“All right,” he said, pushing her knees apart, spreading her legs and squeezing her thighs with his thick fingers. He loomed over her, just long enough for her to see that his whole face was dark with one-pointed need, and then she reached for him and pulled him in.
Afterward, Madeline was completely exhausted and knew if she didn’t get up and leave she would have to give in to unconsciousness. The light in the room had changed from noon brightness to the soft glow of afternoon. She had no idea if they’d been there for one hour or three, but it felt as if the clock had stopped and time was up. Her euphoria had given way to something much darker—a heavy front of anger gathering strength and pushing in. He was lying next to her, surrendered and asleep. She nudged his shoulder gently, and when that failed to rouse him she shoved him in the ribs. He startled, reflexively grabbing her wrist so hard that she cried out in pain.
“Hey, sorry,” he said, letting go as consciousness flooded back in. “You scared me.”
Madeline rubbed her wrist. “We should go,” she said.
He lay there for a moment, his brain numbed, and then he sat up and shook his head. “I must have passed out,” he said. “Damn. What time is it?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “No clock in this room. This isn’t the kind of place that comes with those amenities. There’s probably a Bible in the drawer, though.”
That made him laugh even as he was jumping off the bed, awake and all business now. “I have to take a shower,” he said. “Wonder what kind of a-men-i-ties are waiting for me in the bathroom.”
With great effort, Madeline got off the bed, hating that her bare feet were touching the disgusting carpet. The blood drained from her head as she stood and she staggered a little on the way to her clothes, which she’d at least had the presence of mind to throw on the only chair in the room.
“You all right?” So he’d noticed. Good for him.
“A little weak in the knees,” she said. “I’m sure you can understand.” She slipped on her shoes first to avoid any further contact with the carpet and then reached for her pants and her bra. Her underwear, a flimsy thong whose price was in inverse proportion to the amount of actual fabric it contained, was destroyed, literally torn to shreds. She’d go without. Madeline looked down at her body as she fastened her bra. She was a mess, bruises on her thighs and red smudges on her breasts. She’d have to check her neck in the bathroom mirror for teeth marks. The rest didn’t matter—it wasn’t as if Andrew would be seeing it anytime soon. They hadn’t had sex since…Madeline felt the sharp tinge of bitterness. She couldn’t remember the last time her husband had touched her.
“Aren’t you going to take a shower?” He seemed stunned or horrified, she couldn’t tell which.
“I’ll take a shower when I get home. Better amenities there,” she said.
He smiled. “Dirty girl,” he said. “I like that.” He walked over to her and kissed her hard while he slid his hand between her legs, smearing the wetness there. An hour ago those words and that gesture would have sent a thrill through her body, but now it just made her feel sordid. She broke away from him and finished putting on her clothes.
“I’m going to go now,” she said. “Okay?”
“Okay.”
“I’ll—”
“Are we—?”
“Do you—?”
They stopped, words failing them both. “I guess we’ll see how it works out,” she said finally.
“All right. So good-bye then.”
“Right,” she said and slung her purse over her shoulder.
A quick shadow passed across his face and his eyes narrowed. “You’re not planning to share this with her, are you?” he said.
“I’m not going to tell her.”
“But you think she’s going to know, don’t you?”
Madeline shrugged. He waited a beat and then turned and walked into the bathroom without saying anything else. Madeline heard him turn on the water and get into the shower. She took one last look at the ruined bed and headed out, walking fast, making sure to pull the door closed behind her.
Thirty minutes later, Madeline’s head was pounding and thick with fury. She hadn’t gone home as she should have, but had driven to Encinitas instead, parking on a side street opposite Marina’s office. Now she sat slouched and sealed in her car, doors locked and windows rolled up, obsessively twisting the rings on her ring finger until the skin underneath them was red and chafed. Every time it went around, the big four-carat diamond scraped and tore at the delicate webbing between the knuckles. It was showy and heavy—a rich wife’s trophy on a rich man’s trophy wife—and Madeline wondered if it was sharp and high enough to scratch someone’s eyes out.
You’re not planning to share this with her, are you?
It was those few little words that had done it, knocked her right off her sexed-up perch and into a swirl of anger. Somehow, everything Madeline did or thought had become about her. Even nasty, thrilling sex in a dirty motel room with someone who was so far beneath her standards—even that was somehow about Marina. He’d said it himself—and had known that Madeline was thinking it.
Madeline had tried very hard to make sure there were no tracks leading from her to Marina. She knew about phone records and how easily they could be accessed, so she’d avoided calling Marina from either her house or cell phones. And, this little effort notwithstanding, she’d cut way back on the drive-bys. She’d made a real attempt to scrape Marina out of her mind. But the distance she’d tried to create had ended up working in reverse. Not speaking to Marina only made Madeline more resentful of her. No, resentment wasn’t the right word. It was something closer to hatred, but even colder.
It was the rank unfairness of it all that really dug at Madeline. She had poured so much more than money into this woman for psychic insight. Madeline had exposed her deepest, most vulnerable self, had followed every little instruction of Marina’s no matter how ridiculous it seemed, had listened slavishly to every word that dropped from her lips. And, of course, there was the money, stacks of it for candles and teas and house calls and readings…Madeline ground her teeth. What had it gotten her? She’d ended up with a miscarriage, a ruined marriage and an empty checkbook. But Marina—that bitch had gotten rich spewing her bullshit. But that wasn’t the worst of it at all. Marina was fucking happy. She had the hot guy and the swell relationship. While Madeline’s life circled the drain, Marina’s just got better. It was as if Marina had taken everything that should be Madeline’s, sucked it right out of her and planted it in her own garden.
So what are you going to do about it?
Madeline heard the sound of her own voice inside her head, harsh and mocking. She twisted her ring, pressing the hard stone into her flesh, feeling the small sharp pain it caused. Yes, she had to do something. She took a long look at Marina’s quiet office—nobody coming or going the whole time she’d been sitting there—and started her car. The first step was deciding to act. Everything else would follow.
Chapter 22
Cooper took a sip from his double mocha vanilla latte with extra whipped cream and set it down in the car cup holder, where it fit comfortably despite being an oversize, oversweetened monstrosity of excess. This kind of beverage had become his drink of choice lately, the more fat-filled and sugar-laden the better—part of his own lame attempt at self-destruction. He wondered how long it would take to kill himself with these syrupy coffee drinks and decided that by the time they sent him into a diabetic coma he’d be so fat and disgusting he would have killed himself already. He took another slug from the paper cup and realized that this train of thought didn’t even make any sense, but that’s how it was these days. Nothing he came up with made any sense. Nothing, that is, except for hating what he’d become. He’d turned into a pale, pill-popping Starbucks addict who spent his days going through old photos and his weepy nights watching old movies and eating raw cookie dough sprinkled with Xanax until he fell asleep. He’d stopped going to the gym, stopped ea
ting anything that couldn’t be microwaved in under two minutes and had taken a “leave of absence” from his “job” organizing fundraisers for his father. Cooper groaned out loud. He was a desperate housewife. That was what he’d been reduced to. Oh, yes, and a stalker, too.
Cooper was parked near enough to Max’s office to see when he left the building but not close enough for Max to spot his car. Not that Max would notice, anyway, since Cooper was using a rental car. Yes, that was how insane he’d gotten. Actually, Cooper thought as he used his straw to scoop whipped cream into his mouth, careful might be a better word than insane. He’d used his own car at first and Max had noticed that Cooper was watching his movements—and he was none too happy about it.
“Cooper, I think you might need professional help,” Max had said when he’d called. Cooper had been purchasing one of his mondo-grande-cinos when the call came in and he immediately adopted a tone of wounded righteousness.
“Well, that’s your specialty, isn’t it, Max? Professional help? Physician, heal thy—”
“I’m serious, Cooper. I’m very concerned about you.”
“Yeah, I’ve seen the depth of your concern, Max.”
“Look, it’s not just the sitting outside my office every day, Cooper, even though you have to stop doing that. Frankly, it’s getting a little creepy.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cooper, please. I know you’re taking…Are you still taking the Xanax?”
“Who is she, Max? Why don’t you just tell me who she is? That’s all I really want to know.”
Cooper heard Max sigh deeply and pictured him rubbing the bridge of his nose as he always did when he was frustrated. There was an ache in Cooper’s chest. “I know some really good people, Cooper. I can refer you. It doesn’t have to be a permanent thing, but I think you really need to talk to a professional.”
It gave Cooper bitter pleasure to deliver his next words. “What makes you think I would ever see a shrink, Max? What makes you think that I’d ever put my trust in another person like you?”
“I don’t deserve that, Cooper. And you’re not helping yourself any.”
“Do you care about me at all, Max? Have you ever?”
“You know that I care about you. That’s why I want you to get help.”
“Fuck you, Max.”
“Cooper…”
That would have been the time to hang up on him, to make a statement and salvage whatever minuscule portion of his dignity he had left, but Cooper couldn’t bring himself to part with whatever piece of Max he had left. And therein lay the problem.
“Please get some help,” Max said. “And please don’t park outside my office anymore. Or the house. I’m asking you nicely, Cooper.” And then he hung up. The fucker hadn’t even said he was sorry, Cooper thought. That would have been the least—the very least—he could have done.
Cooper had neither sought professional help nor given up keeping a close eye on Max’s movements, but it became clear after that conversation that he was going to have to camouflage himself somewhat. Ergo, the Ford Focus that he was sitting in at this very moment.
Cooper understood why Max wouldn’t want to identify the woman he was dating. Introducing your girlfriend to your gay ex-lover was obviously not the best way to cement a permanent relationship, although there were probably plenty of women who would take Max as he was as long as he provided a nice house and plenty of spending money. There might even be plenty of women who preferred that kind of double life. They got all the perks—the house, the money, the kids (if they were the types to consider kids a perk) and the shopping—without any of the downsides like sex and…sex.
Cooper didn’t know if he was being too ungenerous here. He didn’t really know if most women found sex with their mates to be a chore or not. He’d never had sex with a woman and he had no idea how their bodies worked on that level. Max had, though. And the information that women would rather do anything than give a blow job (which, of course, was the one thing a man wanted more than anything else) had come from him. But Max was such a fuckup and in such deep denial about everything that he was probably dead wrong about that. Maybe the women Max had been with just didn’t want to suck his dick. Anyway, it didn’t matter, because he was sure that Max could find a woman willing to be his beard. But Max didn’t want a beard—he wanted a real relationship with a woman, sex and kids and all. And that’s why Cooper had to know who the mystery woman was. He had to know who Max had found to fool himself with. And maybe, Cooper thought, it was his responsibility to warn her. Yes, that was it—he was performing a public service.
It had, however, occurred to Cooper more than once that Max was simply lying about everything. He’d been watching the man for weeks and had seen him do nothing more provocative than buy a premade fruit tart from Whole Foods. Of course, he hadn’t been on Max’s trail every minute of every day—and he had drawn his own line at sitting in the car all night—but he had not seen a trace of any kind of woman (or man, for that matter) in Max’s life (okay, he had gone through the trash, but only that one time). But there had to be someone, because the one thing Cooper was sure of was that deep in Max’s confused heart, he loved Cooper. The only reason to end it was if he had someone else.
Whenever Cooper had a clear moment, like now, he told himself that he had to pull it together and start behaving like a grown-up. It wasn’t as if Max had ever been anything less than totally honest about what a fucking idiot he was. Relationships ended and life went on and all that other Dr. Phil–flavored crap. But…Cooper reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a lint-covered Vicodin he’d put there this morning in case of emergency (and whenever he had a clear moment these days it counted as an emergency) and swallowed it with the last of his sweet drink. Max wasn’t just any relationship. That was the difference. And although he could see Max rubbing that crease in his forehead at the very thought of it, Cooper believed that they were fated for each other. He didn’t know how it was going to happen, but they were going to be together. Without this belief Cooper was lost and homeless, so he had to hold onto it even if it meant acting like a thirteen-year-old girl.
Cooper passed out for a while and when he woke up it was past two and definitely time for another coffee run. The inside of his mouth felt furry and his head felt like it had been hit with a jackhammer. He rubbed his face with his hands and realized it had been days since he’d shaved. He didn’t even notice these things anymore. He shifted to get a better look at himself in the rearview mirror and that was when he saw Max leaving the building, walking much faster than his usual saunter, and getting into his car. Cooper wasn’t feeling up to a high-speed chase, but really, what was the point of sitting here every day if he wasn’t going to do any actual surveillance?
Luckily, there was always traffic to help keep a car you were chasing in view. The northbound I-5 was a mess no matter what day or time it was, and it took them half an hour to cover a ten-mile distance. Finally, Max exited on Manchester and turned west onto the coast road. Cooper thought he was finally going to see something interesting from Max, who never ventured this far from the office on a workday unless it was lunchtime and he was meeting someone. He held back a little on the coast road lest Max make him out, so he almost missed seeing Max turn and park in the little lot next to Marina’s office, where Cooper himself hadn’t been for weeks. What the hell was Max doing here?
Cooper struggled to keep Max in his line of sight without getting into an accident, but it was a losing proposition. He had to park and lost valuable time doubling back to find an available spot on the curb without hitting any bicyclists in their annoying puke-yellow spandex shirts and ridiculous helmets. Always in the fucking way! When he finally managed to maneuver the Focus (definitely not a car on his to-buy list) into a parking space, Cooper got out and hovered just inside the doorway of the café across the street from Marina’s office. He flashed on a weird memory of the last time he’d seen Marina. They’d notice
d that strange guy hovering at the café and they’d watched him watch her—or the other way around, he couldn’t remember. Either way, now he was the strange guy hovering, and he didn’t like the feeling.
Max must have gone into Marina’s office, because his car was still there but he’d disappeared. Cooper’s confused mind was racing, but his reflexes were slow and clumsy. He felt heavy and broad, as if he weighed a thousand pounds.
“Can I help you?”
Cooper turned to the girl, who obviously wanted to seat him. “Can I just…? Um, I’ll just be a minute,” he said.
“Are you waiting for someone?”
“No. Listen, I’ll just be a second.”
“Do you want to be seated?”
“Can you just leave me alone for a second?!” Fuck, he’d raised his voice. Now she was going to get her manager. He had about two seconds to decide what to do. Stay, go, hover. But then he saw both Max and Marina exit her office. She locked her door and then they walked to Max’s car. He held the door open for her and she got in. Then they drove away. Cooper was stunned. He felt the strangest sensation, as if the floor was falling away beneath him. There was a name for what happened to your brain when you suddenly realized everything you thought you knew to be real was a giant hallucination—as if you’d been the butt of a joke that had taken a lifetime to pull off. What was that term? Max would know…he knew all those little psych terms, knew all about pathology. Max, his lover, the man he’d just seen escorting Marina (Marina!) to wherever. A hotel? His house?
It was too much. Cooper couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. He was suffocating on his own spleen. He was going to pass out right here in the doorway. How could she? What kind of evil did she have within her?
The Grift Page 18