“I made chicken salad, if you want to have sandwiches,” I called after her retreating figure. I’d vowed not to buy any more groceries before our move, so I’d been thawing meat from the freezer and working our way through cans in the pantry. I was also tackling the wine Phil and I had accumulated over the past year and had a bottle of Riesling chilling in the refrigerator for later. We wouldn’t have room in our new kitchen, and it seemed a shame to leave it behind.
On the other hand—maybe the new owners would need it. I certainly had.
I ate lunch on a paper plate, since I’d already packed most of the dishes. I’d packed the wineglasses, too, so I ended up drinking a few swigs of Riesling straight from the bottle, a tragic figure in my own kitchen.
Later that afternoon, I braved the heat of the garage again in a tank top and shorts, opening the bays to allow for at least a little air movement. Why should I care what Deanna thought, pausing on her walkway, purse dangling from her wrist? Did it matter what Victor observed, jogging past bare-chested, his shirt hanging from the waistband of his shorts?
I was on my knees, elbow-deep in a box of Christmas things, ornaments and tangled strings of lights and cinnamon-scented sachets, when I saw Kelsey Jorgensen in our driveway. She was looking down at her phone in its bright magenta case. I stared at her. It seemed impossible, with everything that had happened, but Kelsey had somehow thrived. She looked healthy, her skin a glowing tan, her body strong and beautiful in a T-shirt and shorts.
I struggled to my feet, moving toward the open garage door. “You can’t be here,” I yelled. “You need to get off my property.”
She looked down at her phone and back at me. “I just wanted—”
“No.” I shooed her away with an angry hand. “It doesn’t matter what you want. Your parents don’t want you here, and I don’t want you here. You need to leave now.” She didn’t move. I retreated to the wall-mounted controls and hit one of the buttons, sending the first door down in front of her. She stepped into view in the next door as it was closing.
“Can I just say—”
“No!” I shouted, hitting the third button. For a moment I thought she would duck under the door as it lowered, come rolling ninja-like into the space. But I watched her disappear, chunk by chunk—head and shoulders, chest and torso, her long, long legs, until the garage was fully dark.
I was shaking when I went into the house. I should call the Jorgensens, tell them to come get their daughter. Or the police, to tell them I was being harassed. No. In a week, Danielle and I would drive away, and I planned to be fully done with Kelsey Jorgensen. She wouldn’t be at our apartment complex; she wouldn’t stop by my office.
Done. Finito.
It was cold in the house, but sweat was still streaming into my eyes, into the V of my bra. I took the Riesling out of the fridge, uncorked it and let it slide cool down my throat. Why not? Maybe it would even help to get a little drunk. It might go faster if my senses were dulled, if I couldn’t deliberate over every little thing. After a few glasses, maybe I would forget where things had come from, what they had once meant.
For a long time, I stood by the slider, watching Hannah and Danielle in the pool. It was a beautiful day, the sky cloudless, the sun a flaming ball heading slowly west. Hannah had lugged over her stereo and the whole house seemed to throb, the windows pulsing like a heartbeat. I thought about stepping outside, discreetly turning down the volume while I reminded them to put on sunscreen. But they looked happy, and I didn’t want to spoil the moment.
I raised a hand to my reflection, pressing my palm against the glass. It had never been more than a fantasy, this place. We’d had only a tenuous toehold on this life, and it was easy enough to take ourselves away from it. Maybe it was all anyone had, after all. The bank accounts and the big houses might have been a buffer from the rest of the world, but they couldn’t keep you safe. They couldn’t make you happy.
Once we were no longer here—not just Phil and Liz and Danielle McGinnis, but everyone else, too, the Zhangs and the Mesbahs, the Sieverts and yes, the Jorgensens—how long would it take for the earth to come back and claim its own? How long until the critters found their way inside—the ants and snails and spiders and moles? How long until they burrowed into, tunneled through, nested in? How long before weeds took over the yard, before shrubs and trees grew tall enough to hide the evidence of our lives?
Tipsy, I took the bottle upstairs and sprawled on top of the sheets. Even up there, I could still hear the music pulsing, pulsing. Occasionally, the mechanical voice of the Other Woman interrupted my thoughts: “Back door open” and “Back door open” as the girls entered and exited, hunting for a can of soda or hurrying to the bathroom.
Phil should be here, I thought, staring up at the ceiling fan. Not just to help with the packing, but to see it through to the end. We’d never had the life he’d envisioned here, not the backyard barbecues, the nights in the den with all the guys watching a game. It hadn’t been that grand of a wish, now that I thought about it. I’d resented him for bringing us out here, for leaving while everything crumbled around us. But when it came down to it, all he’d really wanted was happiness. That was all he’d been asking for.
* * *
In the bathroom it all came up—the wine, the remains of the chicken salad sandwich I’d had for lunch. I sat hunched forward on my knees, shoulders shaking. Downstairs, I heard Danielle and Hannah laughing. She would bounce back from this. Maybe Phil and I would, too—separate or together. In a few years, maybe, we would laugh about all of it, as in whew, look at the bullet we dodged there. Maybe a time would even come when we forgot her name, when down the road we would look at each other and say, What was that girl’s name again? Kelsey something?
I got to my feet uneasily. At the sink, I splashed water on my face, rinsed and spat. One more week, I promised myself, sliding between the cool sheets. I closed my eyes against the dizzying circles of the ceiling fan. The faint overhead whir reminded me of something—an airplane, a helicopter, a boat with an outboard motor. Or maybe it reminded me of a movie scene, one of those images that isn’t real but feels like it could be—so close, so tangible, so personal. Almost like a dream.
PHIL
The new job was going well. It was a relief to be away from The Palms, to have the shame of failure behind me. I was part of the builder’s marketing team, tasked with making million-plus-dollar homes look attractive to buyers. It wasn’t that hard; once you were committed to living in a certain zip code, the rest was just details. The difference was that I wasn’t one of them, not this time. I wore my suits and I flashed cheerful smiles and I shook hands with a hearty confidence, and I left them at the end of the day to drive to the condo where I ate a TV dinner on a lawn chair in the living room and fell asleep on a mattress on the floor. I hadn’t taken a vow of poverty; I was waiting for Liz to say she was coming, too. I pictured the three of us renting a U-Haul and driving it south on I-5, over the Grapevine, into the smog that was LA.
I was right to get out when I did—I knew that. It wouldn’t have ended with Kelsey Jorgensen otherwise. She would have found new ways to worm herself into my life, the way she’d wormed herself into my thoughts. It took at least a month before I stopped waking up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat, ashamed of what I’d been dreaming.
I begged Liz to come down, even for a visit, but was met with her stubborn silence, even when the Jorgensens came for her job. That was my moment, I figured. If she had to leave the school she loved, she might as well start completely over with me. I sent her links to job postings all over LA, but she never replied. I talked to her about the school I’d found for Danielle, a science magnet not far from my condo, and she gave me only a noncommittal grunt. When she stopped taking my calls, I sent her text messages. I miss you. I love you. I want the two of us to start over together. Her responses were chilling, they were so pra
ctical. What do you want me to do with that old Greek rug?
She told me she planned to be out of The Palms by the end of June, but wouldn’t give me any specifics about where they were going. I couldn’t handle the idea of her going wherever it was without me.
And so, one Friday at the end of June, I rented a car for the six-hour drive to The Palms. I wasn’t concerned about the wear and tear on my SUV, but I didn’t particularly want to be recognized by my former neighbors. I imagined Myriam calling the police, the Jorgensens arriving with stones and pitchforks. I stopped on the way for lunch, then at a Trader Joe’s in Pleasanton for a bouquet of flowers.
The Palms looked the same, the lawns bottle green despite the fact that the drought was a real thing now, not just a worrisome theory. Helen’s white BMW was parked in her driveway; Mac’s ridiculous truck was parked at the Sieverts’. Even the guest access code had been the same—I’d simply punched in the four digits and the gates had rolled back for me, although I wasn’t exactly the prodigal son.
When I passed Liz’s house—our house—all three of the garage doors were open, and I caught a glimpse of Liz bending over a cardboard box, dark hair falling into her face. I could have parked right there, but something told me to keep going, to take my time with the approach. I ended up at the far end of the clubhouse parking lot, shaking life back into my muscles. I was wearing khaki shorts and a white polo, the leather flip-flops I’d bought since moving south. I didn’t recognize any of the golfers who came zipping past in their carts, but I put on a floppy fisherman’s hat just in case, a relic from my years in Corfu.
I rounded the corner on the side of the Berglands’ house, their front yard littered with giant plastic toys. I would stand in the driveway until Liz looked up. She would be glad to see me, relieved. I could almost feel her in my arms. It’ll be a new start, I would promise her.
But I stopped short on the sidewalk when I recognized who was standing in the driveway, who had beat me to my own punch. I’d managed to forget about her for the most part, although it had been difficult in Southern California, where every girl had her same long blond hair, her golden tan.
I couldn’t hear what Kelsey was saying, but Liz was practically screaming. You need to leave now. I heard the garage bays closing, one after the other, over Kelsey’s protests.
I turned, heading back in the direction of the clubhouse. Don’t run, I told myself. A man in a floppy hat with a bouquet of flowers running down the sidewalk was sure to bring attention to himself. I went back to the rental car and sat there, slumped low, watching for Kelsey. Eventually she would have to go home, and that meant she would have to pass in front of the Sieverts’ house. I waited, the car baking-hot, but she didn’t come. Was she still standing in front of our house, waiting for Liz to open the door? Had Liz relented, allowing her inside?
I called Liz, but her phone went right to voice mail. Typical.
The Zhang boys passed, swinging their rackets. The Asbills came by, their twins walking with the thick, trunk-like steps of toddlers.
I dialed Liz again, hanging up without leaving a message.
What if she had left the house? It was a Saturday; maybe she had errands to run in Livermore.
Eventually, I decided to go around the back, via the walking trail. I wondered if Parker-Lane had found anyone to monitor the surveillance cameras, if some poor schmo was sitting in my old office right now, flipping between surveillance screens and a game of solitaire. I heard the music before I saw our house—the bass line thumping. A stereo was sitting on the table under the giant orange umbrella that we’d barely used last summer. The back door was open, and then Hannah Bergland came out, still a bit pudgy, her reddish curls wet against her head.
From inside the house, someone—Danielle—called, “Which kind do you want?” Over her shoulder, Hannah called, “Pepsi’s fine.” She grabbed a beach towel off a deck chair and tied it around her hips before heading back inside the house, sliding the door shut behind her. I felt a bit dazed, maybe from the heat or the long drive. It was as though I’d stumbled into an old memory, a scene of déjà vu. Here were the people from my old life, moving right along without me.
“I knew you’d come,” someone said behind me, and I dropped the flowers.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I told her. “Didn’t my wife just tell you that a few minutes ago?”
Kelsey smiled at me, coming closer. “I didn’t know she was still your wife.”
“Get away from me, Kelsey. I’ll call the police.”
“I live here,” she said. “I’m allowed to be on the walking trail. You’re the one who’s not supposed to be here.”
I reached for the gate latch and found the stubborn knot of twine I’d tied there months ago.
She smirked. “What’s the problem? Does someone not want you here?”
It wasn’t a tall fence; I hooked one foot on the lower beam and vaulted over, landing on grass higher than my ankles. Liz must have stopped the lawn service.
“Why are you running away from me?” Kelsey called. “That was your big mistake, you know. You could have been with me this whole time. I would have gone with you, wherever you went. We could have gone to Vegas and gotten married in one of those little chapels.”
“You’re crazy,” I said over my shoulder. “You’re absolutely insane.”
I expected someone to spot me from the house—Hannah or Danielle, maybe, or Liz, if she wasn’t in the garage anymore—but no one came. I turned around to see Kelsey climbing over the fence after me. “Wait, wait!” she called, as if we were meant to be doing this together.
I skirted around the side of the pool, where two soda cans were perched on the edge. In the long grass, I stepped on a bottle of sunscreen, nearly twisting my ankle. When I looked up, my eye caught the slight mound in the planter bed, under which I’d buried Virgil Zhang, not so expertly, after all.
“Remember that first night, when you went skinny-dipping?” Kelsey called. She was right behind me now, and I turned around, swinging my arm wildly to ward her off. She stepped out of the way, laughing. “We could do that now. We could do that together.”
I looked up to my bedroom window, expecting to see Liz there staring down at us. She probably couldn’t hear us over the thumping of the music. What was this music, anyway? When had Danielle started listening to rap? I just needed to make it to the back door. It would be open and I could step inside, or it would be locked and I’d have to bang to get someone’s attention. Either way, I needed to get away from Kelsey.
We were on the deck when she grabbed the hem of my shirt, yanking me backward. I swung my elbow behind me and felt the crunch as it connected with her jaw. She let go and stumbled to the ground, cradling her face in her hands.
“I’m sorry,” I said, kneeling beside her. My heart pounded. It was a mistake, this whole idea. Abort, abort. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was just trying to get you off me. I don’t need this trouble right now. Can you stand up?”
I helped her to her feet. The lower half of her face was red. I knew what was coming next. It was the same nightmare it had always been, just a different version.
She gave me that smile, the same one she’d given me a year before, when she came into my office and told me she was bored. She was so helplessly bored. Was that all it was with her? If she’d had a hobby like painting or macramé or horseback riding, would that have done the trick? She touched me on the arm, as if she were feeling my biceps, and she said, “If you don’t take me with you, I’ll tell everyone you attacked me. I’ll say I saw you sneaking into the backyard and I tried to stop you, and you attacked me. I’ll scream. Everyone will believe me.”
I didn’t think—I just reacted.
* * *
Later, on the long drive back, sweat pouring off my face, I did all the thinking I couldn’t do then. I told myself it w
as for the best, for everyone. Kelsey would never have been satisfied; she would have schemed and planned and ruined everyone she came across. I thought about how easy it had been, how miraculous that none of the nosy neighbors in the The Palms had been passing by on the walking trail. Liz and Danielle and Hannah must have been upstairs, the scuffle at the pool drowned out by lyrics that were incomprehensible to me. I thought about how light Kelsey’s body had been in my hands, how easy she was to maneuver, like a puppet or a rag doll. She went over the edge of the pool headfirst, turning to face me in the middle of the motion, her eyes surprised as her head struck the handrail, and then she was gone, sinking into the shallow end, wisps of blood blooming on the water like tiny, beautiful jellyfish.
JUNE 19, 2015
8:42 P.M.
LIZ
Once upon a time, I’d been a sneaky little kid hiding secrets from my blind mother. Once upon a time, I’d been nineteen years old, staring at the blue lines on the pregnancy kit, my hand rank with my own pee, knowing for certain what I’d refused to know for weeks, for months. Once upon a time, I’d had too much to drink at a hockey game and kissed a man with a sexy accent and let myself believe in a fairy tale.
Once upon a time, I’d sat in my office with a diploma on the wall behind me, host to a parade of mothers and daughters, holding my cattiness in check, biting back judgment. I’d cringed when mothers told me that their daughters were their best friends—a comment that had always reduced, rather than elevated, my opinion of the mother. You’re in your late thirties, and your best friend is a fifteen-year-old girl? Poor you, I’d thought. Poor her.
Once upon a time, I hadn’t understood those parents, the ones who had sat in my office and defended their children to me: this is so unlike her; he’s always been so responsible. There was something fierce about that love, a wild urge to defend, to protect, to believe, to deny, deny, deny.
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