alone?” I ask, swallowing the last of my breath mint. My chest rises and falls, my entire body electric with anticipation.
Mitch tucks his wavy blond hair behind his ears. “Of course.”
He pulls the door open and lets me in. The place is cleaner now, and the curtains are pulled on the living room window. The place looks completely different in natural light. A little less scary, a little less dark, a little more . . . real.
“She left me,” he says. “My girl. She met some pathetic fucking car salesman at the dealership where she works. He wears suits to work and hits his monthly quotas like a good boy. Guess I’m chopped liver.”
“He’s still fucking her,” I say.
It happens so quickly, his hands tugging at my waistband, pulling at my skirt. His mouth against mine, I accept the sweet, ashy taste of his tongue between my parted lips as it mingles with the spearmint on mine.
“This means nothing, by the way,” I whisper between kisses. His hand finds my ass, giving it a greedy squeeze. “I still think you’re an asshole.”
“And I still think you’re fucked up on the inside.” His lips move against mine, and he backs me up against a nearby wall, sliding his hands under my thighs and hoisting me up.
“I am.” I don’t disagree.
Everything about this feels wrong.
And right.
And dirty.
And delicious.
I’ve never felt so alive.
“You have no idea how long I’ve wanted to do this,” he says, his lips grazing mine.
“Stop talking.” I silence his mouth with another kiss, my hands digging for his waistband, feeling a hint of what I’ve done to his body already. Retrieving a condom from my bra, I tear it with my teeth and hand it over. I may be in a bad place, but I’m not reckless. “Now’s not the time for your philosophical bullshit. Just fuck me.”
“Right here? Against the wall?” he asks. I can practically taste the eagerness in his voice, and it’s a libido-quelling reminder that he’s seven or eight years younger than me. But I shake those thoughts from my mind, wrapping my hands around the back of his neck as he grinds his hips against me.
His fingers gather the hem of my skirt, inching it higher and higher, to the point of no return.
Mitch takes me against the floral-wallpaper covered walls of his kitchen, next to a vintage spice rack and a yellow wall-mounted rotary phone that looks like it’s been there for decades. I’ll be this was his grandmother’s home at some point.
His style is simple. He has no fancy tricks up his tie-dyed sleeves. His sex is no-frills and back to basics. He fucks me like an eighteen-year-old fucks their high school girlfriend, no eye contact and soft grunts between bouts of silence, but it’s enough to get me off.
I didn’t come here expecting sexual fireworks, anyway.
I came here to protest my marriage.
I came here as an act of rebellion.
A call and answer to the last twelve years of my life.
We’re a sweaty, heaving mess when we’re done, and Mitch carefully pulls himself out of me, letting me slide down the wall.
“Jesus, Uptown. What was that all about?” he breathes against my ear, nose nuzzled in my hair.
I wear a grin for the girl I used to be.
This . . . this was for her. This was for the woman she was painstakingly groomed to become. The perfect little housewife. This was for the girl she never got to be. The girl thrust into the illusion of domestic bliss when all she wanted was to travel the world with the boy who claimed he loved her when in fact, he never did. Not in a true sense.
For the first time since meeting Graham McMullen, I’m free.
It turns out, all along, I was never actually afraid of losing him.
I was afraid to be alone; afraid no one else would ever want me.
But there’s a huge difference. And I was wrong.
“I’m not afraid anymore,” I answer Mitch. “That’s what this was about. I’m not afraid to be the person I’ve always wanted to be.”
“God, you’re fucked up, you know that?” Mitch laughs, his breath warm on my neck. “You want a smoke?”
“What kind of question is that?”
Thirty-Four
Autumn
“I think it’s going to be a while before Sebastian warms up to me,” I tell Ben over dinner that night. We’re celebrating my new job – at his favorite restaurant. The Red Sox happen to be playing on all the TVs here, and it’s dollar wing night. Ben also felt the need to invite three of his buddies.
And Marnie.
But of course everyone’s late and we went ahead and ordered wings and beer without them.
“Did you hear what I said?” I ask sweetly, scraping the Carolina s
auce from a wing.
He peels his gaze from the TV screen over my head and directs his attention at me.
“What’d you say, babe?” he asks.
“I was telling you about the McMullens’ little boy,” I say. “He’s shy. He doesn’t know what to think of me.”
“He’ll warm up to you soon.” Ben smiles.
Yeah. That’s what I just said.
“I just adore Grace,” I say, not wanting to overemphasize how I really feel. “And Rose is a sweetheart. They’re good kids.”
“No one caused any trouble today?”
“Not at all.” I leave out the part about Grace getting into Daphne’s makeup. A child could do far worse things in my opinion, and we should all be forgiven for our mistakes, especially mistakes made when we’re innocent children and don’t know any better.
“You’re glowing.” Ben smiles, chewing. Staring.
I hate when he stares, and I especially hate when he stares at me.
“I love my new job.” I glance down at my plate, trying to distract myself from the weight of his gaze.
“You’re so good with kids, Autumn.” He reaches his hand across the table and takes mine, giving it a squeeze. “You’re going to be a great mom someday.”
My eyes flick onto his. No one said anything about motherhood.
“I’m way too young to be thinking about babies,” I say with a laugh.
“You’re twenty-five,” he counters. “My parents had me when they were twenty-two.”
“Well, that was almost thirty years ago. Times have changed.” I fork another wing from the plate between us and deposit it on mine. “It’s going to be a long time before . . .”
I glance up, only to see his crestfallen face.
“You never know,” I change my tune, but only for him. I need to be agreeable Autumn, the one who rests happily on the same page as her doting lover at all times. “I don’t like to talk about the future, Ben. You know that. I’m a spur of the moment kind of girl.”
I toss him a wink and release his hand, reaching for Daphne’s diamond lotus necklace hanging from my neck. It’s tucked beneath my t-shirt where he can’t see, though I doubt he’d ask about it anyway. Two years now and he’s yet to comment when I’ve donned something new or different.
My oblivious Ben.
“There they are.” Ben stands from our corner booth as three of his best friends from high school file into O’Toole’s. Ben is exactly the kind of guy who would be pushing thirty and still hang out with his old high school friends. As far as I can tell, they all went to the same college together, roommates of course, and they all settled back here in Monarch Falls.
They were the popular guys in school. Athletic. Smart. Attractive. They were the ones I would’ve avoided and made fun of, because they were the types of boys who tended to make my existence less than enjoyable.
It’s funny how things shake out sometimes.
“Hey, Autumn. How are you?” Ben’s friend, Matt, takes a seat beside me. I like Matt. He’s always asking how I’m doing and what’s new with me. If I get skipped over in group conversations or sidestepped or ignored (which happens often), he always steers things back to me.
Ben could take a page from Matt’s book.
“Hey, Matt!” I scoot over, making room. He’s a bigger guy. Balding on top but still benignly handsome with sparkling green eyes and dark blond hair. I saw his photo in one of Ben’s yearbooks a while back. He was Monarch High’s homecoming king and starting quarterback. Matt married (and later divorced) his cheerleader girlfriend because most of the inhabitants of Monarch Falls are living, breathing banalities. His current girlfriend is a raging bitch, and I’m truly shocked she’s not here because she usually feels the need to accompany him everywhere he goes. Apparently her last boyfriend cheated on her and now she’s insecure and Matt doesn’t mind because his ex-wife cheated on him and he “gets it.”
Ugh.
I wish Matt would grow a pair.
He’d be the perfect catch for someone who’d actually appreciate him if he’d stop being so damn nice all the time.
“Hey, guys!” Marnie makes her grand entrance in an itty bitty tank top the color of bubble gum and hot pink lip gloss. I swear she dresses younger whenever she’s around these guys, like she feels the need to really play up the whole kid sister bit, and it’s clear as day she had a thing for Matt once upon a time and she still does.
His girlfriend hates Marnie, and his girlfriend is a bitch, but she’s a smart bitch.
She’s onto her. Just like I am.
“I’m thinking of booking one of those singles cruises,” Marnie announces a few minutes later, completely out of the blue. It’s as if she expects any one of them to talk her out of it, which of course doesn’t happen. “I think it’d be a lot of fun.”
It’d also be a lot of fun if someone were to accidentally push her overboard.
She reaches for a single wing drenched in Carolina BBQ sauce, places it on her plate, licks her fingers, and then doesn’t touch it.
“I found this one,” she continues. The guys are glued to the TV sets that surround us, none of them paying attention to the conversation. “You fly to Sanford, Florida and you leave from Cocoa Beach, then you cruise to the St. Thomas and Jamaica and a bunch of other little islands. It’s ten days.”
Ben clenches his fist in the air and grunts, and there’s a collective moan from the guys. Something must’ve happened in the game. I have no idea. I wasn’t watching.
Marnie has her phone out now. Surprise, surprise. And she’s firing off a text message. Her screen lights a moment later, her eyes scanning the screen and her mouth fighting a sly smile.
And then I see it.
Dangling from her neck.
A diamond lotus necklace, exactly like the one around my neck.
“I like your necklace,” I say to her.
She glances up at me, as if I’m being sardonic, and she says nothing.
“Where’d you get it?” I ask.
Marnie shoots me another look, like I’m inconveniencing her, and her long nails click against her phone screen.
I continue waiting for my answer, watching.
After a moment, she sighs. “It was a gift. I don’t know where it’s from.”
“Your parents get it for you?” I ask, genuinely curious.
Her big blue eyes land on mine, and her nose wrinkles. “Why are you asking so many questions? It’s just a necklace. Seriously. Get over it. Stop being weird.”
“I like it, that’s all.” I stab my chicken wing with my fork and scan the table. The guys are still focused on the game. A quick glance at the TV over Ben’s head tells me the Sox are in the outfield and the Yankees have three runners on base. “Who gave it to you?”
Marnie sits her phone down and groans. “I don’t know, some guy. It was a while ago.”
Marnie waves her hand, prompting us to move aside so she can scoot out of the booth, and our waitress approaches the table, smiling wide when she sees all the men because she knows she can flirt her way toward better tips.
She’s smart. A hustler. I see it in her eyes.
I don’t hold it against her. Men plus flirting equals money.
She has common sense.
I have respect for common sense.
There’s not enough of it in this world.
Everyone’s too self-centered and ego-driven. And lazy. God, are we lazy as a society. It’s disgusting really. We’re fed information, we don’t question it, and we allow it to shape our thoughts, our wants, our desires . . . our life decisions.
And then we wonder why we’re so fucking miserable all the time.
Our waitress smiles.
I don’t think she’s miserable.
Marnie disappears into the bathroom a moment later, as if that were the only place she could go to get away from my questions.
She isn’t the smartest. All she had to do was lie about the damn necklace. Had she told me me she bought it a
t a boutique, I’d have thought nothing of it. But now I’m curious. And now I need to know. And I’m going to find out. And she better hope to God it’s a coincidence.
Thirty-Five
Autumn
Monday is chlorine and sunscreen scented with a high in the upper 80s. The McMullen children have been poolside for the better part of the afternoon. We had an early lunch (organic turkey and homemade apple butter on ancient grain bread with a side of baby carrots, unsweetened applesauce, and almond milk), a quick rest, and then we suited up and grabbed our towels.
Sebastian clings to my back, his floaties snug on his skinny arms, and he rides me as I swim across the shallow end chasing the girls. They want to pretend I’m an alligator and they’re duckies. Each time my fingers graze their little feet, they giggle and laugh and we have to start over again.
I haven’t had this much fun in ages.
I check the clock constantly, ensuring the children’s sunscreen reapplications are timely. I won’t have the McMullen kids burning on my watch. Besides, Grace has my fair complexion, and we’re especially prone to sunburn.
“Should we rest for a sec?” I ask them after a bit.
Grace pouts, and I hate to see her sad.
“Okay, give me five minutes,” I say.
She smiles and swims to the opposite end of the pool to grab her snorkel and flippers. Rose follows. Sebastian clings onto me tighter. He likes to be in the water, but he’s also deathly afraid to be in by himself, I’ve noticed.
I start to swim toward the ladder when I see the sliding glass door to the patio begin to move. A second later, Graham steps out. The outdoor clock reads a quarter past three.
“Oh, hello,” I say with a friendly smile.
“Daddy!” Sebastian waves. “We’re playing alligator with Autumn. Want to get in with us?”
“Sorry, buddy,” he says, crouching down poolside. Even with all the Coppertone and chlorine in the air, I catch a whiff of his cologne. It’s fresh. Clean. Sexy. Graham’s eyes find mine. “Everything going okay? Kids being good for you?”